58. Jiraiya of the Sannin
Chapter 48: Jiraiya of the Sannin
Naruto sank into the hot spring up to his chin, steam curling around his face, and let out a long breath. The water was warm enough to loosen every knot left over from the forest of death. He was supposed to be resting. He was supposed to be thinking about chakra control and the one month he had left before the finals.
He was not thinking about either of those things.
His eyes were fixed on the wooden fence running along the far edge of the spring, the one separating the men's side from the women's. Gaps ran between the planks where the wood had warped over the years, thin slivers of darkness, and through them drifted shapes blurred soft by rising steam. Laughter floated over the fence. A splash. More laughter.
"Time for some research," Naruto muttered under his breath, nodding to himself like the word explained everything.
He shifted closer to the fence, careful not to ripple the water too much, and pressed his eye against one of the gaps.
That was when he noticed he was not alone.
A few feet down the fence, another face was pressed to another gap. White hair, long and wild, fell past broad shoulders. Two red lines ran from beneath closed eyes gone comically wide. All he had was a bath towel on him.
The man noticed Naruto noticing him.
For a moment neither of them moved. Steam rose and curled and drifted between them.
Then, slowly, both their mouths curled into identical grins.
"You too, huh," the white haired man whispered, leaning toward Naruto without taking his eye off the gap in the fence.
"I am doing research on female anatomy," Naruto whispered back, deadly serious.
"Research," the man agreed, just as serious. "A fellow scholar of the craft."
"What craft?"
"Shh." The man held up a finger. "Listen first, ask questions later."
They listened. Naruto did not entirely know what he was listening for, but he listened anyway, and for a few peaceful seconds it was just the two of them, shoulder deep in hot water, perfectly content.
Then a new voice cut through the steam. Sharp. Furious.
"I SEE YOU!"
Naruto's stomach dropped.
"Both of you, you disgusting old men! I SEE YOU BOTH!"
"Old men?" Naruto hissed, offended on principle even though that was rapidly becoming the least of his problems. "I'm twelve! Thirteen later this month!"
"Run now, complain later," the white haired man said, already moving.
He did not so much climb out of the spring as walk across the surface of it, feet skimming the water like it was solid ground, hands flashing through a string of seals too fast for Naruto to follow. A burst of smoke and a toad the size of Naruto landed beside him, spraying a thick slick of mucus across the stone path behind them.
The first wave of women, brooms raised, somehow already armed with pitchforks, hit the slick patch at full speed and went down in a tangle of limbs and screaming.
The white haired man laughed, loud and delighted, and vanished over the rooftops.
Naruto tried to follow. He really did try.
His feet sank straight through the water the instant he attempted the same trick, and by the time he had hauled himself onto solid ground, soaked and sputtering, the women who had not slipped on toad slime were already on him.
"Wait," Naruto said, both hands up. "Wait, I can explain, this was strictly professional resear,"
He did not get to finish the sentence.
Five minutes later he sat on the dirt path outside the bathhouse, robe torn at the shoulder, one eye swelling shut, his dignity somewhere at the bottom of the spring he had just been dragged out of.
A shadow fell over him. He looked up.
The white haired man stood there, completely dry, completely smug, hands on his hips.
"Not bad, kid," he said. "You almost made it."
"Almost." Naruto glared up at him with his one good eye. "You ran across the water like it was nothing and left me to get beaten half to death by a mob of grandmothers."
"Experience, kid. Pure experience. You will get there."
"I got a broom handle to the face is what I got there."
The man crouched down, peering at the bruise forming under Naruto's eye with something close to professional interest. "Not your first time getting caught, I take it."
"No." Naruto looked away. "Not the first. Probably not the last."
The man barked out a laugh, delighted all over again. "You too, huh?"
"Apparently."
They sat there a moment in the kind of silence shared only by two men who had just been chased out of a bathhouse by an angry mob. Two survivors. Two unrepentant perverts, bonded for life over a shared tactical failure.
Naruto studied the man properly now that the chaos had settled. The bath robe was gone, replaced by a deep red coat that flared at the shoulders, dark green trousers tucked into low sandals, and the same massive scroll strapped diagonally across his back. White hair fell long and loose past his waist, and two thin red lines ran from beneath each eye down to his jaw, like permanent tear tracks.
"That toad," Naruto said. "The summoning jutsu. How did you do that?"
