บท 19: Two Gatherings (I).
"So, Sensei," Jiraiya said. "Why did you call me back? It's pretty hard to do my job when I'm cooped up in the village, you know?"
"Oh?" he replied while fussing with his pipe for a moment to ensure it had a good draw. "And here I thought you would enjoy visiting your home and maybe having a drink with your poor, old teacher."
His former student gave a blusterous laugh, making his own lips twitch in response. Jiraiya always had the ability to make people around him happy, often on his own expanse. "Don't misunderstand me, old man. I'm happy to see you. It's just unusual for you to act all secretly like this, and you wouldn't have called me if it weren't for something important. Or at least I hope it's important, or else I would be rather cross with you for forcing me to stop my research much sooner than expected. I had just found this really impressive spot too..."
He raised an eyebrow. "Perhaps my memories are failing me, I am an old man after all, so correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it you who told me that the hot springs of Konoha are one of the best spots for your, ehm, research?"
This seemed to ease some of Jiraiya's tension as he leaned back with a big grin and started to giggle. "Well, when you're right, you're right. Konoha's hot springs are special, and I got some very impressive inspirations there in the past." The man gave a pointed look at a drawer that he knew stored a particular array of books. "But of course you know all about that already, don't you?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about," he said, ignoring the knowing glances the other man threw at him while puffing contently on his pipe.
He had missed his student. The man was like a son to him, just like the other two Sannin, and also the only one of his students he had still contact with. Orochimaru had left the village in disgrace and Tsunade hadn't been in the village in quite some time now. He had tried to exchanged letters with her to at least have some sort of contact, but her replies had always been little more than one or two lines. He had given up after six attempts.
Not that he had much more contact with the man in front of him, but at least he saw him from time to time and knew he was fine as he received regular messages with whatever information his spy network had found.
No matter what other people, the man in front of him including, said, he knew that all his students' deeds could be traced back to him. That their mistakes and crimes were just as much his fault as it were theirs. He had been their teacher, he had been the one who watched them grow up, and he had been the one that taught them much of what they knew. He should have seen their shortcomings and intervened before they could bite them in their ass. It had been his job to aid them when they need help, to console them in their grief. Had he done that, had he done his duty, Orochimaru and Tsunade might still be part of the village.
"But for real, what's going on? I know you haven't called me back solely because you missed me."
He stopped a sigh before it could leave his lips. So to business then, hm?
"I'm afraid you need to be a bit more patient. We are still awaiting one more person for this little meeting to arrive."
Jiraiya grimaced. He could be patient, he just preferred not to be most of the time. "When you say 'a bit more patient', what amount of time are we talking about exactly?
"He should be here just about..."
There was a knock on the door before his secretary called. "Hokage-sama, Genin Itachi Uchiha is here to deliver his mission report. I'm sending him in now."
"...now." he finished his sentence as if nothing had happened.
The two of them watched as the man in the body of a child entered the room, walking with more grace than a boy 'his age' should be able to. He silently wondered if he would have noticed this fact if he hadn't known the truth, but dismissed this thought. That wasn't important right now.
Itachi regarded Jiraiya with only a nod as a greeting before continuing on his way to his desk to deliver the mission report. He could see the gears in his student's head start turning, wondering if this young child could be the person he had talked about or if he had just been mistaken about who was on the other side of the door.
Or maybe he was just thinking that he must have gone senile.
It wouldn't be the first time.
"My mission report, Hokage-sama."
He took the scroll and threw a casual glance over it before storing it in one of his drawers for later consideration. He had heard most of it in their conversation yesterday, but reading a written report always helped him noticing things he had overlooked before.
He was still not sure if Itachi had made the right call when he helped the rebels, but he could see why he had done it. And, to be honest, he might have acted the same way had he been in his situation, but he couldn't think like that. All that mattered was that the likelihood of this decision aiding their final goal was higher than it causing problems somewhere down the way.
