“Well, the plan’s ruined now anyway,” he muttered and began his story slowly. “I’m a rogue ninja from Sunagakure. I originally came to the capital after an invitation from the Land of Redaku’s prime minister. This was back when the old king was still alive. The prime minister was hatching this plan to hire rogue shinobi and create a private army. He called me in to coach him on shinobi and ninjutsu. While I was staying at the palace, the prime minister assigned a personal maid to me. And I fell for her. Rather than be a part of some war, I wanted to live forever with her in the Land of Redaku.”
“And the prime minister found out?” Sakura asked, and Jiji nodded.
“I guess someone saw us together. We got caught pretty quick. But the prime minister said that if I wanted to be with her, I didn’t have to be in his private army.”
“In exchange for your helping Zansul?”
“Uh-huh. Zansul was an archaeologist at the palace. He found a text about a jutsu to reanimate the dead in the library and succeeded at deciphering it. But even if he knew the method of the jutsu, Zansul couldn’t use chakra. So I was called in to perform the reanimation jutsu. The agreement was if I worked with Zansul here at the observatory for a year, I could live however I wanted after that. I lied to my girlfriend and said that I’d been called up for a long-distance mission. I promised we’d meet again in the capital in a year. But before the year was up, she died.”
Jiji stared at the ground with an exhausted look on his face.
“I was wrong. If I’d really loved her, I couldn’t have left her. I shouldn’t have left her all alone. … Hey, Sasuke? I told you, didn’t I? Don’t go leaving your wife alone? That’s how I really feel. People die so easily.”
Meno grunted quietly. Whether he understood or not, the lizard was listening to Jiji, and Jiji glanced at him before lowering his eyes once more.
“I was told that the reason we were bringing Meno back to life was to have him act as a guard for the prisoners. I wasn’t told the true objective until the day I found out my girlfriend was dead. Using dragons as weapons, I mean … At first, of course, I didn’t want to. But Zansul and the prime minister made me an offer.”
“An offer?”
“They’d get my girlfriend’s body for me if I helped revive the dragons. And if I had her body, I could see her again.”
“You were going to … bring her back to life with the reanimation jutsu.” Sakura finished his thought.
Noticing the look on Sakura’s face, Jiji grinned.
“Don’t be hurt, Doc. And don’t make that face at me. I just had to see her one more time. Even if I had to force a meeting with a forbidden jutsu … Sasuke, what would you have done in my position? You’d do the same thing, wouldn’t you?”
“. . .”
Sasuke stayed silent, very much unable to say that he wouldn’t have done that. He was remembering the time he’d been reunited with his older brother Itachi after Itachi had been brought back to life with Edotensei. Being able to talk with him for even a few minutes after clearing up their misunderstanding was one of Sasuke’s most treasured memories, even if it required the use of a forbidden jutsu.
If his own wife passed away for some reason, he just might want to do the same thing as Jiji.
“Maybe.”
It was Sakura who answered him.
“I mean, if Sasuke died and I had the Edotensei jutsu in front of me, I might reach for it. Out of desperation to see him.”
“So then …”
You get how I feel, Jiji started to say, and Sasuke cut him off.
“But the two of us aren’t alone. I know my friends would stop me. They’d tell me not to do anything stupid. We’re stopping you for the same reason. And I’m sure that your girlfriend, Margo—she definitely wouldn’t want to be forced back to life with a reanimation jutsu.”
“Margo?” Sasuke lifted his face.
Margo. That was Jiji’s girlfriend’s name?
The letter he’d just gotten from Kakashi was still stuffed in his pocket. He pulled the creased paper out and sent his eyes over the text.
“Jiji, you’ve been here for over a year, right?” he said. “How did you find out Margo was dead?”
“A notice of her death came, addressed to me,” Jiji replied. “In the prime minister’s own hand. Some epidemic.”
“The prime minister was in on it.” Sasuke showed Jiji the letter from Kakashi. “It’s here in this letter from my comrade. After toppling the dictatorship, the new king Nanara decided to transfer the queen and the prime minister to the capital. An attendant of the king, a woman named Margo, was originally a maid in the palace, so she’s very knowledgeable about the situation inside. She’s apparently been very helpful.”
Jiji gaped at him. “What?”
“This is information from someone I trust,” Sasuke told him.
Jiji’s eyes devoured the text of the letter, then their focus wavered and wandered.
