Reasons of Being

By: Selim

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

Jiraiya sat back and watched his recent student Naruto Uzumaki try to use Rasengan properly – though it wasn’t going so well. He thought it would be more teacher-like to go over and help the impatient student, but decided better since he helped the boy once; he wasn’t going to spoil the little brat with too much unnecessary help. The question of why he was there in the first place just suddenly donned on him. Why did he want to be a shinobi? Why give so much of his life to something he didn’t see the need to use now except when he was researching for his books near the women’s hot springs?

It really didn’t make much sense. His father was obligated to be a ninja, back almost seventy years ago. Most men in the village were obligated to reach chuunin class before they could do anything else in the world. It was a ninja village. At the time, women in the academy were a rare sight, often frowned upon. Every day Jiraiya thanked what gods there were that he was born twenty years later.

Being a shinobi was optional. And there were girls then, not as many as he wished now, but there were a few.

Were girls the reason he joined the academy when he was eight? Snorting, Jiraiya ditched that idea. He doubted he cared for the opposite sex at that time of his life, how stupid he had been. Women were his life now; he’d die if there weren’t a kunoichi in the field. Wait…

Jiraiya’s lips twitched upward. There was a girl in his graduating class that caught his attention. That pretty blonde girl that flirted constantly with the class loner so much that she ignored the young Jiraiya. He brought her a wild flower every day, reasoning to the other boys it was because he mother told him to be nice to young ladies. Those little boys would snigger and start to mock him about this little girl, making him defensive and childish – all under the watchful eyes of the said young lady.

The old man chuckled to himself. Had he joined the academy on his own free will to look manly for this little girl? The same little girl who brushed off his affection with indifference as she would crawl hand and foot to the desires of the dark haired pre-genin that grated on Jiraiya’s thin nerves to this very day. Or maybe he’d been brainwashed by his father that being a shinobi was the only thing life offered? Or both.

But, in the end, he became a shinobi. A damn good one too. He was trained by a hokage, taught a future hokage, and maybe – just maybe – he will teach the sixth hokage also. Glancing over Naruto, Jiraiya took a mental picture of the furious child glaring at a tree he was attempting to destroy.

He might not remember why he became one, his father’s wishes or the little girl in his class, but he made himself a name. He made being a shinobi worth it.

“Pervert-Sennin! Pervert-Sennin!”

“Don’t call me that brat!” Jiraiya yelled back, pulled from his thoughts.

“Then help me you damn pervert!” Naruto slammed his foot into the ground. “Stop thinking about Old Woman Tsunade, and help!”

Jumping to his feet, Jiraiya growled. “I wasn’t thinking about that bitch! Get back to work, or walk back to Konoha! I’m going to research!” He walked off, abandoning the tantrum throwing blonde trainee.

“Fucking, lazy pervert!”

Smiling to himself, Jiraiya ignored the screams. Maybe the pretty blonde girl from his graduating class still had him wrapped around her pinky, working on staying a shinobi because he sure the hell wasn’t making enough to take care of spoiled brats.