Jiraiya's Second Chance

The Proposal

The white hair Sannin slumped on the table barely able to hold himself up. He just had too much to drink again after shelling out money for rounds and rounds of sake and food for the pretty ladies at the bar.  Sometimes he wondered why he kept doing it... wasting money for a laugh, an audience with these skimpy dressed ladies giving their false admiration whenever he put some more money on the table or wherever their skimpy piece of clothing will allow, while he retell them his countless exploits during his heyday.

The stories all sounded good now, romantic and heroic even... but war was far from those, and Jiraiya has enough war in his lifetime, he doesn't really want to be in one. But still he tells his stories to whoever will listen or until his money finished and then they all walked out of his table to the next guest.  Here in this dingy old tavern, he wondered if this is where he will spend the rest of his days... bored, irrelevant. He thought of going back to Konohagakure, to be with Naruto and the beautiful Tsunade, his beautiful Hime, but Konoha seems to be just an empty place for him. His old place there... is just that, old and empty.  It's been 2 years after the war, the Great War where every ninja of all villages fought together in one great alliance. All ninjas except him. You see before his body descended to the bottom of the sea, Konan, his former student, out of respect, retrieved and hid his body planning for a more respectful burial.  Not long after, when Nagato or Pain sacrificed himself to revive those he had killed, Jiraiya too was revived.  But because of the length of time that he was dead, he didn't wake up immediately and went through a coma. Kept alive and hidden by Konan in a secret room with life support even after her own death, Jiraiya finally came to his senses and found his way back to Konoha.  He was received with a lot of tears and joy, and occasional violence for causing people so much grief but the novelty of his return soon gave way to normalcy. He is back and everyone soon returned to their own day to day lives. With Konoha transitioning to a new Hokage, everyone is busy except him; everyone has something to do except him. In a way, this is their way of honouring his past contributions and they didn't want him to be involved in any mundane missions.  They offered him the role of being one of the elders of the village but it seemed to be a boring desk job for him at that time.

So Jiraiya wandered the world again, much like he did before the Akatsuki. He wandered as he can't seem to find a place to call home.  He sighed and continued in his disrespectful slump waiting for the bouncer to throw him out of the bar... as usual.

Unknown to him, he was being watched, not with evil intent but nevertheless with intent. Then the tavern owner approached him and said. "Hey old man, how about I make a proposal to you...how about you marry me and we promise to always take care of each other?"  Jiraiya looked at the beautiful face peering at him through his hazy gaze. He smiled and slurred... "sure."