The concept of everyone genuinely thinking that Wei Wuxian is Jiang Fengmian's bastard drives me up a wall. His parents don't get any respect post-mortem because people are gossiping about Fengmian's teenage crush on a woman he hadn't seen in years and who's long dead.
But maybe it was for the better for Wuxian. Maybe people were kinder to him because being a sect leader's bastard with a rogue cultivator is more dignified than being a planned child from a loving couple, his father was a servant that quit to travel the world with the love of his life, after all. After all, Wei Wuxian is the "son of a servant", so how could he have gotten so far?
hiiii back on my trudy trout grind 💪💪💪 (trying not to think about other things) sooo spoilers for ep 12 but here's a little comic to the song never love an anchor by the crane wives.
one piece has the most inexplicable queer rep ive ever seen, at least in the anime sphere. there are like a mere 10 episodes between one of the most atrocious "haha man wear dress!" punchlines out there and the scene where a character deeply beloved by every side of the fandom says the infamous "queers never die" line
I decided to go for a revolutionary au, partially inspired by my friend @pinkelotjeart 's rev koby au fic, and partially inspire by my own ideas! Obviously I don't think this would ever actually happen in canon, but a guy can dream can't he?
Realizing now i spelled something wrong, buuuuut I'm too lazy to go back and fix it, so lets just ignore that shall we? Heheh.......
Men will actually look you dead in the eye and say “I hate *insert female action movie* because a woman could never do blah blah blah I simply can’t believe a woman could kill all those people never mind she has a sub machine gun and is a highly trained assassin I don’t care she woman so she weak” and then say “it’s just not realistic it’s a woke female power fantasy😡” and then go and watch Mission Impossible where Tom Cruises argues that even god himself could not kill him. Or fucking Nobody where a normal average father who gets looked down by his family for not being”manly” suddenly is somehow able to track down and kill a whole armed robbing organization you know the ultimate make fantasy. Or they will go watch *insert any Jason Statham* movie where Jason Statham bare hand brawls every gun in America.
And all these men can just do this but you need a hundred and 1 convenient explanations first why this woman was able to take down this one guy when she woman and he man 😱
I really like steadily learning about the Revolutionary Army they are so different from the other factions. For on they are far smaller and more spread out and seems to be the equilivent of an Emperor's crew though they really don't act like pirates or even marines.
The commanders of the RA are all more comfortable as support fighters. Bello Betty literally empowers others. With his crows Karasu acts as an information network separate from world government interference. We learn about Morley in Impell Down since he can create secrete bases and structures. Lindburg creates weapons. The founding members, Iva, Kuma, and Dragon also have support abilities that can empower others.
It makes sense why they are able to pull off so many revolutions and coups and fits with the Revolutions general philosophy to help others help themselves. If the people have a will to fight they'll find a way.
They keep their eyes on the prize, the celestial dragons and the top of the world's power and pick their fights carefully. And are fully prepared to cut and run.
Also increasingly one of the most moral factions. Which duh. Kuma actually wanted to be there and help the fight.
Naruto Roleswap AU: Ame 3 and their deadbeat Jiraiya
Jiraiya clapped his hands. “I, the Ultimate Ninja Jiraiya, will take on the three of you as official students! What do you think?”
The kids blinked at him. Somewhat as if they were in the Hell Of A Thousand Years of Infinite Pain jutsu.
“You’ll become the strongest people in Ame,” Jiraiya said. “I’ll teach you how to be greater ninjas than you could ever imagine. You three have the potential to do great things, and I’ll make sure you get there. Come Hell or high water.” Jiraiya grinned, jerking a thumb at his own chest. “Well? Opportunities to change your lives don’t come every day!”
Yahiko raised his hand.
“You still don’t have to do that.”
“Will you bring us food?”
“I’ll keep bringing you food.”
The orphans cheered.
In which Jiraiya gives three orphans a god complex and abandonment issues, Rin noticably starts getting uncomfortably unhinged but is still moe and kawaii about it, and polycules proclaim love via swapping body parts.
