Chapter Text
“You need to move on, Naruto!”
Sakura’s words echoed in Naruto’s head as she stared up at the ceiling. Move on was everyone’s advice these days, but what did it mean for her to move on? Every where she looked, she remembered Jiraiya. His laughter echoed in her ears. The memories kept replaying in her mind like a broken record. This grief, she acknowledged, was overwhelming and overflowing like the rivers. She smiled for them. She helped the villagers with the repairs but sometimes, she wanted to scream at them. Now more than ever. Until she met her parents, she had never wanted to scream and hurl insults at them. It always felt like it was her fault, that she was a bad egg, that her parents had done something terrible for them to treat her wrongly. Of course, she knew the Kyuubi had a role to play but at 10? She didn’t know the truth.
Sometimes, she wished she didn’t know the truth. Now she stared at the Hokage’s Monument, at her father’s face and wondered how she could be so stupid not to see that they were related. How the Third Hokage would always glance at her father’s photos when she demanded to know the truth about her parents. It had been there in plain sight. Naruto sucked in a deep breath and turned over. She never met her father but the people who knew the Fourth Hokage? Who had seen him? How could they not look at her and see how much she looked like him. She fooled herself.
Why would she think that she was his daughter when people treated her like she was a monster. Naruto closed her eyes. The more she thought about it, the more her body ached. The more she wanted to sleep and never wake up. It was getting bad. Bad enough for Hinata to constantly check up on her. Her best friend stared at her, pity and grief in her eyes. Like she understood the hell inside of her brain. She didn’t understand. Not completely. Hinata lost her mother, but she had always known her identity.
Sakura cared too, in her own way, but her teammate didn’t understand this crippling grief. Shikamaru tried talking sense into her, showed her that Kurenai was pregnant as if to remind her about the future generation, but Jiraiya didn’t have a kid. There was no one she felt an intense need to protect now. Pein was defeated. Sasuke was gone. She could try to bring him back but why? If this was her grief, his grief must have been more intense. She couldn’t do it anymore. The idea of dragging him by the ear, breaking every bone in his body, had disappeared. If he wanted to destroy himself, she understood.
She understood better than ever before.
“You only live once,” was what Jiraiya would tell her whenever she decided to mope around. He would say it with a loud laugh before taking her out to get some ice-cream. Just the memory alone made her chest tightened. It felt like she couldn’t breathe. But she needed to breathe. Naruto forced out a breath and forced herself to get out of the bed, one achy leg after the other. She needed to comb her hair. Needed to brush her teeth. She just needed to…live.
It had been ages since she looked at the mirror. Since she did her hair. Looking at the mirror, it was plain to see that she wasn’t okay. There were dark circles underneath her eyes. Her hair was oily, a clear sign that she hadn’t taken a shower. That must be why Hinata had probed her about the bath. Naruto exhaled and rubbed her eyes again. When was the last time she looked this terrible? When Sasuke left? No, she didn’t have time to grieve him like this. Jiraiya had, immediately, whisked away on training. When the Third died? Probably. He had been the closest thing she ever had to a grandfather.
For a moment, her mind wandered to the early days of her childhood. To the very first days of the Academy. She remembered begging the old man to let her join the Academy earlier, remembered how he nodded his head and told her that she was going to enter but to enjoy her childhood. It wasn’t until she pointed out that she didn’t have any friends that he allowed her to join. She felt so alone on her first day. Parents had been everywhere. If not parents, then grandparents or some form of guardian. She had been the only one. It didn’t get any better when Iruka asked about their dreams.
“I’m going to travel the world!” Was what she had screamed to the class when it came to her turn. The parents had become quiet when she uttered her dream, their lips pursed like they tasted a bitter lemon. Iruka had been silent. Her classmates had laughed, told her that she was stupid to have a dream like that. Why would they see the other islands? To see pirates? Or marines? Everyone stayed or eventually returned back to their islands. They say that their islands were safer than the ones outside. Jiriaya had seen them, had spent years travelling through those islands as he would tell her in the camp fire.
Right, she had his books. Naruto tore her eyes away from the mirror and stared at her room, at the scattered clothes on her bed. Since he died, she hadn’t been bothered to tidy the place up. Too much effort if you asked her. She let out a dragged breath, made her way to her closet. There was a box of his books on the furthest corner of the shelf. He had given it to her before he left. Keep it safe for me was what he had told her. She wondered if he had a feeling that he wasn’t going to come back this time. Her fingers brushed against the box, ready to snatch it but the box crashed to the ground.