He couldn’t properly digest this sudden development. Even so, after going over the letter a few times, tears began to spill from his eyes. They had lied and said Margo was dead to make Jiji do exactly what they wanted. Why hadn’t Jiji realized that this was exactly the sort of thing Zansul would think up?
Tears slid down to his chin and dripped off to wet his thigh, but the sound of this was drowned out by that of a branch breaking.
Snap.
Jiji yanked his face up.
The tyranno had killed its aura enough to approach Sakura from behind unnoticed. But when it realized that Jiji had spotted it, the beast crouched low and sprang forward.
“Doc!”
Jiji immediately wove signs in front of his chest. Rat. Ox. Monkey. Tiger. Pig. Dragon. The signs to release the reanimation jutsu.
By the time he finished weaving the signs, Sakura had already reacted to the danger herself and was punching the tyranno in the jaw.
Crack!
The tyranno sailed up into the air and fell to the ground. It got up quickly enough, but the hard skin at the tip of its snout suddenly began to peel away. The bits of skin turned to dust and began to rise into the sky, not carried by any wind.
Now that Jiji had woven the signs for release, the dragons were freed from the reanimation jutsu.
The pteras that had been holding down the prisoners; the spinos crawling along the ground, their legs broken; the titan struggling in the cold water—the dragons that had been treading water for such a long time were at last liberated from their endless sleep and greed-filled control. Bit by bit, peacefully, their souls returned to the other side.
And of course, that meant Meno too.
The lizard grunted feebly, reluctant to leave. He pressed the gentle curve of his head against Sasuke’s side and rubbed it up against him. The tail swinging from side to side fell away, the pieces dancing up into the air.
“You finally get to go back, hm, Meno?”
Sasuke stroked him under his chin, and Meno sighed and narrowed his eyes happily. He wrapped claws with visible veins tightly around Sasuke’s waist.
“Good night.”
His limbs and torso turned to dust bit by bit and rose to a place where there was no pain or struggle.
Sasuke felt flecks of cold against his cheek, and just when he was wondering if the dust of the reanimation jutsu was as icy as this, he realized it was snowing. The gently falling flakes mixed with the rising dust seen from below looked like the dance of gold and silver sand against a black curtain of gauze.
With the tomoe in his eyes, Sasuke could see everything, including how the thin crystals of ice reflected the light of the moon and sparkled like a rainbow.
After taking a crack in the jaw from Sakura, the tyranno stubbornly fought the providence of the release of the jutsu. Although its upper body was already more than half gone, the eyes of the tyranno were not giving up. It swung its long tail and forced itself to its feet.
Bam!
It kicked at the ground boldly with one foot and charged Jiji, perhaps to get revenge for having been put under his control, or perhaps because he saw Jiji as prey out of simple instinct.
But after letting his guard down with the release of the jutsu, Jiji’s reaction was entirely too late.
Blood spurted as curved talons sank deeply into his chest, and the tips of those talons stabbed into his throat.
“Jiji!” Sakura cried.
Having gotten its vengeance in the end, the tyranno melted into the sky, showered in blood.
“Hang on!” Sakura ran over and released the chakra thread, while Sasuke caught him as he slumped backward.
Sakura was about to press her hand to his wound when Jiji’s own bloody hand grabbed it.
“You … don’t have to … treat me …”
“No!” She brushed his hand aside and sent out her chakra. “I mean, you’re going to see Margo, right?! You just found out she’s still alive!”
“Just leave … me … be …” His vision grew darker. “I … can’t face her … like this … Go … The other guys …”
Choked by the blood in his throat and without the strength to even cough, Jiji couldn’t push out another word.
The sound around him was warped like he was underwater. He let his eyelids slide shut, not fighting the steady, sinking weight of his body.
It was funny somehow to think that he would die here alone.
I thought I would die when they told me Margo was dead. Regretting the fact that I left her alone, that I wasn’t always with her. I thought she died because I wasn’t there to keep her safe.
But that was pure arrogance.
Off in the distance somewhere, Sakura and Sasuke were calling his name.
He was so jealous of them he could hardly stand it. If he had had the strength that they did, he was sure none of this would have happened. If he’d been able to believe in what wasn’t there with him, what he couldn’t see with his eyes.
It was too late for regrets now.
In the black depths of his world, Margo called out to him.