A/N: This is somewhat of an interlude in the Rin story. I didn't know if I should post it with the Kakashi story or not, but I figured it would make the Kakashi story kind of long, so I'm posting it here.
I really want to post the Kakashi story so I'll post it tonight or tomorrow or something. It's great.
CW for mentioned CSA. This is the Qui-Gon that people wanted me to write. Except still better.
“I want you two to have them.”
The Akatsuki stared at Yahiko. He shrugged.
It was a bright morning, the rain was light, and they were taking breakfast of rice porridge on Yahiko’s bed. Slightly Yahiko’s: there was another bed in the room, and none of them were particularly picky. Rin didn’t know that romance involved so many logistics. Maybe Konan just really loved logistics.
Yahiko had indiscriminately dumped as many vegetables and meats as they had in his okayu, Rin had carefully picked out her toppings for maximum nutrition. Her iron counts were low. Konan was too lazy to add anything to hers. Her fiber deficiency was chronically extreme and Rin had to practically shove mushrooms and seaweed down her throat. Her okayu had mushrooms now, because Rin shoved it down her throat. Nagato had plain okayu because anything else hurt his tummy. They were all talking about dying.
They were actually talking about wills and inheritance. They were planning a huge attack on Hanzo’s black ops forces the next day, and most of them had resigned themselves to the body count. Everybody but Yahiko, who never did. Mostly out of stubbornness. He said that you just had to believe in people. Konan said that she believed in people’s ability to die.
“Alright,” Konan said, turning back to the group. “In that case, I bequeath unto Yahiko my left arm. May he do great things with it.”
“We are short on stationary.”
“I’m not joking.” Nagato poked at his food. He said he wasn’t hungry, but that was his usual. Rin had a lot of practice bullying people into eating. “Zetsu told me about it.” Everybody had the usual reaction. “We’re not having this argument again. We need him.”
“We got along fine without the Rinnegan before,” Yahiko said. Yet again. “We have to be as independent as possible. Or we’re just going to get used again.”
“And he’s using you,” Konan said.
“The more he trains me, the less I need him. I know it’s a scam. But whatever he wants from me, I just won’t give it. I’ll scam him back.” Nagato carefully picked at his food, swallowing a single grain. “It makes us more independent. Greater strength means more power, and more power means more autonomy. More choices.”
“We’re powerful enough already -”
Nagato looked at Rin for the first time. She was sitting cross-legged on a cushion near them, eating her food with methodical precision. “You cannot deny what the two-tails did for our operation.”
The words made Rin sit a little straighter, and swallow her okayu in dignified pride. “More choices means more ability to save people,” Rim said primly. “To choose peace. Isn’t that what it’s all about?”
Quite seriously, Yahiko said, “I do love peace…”
“This isn’t the point. Zetsu told me that the Rinnegan’s power could be transferred. Just like the Sharingan.”
Rin lowered her bowl. “The Sharingan? You can do that?” Nagato shrugged - why not? Physiology was not a ‘why not’ situation! “The abilities of the eye aren’t stored exclusively in the eye. They’re the organs of the new chakra network that the eye creates. With the new chakra network is the eye’s ability. Eyes can be weapons, but a sword doesn’t cut without a human to hold it.”
Just as seriously, Yahiko said, “If you tie the sword to a big rock -”
But Nagato just shook his head. “Zetsu hasn’t lied to me yet. I don’t think he’d start with this. The eyes can generate the chakra networks. But they can’t fully take in just anybody. You need Uzumaki blood.” Rin muttered something unkind about clan-based gatekeeping. Everybody in the room agreed with her. “Only an Uzumaki can bring out its full potential. I will always be its perfect wielder. But with one eye, it’s manageable. With immense amounts of chakra, anybody should be able to access its power. And Rin’s beast chakra is as easily available to her as Yahiko’s.” Nagato nodded at Yahiko and Rin. “Two largest pools of chakra I’ve ever met. If anybody can use them, you can.”
