Naruto : Struggle Of Childhood

Aftermath

It was a sign of just how desperate Jiraiya was that he didn't even bother to ask what Uchiha Itachi was doing helping them. He just kind of accepted that he was there, and that he was very useful. Jiraiya supposed that he'd ask questions later. If they survived long enough to ask questions later.

The fact was, with the unconscious Orochimaru as something of a handicap, the arrival of Itachi, Zabuza and that...cat girl (hm...cat girl romance. slightly cliche, but still...if done right...) was a blessing as far as he was concerned.

"Alright, we just need to hold them off for little while. Long enough for everyone to get out. Then we need to get out ourselves," Jiraiya ordered when the three were close enough to hear him.

"That sounds so easy," the cat girl said, rolling her eyes before dodging a barrage of senbon heading her way.

Zabuza hadn't bothered to wait for orders, he'd just jumped to the attack, slashing happily anything that so much as moved in his general direction.

Itachi, nodded once, much like the ANBU captain that he had once been and proceeded to attack, summoning a Honsenka and using the pause to come closer and attack with a katana. Was it just him, or was Itachi saving his energy? Not that Jiraiya had ever ordered the guy around, he just seemed to be holding back for some reason.

There was a small explosion and Jiraiya caught the kunai that had flown towards him between two fingers and sent his hair on the attack as two high ranking ROOT nin ran towards him. The hair struck one of them, and he disappeared. Great. Bunshin.

There was a pop above him, and Jiraiya saw the third nin falling down towards him. Jiraiya jumped back, his hair forming a shield around him prepared the hand signs for an all out assault on the three of them.

At least Tsunade wasn't there to laugh at him.

The boy looked at his two fighting teammates, wondering if they would manage to live through the test to be a Genin team, let alone a real misson...

Noise. Shouting.

He sat in his apartment room, brushing some black hair out of his face and listening to the silence of the empty house. Surely, if it wasn't for the war...he would have been with his parents. It wasn't fair. It wasn't right... they hadn't even been killed by an enemy nin. Just a stray mine. It had been such a simple, silly way to die...

It wasn't fair...

A battle? What had happened?

They had poisoned him. It was kind of ironic since he had taken the 'Hebi' jokes and turn them into his personal style. It just was too perfect that he'd die of poison. Snakes weren't immune to their own poison after all.

"Don't fall asleep! Stay with me!" the girl's voice was desperate, "I've almost got it."

There was a scream from somewhere nearby, and the boy gritted his teeth.

"Just go, that idiot needs your help," he muttered. It wasn't like she was going to make it in time anyways.

The girl glared at him, and for the first time he noticed that she actually was quite determined. Not just the privileged girl that he'd always seen and treated her as. Maybe...maybe he'd misjudged her.