The inn they reached by late afternoon was modest but clean, the kind of establishment that catered to traveling merchants and the occasional shinobi passing through the small town thirty miles east of Konohagakure. The building was two stories of weathered wood and paper screens, with a communal bath house visible in the back and a small restaurant on the first floor where the smell of cooking rice and grilled fish made Naruto's stomach growl with the first genuine appetite he'd felt in over a week.
The walk itself had been surprisingly therapeutic, even if Naruto hadn't quite realized it while it was happening. Jiraiya had maintained a steady pace that was challenging without being exhausting, filling the silence with stories about his travels—carefully edited versions, Naruto suspected, that left out details an eleven-year-old shouldn't hear but still painted vivid pictures of distant lands and strange customs and adventures that made the shinobi world feel vast and full of possibility rather than just the grief-soaked village they'd left behind.
"We'll stay here tonight," Jiraiya had announced upon arrival, securing two rooms on the second floor with practiced efficiency. "Get settled, practice your basic chakra control exercises for about an hour, then get some rest. We've got an early start tomorrow and the real training begins then. Tonight's just recovery from the walk."
Now, standing in his assigned room—small but adequate, with a sleeping mat already laid out and a window overlooking the town's main street—Naruto felt the exhaustion from the day's travel settling into his bones. But exhaustion was preferable to the spiral of thoughts that had consumed him in Konoha, so he welcomed it.
"Remember," Jiraiya said from the doorway, "basic chakra flow only. No fancy techniques, no pushing your limits. Just simple circulation exercises to keep your pathways active and start getting a feel for how your chakra moves now that the seal's been reinforced. I need to head out for a bit to handle some... important business. I'll be back in a couple hours. Stay in your room and practice."
"Important business?" Naruto asked, suspicious of the way Jiraiya's expression had shifted to something that looked almost shifty. "What kind of business?"
"The very important research kind!" Jiraiya said with excessive enthusiasm. "Can't discuss the details—classified sage stuff, you understand. Just trust that it's essential work that only someone of my unique talents can handle. Now get practicing!"
He was gone before Naruto could ask more questions, his footsteps retreating down the hallway with speed that suggested escape rather than importance. But Naruto shrugged it off—adults were weird about their "important business" sometimes, and after a day of Jiraiya's relatively pleasant company, he was willing to extend some trust.
Settling onto the floor in the meditation position Hiruzen had taught him years ago, Naruto began the basic chakra circulation exercise. It was simple in theory—draw chakra from the core, circulate it through the primary pathways, return it to the core in a smooth cycle that built control and awareness without taxing reserves. He'd done this exercise thousands of times over the years.
But something felt different now. As the chakra began moving through his pathways, Naruto felt a sharp twinge of pain in his abdomen where the seal was located. Not excruciating, but definitely present—a burning sensation that suggested the reinforced seal was still settling, still adjusting to the new restrictions Hiruzen had layered onto it in his final moments.
Naruto gritted his teeth and continued anyway. The pain was manageable, and stopping would mean sitting alone with his thoughts, which was infinitely worse than physical discomfort. He cycled his chakra again, focusing on the sensation of energy moving through his body, on the familiar pathways that had become slightly unfamiliar after the seal's modification.
Beneath his conscious chakra, he could feel the Nine-Tails—more distant now than before, separated by additional barriers that made its presence feel muted rather than the constant pressure it had been. The demon was still there, still part of him, but the reinforced seal had created enough distance that Naruto could almost pretend it was just his own power he was manipulating.
Almost, but not quite. The red tinge to his chakra remained, and occasionally he'd feel something that wasn't his own emotion stirring beneath the seal—the Nine-Tails responding to his practice with what might have been interest or might have been contempt. It was hard to tell.
An hour passed with agonizing slowness. The chakra circulation became mechanical, repetitive, boring in ways that made maintaining focus increasingly difficult. The pain in his abdomen had faded to a dull ache that was more annoying than concerning, but the exercise itself held no challenge, no engagement, nothing to distract him from thoughts that kept trying to spiral back to his grandfather's death and the village's accusations.
Finally, when the boredom became more unbearable than the guilt, Naruto abandoned the exercise and stood up with relief. His legs had gone slightly numb from sitting so long, and he stretched with theatrical groaning that would have made Guy proud.