Yahiko leaned back on his hands, amazed. “You’re assuming that I want to run around with the eye of my dead friend in my head? You’re way too morbid, Nagato. Rin and I don’t need to loot your corpse to succeed.”
“The Rinnegan will win this war. When I can finally use it -”
“At this rate, the war will end before you can use it,” Konan said plainly. “Nagato, I -”
“That’s what Zetsu is for. I’ll get better. I’m getting better as soon as I can. When I can, I’ll end this.” Nagato’s grip tightened around his spoon, pressing until his knuckles grew white. “Are we really satisfied with what we have?”
Scrabbling in the dirt? Meeting in abandoned caves? Living in hiding, always running from hideout to hideout? Collecting loyal, brave, good people, only to watch them die before their eyes?
Rin lowered her bowl onto her lap, eyes downcast. “If we can save people, we have to. Isn’t that what you’re always saying, Yahiko?”
Yahiko hesitated.
“We can’t let our best weapon die with me.” For the first time, Nagato sat up a little straighter. His hair fell away from his eyes, revealing their soft emptiness. “Maybe we can save Ame without the Rinnegan, Yahiko. We could do it without Isobu. At the expense of lives and time, we could do it. But we can’t save the world like this. To accomplish your impossible dream, we need impossible power. Since when do you half-ass the dream?”
“I just don’t want to sell our souls to do it,” Yahiko said. “What about our integrity as ninja, winning under our own power -”
Bored, Konan said, “You’re just worried that you won’t be able to use it, and that an eye you can’t use would be an uncontrollable chakra drain and impediment instead of an all-powerful weapon. And you think it’s gross.”
Yahiko blinked. “Obviously?”
“You could just say that.”
“I can feel many emotions, baby. I’m a rich man. Not in physical assets, but in the depths of my heart.”
“I’d prefer physical assets.”
“This sensitive and heartfelt soul is talented at robbery!”
“My hero.”
Yahiko beamed. “Aren’t I?”
“Not the physical assets she was talking about,” Nagato said.
Truthfully, Rin had the same concerns. She gnawed on her spoon. As wonderful and gross as Nagato’s idea sounded, its practicality was only hypothetical. “Under very specific conditions, I can transplant a limb. But the eye’s our most complex sensory organ. That’s a whole other story. I would have to create a new chakra network as well. I have no idea what the Rinnegan’s chakra network looks like, but if it really has six different kekkai gekai then I’m sure it’s the most complicated known chakra network. It’s not really something you can just do on the fly. Even in ideal conditions, I don’t know if I can…”
“I’m sure you could learn,” Konan said. So she had decided too. She rarely announced stuff like that. “You spend most of your time training in medicine anyway.
“I can’t test if it works on dead people, Konan-nee.”
Konan shrugged. “We always have coma patients after a battle.” People with a certain level of injury went into comas and succumbed to their injuries days later. Rin could heal them. Sometimes.
“It’s decided, then.” Yahiko clapped his hands. “If Rin-chan can successfully learn how to transplant eyes, then I’ll loot my lover’s corpse and have the cute little sister type stick his organs into our heads. For the sake of world peace!”
“The really awful thing,” Konan said, “is that you’re being completely sincere.”
“Thank you,” Nagato said. An insane reaction to what Yahiko just said. “This is…important to me. I avoid death fastidiously…because Akatsuki needs me. Crippling Akatsuki would be my only regret. If you take my weapons, I’ll be able to die in peace.”
Serenely, Konan said, “What’s the purpose of world peace if we aren’t at peace? What’s the meaning of world happiness if we aren’t happy? I’m feeling very left out, by the way.”
This severely distressed Nagato, who took it very seriously, and he started stammering potential inheritances for Konan. They ranged from ‘all his things’ (“You don’t own anything”) to ‘my other organs, maybe’ (“What would I do with those?”) to “I’m the worst romantic partner, I’m giving the kid (“I’m sixteen!”) my organs and withholding my organs from the love of my life (“I’m the regret of his life,” Yahiko said proudly).
