Reaching immortality (Reborn as Orochimaru)

6. A relationship was not something I desired

I was glad Jiraiya was good at compartmentalizing. It meant that the night we shared got placed in the back of his mind and he promptly went back to how he acted before as if it never happened. 

Tsunade never said a word, and seemed to enjoy punching Jiraiya even more when he begged her for dates or complimented her beauty. I held nothing against him since this had been an outcome I predicted when I decided to act on that look I'd seen in his eyes.

My level of tranquility did not go down, even as we went on A-ranks and began having our first kills. We made the perfect team, and after that night I found that Jiraiya and I became more in tune with each other during battle. It made me look at Tsunade curiously for a while before I swiped that thought from my mind. The benefits for our team work seemed gratifying but I was unsure if the potential drama that would ensue would be worth it. 

A night like that didn't happen again, in fact, shortly after that night Jiraiya had begun going to brothels whenever we had missions in other towns. I didn't feel angry about it when he began returning with the scent of different women on him, since it truly did not bother me. I had long since lost that longing I'd had for the boy.

The sex had been intense and the best I'd ever had before but that was all it was. Though Jiraiya seemed to be suffering from the guilt of it or some nonsense like that. I ignored the sappy moron and continued focusing on my training. 

Months later, as I watched Tsunade play with her three year old brother in the yard of her home, she finally confronted me. I was sitting on the engawa and giving my wrists a break from the calligraphy practice when she handed her brother some toys and came to sit down beside me.

"So...Jiraiya huh?" Tsunade said as she nudged my elbow with hers. I felt a smile lift the corners of my lips at her attempt to ease into the taboo topic and turned to look at the short woman. To think she'd been taller than me at one point.  "Oh don't look at me like that you two weren't actually trying to keep quiet baka."

I laughed lightly before bowing my head in acknowledgement. "I am not too worried for him. I don't understand what he's going through but I certainly didn't think he had it in him to stay faithful to me. I seduced him with the knowledge of him possibly ignoring me as he usually does."

Tsunade frowned and crossed her arms.

"That's pretty damn sad Orochi-kun. Why don't you talk to him? Go tie him up and take him home to experiment on him or something for being such an idiot?" Tsunade grinned evilly. I tilted my head and thought about it for a moment.

My research on creating a jutsu that can bring people back to life was slow going so I had started smaller to get a feel for the direction that I should be going. Such as healing, replacing organs, reattaching limbs and regenerating body tissue. My lab rats were dying off more than they could breed however and I found that I was running low on test subjects. I'm successful forty percent of the time, but no. I was not ready for human testing just yet.

"My experiments are not ready for human testing just yet unfortunately. Though I'd prefer to use prisoners of war rather than Jiraiya with my current forty percent success rate." I said with a shrug.

Tsunade rolled her eyes. "I meant like S&M stuff Oro-baka. Just try talking to him okay? He's starting to worry me."

I decided to ignore the comment about S&M. I'd heard the term before but had never been interested in finding out what it was.

"Of course, I have been curious about the diseases that have been cropping up from people going to the brothels. I'd like to examine his blood and study it to see if I can identify and cure it. I'll go speak to him right now. Thank you Tsunade-hime." I stood up and bowed to her politely and flickered out of the compound just as she opened her mouth to say something.