Disclamer: Naruto is the work Masashi Kishimoto. It is not mine. This is merely a fanfiction and as such it is not to be used for profit or gain of any kind. Let me repeat: It is not
mine. Do not sue.
He was too old.
Jiraya had never been the type to accept his limitations without a fight and quite frankly he had never been the type to accept that he had lost that fight. If someone had to tell him that it was physically impossible to stay up for three days doing nothing but training, he'd just tell them to go screw themselves and then he'd go prove them wrong (he couldn't let the stupid pale faced brat with a snake fetish beat him after all). No, Jiraya was a man who liked to think that he could do anything…at least he used to. He was too old now.
He'd grown so accustomed to the feeling, that incredible debilitating weight which seemed to bog down every fiber of his being, that he couldn't even remember what it was like before it. Back at a time when there was still something in him worth fighting for. When potential meant more to him than the letters it was spelled with. When he could still bring himself to hope. Now all he could do was pretend like he didn't notice.
It wasn't a physical handicap at all really. Old, it meant so much more than a weakening of the muscles and a dispersing of the genius of the mind. What it truly meant was nothing more than that he was out of time. Out of time with so much he still had to do…and people called Naruto the failure. All he could do now was teach, that and pray to whatever god, spirit, or thing that lurked up there in the misty sky that maybe, just maybe the future did not have to be written in the blood and tears of the past. That maybe he could be the last failure of the ninja world.
For him though, it was just too late; he was too old.
Too old to save Orochimaru and too old to kill him. Too old to stop those horrible nightmarish dreams from wreaking through his slumbering mind. Those dreams of all the lives his teammate had ruined; of all of the lives which he could have saved had he only been stronger. Too old to stop from waking in the middle of the night, their pained cries still ringing in his ears, and him left to do nothing but sit in the shadows of the predawn.
He was too old to save the Leaf. Too old to stop a new Orochimaru from sprouting in the same soil where the first had so putridly bloomed. And too old to stop that new snake from fleeing any chance of salvation it had for darkness in the hands of the man he had once considered a brother.
He was too old to make anything of himself other than a symbol for the wretched cursed of the world to heap their tears and damnation upon. Too old to realize that all ninja really did at the end of the day was kill and too old to see that dead men could do no more good for this world than rot. Too old to stop the bodies of the dead from piling higher and higher every time he closed his eyes.
He was a failure through and through and just too old to do anything about it. That never seemed more obvious than as he sat on that tree in which he spent so much of his time nowadays. It was all he could do at the precious moments he spent there to remember those words upon which he had been raised, the codes of a shinobi. Someday he would have to tell the boy the real reason he had perfected that concealment jutsu of his…well maybe not. That would ruin his reputation and he was far too old to do that.
Even he could see that she was beautiful. Warm locks of almost gleaming blond hair, for once free of her almost trademark pigtails, pooled over her shoulders and arms perfectly complementing her striking brown eyes. Well…at least they would have were those eyes not closed at the moment. He didn't think he even had to mention her other "assets." To think he had once called her flat-chested.
She looked so fragile sometimes, like a perfect little crystal jewel that would shatter at the slightest touch. Sometimes he had to just stick out a hand and touch her, just to make sure that she would not blow away.
Chuckling slightly, Jiraya could not help but appreciate the humor of the scene in front of him. His invincible princess who, despite his unvoiced fears for her, could make grown men shake in their boots, lying slumped over her desk, asleep and practically buried beneath oceans of paperwork. She did this quite often actually; too little rest and too much work all but assured it. He never missed it, not that he would ever tell her that. It would just get him hurled into the wall. Pervert he could handle, but he didn't want Miss Temper over there getting the idea he was stalking her. Even if he kind of was.
He really could not help himself. This was the most precious time in the world for him for you see every now and then she would drop into a deep enough sleep for that ever rigid control she always held about herself to unravel. And then everything would disappear and he could see her, the real her. His princess slumped over her desk, without that cloud of chakra that always distorted her form, asleep without a care in the world.
One time during their travels Naruto had asked him, with that same childish innocence which seemed to eternally permeate from the boy, what happiness was. Honestly sometimes he would just love to get in that boy's head and figure out where he got these things. Dead of night, maybe two in the morning, and Naruto practically kicks him awake to ask him that of all things. At the time he had just told Naruto to shut up and go back to sleep (after he had bashed him over the head a few times of course) but looking from his perch through the window at the slumbering form of his princess in those rare moments he thought he had his answer.
Looking down Jiraya sighed deeply, those ancient codes running through his head once more. A shinobi has no need of emotion. Show your tears to no one, they are nothing more than weakness. Shaking his head he jumped off the tree landing on the street below, allowing himself one last look at the building behind him before walking away.
He was just too old.