The sound of crickets filled the Mt Myoboku air with a loud hum, punctuated only by the snap and crackle of their fire as Naruto and Jiraiya relaxed beside it after their evening meal. They had gotten into plenty of scrapes in the two years since they’d left the village, but today was probably the most intense he’d had in that time.
Itachi’s warning had set his mind alight, and Sai had only added fuel to the fire with his cryptic words and implied disloyalty to Danzou. Either way, findimg out Akatsuki were finally on the move for the Jinchuuriki was like being thrown head first into an ice bath. As much as Jiraiya had made the group his priority, Naruto’s focus had remained well and truly upon Konoha and becoming strong enough to reclaim it from Danzou.
Outside of brief interactions with Itachi and Kisame, he’d never actually come across the Akatsuki in any meaningful way besides being told they would one day target him. It made it easy to put that threat to the back of his mind, and allow himself to believe Itachi and Kisame were outliers in terms of strength. However, encountering Deidara had been a sobering wake-up call.
His nature energy manipulation allowed him to get a good idea of another person’s strength without ever having to actually fight them. Everything he’d read from the Bingo Book reports told him that Deidara was most likely the weakest of the central nine, if that idea actually meant anything when it came to monsters like them. However, having felt his power, Naruto genuinely wasn’t sure whether he could escape, let alone win.
Even after everything, he still wasn’t ready to fight these guys on a one to one basis and win, and they tended to move in pairs.
Itachi was right. He needed more. Needed to be more. He’d been so willing to put the entire burden of taking back the village for everyone and defeating Akatsuki on his own shoulders, that he’d only focused on himself. On getting stronger.
But this wasn’t a battle he’d ever win alone. Not against Danzou, and not against the Akatsuki. The position of Hokage didn’t exist for him until Danzou was defeated, but he couldn’t afford to wait until then to be ready for it.
It was no longer enough to dream about being Hokage—even if he couldn’t claim the hat, it was time to become a man worthy of wearing it.
“I can see you prepping your little speech, Gaki,” Jiraiya said, voice cutting through the silence and Naruto’s thoughts. “Save it. At least until I’ve said my piece.”
Naruto’s eyes widened as he remembered Jiraiya’s promise, before all the insanity of today had even started. Seeing he was listening, his sensei pressed on, voice sombre.
“I suppose first of all, I owe you an apology,” Jiraiya said, raising a hand to cut off the objection already forming on Naruto’s tongue. “In the time I’ve known you, you’ve shown every quality I’d expect from a shinobi set to reach the very pinnacle. You’re whip-smart, tenacious, and you’re dedication to improving yourself, even having lost your home is, quite frankly, terrifying.”
Naruto couldn’t help the warm flush of heat that rushed his cheeks at Jiraiya’s words. He’d never heard Jiraiya be so effusive in his praise of him. Kami, he’d never heard anyone be so complimentary about him before. This wasn’t how he expected this conversation to go at all.
He saw Jiraiya notice his embarassment, and was put even further off-kilter when his sensei turned his nose up at the opportunity to crack a joke at his expense.
“You’ve been the model pupil from day one, and even now, with all your frustrations, grief and anger, you’ve still done everything I’ve asked of you, despite me being…less than patient with you when you’ve asked for my reasoning.”
“It’s not as if you haven’t had a lot on your plate between training me, Akatskuki and everything with Danzou. I’m a real pain in the ass, and that’s before you even get started with the other two.”
Jiraiya shook his head, and to Naruto’s dismay, his attempt at lightening the mood fell flat. “The truth is, kid. You’ve earned the right to answers a thousand times over. The right to know what our plan is—to be involved in it, and treated like the shinobi you’ve grown into.”
Naruto smiled wanly. “I can understand the reluctance though, Jiraiya-sensei. Even now I’m not the most patient, but back when you met me? I was reckless, and too headstrong for my own good. As much as I hate to say it, but I’d be hesitant to tell me about it, too. But I’m not that person anymore—I understand taking back our home won’t happen overnight. I get why Akatsuki needs to be as much of a priority. Doing nothing isn’t an option for me anymore—they’re coming whether I’m ready or not.”
Jiraiya rubbed his eyes, and under the firelight Naruto could suddenly see every hard-lived year in the deep lines on the man’s face.
“That’s just it, gaki. There is no plan. No great scheme to bring down Danzou, or keep you safe from the Akatsuki and put an end to their plans. Not in a million years could I have predicted Konoha falling. With the whole weight of the village behind us we had time to gather our strength, for you to keep training and getting experience. Now, though? I had hoped after two years I’d have the answers, or found some kind of weakness to exploit…”
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
Jiraiya sagged. “I’ve failed. I couldn’t stop Danzou from killing the old man. I couldn’t save your father. And now I’m staring down the downfall of our home, and my Godson being hunted by the worst kind of shinobi, and once again—despite all my efforts and posturing—the great Jiraiya of the Sannin has no idea how to save you. Let alone how to win. I’m strong enough to fight any pair they send after you by my reckoning. But what happens when they stop sending just two?”
The fire spat, and near-silence fell between them once more. Naruto’s jaw hung loose as he peered at his sensei, who sat hunched over with his eyes locked onto the dancing flame. He’d never heard the man speak like this, never heard anything besides supreme confidence that, to be fair, had been earned through decades spent as one of the most powerful shinobi in the entire Elemental Nations.