Books spiralled to the ground like a chaotic storm. Naruto swallowed, knelt and paused when she picked up his journal. The King of the End. Right, it was one of his more dramatic titles. She remembered seeing him look through the book with a pain, tired smile when they had been training. When he wrote the Icha-Icha series, he would always have a perverted laugh. But he never wrote in this journal, she remembered asking him about it. She remembered his laugh when she asked, the joy in his eyes as he tossed her the journal for her to read.
“This journal? I once wrote a book based off an old friend,” Jiraiya had told her when she began flipping through the book. It hadn’t been explicit in detail, a surprise when she knew how much her mentor loved writing erotic tales. More adventure like. She remembered loving the tale, remembered asking him about why he never published it. Jiraiya had shrugged and looked at the dwindling flames, giving a basic reason. “No one likes reading books about adventures. Icha-Icha sells because it has romance, this book didn’t have much romance. Then again the guy is based on wasn’t much of a romantic fella.”
She remembered getting to the end of the book and being confused. “Why did you kill him off? Why did you make him smile when he was being executed?” It had been the first time she ever read a main character being killed off. The idea of dying with a smile on her face was weird. Death, she came to see, was terrifying. How could someone just accept their execution? Could die with a smile when they hadn’t been a terrible person? Jiraiya had hummed and looked at the distance when she asked him.
Then, he smiled. “Because that was what happened to my friend. When I think about of all the reasons he could have smiled when he was executed, I can think of one thing Naruto: he lived a life that he was proud of and died with no regrets.” His voice became serious as his eyes focused on her. “That’s what I want for you too.”
Did Jiraiya die with a smile too?
Naruto would never know. She did know one thing as she flipped through the pages of Jiraiya’s journal. She wasn’t proud of the life that she was living in. Being a kunoichi was great but if she was to die now, what would have been the point? Protecting a village that never really loved her. She had her friends but she wanted more. Wanted to feel that excitement again. She wouldn’t die with a smile at this point. She licked her dried lips and stared at the mirror once again.
At the dark circles underneath her eyes.
“Are you proud of yourself, Naruto? The villagers love you.” It sounded like Jiraiya’s voice and she could see his reflection staring at her. She wasn’t proud. She didn’t feel happy either. His eyes had that knowing look, the same knowing look when she declared that she wasn’t going to let Sasuke go. She balled her hands into a fist and allowed her eyes to wander to the photo of Team Seven. Her dream was getting the villagers to acknowledge her, and they did acknowledge her.
They did. But she still wasn’t happy, she thought she would be smiling and laughing now that they were happy to be around her.
“No, I’m not proud,” she whispered. “I’m not even happy, Ero-Sennin.” It felt like a weight had been lifted from her shoulder. Naruto glanced at the photo of Hinata and her. What did Jiraiya do when he had been grieving? He travelled. Right, she should do that. Travel. Just travel and find herself again. She swallowed and looked at her bags. If she left now, she would be a missing-nin. Tsuande was in a coma, Danzo and the elders would put a target on her back. Her friends needed her.
It would be so selfish for her to leave them just so she could figure herself out. And yet, Sasuke left. He joined Orochimaru, not caring about the village and the harm that monster placed on the village. She wasn’t going to join anyone. She was going to wander and travel like Jiraiya did. To see what the world had to offer. For once, she wanted to be as selfish as Sakura and the others made her out to be. She bobbed her head and made her way to her drawer. There was a piece of paper she could use to write a letter.
Hinata would understand. Her best friend would keep her whereabouts a secret or at the very least, she could divert them if they went looking for her. Pein was gone, she reasoned. No one was going to be after her. Even if they were, it was safer for the village too. This was better for everyone. But especially better for her. She bobbed her head and continued to scribble down the letter before placing it on her bed. Hinata was going to check up on her anyway, she had the spare key after all.
She would only take the important stuff too: the photos, Jiraiya’s books and her seals.
“I’m going to follow my first dream,” she declared out loud. At the mirror. At the illusion that was her mentor. He stared back at her, goofy smile and all. She knew it wasn’t him. He wouldn’t be happy with her decision, he cared about the village, but if she died now: she would have so many regrets. She had so many regrets. “I’m not going to care about what the village thinks about me! I’ve only one life to live and I’m going to make the best of it.”
She didn’t know where this journey was going to take her but she was going to live her life the fullest. Just like Jiraiya would have wanted her to do.