Assume nothing. Female Jiraiya from the idea of what if you stopped watching Naruto before you really learned anything and then were reincarnated? You know the AU craziness by now.

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"Now what." It was curt and frustrated and Orochimaru's voice was practically a huff of irritation as someone pounded on the door. The orphanage was half full, but some rooms were permitted to be alone. Growling slightly at the interruption of his book, the young boy hopped down from his bed to go open the door.

It was really not a surprise when a white spikey haired form rushed in giggling and so the pale boy simply closed the door again, lifting a brow.

"Thanks." With that the shirt was lifted and from where they'd jury rigged a sort of pouch with another shirt that was far too large under neath and flopped around from taking the bottom up and into the top a few times came a package.

"Mmm." Orochimaru's bad mood had fled when he'd recognized Jiraiya. There were plenty in the orphanage he could not stand. But he had never managed to scowl or frighten away the other child. "Was it hard?" He was curious, always curious. His brain screamed for influx of information at all times even more than his body needed oxygen. They were only a year into the academy and looking ahead in older students books had shown tips on thievery. Jiraiya had been the one brave enough to go into the market and try it out.

"Yeah, but I think mostly because I was nervous. I kept trying not to be like you told me though.." Finally the shirt untwisting was done and one half of the spoils were handed over, the two children sitting on the ground. It didn't seem like much but apples and chocolate were both rare treats in a poor orphanage where over cooked rice and vegetables was most of what they ate. Even bits of tofu and fish were rare, and the one time they'd had red meat at a school festival all the orphanage children were sick. They weren't used to the richness. Chocolate though, a tiny bit here and there was worth it as they never got sweets.

The apple was heavenly. Orochimaru closed his eyes as he leaned against the wall across from Jiraiya. It was perfectly ripe and juicy, negating the need for water. Beside him Jiraiya was savoring an apple but they'd both only have a bite of chocolate before hiding them. It wasn't the first time they'd stolen of course but it was the very first time it had been planned.

Silence fell for a while before after eating all but the stem, Orochimaru grabbed his book and brought it over, fingers flipping back to an early part. "Read."

"The..tra..trag.."

"Trajectory."

"huh?"

"Angle."

"Okay..the trajeectoni of the kunai.."

Slowly Jiraiya formed the words, eyes fixed on each character. It was hard, very hard. Orochimaru though was patient, as perhaps he would not have been otherwise. Perhaps not if Jiraiya had been what she remembered Jiraiya as. Not that she had ever finished the first season. She'd stopped at crazy Gaara and a sand invasion but had seen Orochimaru was a freaky dude when he bit Sasuke. So when she ended up here, in the body of a baby and the name of a character she did the only thing she could. Assume she knew nothing and move on.

It was kind of nice, not remembering how she died or even when. She didn't remember a lot and even less about the show, so really overall maybe it was a good thing. All she remembered of Jiraiya had been something about seals and toads and watermelons. All she knew of Orochimaru was he was creepy and bit little boys.

All the other characters were ones she may never get to see, and since she was a little girl and not a boy, she threw any delving deep beyond those snippets out the window. She actually thought her english and science classes may be a lot more useful to try and remember. Certainly biology..

So she'd embraced life as Jiraiya with one thing, she hid her gender. It wasn't hard really as children looked the same above the waist most their life until puberty so keeping her hair short and spikey and in the castoff clothing they were given she just didn't add any skirts. Out of sight, literally out of mind.

Being that she was Jiraiya, she had no assumptions on behavior or ideas. She knew later on from her friends who stayed in the fandom and exposed her to their chatter that he was apparently a pervert and wrote perverted books that Kakashi read. The rest was a nice blur.

And she didn't like toads.

So she was her own person and it didn't matter.

"Now this page." Orochimaru shifted it and she nodded.

"When making the stance you need to always balance.."

Helping her learn to read even if it was his awful dry technical books had been a kindness from the darker haired boy. She wasn't sure why, but didn't ask. Maybe it was because they were the only smart ones in the orphanage ate an age most were eating glue, perhaps because they were two of many trying to be ninja to make something of themselves.

Orochimaru liked to take things apart and figure them out, Jiraiya liked to look at them and figure out how to fit things together and get it done.

They didn't trail after each other so much as just always go together. Where one was, so was the other. They had been like that for months now and if apart it was always just what happened not a planned separation.

"Want to go out?" Jiraiya asked when Orochimaru was putting his book away. The pale boy looked at her, and then at the darkening window curious. They'd skipped dinner as it wasn't their turn tonight. The orphanage had very little, and unless they just wanted rice there wasn't anything else their group would get that evening. Tomorrow they would, and so the stolen apple really had been a good thing. Slowly he nodded.

"Where?"

Jiraiya paused, hands stretching over her before she shrugged, going to open the window. They snuck out all the time, the old building made it easy enough to find hand holds. "Library?"

Orochimaru's face lit up and he nodded, the two dropping to the ground soon. Both had grasped the lessons very swiftly from the academy because they were skills they could use now to escape and get around. Silence was a blessing when you needed to be stealthy. Without a word the two slipped out, by way of the park. It wouldn't be the first time they hid in the library until it closed, or even reopened. On nights where the full moon was out Orochimaru would be absorbed in his reading and Jiraiya would fall asleep near him when she finished her own. They'd sneak out at first light to go to the academy where for the early orphans there would be a humble breakfast waiting.

It was part of how they enticed orphans to go, it may be humble but the rations were greater than the orphanage. Jiraiya had shuddered the first time she realized what that meant.

Conditioning.

Find children who wouldn't have wanted to be ninja, even if they had potential, by luring them in from a basic need.

It worked. No that Jiraiya and Orochimaru would have ever not wanted to be ninja. It was the only way to make something of yourself in the world after all for a pair of no name strange looking kids. Normal looking ones might find a trade or work at shops. For the unusual sort? Ninja was the only place the weirder you looked the more you fit in.

Orochimaru had just smirked the first time Jiraiya pouted about his neater markings.

It was entirely unlikely either had clan relatives anywhere and if so they'd died out before Konoha, mere trickles of legacy out in the world. It was the way things were.