Konan just laughed. Light and free, hidden behind one hand. “I’ll take a kiss.”
Nagato was very happy to give Konan her inheritance, and Rin quickly made her excuses.
Rin had to re-learn medicine after absorbing Isobu’s chakra. Isobu was alarmed and frightened that she managed to pull all of it to her beck and call, but it wasn’t like it was hurting him. He was happily swimming around their mind - Rin gave what she took. But going from a lower-than-average amount of chakra to one of the largest pools in the world took some adjustment. She spent months just re-learning control. How to be a medic with infinite chakra - what a jinchuuriki doctor could really do.
She couldn’t be Rin, with some extra chakra at her disposal. She had to be the jinchuuriki, Rin. With every tool at her disposal. And Nagato said that the Akatsuki would be worse off without her, and she saved lives every day, and she fought for peace.
Maybe this was happiness. She was still a guerilla soldier in a miniscule army fighting hopeless odds against a dictator’s regime, obviously, but why would that stop her? You weren’t happy because of the world. You were happy because of you. You chose happiness.
Rin had to learn the impossible, and she had to learn it fast.
Hopefully she’d be advanced enough to use the new coma patients to practice. You could test to see if their eyes still tracked light. Wouldn’t that be great? Wouldn’t that be kind? Her comrades could be useful even after death! They could fight the good fight even when they couldn’t fight anymore!
She was so scared of her friends dying. She couldn’t count on two hands the number of times those three had almost died. Every time she saved their lives, they ruffled her hair and called her their best secret weapon and went right back out there. Rin’s life as usual, obviously - you’d think she’d be used to it by now. But it never got any easier. It was a little disappointing. Rin got used to a lot of things, but she never really got over that.
Rin didn’t even go into the field as much as they did. Rin fought - everyone did - and she was pretty good. But they didn’t rely on her like they relied on each other. If she could just be reliable…!
Knowing that Nagato could comfort her even in death, that they would never truly be apart…wasn’t that true intimacy?
Time to invent a new medical technique and do the impossible. But Rin could do anything for love.
*
Do you want revenge on Konoha?
The others hadn’t trusted her at first. None of them had good experiences with Konoha nin. Nagato’s parents were killed, Konan was assaulted, Yahiko - something had happened, presumably bad. Rin wasn’t sure. She didn’t really know anything about Yahiko. But she won their trust quickly. Something about her life really convinced them.
Yahiko had been so emotional about it too. Rin had the sense that she had been elected as plucky little sister, and that she didn’t really have a vote in it. “That’s how the powerful treat the soldiers. They let the children of their village be chewed up, spat out, driven insane - and they try to squeeze more out of him! Out of you! Haven’t you lost enough?”
“That’s what I’m saying!” Rin cried. Nobody had ever told this to her before. No sympathy with this level of understanding. Sensei had understood, but he hadn’t been - hadn’t been angry like this. Just sad. Kushina-nee had just kicked holes in walls. “All I wanted was for us to be happy! A village that doesn’t let me protect my precious people is a village that doesn’t care about precious people at all!”
“Are you sure he has actual brain damage?” Konan asked, sharpening her nails. Literally. She made her nails sharp as razor wire, then blunt again. “Maybe he just went nuts.”
“Oh, yeah. Obviously.” Everybody gave her strange looks, but Rin just crossed her arms. “Still a medic. His brain was severely messed up from the Mokuton, but nothing that would create his symptoms. What does that matter? A mental five year old is a mental five year old.”
“It’s a thousand times more depressing, actually.”
“Once you save him from Konoha, you should bring him here,” Yahiko said earnestly. “Ame has terrible weather and it sucks so bad, but he’d do great in our Ame! Maybe he’ll even recover!”
Rin had never allowed herself to think that. She had banished the thought from her mind, never allowing it to return. She couldn’t hope that the situation would change. She couldn’t want Tobi to be different - to sit around waiting for Obito to come home. Obito deserved better than that.
But who knows? In a world of peace, anything could happen.