He had been forced to share the basics of the happenings during the mission with his advisors Homura, Koharu, and Danzō. While he would have preferred not to tell them, especially Danzō, under these circumstances, he had no other choice. They couldn't know for sure that there were no survivors, which meant that there was a theoretical chance that the Mizukage was informed about Konoha's intervention. Because of that, he had decided to increase the patrols on their eastern border which then obviously caught his advisers' attention.
He was the Hokage. He didn't have to explain himself or his decisions to anyone. However, using this privilege all the time had its own share of problems. In this case, it was just less problematic to share his information with the others, if only to make sure that Danzō didn't come to his own conclusions.
That was always a dangerous thing.
Given the possible consequences, the three of them had been understandably annoyed about the two Genin's actions, but as no blame had arrived from Kirigakure so far, they had been easy enough to calm down.
Personally, he thought that this girl, Haku, they had brought with them was the main reason his advisers had been so compliant. The girl was the carrier of a Kekkei Genkai, after all. If she survived long enough to marry and have children, Konoha might gain another powerful clan of bloodline users, strengthening the village even more.
He hated to think about people as if they were resources, but his position made it impossible not to think like that from time to time.
"Thank you, Itachi," he said. "Please, take a seat. This conversation will probably last a while."
Jiraiya stared at both of them, his expression shifting between being serious and incredulous. "Alright," he said after a few moments. "I give up. Tell me, how can a Genin be useful for whatever you want to talk with me about?"
He took the time to take another puff from his pipe before he answered. "That's a long story, one which we will summarize for you to spare us some time." He looked his student directly into his eyes, trying to make him understand how serious he was. "All I ask of you is to remain silent and keep an open mind."
....
Had Jiraiya's face been serious before, now his expression was grave.
"I can't deny that some of this information seems very...convincing, but you must understand that this isn't easy to believe," he said, obviously still uncertain even after nearly an hour of getting answers to whatever questions he could think of.
"That's understandable," he replied calmly. "I had the benefit of much more time to think about this myself, thanks to a technique no mere child should be able to use or even know about, I might add. And even then it hadn't been an easy thing to accept."
"Jiraiya-sama, I know-" Itachi started but got interrupted by the man before he could say much.
"Cut the honorifics, would you? Regardless of whether what you say is true or not, I think we can leave that crap out."
Itachi nodded, looking unbothered at being interrupted. "Jiraiya. I know it's not easy to believe, but for the sake of this conversation, it would be best if you just act as if you would believe us regardless of what you really think."
"He is right," he added. "If you would be so free, we could start talking about what I actually asked you here for."
Hadn't he seen the man grow up and trained him himself, he might have missed how he tensed up for a mere second before forcing himself to calm down again.
"And what is that?"
He took a deep breath. "We're going to talk about Danzō."
This got a visible reaction from the man. "What? Seriously?" He threw a short glance at the boy beside him, probably thinking about Danzō's role in his future, before continuing in the same raised voice as before. "Don't tell me you actually decided to finally do something against the old geezer? I know I tried and failed to make you see reason often enough!"
"And I told you often enough that he is a necessary evil, Jiraiya. Many of the things he had done needed to be done, no matter how much you and I might dislike to admit it." Jiraiya opened his mouth to object, but he didn't give him the chance to do so. "And I know that you know that too. You didn't become such a formidable shinobi by being blind to the darker side of the Ninja World."
"That might be true Sensei, but I'm also formidable enough to realize when someone crosses the line between a necessary evil and just plain, old paranoia. Something Danzō obviously can't claim for himself."
"No," he agreed, feeling more tired than ever. "It seems he can't."
Like it or not, a shinobi village couldn't survive if it wasn't willing to get its hands dirty. Sometimes this meant breaking other country's sovereignty by sending shinobi into their territory without their knowledge, sometimes it meant killing an innocent bystander if they somehow managed to witness an operation that must remain secret, and sometimes it meant blackmailing others, be it a civilian or even another country, to do one's bidding by any means necessary. Danzō had done just that; he had done the jobs that needed to be done to keep Konoha safe, sometimes even without his knowledge. He let it slide because he saw the benefit of having no official record and as such no proof against them, but also because he wanted to keep this side of ruling away from himself when he could.
