[Konohagakure — Jiraiya's Room, December 20th]
The manuscript was 412 pages.
Jiraiya had written the last word at eleven-twenty-three PM on a cold December night, in a room at the inn above the dango shop, with one lamp burning and a cup of tea he'd forgotten to drink going cold on the desk beside him.
He read the last paragraph. He read it again.
He set down his pen.
He sat with the completed manuscript for twenty minutes — not editing, not reviewing. Just sitting with the fact of it, the specific weight of something finished that had been building for a very long time.
Then he wrapped it, made two copies with the duplication seal the publisher's office required, and addressed the primary copy to the publisher in the standard format.
He addressed the second copy to Naruto Uzumaki, apartment seven, Konoha residential district.
He wrote a note for it:
Read it when you have time. Don't rush. It'll be there.
He put the note on top and tied the whole thing with the black cord he used for personal correspondence.
He dropped both at the mission desk's courier service at midnight — the desk was always staffed at midnight, had been since the scroll arrived — and walked back to his room and slept better than he had in months.
[Naruto's Apartment, December 22nd, 8:14 AM]
The package from Jiraiya arrived in the morning post.
Naruto found it on his doorstep, because the courier had knocked and gotten no response — he had been at the training ground since five-thirty — and had left it with the downstairs neighbor, who had left it outside his door with a note that said package from someone with very large handwriting.
He brought it inside.
He made tea.
He sat at his kitchen table with the package and the tea and the morning light coming through the window at the angle it came through in December, which was low and specific and made everything look like something that had been painted carefully.
He untied the cord.
He read Jiraiya's note.
Read it when you have time. Don't rush. It'll be there.
He looked at the manuscript underneath.
It was not titled on the cover. Just: a stack of pages, dense with Jiraiya's handwriting, the hand that had written thirty years of Icha Icha and mission reports and the note Naruto had found in his field bag two months ago.
He turned to the first page.
He read the first line.
There was a boy who learned everything the hard way and then used it all at once.
He read the second.
His name was Naruto Uzumaki and this is the story of what happened when the world decided to see him clearly.
He sat with that for a moment.
He kept reading.
He read for two hours. He drank two cups of tea and forgot about a third. He did not check the chat scroll. He did not go to the training ground for the morning session. He sat at his kitchen table in the December light and read.
At ten-fourteen, he closed the manuscript.
He sat with his hands flat on the cover.
He thought about all of it — every chapter, every person, every lamp that had burned and gone out correctly. He thought about his mother's kitchen in the footage and his father at the training ground and Itachi at thirteen and Hatsumi in the watchtower and the ninth case in the smokehouse and what it meant to be seen, really seen, not by a scroll but by someone who had been watching long enough to understand what they were looking at.
He thought: Jiraiya wrote this.
He thought: of course Jiraiya wrote this.
He sent one message.
Naruto: Jiraiya-sensei.
Jiraiya: You read it fast.
Naruto: I couldn't stop.
Jiraiya: Good. That's how it should be.
Naruto: The last chapter.
Jiraiya: Mm.
Naruto: The letter the boy writes to his father. That's — you didn't put that in because it was in the story.
Jiraiya: No.
Naruto: It was in the story because you needed to write it.
A pause.
Jiraiya: ...Yes.
Naruto: Did it help.
Jiraiya: Writing it?
Naruto: Writing it.
Jiraiya: Yes. More than I expected.
Naruto: Good.
Naruto: Thank you for putting my name in the first line.
Jiraiya: The first line is accurate. I don't write things that aren't accurate.
Naruto: The first line says I'm the person the story is about.
Jiraiya: Yes.
Naruto: That means you had to decide I was worth writing about.
Jiraiya: I decided that when you were thirteen years old and you were standing in the road with a forbidden scroll asking me to evaluate your clone jutsu while the ANBU were thirty seconds behind you.
Naruto: That's the moment?
Jiraiya: That was a very good moment. You had the whole plan worked out and it was a terrible plan and it worked completely.
Naruto: I'm going to put that in my own records.
Jiraiya: Feel free.
[Group Chat — December 22nd, 11:30 AM]
The chat notification about the new manuscript submission hit the group channel at eleven-thirty, when the publisher's office sent a standard announcement to the registered network for new literary releases from active Konoha shinobi.
The announcement said: New manuscript received. Author: Jiraiya. Working title: under consideration. Estimated publication: spring.
Tsunade: JIRAIYA.
Jiraiya: Hime.
Tsunade: WHAT IS THE TITLE.
Jiraiya: Under consideration.
Tsunade: THAT'S NOT AN ANSWER.
Jiraiya: It's the answer I have.
Tsunade: JIRAIYA I SWEAR ON EVERY SAKE JUG I HAVE EVER OWNED—
Jiraiya: Hime. It's a serious book. Not Icha Icha. Different category entirely.
A pause.
Tsunade: ...How serious.
Jiraiya: The publisher's first reader cried.
Tsunade: ...
Tsunade: What category.
Jiraiya: Biography. Roughly.
Tsunade: Whose biography.
Jiraiya: It's not traditional biography. It's more — a record. Of what happened when the world decided to see someone clearly.
Hashirama: JIRAIYA!! ARE YOU SAYING—
Jiraiya: The title is He Was There All Along.
The chat went quiet for three seconds.
Hashirama: TOBIRAMA.
Tobirama: I see it.
Hashirama: TOBIRAMA THAT'S—
Tobirama: I know what it is, anija.
Hashirama: HE WROTE THE STORY.
Tobirama: Yes.
Hashirama: THE WHOLE STORY. EVERYTHING. FOR NARUTO.
Tobirama: The title references category fourteen. Yes. I noticed.
Hashirama: TOBIRAMA ARE YOU FEELING SOMETHING.
Tobirama: I am making an observation. The title is precise. I approve of precise titles.
Hashirama: THAT'S YOU FEELING SOMETHING.
Tobirama: I am noting that the title is—
Hashirama: TOBIRAMA.
Tobirama: ...Yes. I am feeling something. Stop asking me to confirm it.
Madara: Hmph.
Everyone looked at Madara's message.
Madara: The title is appropriate. The brat was, in fact, there all along. This has been my consistent position.
Kushina: MADARA SAID APPROPRIATE!!
Madara: I said what I said.
Kushina: HE CALLED THE TITLE APPROPRIATE!! MINATO!!
Minato: I read it.
The chat went quiet.
Minato: Jiraiya. I read it.
Jiraiya: Minato.
Minato: The last chapter. The letter.
Jiraiya: Yes.
Minato: Thank you for writing it.
Jiraiya: Thank you for being the kind of teacher that gave me something worth writing about.
A very long pause.
Minato: ...
Minato: I'll see you in the spring. When it publishes.
Jiraiya: I'll be there.
Naruto, reading the chat from his kitchen table with the manuscript still in front of him, looked at the exchange.
He thought: Jiraiya wrote a book about all of it. The scroll named what existed. Jiraiya named what the naming meant.
He thought: both things needed to exist.
He sent one message.
Naruto: I'm going to read it again tonight.
Jiraiya: Take your time. It'll be there.
Naruto put the chat scroll down.
He looked at the manuscript.
He made another cup of tea.
He turned back to the first page.
There was a boy who learned everything the hard way and then used it all at once.
He read it again.
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