Revenge wasn’t the way of a pacifist. Perfectly good people wanted revenge, but Rin wasn’t that sort of violent person. She just liked things to be fair. Everything should be fair. That was the kind of peace that Rin chased. A way of justice.
Yahiko agreed with her. Rin and Yahiko agreed on a lot of things, actually. Or maybe she was just learning a lot from him. Everything that she felt, all of the awful feelings swirling in her stomach - Yahiko had felt them too. He knew what it was like to be betrayed by people you trusted. To be left to rot because they had something more important to do. To think you were loved, and to find out too late that you were just being exploited.
They’d met Jiraiya!
The three didn’t need another reason to hate Konoha, but Jiraiya had been the final nail in that coffin. Rin had met Jiraiya just once - Sensei had dragged his old sensei to their favorite training ground and eagerly presented his new gaggle of students. Sensei had been very proud to have students, so the three of them had presented a unique united front and tried to look strong and cute simultaneously.
Jiraiya had rubbed his chin, staring them down. Then he looked at Sensei. “They’re ten.”
Pleasantly, Sensei said, “It is wartime, Sensei.”
“Ten year olds can’t do jack or shit.”
Of course, Obito couldn’t forgive this. He was a chuunin. “I’ve been on the field since the war began!” Obito cried heatedly. “I have taken many B missions -”
“Why is one of them wearing a mask.”
“I think it’s a sensory thing,” Sensei said.
“What’s with the bandages?”
“Sensory thing?”
“They are emergency bandages!” Rin said heatedly, who wore the bandages as a sensory thing.
“Konoha’s so desperate that it’s shooting itself in the foot.” Jiraiya sighed, propping his hands on his hips. Sensei drooped a little. “It’s better to have three competent ninjas than five actual children.”
“I am a competent -”
“Than ten Uchiha. Dogshit wartime strategy by dogshit commanders.” Jiraiya patted Sensei on the head. Unsettlingly similar to how Sensei often patted them on the head. They were ten, though. “Good luck out there. Being a sensei isn’t as easy as it looks, you know.”
Then he left. They all watched him go. Varying levels of pissed and confused and uncaring and disappointed.
As if Sensei had forgotten that they were there, he said to himself, “He’ll give anything but what you want. You gotta stop wanting things from him…”
They’d met Jiraiya.
At first, he’d been like an angel. Swooping down from above with a headband reading ‘Oil’, saving their lives from Kiri soldiers. Jiraiya always casually saved lives and helped people, with his usual levels of instinctive carelessness. But they’d impressed him: three adult ninjas robbing a gaggle of nine year olds, and the nine year olds had successfully slit one of their throats.
They’d been frightened at first. Konan and Nagato, anyway. Yahiko had just ran forward, grabbing at Jiraiya’s robe. What was that jutsu? Can you teach us? We already know jutsu, we can learn! Jirayia did not successfully shake him off. And he’d been deathly curious as to why three orphans were at skill levels typically attributed towards their exceptional Uchiha or Hyuuga classmates. What clans were they from? What’s your last name? Your parents anyone important, kid?
They shrugged. Not really. I don’t know my last name. They escaped Wave…
“One little jutsu,” Jiraiya said.
One jutsu turned into many. Turned into days as the orphans followed him around, giggling and hiding from him as Jiraiya pretended he couldn’t find them. He was doing some kind of information gathering thing, and the orphans had eagerly volunteered to help out. Jiraiya found a lot of utility in nine year old inside agents. Konan told him that this was their payment for the jutsu. Jiraiya said: what are you kidding, learning from me’s priceless, you can’t pay that back. Food’s the payment. Take the food. Well, job well done, bye!
And Jiraiya came back. With food. Lots of food. Supplies. A little sealing scroll to hide them in. Jutsu. Lots and lots of jutsu.
