Chapter 97: CH 97
Naruto picked up the bottle he had purchased and stood, "Well then let's go do this already, Akatsuki isn't going to wait for me to get stronger and this obviously isn't a mission. Is that all we're going to work on?" Jiraiya stood up after him and led him out, "Nope. You obviously know how to draw upon the Kyuubi's chakra if you've been experimenting with it like you've said so I don't need to give you time to learn that. You can make Rasengan absolutely perfectly so you don't need to work on that, speaking of Rasengan, if we can get through your training the way I anticipate we can then I'll tell you something special about that."
Naruto looked up at the taller man, "So what are we going to do?"
Jiraiya grinned down at him, "You needed to know the next step to furthering your wind manipulation didn't you? Well I'll show you what to do to work on that. You started on it back when you were a kid right?"
Naruto nodded, "Danzo told me about the leaf-splitting exercise a few months before my little incident in Otogakure. I still blame you by the way."
Jiraiya's face fell, 'So you still hate me do you kid?"
Naruto shook his head, "No. Not anymore. If there was anything that I learned in Root, it was that Konoha comes first. If you and the old man thought that I was a threat to the village, I can see why you didn't wait for me to wake before acting. I don't like it, I probably never will like it, and I'll always have some spot in me that resents that, but I understand." Naruto saw that they were exiting the town, "It's why I can forgive my father too."
Jiraiya's eyes widened at that, "Y-You know?"
Naruto gave him a foxy smirk, "Tsunade-baachan never told you that I did, did she? Yeah I know, and I have to say that I need to be more observant. It was staring me in the face every damn day for years and I had to have help to figure it out."
Jiraiya sighed deeply and looked down, "You know gaki, I was supposed to be your godfather."
Naruto didn't bat an eye, "Oh really? That's cool. So I should call you ero-kyoufu now right?" Naruto didn't receive an answer and turned to see Jiraiya staring at him with his jaw dropped, "What?"
Jiraiya wiped the look of shock off of his face, "You aren't upset or even in denial on that?"
Naruto shrugged, "Why would I be? Even if you had been looking for me in Konoha you would have been hard pressed to actually find me and do anything godfatherly with me. I went to Danzo when I was four, I only went to the apartment to keep up appearances with Hokage-jiji, he was like clockwork, it was easy to figure out when he was showing up so I was always home on days when he would visit. I'm not going to be a little punk and complain about why you never came to check up on me, because I never asked to be checked up on, you had your responsibilities and your own baggage to deal with. I did too, and I don't think I want to find out what I would have ended up like if you had been an active influence in my formulative years." Naruto finished with a smirk.