GSiN: Ch. 187

Outside Taki, above a cliff, rushing water poured down.

The water flow slammed into jagged rock walls. The roar echoed through the valley.

Shiori hid within the dense canopy of a tree, her Sharingan peering through layers of water mist at this waterfall barrier.

Occasionally a few birds swept past the waterfall.

Her gaze followed the water's falling trajectory. Suddenly she detected a violent high-energy chakra reaction from behind the waterfall.

"What is..."

Before the question fully formed in her mind, the next second, the waterfall's curtain exploded.

Countless massive rock fragments scattered in all directions. A giant toad holding a disk-shaped shield got launched by the blast's impact, flying backward.

The explosion's shockwave swept over.

Her hair fluttered in the wind. She unconsciously raised her hand, tucking stray strands behind her ear.

Her Sharingan's powerful dynamic vision instantly locked onto the target. She caught sight of the giant toad's head, where a white-haired figure was being thrown along with the toad.

"Jiraiya?"

She tilted her head slightly.

If it was just white hair, she wouldn't be certain. But combined with that toad summon, she could basically confirm his identity.

"What's he doing here?"

If memory served, he should have already left the village to track down Madara's remnants.

Had the enemy infiltrated Taki?

After brief consideration, she decided not to make contact with Jiraiya for now. After all, she'd left the village without permission. Getting spotted by someone she knew probably wouldn't cause major problems, but it would still be awkward.

She looked up toward the position where Jiraiya had been blasted from, her Sharingan slowly rotating.

Then her body melted into the tree's shadow beneath her feet, rapidly moving toward the waterfall's rear.

She hadn't used Kagejin before because she didn't know the entrance's exact location, and forcibly blasting a hole would expose her presence.

But given Jiraiya's situation, a battle had clearly erupted inside Taki. Under these circumstances, she didn't need to worry about exposure anymore.

Honestly speaking, this chaotic situation actually suited her attempt to seize the "Hero Water" better.

Her shadow quietly infiltrated the massive underground cavity where Taki was located, then vanished.

---

On the inland lake's surface outside the waterfall, Gamaken slowly rose from the lake bottom.

The toad's current condition looked pretty rough. Its entire body was covered with large-area burn marks, and it seemed to have broken quite a few bones too.

Fortunately, there was no life-threatening danger, and his shield was still intact, just gained a few more cracks.

"Cough... cough..."

Jiraiya swam up from underwater, scrambling onto Gamaken's belly-up stomach with hands and feet, occasionally spitting out water.

"Sorry about that, Gamaken. You alright?"

"Don't worry about it. Just broke a few bones is all. But I won't be able to participate in the next battle, I'm afraid."

For the toads of Mount Myōboku, this level of injury really wasn't serious. Eat a few days of nutrient-rich meals filled with natural energy and they'd be basically healed.

Even if the injuries were more severe, they could just ask the Great Toad Sage for help.

"You head back and rest up properly." Jiraiya said apologetically.

"Sorry I'm so clumsy, and didn't help much."

Gamaken replied quietly, then transformed into a dense cloud of smoke and vanished.

"Jiraiya." Fukasaku patted Jiraiya's head as a reminder. "Your toad transformation is deepening a bit. Stabilize your chakra first."

Hearing this, Jiraiya immediately took a deep breath, slowly adjusting the restless senjutsu chakra in his body until it returned to stability.

Shima scratched at her curly hair, now tangled from getting wet, and couldn't help asking, "Pa, that was definitely a Tailed Beast Ball that just hit us, right?"

"Yeah. A compressed chakra sphere of Yin and Yang nature... definitely a Tailed Beast Ball," Fukasaku replied with drooping eyes.

Jiraiya frowned deeply, thinking about what to do next.

First, the Seven-Tails' jinchūriki had definitely turned traitor. That was beyond question.

Second, considering they could accurately fire two Tailed Beast Balls to bail out Hanzō, even if they hadn't perfectly mastered the Seven-Tails' abilities, they could at least manifest the tailed beast chakra cloak.

With that level of firepower combined with Hanzō, Jiraiya felt sweat running down his back.

His Sage Mode was actually something he'd only learned in recent years, and he still needed the two Sage Toads' cooperation to activate it. His Sage Mode's duration wasn't permanent. He could probably maintain it for another half hour or so before the two Sage Toads' summoning time ran out.

"Jiraiya, what's your plan? Before long, Ma and I will hit our summoning time limit, and then..."

Fukasaku didn't continue, but Jiraiya understood what he meant.