Ninjutsu, for Konan. Ninjutsu for Yahiko - how are your chakra reserves that big, that’s not natural, you can’t specialize in ninjutsu, taijutsu, and kenjutsu, you have to pick one. Guess you don’t have to pick one. Genjutsu, for Nagato. Kid, you’re a genius in genjutsu, what the fuck. You’re learning this shit instantly. I’ve never seen a bigger genius. What the hell. Uzumaki aren’t good at genjutsu. You are the weirdest gaggle of clanless orphans I’ve ever met.
“I think it’s my kekkai genkai.” Nagato had pointed helpfully at his eye. “I was born with it, but I can’t really use it. I tried once, and I got really sick and passed out. Konan said I almost died. She cried about it (“I did not!”). I can see chakra, though. Yahiko and Rin say that they can’t do that.”
“Huh,” Jiraiya said, fairly interested. Uzumaki didn’t have kekkai genkai. “Can you activate it?”
“Yeah…I had to learn how to make it look normal.” Nagato obligingly released his control of his eyes. Konan and Yahiko made faces. They always thought it looked way too weird and creepy. “See?”
Jiraiya stared at the eye.
“Um…Jiraiya-san?”
Jiraiya stared.
Konan looked very seriously at Nagato. “You genjutsu’d him.”
“I didn’t! I didn’t, I didn’t -”
“Your eye genjutsu’d him and now he’s in the Hell Of A Thousand Years of Infinite Pain.”
“That’s not a genjutsu!”
“Can you genjutsu him into giving us more food?” Yahiko asked helpfully. “Maybe it’s a hypnosis one. Like, old guy’s getting sleepy…”
Jiraiya clapped his hands. “I, the Ultimate Ninja Jiraiya, will take on the three of you as official students! What do you think?”
The kids blinked at him. Somewhat as if they were in the Hell Of A Thousand Years of Infinite Pain jutsu.
“You’ll become the strongest people in Ame,” Jiraiya said. “I’ll teach you how to be greater ninjas than you could ever imagine. You three have the potential to do great things, and I’ll make sure you get there. Come Hell or high water.” Jiraiya grinned, jerking a thumb at his own chest. “Well? Opportunities to change your lives don’t come every day!”
Yahiko raised his hand.
“You still don’t have to do that.”
“Will you bring us food?”
“I’ll keep bringing you food.”
The orphans cheered.
War raged. Orphans hid. Orphans ran. Orphans beat back people who wanted to hurt them. A man touched Konan again, and Yahiko beat him to death. No skills, no techniques, no schools of martial art. Konan was still crying, so Yahiko was still beating him. Yahiko was eleven and he beat the man to death. Konan stopped crying, and she smiled.
“We’ll bring smiles to the whole world! Yahiko cheered. “We’re going to be the strongest ninjas in Ame! We’re gonna do great things! “
“I’m gonna help this time,” Konan said, quite aggressively. She’d gotten moody.
“Of course you will!” Yahiko hugged her tight. “We’re doing it together!” Nagato shuffled. “It’s a group hug, Nagato. It’s for the group.”
Jiraiya came back. Bearing food, supplies, and training. He’d stay for some amount of time - once it was just an afternoon, and once it was two months. He always made the absolute most of the time.
Especially with Nagato. Jiriaya taught him genjutsu as quickly as he could pick it up. And Nagato could pick genjutsu up really fast. Jiraiya eventually admitted that he was learning genjutsu from a friend just so he could pass it onto Nagato. Nagato had smiled all day when he said that.
“You three are going to do great things,” Jiraiya told them, again and again. “You have the potential to change the world. Don’t ever forget that. And when you do it - try to make it less of a shithole, yeah?”
“We’re going to save the world!” Yahiko yelled, pumping a fist in the air. “We’re gonna be so strong that we’re gonna stop the war! Then the war will be over and everything will be super good!”
“Trust me, kid,” Jiraiya said, “I’m working on it.”
He paid the most attention to Nagato. He didn’t say outright that he had the most potential, but it was pretty much understood. It made Nagato feel awful. Yahiko and Konan were mostly proud of him, but it made them feel pretty bad too.
“There’s no beautiful women in Ame,” Jiraiya sighed. “Just rain, destruction, poverty, and fishwives. Sometimes I wonder why I even come.”
