[Konohagakure — Various Locations, March 12th–19th]
The book arrived at the mission desk's document counter on a Wednesday morning in mid-March, two hundred copies in a wooden crate with the publisher's stamp and Jiraiya's signature on the delivery manifest.
By Friday, all two hundred copies had moved.
Not sold — most of them had been given. Jiraiya had set a price point at the publisher's floor rate and had told the mission desk to offer one free copy to anyone in the village who asked and couldn't afford it, the cost to come from his advance royalties, which the publisher had found unusual and had agreed to because Jiraiya was Jiraiya and unusual was part of the arrangement.
By the following Tuesday, the book had been to the Raikage's desk in Kumo, Gaara's office in Suna, Mei Terumi's reading room in Mist, and a holding room in Konoha's administrative complex where Hatsumi had borrowed the copy from the archive's institutional collection and had been reading it in the evenings.
The chat reacted across three days.
Day One:
Kushina: JIRAIYA THIS BOOK.
Jiraiya: Hime.
Kushina: THE KITCHEN SCENE.
Jiraiya: Yes.
Kushina: JIRAIYA I WATCHED MYSELF MAKING BREAD IN FOOTAGE AND CRIED BUT READING IT IS DIFFERENT.
Jiraiya: I know.
Kushina: HOW DID YOU MAKE IT DIFFERENT.
Jiraiya: Because I wasn't describing what you looked like. I was describing what it meant.
A pause.
Kushina: ...
Kushina: That's the thing, isn't it. The footage showed us. The book explains why it mattered.
Jiraiya: That was the attempt.
Kushina: Minato.
Minato: I've read it three times.
Kushina: THREE TIMES.
Minato: The letter chapter.
Kushina: Oh.
Minato: Yes.
Hashirama: I'VE CRIED SIX TIMES AND I'M ON PAGE FORTY!!
Tobirama: You have been crying continuously since page eight.
Hashirama: IT'S A VERY EMOTIONAL BOOK, TOBIRAMA.
Tobirama: It is precise. Precision can be emotional. I am choosing not to demonstrate this currently.
Hashirama: TOBIRAMA ARE YOU CRYING.
Tobirama: I am reading carefully.
Hashirama: THAT'S CRYING.
Tobirama: ...
Day Two:
A: Cloud has read it. I've read it.
Bee: YOOOO THE BOOK. THE CHAKRA-AS-RAMEN ANALOGY. THAT WENT IN RAP 891, JIRAIYA, I HOPE THAT'S OKAY—
Jiraiya: Bee-san, it's absolutely okay.
A: The chapter about the vigils.
Jiraiya: Yes.
A: My father read that chapter.
Third Raikage: HMPh. The boy who sat by the lamps. That chapter hit like a fist.
A: FATHER THAT'S WHAT I WAS GOING TO SAY—
Third Raikage: I said it first. Carry on.
Gaara: I read the chapter titled What Gaara Learned About Being Here.
Jiraiya: Yes.
Gaara: You didn't get my voice entirely right.
Jiraiya: I suspected. I worked from observation rather than direct interview.
Gaara: The part about Shukaku was accurate.
Jiraiya: Thank you.
Gaara: The part where I decide not to fight what I'm feeling. That's accurate.
One-Tail Shukaku: GAARA I'M IN THE BOOK!!
Gaara: Yes.
One-Tail Shukaku: JIRAIYA WROTE ABOUT ME!!
Gaara: He wrote about you accurately, which includes the part where you celebrated for six hours when—
One-Tail Shukaku: WE DON'T NEED TO REVIEW EVERY DETAIL, GAARA.
Day Three:
Hatsumi, in the archive's southeastern corner, finished the book at 11:47 PM on the third day.
She closed it.
She sat with it.
She sent one message she had been composing since the chapter titled Nine Lamps:
Hatsumi: Jiraiya-sensei.
Jiraiya: Hatsumi.
Hatsumi: You got it right. The chapter about the nine cases.
Jiraiya: I worried about that one. I had limited direct information — Naruto's accounts, Shikaku's reports, Itachi's summary.