Basically: "Time to bail." After all, this wasn't Konoha where Jiraiya needed to stake his life defending it.

"It's not time to give up yet! How could I exit the stage so easily?"

Jiraiya smiled confidently, pulling out a scroll from inside his robe and holding it up toward the sky.

"Ta-da!"

Shima asked with some surprise, "What's that? Your secret weapon?"

"Yeah, you could say it's a secret weapon. But it's probably Konoha's secret weapon... wait, no, actually it's not exactly secret," Jiraiya said, getting himself confused. He slapped his thigh.

"Anyway, we're not at a dead end yet!"

Seeing Jiraiya's confident appearance, Shima sighed lightly.

"Seriously, if you had something this good you should've taken it out earlier. My hair got all singed and curled from that explosion."

"Uh, Ma, Jiraiya had his reasons."

"I'm done. Pa, don't you have any other lines?"

---

Kumo sat among the Land of Lightning's steep mountain ranges, surrounded by thick cloud cover on all sides.

Though built on mountain peaks, after years of constant expansion, the place was anything but small. It could be called spacious, had to be, to accommodate such a large population.

Some smaller hidden villages probably didn't even have as much area as one of Kumo's peak tops.

Usually Kumo maintained a calm, cloud-high atmosphere. But there were occasional exceptions.

Like today.

On one of the tall mountain peak plazas, four massive speakers were set up at the four corners.

Killer B held a microphone, throwing up a "respect" hand gesture with one hand, standing in front of a giant poster of himself while making final equipment adjustments.

Below, the area was already packed with quite a few Kumo ninjas. Obito looked around at the sea of people and complained, "This guy who only knows 'stupid' and 'bastard' is holding a concert?"

Shukaku, perched on Ryouma's head, nodded repeatedly.

"You're just hating for no reason, Obito."

Ryouma raised an eyebrow, pulling out the ticket Killer B had specially given him and pointing at the program list on the back.

"Like this time, Killer B's title track, 'Flame of Passion,' he performed it for me yesterday. It was pretty decent. Plenty of rhymes, solid flow. Don't be so harsh on rap, okay?"

As Ryouma spoke, he tucked the ticket back in his pocket, then bent down to pick up Kurama to prevent its tails from getting stepped on.

Obito pressed his lips tightly together. He'd been right there next to Ryouma yesterday listening to Killer B's so-called title rap. This really wasn't him being too harsh, it was just that...

"Man..."

He let out a helpless sigh and shook his head.

He looked up toward the center of the plaza where Killer B was enthusiastically fiddling with the sound equipment. Every now and then, B would shout into the microphone, "Yeah! Yeah!" causing the gathered ninjas to erupt in cheers.

"That guy's really full of confidence, huh," he muttered under his breath, though he had to admit that while B's rap skills were... hard to describe, his mental fortitude was definitely impressive.

Not long ago, he'd learned quite a bit about jinchūriki from Kushina. Normally, jinchūriki tended to be hated and ostracized because of the tailed beasts sealed inside them.

But things in Kumo seemed completely different. This Eight-Tails jinchūriki wasn't just not discriminated against, he was actually popular.

Following his principle of "when you don't understand, ask," Obito leaned close to Ryouma's ear and quietly asked.

Ryouma shot him a glance. Did this idiot really think he was some kind of magic conch shell?

Narrowing his eyes and organizing his thoughts, he coughed lightly and said, "This shinobi world values results. Most jinchūriki are despised only before they've fully learned to control their tailed beast's power. But once they grow up, if they use that power to complete difficult missions for their village and get some publicity, people naturally start accepting them."

"But then... what about Kushina-nesan?"

Obito seemed to think of something. He glanced at the fluffy fox-doll-like Nine-Tails in Ryouma's arms, hesitating to continue.

"Her case is different. The Nine-Tails sealed inside her has chakra on a completely different level from the other tailed beasts. Just trying to control that power is already incredibly difficult, let alone going out on missions for the village. Don't be fooled by how cheerful she always seemed. In truth, she could never sleep soundly. Every night, she worried that if her mental state faltered even for a moment, the Nine-Tails would try to erode the seal."

Of course, don't get the wrong idea. Ryouma didn't learn this by sneaking around Konoha with his Rikugan at night. Kushina herself had told him when she'd borrowed the sealing ink.

"Alright, you two," Kurama suddenly spoke up, glaring fiercely at Obito. "I had my own reasons back then. Stop digging up the past."