Nagato and Yahiko quickly asserted that Konan was the prettiest girl in Ame, and quite possibly the prettiest girl in the whole wide world! Konan blushed.
Jiraiya waved a hand. “Trust me, kid, you’ll be sexy as hell when you grow up. Now, I don’t even got any bathhouses to peep at. Who needs a bath when you just gotta step outside, I guess.”
Konan started crying. Nagato started sympathy crying. Yahiko attacked Jiraiya. Quite well, actually.
Their teacher. Their teacher, who was aloof and distracted and who cared. He would have been their hero if he had just brought them food whenever he came, but he had done a lot more than that. They had taught him how to protect themselves.
That was love, wasn’t it? That was the greatest and purest expression of love that anybody could ever imagine? Powerful love protected somebody, but pure love helped people protect themselves. Nagato knew that.
Once the war was over, they told each other, maybe we can go with him. He’s a roaming soldier doing wartime intelligence stuff. What did he do when he wasn’t here? Could they be there too? That place seemed to have food. Judging by Jiraiya’s complaints, the weather seemed much nicer than here.
Maybe Jiraiya came from a perfect world of plenty. A world where everyone was strong, so there was peace. Once the war was over, they could go with him. He’d definitely moan and complain about it and asked why he was wasting his time teaching babies jutsus, and he’d work with them for ten hours at a time until Konan mastered the technique.
This world couldn’t be all there is. There had to be more than destruction. The place where food grew, and where other ninjas came from. Beyond the gates of Ame, a better life was waiting. Jiraiya would take them there.
Then Jiraiya destroyed Ame.
The orphans huddled underneath Konan’s paper defense as the building collapsed around them. They barely caught sight of the battle as they ran from the destruction. But there was no escape - they had to huddle in one of their hideouts, hands uselessly over their heads as Konan kept a paper defense above them.
In the great battle that finalized the legend of the Three Sannin, a burly frog wrecked swathes of Ame. The battle was undoubtedly for a good cause: Hanzo was just as destructive to Ame as a giant frog, and that battle would end the Second Shinobi War for good. Soldiers would march home, and the war would create no more orphans. That destruction brought peace to Ame.
It destroyed most of Ame. But sometimes you had to raze it all to start again. And sometimes that was the sacrifice to make. Rin nodded fastidiously when Yahiko said this.
Jiraiya was from Konoha. He eagerly ambled up to the orphans a handful of hours after the battle, covered in soot and grime and looking fairly apologetic. The orphans were standing, staring at their destroyed home, in absolute shock.
“Hey, kids! Good to see you’re safe! I got worried a few hours ago. Man, we really wrecked the place, huh?” Jiraya propped his hands on his hips, surveying the handiwork as thoroughly as the kids. “At least it’s over now. Not that Hanzo’s gonna be much better. We’ll have to do something about that…good old Konoha interventionalism.” He glanced back at the kids. “Are you guys alright? Did you get hurt? I have medicine.”
“Konoha,” Yahiko said.
“Ah. Yeah. Welp.” Jiraya winced, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah, I know you were wondering what kind of spy I was. Turns out…Konoha spy! Ha ha! Anyway. No hard feelings? Twelve year olds don’t hold grudges, right?”
Nagato’s Rinnegan spun.
“Hey, hey, no need for that! We’re cool! I know how to break your genjutsus!” A wise insight into how to talk Nagato down from violence: you couldn’t. Guy was stubborn. “Listen, kids. I really - enjoyed? This was very spiritually rewarding. But I don’t got any missions in Ame anymore, so it really is time to go home. I hear that old bastard’s forcing a genin team on me, so - okay, okay, wrong thing to say, I get it! Put away those eyes, kid!”
“I don’t get it.” Yahiko felt so numb. He’d felt a hundred different kinds of pain, but this was a new one. He had thought that he knew pain. That there wasn’t any more pain to feel. Nothing he could survive, anyway. “You’re not coming back this time?”