Hatsumi: You got the thing that matters. The part that's hard to describe from the outside.
Hatsumi: You wrote that the lamps were less about the fire and more about the decision to keep bringing oil.
Jiraiya: Yes.
Hatsumi: That's exactly right.
A pause.
Jiraiya: Thank you for telling me.
Hatsumi: Thank you for writing it. For all of it. For naming it when the scroll couldn't.
Madara's message came on the afternoon of the third day, after everyone else had reacted, which was noted by the entire chat.
Madara: Hmph.
Everyone waited.
Madara: The chapter titled The Rivals Ranking. A Note on Destiny.
Jiraiya: Yes.
Madara: You wrote that destiny was not the correct word. That what the ranking saw was trajectory. That trajectory was a choice repeated until it became direction.
Jiraiya: Yes.
Madara: ...Hmph.
Jiraiya: Madara.
Madara: What.
Jiraiya: You can say it.
A very long pause.
Madara: The chapter about the brat and the rival. You wrote that the rivals ranking existed not to measure who was strongest but to name the people who made each other better simply by existing in the same direction.
Jiraiya: Yes.
Madara: ...That is accurate.
Jiraiya: I thought you'd agree.
Madara: I agreed with it in March of last year. I was simply waiting to see if you'd gotten it right.
Hashirama: MADARA SAID HE AGREED WITH SOMETHING!!
Madara: HASHIRAMA—
Hashirama: IN WRITING!! IT'S IN THE CHAT!! IT'S PERMANENT!!
Madara: I WILL FIND A WAY TO DELETE IT—
Tobirama: The chat is permanent. This has been confirmed multiple times.
Madara: TOBIRAMA YOU ARE USUALLY ON MY SIDE—
Tobirama: I am on accuracy's side. The chat is permanent. Your agreement is now historical record.
Madara: INSUFFERABLE. BOTH OF YOU. ALWAYS.
Training Ground Three, March 19th, 8:00 AM
Naruto had the published copy in his pack. He'd been carrying it for a week.
Sasuke arrived at eight and found Naruto against the split post with the book in his hands, looking at the cover.
"You've read it," Sasuke said.
"Twice," Naruto said. "Three times if you count the manuscript."
"What do you think."
Naruto looked at the cover. At the title: He Was There All Along. At Jiraiya's name below it.
"He got it right," Naruto said. "Every word."
Sasuke looked at him. "He usually does."
"I thought you two didn't get along."
Sasuke looked at the post. "That's different from him being wrong."
Naruto laughed. The big one, the open one, the one that happened when something was exactly right and he hadn't expected it.
He put the book back in his pack.
He looked at the post — its four marks now, in the spring light. The split, the diagonal, the burn, the new dispersal pattern from the Rasenshuriken.
He looked at the sky.
The cherry trees on the eastern edge of the training ground were three days from blooming. He could see the buds from here, the specific closed-fist quality of them just before they opened.
He thought: the scroll came and went. The book is here. The cases are closed. The nine lamps are out. The Rasenshuriken exists. The Kaguya window is three months away.
He thought: the world is continuing.
He thought: good. That's the whole point.
"Same time tomorrow," Sakura said, arriving at eight-oh-five with her medic pack and the expression of someone who had started the Strength of a Hundred Seal accumulation three days ago and was running on determination and competent food choices.
"Same time tomorrow," Naruto said.
He stepped away from the post.
He started the census.
Seven birds in the stand. The judgmental one had returned to the left branch after a week on the center one, which Naruto noted as significant. The spring birds were beginning to arrive — two species he hadn't seen since October, their calls brighter and more argumentative than the winter ones.
He counted them.
He let the natural energy come.
The morning was ordinary.
The morning was exactly right.
◇ BONUS & SUPPORT ◇
◇ 1 bonus chapter for every 10 reviews — drop a comment!
◇ 1 bonus chapter for every 100 Power Stones.
◇ Read 70 chapters ahead on P@treon → patreon.com/Sagamaster789