"Jiraiya said to stay in the room," he muttered to himself, looking around at the four walls that suddenly felt confining. "But he didn't say how long to stay in the room. And I did practice for an hour like he told me. So technically I've fulfilled my obligations and am now free to explore. That's just logic."
The rationalization was thin enough to be transparent, but Naruto was eleven and bored and had spent too many recent days confined to spaces that amplified his grief. The hallway outside his room called with the promise of distraction.
The inn's second floor was quiet in the late afternoon, most guests either out in the town or downstairs in the restaurant. Naruto wandered the corridors with no particular destination, his mind churning with thoughts about training and growth and the promises he'd made to himself at the gate.
I'm going to surpass everyone, he thought with determination that felt good after days of feeling nothing but guilt and grief. When I return to the village, I'll be so strong that even Sasuke will have to acknowledge it. So skilled that the village can't possibly still see me as just the Nine-Tails' container. I'll make Grandpa's sacrifice mean something by becoming the kind of shinobi he believed I could be.
The thoughts were comforting, giving him purpose and direction. He'd use this training journey not just to cope with trauma, but to transform himself into someone undeniably worthy of the faith his grandfather had shown. Someone who—
His planning was interrupted by an odd sight at the end of the hallway where it overlooked the inn's back garden area. Someone was standing near the wall, but not normally—they were balanced precariously on what looked like a makeshift structure of stacked crates and boxes, clearly trying to see over a tall wooden fence that separated the inn's property from the bathhouse next door.
As Naruto got closer, he recognized the distinctive white hair and red markings. Jiraiya was standing on his improvised tower, occasionally peeking through a conveniently placed knothole in the fence, his expression one of intense concentration as he scribbled notes in a small notebook with surprising speed.
"Important research," Naruto muttered, sudden suspicion forming about exactly what kind of research his new teacher was conducting. He approached quietly—ninja training made moving silently second nature—until he was close enough to see what Jiraiya was so focused on.
The bathhouse on the other side of the fence was clearly visible through the knothole. And in that bathhouse, currently enjoying the hot spring baths, were several women in various states of undress, laughing and chatting without any awareness they were being observed.
Naruto's eyes widened. His first instinct—the eleven-year-old boy instinct—was curiosity and interest in something he'd never really seen before and wasn't supposed to see. He stared through the hole for several seconds, his mind trying to process what he was looking at and why his face suddenly felt very hot.
Then his brain caught up with his eyes, and he stumbled backward with a gasp that was part shock and part moral outrage that warred with lingering curiosity.
"You PERVERT!" The accusation burst from Naruto at full volume, his voice carrying clearly in the quiet afternoon.
Jiraiya's head whipped around, his expression shifting rapidly through surprise, guilt, and desperate damage control. "Naruto! What are you doing here? I told you to stay in your room and practice!"
"I DID practice! For an hour! Like you said!" Naruto's voice was still raised, half because he was genuinely shocked and half because some part of him found this situation bizarrely funny after days of unrelenting grimness. "And then I got bored and came out here and found you doing... THAT! You said you had important business! You said it was research!"
"It IS research!" Jiraiya said defensively, though he was already climbing down from his perch with the speed of someone who knew discovery meant trouble. "Very important research for my novels! I'm a world-renowned author, I'll have you know, and authenticity requires firsthand observation of—"
He didn't get to finish the explanation because the women in the bathhouse had heard Naruto's shout. There was a moment of confused silence, then the distinctive sound of realization followed by outraged shrieking.
"SOMEONE'S WATCHING US!"
What followed was a barrage of objects flying over the fence with surprising accuracy—wooden buckets, soap bars, towels, anything the women could grab and throw in their fury. Several found their targets, striking Jiraiya with enough force to knock him off his makeshift tower entirely. He landed in an undignified heap, covered in soap suds and sporting what would probably be some impressive bruises.
"You're not a Toad Sage," Naruto said, crossing his arms and trying to look disapproving despite the smile tugging at his lips. "You're more like a Pervy Sage. That's what I'm calling you from now on. Pervy Sage."
"That's incredibly disrespectful to one of the Legendary Sannin!" Jiraiya protested, standing up and trying to brush soap from his hair with minimal success. "I am conducting legitimate research for my novel series! The Icha Icha books require extensive observation of human behavior and—"
"You were staring at naked women and taking notes," Naruto interrupted flatly. "That's being a pervert, not research. Don't try to make it sound fancy."