Jiraiya sobered a little. Maybe he realized that they weren’t nine anymore. “Truthfully, kids. I ran out of genjutsu to teach Nagato years ago. I’ve exhausted the kenjutsu I can teach Yahiko as well. Konan, I gave you the skills to master your technique. I can’t get you any further. You kids don’t need me. Ame’s a tough place, but you’ll make it. So, uh…don’t give me those looks?”
That perfect world their great teacher was returning to was the cruelest village in the world.
It made sense, after a while.
“I hate you,” Konan said. She was about to cry, but only the people present knew what Konan’s tears looked like.
“Not the first time a woman’s said that to me.” Jiraiya sighed, then looked at Nagato. He had stayed silent. “You’ll save the world, kid. Trust in that. Those eyes of yours are the strongest weapon in the world. With ‘em, you’ll do whatever you want. All of you.” Jiraya nodded, very self satisfied. He turned his backs to them and started walking away. “And now I’ve taught three plucky orphans to use their insane strength for good! World’s officially less of a shithole now. Man, I’m great at this. Nothing this Sannin can’t do. Anyway, later!”
“If we can do anything,” Yahiko whispered, “can’t we kill you?”
Jiraiya walked a little faster, and attributed that one to a twelve year old’s tantrum.
Jiraiya left. The orphans watched him leave, until the very moment he disappeared behind a ruined building. Disappeared forever. They never saw him again.
Heard of him, plenty. They hadn’t known it at the time, but Jiraiya was quite famous. He had exploit after exploit. Eventually, so did they.
Thirteen years old, fourteen, fifteen - could you call those years bereft of hope? Or could you call them the soft and rich soil, from which their ideas sprung? If so, then Jiraiya was that fertilizer. Upon those rotting and decomposed dreams, new dreams were born. Stronger, richer, wilder.
The skills Jiraiya taught them were the edge that made the three the best ninjas in Ame - behind only the man that they needed to depose. The promises, the encouragement, the faith - those, too, created this Akatsuki. Nagato understanding, for the very first time, how special his eyes were. The burden that came with them. Even if it was only the burden of strength.
The rich fertilizer. The dirt. Richer, for the flesh that decomposed within it.
Anyway! Killing Jiraiya had been on the Akatsuki’s to-do list for eight years. It would continue to be on that to-do list forever, until they killed him. Jiraiya, convinced of a job well done, did not know this. In its own way, that was unfair too.
Today, Yahiko crossed his arms and nodded. Rin had found the story extremely interesting, and had also wished that she was surprised. “But I’m a generous guy. I always told myself - I could forgive him, you know! A real pacifist forgives anybody who is truly sorry. Everybody makes mistakes.”
“That man is a horrible person,” Rin said frankly.
“And that’s his mistake! So I decided: if he ever walked up to our door and knocked. And said that he was really, truly sorry. And that he actually understood what he did wrong, and that he knows he’s a horrible person and really wishes he wasn’t. And it would have to be sincere - it wouldn’t be because he was trying to manipulate and exploit us, or he was coerced. Then I’d forgive ‘im! I’d even take him off the murder to-do list.”
“He’s never going to do that,” Rin said, just as bluntly. “Sensei said that he was Jiraiya’s only genin team. He never told anybody about you. I wouldn’t be surprised if he actually forgot about you.”
“Oh, I know.” Yahiko smiled brightly. “I gave him an opportunity. He chose not to take it. Jiraiya had every chance to be a good person! And he turned it all down. If he came and asked, then I would have told him about the murder to-do list! I’m a transparent guy! He’d have a warning, at least. He could prevent his own murder! But he decided not to.”
Yahiko’s smile didn’t fade. It was just the same as all the others. No matter what he was saying, no matter why he was saying it - Yahiko always had the exact same smile.
“Our old sensei made Nagato and Konan cry,” Yahiko said cheerfully. “They cried for a very long time. They cried a lot. So I’d have to beat him to death for every second that he made my family cry. You can say that he really did it to himself.”
