Chamomille

Five days later, in the southernmost shipyard of the Land of Fire, Team Jiraiya —Accompannied by Tsunade and Orochimaru— finally arrived at their first destination. They were all wearing hooded cloaks to hide their identities.

With an hour remaining until the next boat trip to the Land of Whirlpools, Jiraiya proposed the idea of stopping for some tea. After all, some of them had never been on a boat before. To prevent sickness, a gentle chamomille infusion would tremendously help them if that were ever to happen.

As the waiter placed steaming cups of tea on their table, Orochimaru smiled. In the past few days, they hadn't talked much, given the fact that they made it here without almost no rest breaks. Eyeing Jun and Minato, he spoke up.

"Jiraiya. The growth of your students has been formidable over the past three months..." He found it hard to believe that the three of them had graduated in such a small amount of time. He also heard rumors of a certain Uchiha Chunin successfully taking down Kakuzu of the waterfall.

That piece of news shocked most of the village's leaders.

"Yeah... Dan is always comparing his students to yours, making him all depressed. Are you sure you're not feeding them some performance-boosting drugs?" Giving him the side-eye, Tsunade also found it hard to believe. Although she knew of the prophecy, Jiraiya never struck her as a 'teacher' type... More like the 'lecher' type.

"Drugs? Who do you take me for!" Sipping on his tea, Jiraiya breathed out in pleasure. "I may be a pervert, but I'm no cheater."

"Umm... If you don't mind, could we know more about you two, Tsunade-san, Orochimaru-san?" A little embarrassed, Nozomi spoke out. Although they seemed to know about their squad, she didn't know a single thing about them. [1]

"Them?" Hearing the young girl's words, Jiraiya smiled. "They were my teammates back in the day. The third Hokage was our master."

"Lord Hokage!?" Hearing Jiraiya's words, Minato and Nozomi both had looks of shock on their faces. Jiraiya hadn't yet told them about this, and it's not like it was common knowledge among the younger people int the village.

"Yup!" Rubbing his nose with pride, Jiraiya relished in his student's amazed expressions. "We were almost inseparable back then!"

"More like you didn't leave us alone..." Crossing her arms, Tsunade spoke matter of factly. "Back then, you never gave us the time of day! Always asking me out and challenging Orochimaru to battles you'd end up losing anyways..."

As Tsunade spoke, Nozomi's expression became disappointed as she looked at her sensei. Next to her, Minato was laughing awkwardly as well.

On the other hand, Jun seemed to have his mind on something else.

Noticing this, all the blood drained from Jiraiya's face as he looked at Tsunade with a begging expression. "Come on, Tsunade... you know I wasn't that bad..."

He felt like crying. Her words were making him lose the respect of his dear students!

"Oh, but you were!" With a disbelieving expression, Tsunade paid him no heed. Next to her, Orochimaru chuckled, speaking out for his comrade.

"It may be true that he was quite useless back then..." Turning to the three Chunin, the pale man continued with an unfittingly warm smile. "But after he came back from a certain trip, everything changed."

"Orochimaru...!" Seeing a ray of hope in his ex-teammate's words, Jiraiya rejoiced. He could potentially regain some face!

"It's true... Once he came back from that place, he was even stronger than you..." Nodding, Tsunade had to agree with Orochimaru. Ever since Jiraiya had returned from Mount Myoboku, he rose to prominence in no time, threatening to overtake Dan as the potential future Hokage.

Alas, that wasn't his goal. Jiraiya hated the idea of leading the leaf. But even so, his strength had far surpassed Tsunade's, and Orochimaru's as well. He just didn't like to flaunt it anymore. [2]

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[1] keep in mind Nozomi doesn't know about Orochimaru and Tsunade because they aren't currently famous. The legendary 'sannin' title hasn't been awarded to them, yet.

[2] Once Jiraiya returned from his training with the toads, he became a different monster, as anyone would expect. After all, he was considered before Minato, Orochimaru, and Fugaku to take the Hokage's mantle after the third war. Ever since his training, Jiraiya easily became the strongest Sannin. Go ero-sennin! Faito!

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