"It's art!" Jiraiya insisted, but his grin suggested he wasn't taking his own defense particularly seriously. "The greatest literature is born from careful observation of life in all its forms! I'm simply dedicated to my craft!"
"You're dedicated to being a creep is what you are." But despite the accusation, Naruto felt something in his chest loosening—the first genuine amusement he'd experienced in over a week. The sheer ridiculousness of the situation, the absurdity of this legendary shinobi getting caught peeping like some academy prankster, was so far removed from grief and guilt that it created space for lighter emotions.
"Look," Jiraiya said, lowering his voice as angry muttering continued from the bathhouse, "everyone needs hobbies. Mine just happens to involve... observational studies. But more importantly—" his expression became slightly more serious while maintaining that underlying humor, "—you needed to see something ridiculous today. You've been carrying weight that's crushing you, kid. Sometimes the best medicine for a heavy heart is catching your teacher doing something stupid and realizing that even legendary shinobi are ridiculous humans with embarrassing habits."
The admission was so unexpectedly honest that Naruto didn't know how to respond. Jiraiya wasn't wrong—the entire absurd scene had cut through his grief more effectively than any serious conversation about healing and moving forward could have managed.
"So you got caught being a pervert... to help me feel better?" Naruto asked skeptically.
"Let's say it's a happy coincidence that served multiple purposes," Jiraiya replied with a wink. "I got research for my next book chapter, you got distraction from painful thoughts, and the world continues turning with slightly more chaos than before. Win-win-win, if you ask me!"
"You're insane."
"Probably! Comes with the territory of being a sage. Normal people don't summon giant toads and write bestselling novels about romance. We're all a little insane in this business." Jiraiya started walking back toward the inn, gesturing for Naruto to follow. "Now come on, let's get dinner before those ladies come around the fence looking for revenge. You like ramen?"
"I love ramen!" The enthusiasm in Naruto's voice surprised him—he hadn't felt enthusiastic about anything in days.
"Excellent! There's a decent shop two streets over. My treat, since you caught me being..." he paused dramatically, "...a Pervy Sage. Which is not, I repeat NOT, my official title. I'm the Toad Sage. The Gallant Jiraiya. The—"
"The guy who got hit in the head with a bucket for peeping at the bathhouse," Naruto interrupted with a grin.
"That too, regrettably." Jiraiya rubbed his head where a bucket had made solid contact. "Though in my defense, the research was going very well until you showed up and ruined my cover. So really, this is partially your fault."
"How is it MY fault that YOU were being a pervert?!"
"Details, details! The point is, we've both learned valuable lessons today. You've learned that your teacher is a magnificent disaster of a human being. I've learned that my student has no respect for the artistic process. We're growing together already!"
Despite everything—despite the grief still sitting heavy in his chest, despite the guilt that would take far longer than a single afternoon to process, despite the uncertainty about his future—Naruto felt himself laughing. Actually laughing, the sound startling him with how foreign it felt after days of nothing but tears and numbness.
"You're crazy," he said, but there was affection in the accusation now rather than judgment.
"Absolutely!" Jiraiya agreed cheerfully. "But I'm the crazy legendary shinobi who's going to train you to be amazing. So really, you're getting the best possible deal here. Now come on—ramen awaits, and unlike my research subjects, ramen never throws buckets at me for staring at it!"
They walked through the town toward the ramen shop, and for the first time since his grandfather's death, Naruto felt something other than crushing despair. He felt possibility. He felt the beginnings of healing, however tentative. And he felt—improbably—like maybe this training journey with this ridiculous pervert of a legendary shinobi might actually be exactly what he needed.
The grief would return. The guilt would resurface. The processing of trauma wasn't linear or simple or solved by a single afternoon of absurd comedy. But in this moment, walking beside someone who'd just been hit with bathhouse projectiles and was defending it as "research," Naruto remembered that life could contain lightness alongside darkness.
And that remembering, more than anything, was the first real step toward healing.
The Pervy Sage and his student disappeared into the ramen shop, and the world continued turning, carrying them both toward futures that would be shaped by this journey in ways neither could predict but both would eventually come to understand as necessary.
The river of time flowed on. And for the first time in over a week, Naruto flowed with it rather than drowning beneath its current.
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