Jiraiya's Second Chance

Building Bonds

Sakura is tired. She is eighty years old and she can feel every bone of her body aching. She looked at a group of young ladies looking around her embroidery store and the items on display, turned their nose and said too old fashion... Or too plain...

Someone even have the audacity to make a smart joke and the rest of them giggled while leaving the store.

Good riddance she thought as she slowly rubs her knees... Ahh.. Old age is not good with her.. Not just the body aches but also the memories.. Sometimes painful.. Sometimes happy.. But both bring almost a tear in her eyes..  Baka.. She told herself.. Ninja's have to have control of their emotions. You are losing it Sakura..

But it seems she lost a lot already as years passed.  First her family, comrades and love ones. Most of them died during the wars.   Three wars she has gone through.  The last one she didn't participate in at the front line.  "I guess nobody expect a grandma to be part of an epic war when there are new generations leading the way." she thought to herself.

She heard the story.  The yellow hair jinchuriki who everybody despised was now hailed as hero.  She heard that a new set of ninja raises equal to the fame sannin... Ironically one of them was a pink hair kunoichi also name Sakura...

Ahh..no one even remembers by now her real name... Sakura..

For most people she is simply Obaachan..but who can blame them? She was the same generation of the 3rd Hokag, why the fame sannins were mere genin when she was already a jonin... When she wielded her deadly strings and needles.. When her work was typically described as both beautiful and fatal.

She retired from Jonin work during the time of the fourth Hokage and has used her skills to embroidered kimonos.  Those were the days when only the great daimyos and their wives were her costumers and they even have to wait in line for her to do their stuff.

But more than the money and the fame, she misses the bonds and connection of family and friends... She has felt empty inside for a long time now feeling no one needs her anymore.

Her musing was put to a stop with the ringing of the bells when the store door opens.  She glanced up and saw a woman with black flowing hair with a simple lavender kimono standing by the door.

"What do you want? We are about to close. "she said a little too rudely.

"Umm.." The new comer stammers shyly... "I noticed that your sign said help wanted, I can embroider and I'm hoping if I can get some work here."

"Can you use chakra to embroider?"

"Chakra? I don't know what you mean? I don't know how to use chakra."

Liar.. Sakura thought.. I can feel a big chakra reserve in her and she didn't even bother to hide it.. I might be old but I'm not stupid...

She immediately did some hand sign and several pins start flying towards the new comer...

Immediately ice walls form just big enough to stop the flying needles..

"Baka.. What do you want? And who are you? You say you don't know chakra and yet you are raising ice walls in my store?  Get out of here!" She shouted.

The young lady turned a little pale and she knelt and bowed her head to the floor... "Obaachan.. I don't mean any harm.. My name is Aikiko and I am Jiraiya sama's wife. And I don't know what you mean by chakra as I am not a ninja.  But my ice is a gift and a curse I have since birth.."

"Lies! You can't be that perverted sannin's wife because he sure will not settle with any woman except for the Hokage.. Tsunade sama... And also if I'm not mistaken he has no need for any other women for he has plenty enough of those women he can buy!!..." The eyes of the new comer widen a little bit and then look away from her.