The man's chest puffed out visibly. "You liked that?"
"It was the only useful thing either of us did in the last ten minutes, so yeah."
"Hah! Good eye, kid." He stood, planting his feet wide and throwing one arm out in a pose that looked deeply practiced. "Allow me to properly introduce myself. I am Jiraiya of the Sannin. Legendary shinobi of the old era. Student of the Third Hokage. The man who trained the Fourth Hokage himself. Author of several extremely popular and deeply artistic novels, which you are far too young to read, so do not even ask."
Naruto looked him up and down slowly. Red coat. Wild hair. Horned headband. The pose he was clearly waiting for someone to applaud.
Then Naruto started laughing.
"What," Jiraiya said.
"You're not a Sannin." Naruto wiped his eye, still laughing. "You're a pervert. Just like me. A pervert who put on a costume and made up a fake title to sound important."
Jiraiya's face went through several colors in rapid succession before settling on a deep, furious red. His hand shot out and caught Naruto across the side of the head, sending the boy flying backward into the hot spring with a tremendous splash.
The water was hot. Hotter than before. Hot enough that Naruto came up screaming.
"WHAT THE HELL, OLD MAN! IT'S BOILING!"
Jiraiya stepped onto the surface of the water as casually as stepping onto a porch, looking down at Naruto without a hint of concern. "What's wrong? Can't a genius shinobi like yourself manage a simple trick like this?"
Naruto stopped thrashing long enough to stare at Jiraiya's feet, perfectly still on the surface, not a ripple disturbing them.
"I have seen Kakashi sensei do that," Naruto said slowly. "Walk on water. I never asked him how."
"Of course you never asked. Why would you ask about something useful when there is a fence to peek through." Jiraiya grinned down at him. "It is basic chakra control, kid. The kind of thing a true shinobi masters early. The kind of thing I, Jiraiya of the Sannin, happen to be exceptionally skilled at teaching."
Naruto narrowed his eyes, then waded to the edge and hauled himself onto the bank. He walked to the water's edge and planted one foot on the surface with the same confidence he had just watched Jiraiya use.
He sank immediately.
He tried again, pushing more chakra into it this time.
He sank again, faster.
A third attempt ended the same way, with considerably more flailing.
"Hey, old man." Naruto stood there dripping, irritated. "Teach me that."
"Why should I do that?"
"Because I am asking nicely."
"That was not nice. That was a demand with extra steps."
Naruto climbed out again, water running off him in sheets, and this time when he looked at Jiraiya his face had gone serious in a way that did not match a moment ago.
"My name is Naruto Uzumaki," he said. "Last of the Uzumaki clan. Son of the Fourth Hokage."
For a second Jiraiya did not move at all.
Then something shifted behind his eyes, fast, there and gone, somewhere between disbelief and grief and old, old guilt.
"Last of the Uzumaki." he repeated quietly. "Son of the Fourth."
"That is right. So if you really taught my old man, you gotta train me too you old perv!"
Jiraiya studied him for a long moment, and when he spoke again the showman's bravado had dropped out of his voice entirely. "You should not say that out loud to strangers, kid. Your father made plenty of enemies in his time. The kind who would love nothing more than finding his only son standing alone outside a bathhouse."
"Let them come." Naruto's smile when it came was not the easy grin from before. It was something sharper, more deliberate, the smile of someone who had already decided exactly what reaction he wanted and gotten it. "I will show every single one of them exactly who I am. Besides… if you were my old man’s sensei, you’re not just a stranger are you?"
Jiraiya looked at him for a long moment, something working behind his eyes that Naruto could not quite read.
"You’re confident kid," Jiraiya said finally. "I will give you that much."
Naruto's smile shifted again, into the one he used whenever he was about to get exactly what he wanted. "So. Are you going to teach me water walking, or am I going to have to mention to every woman in that bathhouse exactly whose toad set up the slip trap?"
Jiraiya stared at him.
Then he threw his head back and laughed, loud enough that a pair of birds scattered off the nearby rooftop.
"You and I," Jiraiya said, still laughing, wiping at his eye, "are going to get along just fine, kid."
Beneath the laughter, a single thought surfaced in his mind and stayed there. Minato's boy had grown into something far more interesting than anyone had warned him about.
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Next Time: Summoning Jutsu – The Chief Toad