Naruto had grown so used to seeing him as some kind of unstoppable force of nature, he’d rarely taken the time to consider that Jiraiya himself may have been floundering. He’d had complete an utter faith in his sensei’s actions, and so had come to just trust that Jiraiya had all the answers. He was one of the Sannin, a man who, had Sarutobi died naturally, would have been a shoe in himself to be Hokage.
He’d even dreamt of it in these last two years. Jiraiya, long after they’d taken back Konoha, passing the hat onto him.
Itachi really had been right. Naruto had lost something since Konoha had fallen. Some spark. He’d grown immeasurably stronger in his time away from Konoha, and yet the him of two years ago would have never allowed things to get to this point. Would never have allowed someone else to bear the burden and stress of how to keep him safe alone, least of all a man he’d grown to consider family.
But he only realised this because whatever it was that had been missing inside him, came back alive as he saw the hints of despair written across his teacher’s face.
“Well,” he said, allowing an easy smile to slip onto his face. It was a mask he wore as comfortably as breathing. In years past, he’d worn it to shield himself—it had been Jiraiya and his friends that had shown him he no longer needed to do that any more, and he was incredibly grateful for that. Now, he found himself glad of the mask.
It wasn’t for protecting himself anymore, but instead, for protecting those around him.
“How about we work through my idea, and see if we can’t find a way forward.”
Jiraiya looked up, and upon seeing Naruto’s grin, found a tired smile of his own. “I’m all ears, kid.”
“Thanks. Now, I’m not stupid enough to think that we can win anything with no allies—you said we needed the backing of a hidden village to buy us time, and I don’t necessarily think you’re wrong. But its not a village that we need, it’s the people.”
Jiraiya frowned. “I would agree, but our allies are all trapped within Konoha, or scattered to the winds. They’re having to worry more about being poached for their bounties than coming to our aid. And even if we did gather a few of them together—where would we go? We’re already pushing the hospitality of the Toads far enough by making this our homebase. Convincing them to let non-summoners stay here is going to be nigh on impossible.”
“One problem at a time,” Naruto said, smile widening. Jiraiya was right, those were flaws, but they weren’t as impossible to overcome as Jiraiya in his defeated state was thinking. “Allies. Yes, all of our former Konoha allies are scattered—and we should absolutely be finding a way to gather them all together. But I was actually talking about other allies.”
“Okay,” Jiraiya said, the defeated expression slowly being eroded by curiosity. “This I have to hear. What other allies? I hate to break it to you Gaki, but we don’t actually have any of those.”
“Sure, we don’t yet. But what we do have is common enemies with a whole bunch of people across the elemental nations, and for shinobi, that works just as well to start with.”
Jiraiya actually scoffed this time. “And the other countries are just going to let us roam around poaching their shinobi?”
“Why do we care?” Naruto asked, grin growing into a full blown smirk, despite Jiraiya’s sarcasm. “If Danzou hadn’t done what he did, Konoha shinobi going and speaking to other village’s top tier ninja and trying to poach them would have been grounds for war—”
Jiraiya’s eyes widened. “But we aren’t Konoha shinobi anymore. And let’s face it, most of the other village’s already have it out for both of us thanks to Minato. Danzou’s coup means Konoha won’t suffer the consequnces of our actions. Having said that, I’m not sure how you’re going to pull off convincing foreign shinobi to break all their oaths and become missing nin to join up with you.”
Naruto stroked his chin in mock thought. “You’re right. It’s a damn shame there’s not a group of A to S-class ninja with crazy powers that are treated abominably by their villages, who will also have a vested interest in defeating the Akatsuki…”
“The jinchuuriki,” Jiraiya whispered, now sitting fully upright, the gears in his mind racing. “You want to fight the Akatsuki together as one with the other vessels. A jinchuuriki alliance.”
“Yep. As a group, we’re the ones that really lose if Akatsuki win. When push comes to shove, a lot of their villages will sell them out the minute it becomes too troublesome to protect them. We won’t,” Naruto said, wearing a grin he hadn’t worn since his pranking days.
“That’s insane. And stupid,” Jiraiya said shortly, before a smile crept onto his face to match his student’s. “And it sounds like the kind of thing only Jiraiya of the Sannin and his knuckleheaded student can pull off. I’m in.”
There was a rustle among the shadows of the trees then, and Naruto stiffened, only to see Fukasaku hop out from the underbrush.
“A truly interesting conversation all around, I have to say, brats. I think I have something that may help. Minato gave it to me, years ago, to pass on to you, Naruto. I was saving it as a present for when you fully master senjutsu, but I no longer think that would be the wisest course of action.”
He withdrew a small scroll from his cloak, and held it up for them all to see. Jiraiya sucked in a sharp breath as Naruto looked carefully at the scroll’s deep red paper with its forest green trim. His eyes, unavoidably, were drawn to the symbol upon the wax seal holding it together. A small symbol, but one that was absolutely unmistakable. After all, he still wore it on the arms and back of the shinobi gear he wore beneath his armour.
“That symbol…” he began, and Fukasaku hummed in acknowledgement.
“Indeed. This, my boy, is your Inheritance.”