"Okay, okay, fine, let's drop it," Ryouma said with a mischievous grin, smoothly steering the topic away. Internally, he sighed. Guess no creature likes having its embarrassing history brought up.

Kurama flicked its tails in mild discomfort within Ryouma's arms.

Speaking of jinchūriki, it had actually contacted Gyūki just yesterday.

Originally, Kurama had wanted to suggest that Gyūki join their group of tailed beasts. After all, the "blue-eyed boy" from the Sage's prophecy was almost certainly Ryouma.

As the tailed beast with the second-highest number of tails, Gyūki was one of the few Kurama actually respected. So after discovering clues to the Sage's main mission, it didn't mind helping its fellow beasts out a little.

Of course, another big reason was this: if all the tailed beasts gathered together, Black Zetsu might not be able to resist showing up. Then they could finish him off early and finally reclaim their chakra.

Right now, the pitiful amount of chakra it had left wasn't even enough to outmatch that dumb tanuki. But to Kurama' surprise, Gyūki had refused its proposal.

Glancing back up at the stage, Kurama couldn't understand at all why Gyūki would rather stick around that loud, bouncing baboon of a human.

Soon, as more and more people gathered in the plaza, even A appeared among the crowd, accompanied by Mabui, exuding the aura of a mob boss.

Arms crossed and lips curled, he glared up at B on the stage, clearly displeased.

"That idiot. What does he think Kumo is, a concert hall? If the other villages hear about this, how am I supposed to explain it?"

Mabui, holding a stack of documents, glanced up from her reading. As the Raikage's secretary, she was usually quite busy.

Hearing her boss' complaints, she spoke up in Killer B's defense, "That's not exactly true, A-sama. Everyone's daily life is full of stress. Both villagers and ninjas need some way to relax and have fun. B-sama's concert actually provides a good opportunity for that. In terms of relieving stress, it's been quite effective."

"Tch."

A clicked his tongue in irritation, clearly dissatisfied with Mabui's answer.

This was Kumo, a village of ninjas. What kind of "stress" was she even talking about? Holding this kind of messy, chaotic event... anyone who didn't know better might think this was Yu instead.

Honestly, if B hadn't dragged Ryouma onto his battle wagon yesterday, he would never have approved such a ridiculous activity.

As he thought this, he silently decided that once Ryouma's visit was over and he returned to Konoha, he would definitely give B a heartfelt lesson through the power of his Iron Fist of Love.

Just then, a deafening bass blast boomed from the speakers, instantly silencing the entire plaza.

B stood proudly at the center of the stage, both hands raised high as he shouted, "Yo! Yo! Brothers and sisters of Kumo!"

"Killer B's stage is about to shine bright!"

"Yo! Yo! Are you ready?"

"Killer B's concert, let's go!!"

As his voice fell, four massive speakers erupted in unison with a pounding rhythm. B's microphone came alive with his signature rap.

"Put your hands up, move with the beat!"

"Killer B's rap'll take you beyond the clouds, oh yeah!"

The crowd exploded with excitement, waving their arms in time with the rhythm and shouting along with B's rap.

The entire plaza transformed into something like a massive music festival. The heat of the moment was impossible to resist.

Watching the scene before him, Obito couldn't help but facepalm.

"This guy's rap style is still as crude and straightforward as ever."

Ryouma chuckled softly, about to make a comment, but then suddenly froze as if sensing something. He turned his gaze toward the southwest.

Shukaku, whose attention had never really been on the concert, immediately picked up on its change in demeanor. Stretching out its nearly invisible neck, the tanuki asked curiously, "Did something happen?"

"Yeah," Ryouma replied simply. "One of my barrier seals was triggered."

Judging from the direction and distance, it shouldn't be Mei's area, which meant it had to be Jiraiya.

Back when Jiraiya had left the village to search for Nagato, he had given him a version 2.0 of his barrier scroll. Not only could it send remote alerts, it also contained a Flying Thunder God mark.

Given Jiraiya's status as one of Konoha's top veterans, there were very few in this world who could force him to call for help. That could only mean one thing. He'd made a major discovery.

The question was whether he'd found one of the Six Paths of Pain... or the real Black Zetsu. If it was a Pain body, then with the Yamanaka clan's mind techniques, they'd probably already extracted quite a lot of intel.

"Looks like he finally slipped up."

His lips curled into a faint grin. Jiraiya truly lived up to his reputation as Konoha's number one intelligence-gathering ninja. That warning scroll hadn't been given in vain, and it had already paid off with a surprise.