That had been a mistake, he knew that now.
He had trusted that Danzō would only act in Konoha's best interest, so sure in his love for their home that he couldn't see him harm it under any means. Maybe he had just chosen, no matter how subconscious, to be blind to his old teammate's shortcomings, wishing to see only the best in him. Maybe he only wanted to see the good friend of his youth instead of the bitter man he had become.
Now he knew that he had been right in that Danzō only acted on what he believed was in Konoha's best interest, not seeing all the consequences his actions might have. A village needed people to do the unsightly work that kept it alive, yes, but Danzō had been so focused on the dark that he completely forgot about the light.
He had learned his lesson from Orochimaru; he wouldn't repeat the same mistake he had made with his wayward student. Not again.
"That's why we decided to do something about him now, to stop him before he can make any further mistakes," Itachi spoke up, catching him a bit off-guard. He hadn't forgotten about the Uchiha's presence per se, but he had faded into the background so much that it had been very easy to ignore him.
"You want to eliminate him," Jiraiya said confidently. Then he furrowed his brows. "I'm not sure where I come into this. I understand that Danzō isn't weak and that he has his own personal ANBU branch, but that shouldn't be too much of a problem. I mean, he has what? Two hundred men? You are more than capable of handling Danzō, and you outnumber his men by a large margining. You should be fine."
He sighed. "Danzō has officially a little more than two hundred men, yes. However, we can't be sure about the unofficial number. But of course you're right, we would be fine even without your assistance as we indeed outnumber them quite badly."
"So," Jiraiya drawled, the gears inside his head already turning. "You called me back to inform me of his" -he waved his hand vague in Itachi's direction- "little stroll through time, something that can reliably only be done in person because of the risk of the message being intercepted, and decided now that I'm here anyway, I can just as well help you, am I right?"
He gave his former student an approving smile. "Very well done, but no, you're not. At least not completely. While you're right in that I would have called you back to inform you of this in private because it's too risky doing it otherwise, you're wrong in assuming that's a coincidence that we planned to convict Danzō just now when you arrive. It was always the plan to include you."
Jiraiya shrugged. "Close enough." Then he got serious again. "So, what's the plan?"
"It's pretty simple," he said and started to explain. "Tomorrow, I will call Danzō to my office, effectively cutting off the snake's head and rendering ROOT without leadership. He will have naturally set up a chain of command for such situations, but he is too paranoid to give anyone too much power, so their ability to react will be limited. I have such meetings with Danzō and my other advisers regularly, so there is no reason for him to get suspicious.
I scheduled a special training session for the ANBU on every Wednesday for a few months now in preparation for this operation, so Danzō has no reason to suspect anything on that front either. As soon as I ordered Danzō here, you will head over to their training ground with a written order from me, effectively mobilizing every team that is present at that time. We know the official locations of all ROOT facilities, and thanks to Itachi, we also know at least a few of their unofficial ones. I will give you a list of those unofficial bases we know already exist, thanks to some of my men scouting the area. You will lead this mission to make sure that no one survives while some of my private guards will rescue as many children as we can. Considering that we most likely don't know about all of their bases there will probably be survivors anyway, but I want to keep that number as low as possible."
He wasn't surprised that Jiraiya looked at him in silent shock. For him to go from basically letting Danzō do whatever he wants while defending his actions to ordering such drastic measures must be hard to believe, even with all the information he received in advance.
"Alright then," Jiraiya said while standing up. "If that's everything you wanted to tell me I will head out now. I need to think about what you told me, especially your story." He looked at Itachi when he said the last part before turning back to him. "Will it be sufficient if I return at 0700 tomorrow for more details for this mission?"
He nodded.
"Good. If you need me, I'm at the hot springs." And with that he jumped out of the window, vanishing in a Shunshin.
It somehow felt like he was fleeing, but that reaction was understandable. He had a lot to process, after all.
"I think that went well," Itachi commented dryly.
His lips tugged upwards. "Yes, it did." As well as we could hope for.
...
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