Naruto: Cthulhu: Ch. 263

"Hey, isn't that Haku? Haku!"

"Naruto! You're back!"

In front of Jiraiya, Naruto and Haku reunited like old friends, leaning in toward each other and exchanging greetings.

In fact, Naruto and Haku had briefly been classmates once, though Haku graduated from the Ninja Academy quickly and wasn't considered part of the "Konoha Twelve."

Back then, everyone knew Haku had come from another village to join the academy. As expected, he was ostracized by the other students, everyone except Naruto, who boldly approached Haku without hesitation.

Later, Haku's good looks and gentle personality won over all the girls in class, and most of the boys too, so he and Naruto weren't as close as they had been when they first bonded through shared loneliness.

Still, they remained friendly enough to chat when they met.

"Naruto, it's been three years since you left the village, right? Where have you been all this time?"

"Of course, I've been training! My strength now is way beyond what it was three years ago."

Naruto boasted without any modesty, which made Jiraiya sweat a little behind him, he began to question whether he had entrusted his power to someone too arrogant.

"By the way, Haku, why are there so many people on the village streets today? Did something happen?"

Haku looked a bit surprised at the question. "You don't know? The demon, Moryō, showed up."

"Moryō?"

Naruto was clearly confused, but Jiraiya's eyebrows furrowed slightly.

Moryō... Wasn't that the dark demon from another world that appeared six years ago? Could it have reappeared?

Jiraiya and Naruto had been in the Demon Desert investigating Orochimaru's intentions, so news from such a remote, uninhabited area was scarce. Jiraiya hadn't heard about Moryō's return.

"But don't worry, Moryō has already been defeated. The people on the streets are just celebrating," Haku added, easing the tension in Jiraiya's heart.

It seemed a lot had happened while they delayed their return to the village. Jiraiya made a mental note to quickly find Tsunade to get a full update.

Just then, Jiraiya glanced behind Haku and saw another young man.

The boy's appearance was average, and especially next to Haku, he didn't particularly stand out. But for some reason, he felt like he had seen him before, maybe even spoken with him.

Although Jiraiya was a well-known figure in the village, that didn't mean everyone had personally interacted with him. Very few people of that boy's age had ever had a direct conversation with him.

Even among Naruto's companions, very few had spoken directly to him, as he usually kept a low and mysterious profile in Konoha.

That strange sense of familiarity stirred Jiraiya's curiosity, and he asked, "Hey, kid, have we met before? Or talked at some point?"

He was speaking to the boy next to Haku, Kagami.

Kagami's heart skipped a beat, but he quickly responded, "I don't recall ever meeting or speaking with you. Sorry."

He didn't deny it outright but paused thoughtfully before answering, which made his words seem more believable.

Jiraiya didn't press further. He patted Naruto on the shoulder and said, "Say your goodbyes to your friends, we've got work to do."

"Alright then, catch up later. See you, Haku."

"See you, Naruto."

As Jiraiya and Naruto walked off into the distance, Kagami finally relaxed after that brief moment of tension.

He had seen Jiraiya before, and even spoken to him.

Back then, Jiraiya had stumbled out of a bar after a night of drinking, and Kagami had accidentally bumped into him and fallen to the ground.

Startled to see Jiraiya, he had instinctively blurted out his nickname, Toad Sage.

Though it was Jiraiya's well-known nickname, the problem was that Kagami had been too young at the time to have possibly known it.

Fortunately, Jiraiya had been too hungover to notice or question it deeply.

Now, years later, even though Kagami had grown up, Jiraiya still had that sense of familiarity when he saw him, and even recalled that they might have spoken before.

To remember the face of a random kid after a drunken night over a decade ago, Jiraiya truly lived up to his reputation as one of the Sannin. His intuition and recognition skills were frighteningly sharp.

But thankfully, that was as far as it went. Jiraiya didn't seem obsessive enough to chase it any further.

Now that he and Naruto had returned to the village, it signaled the end of Naruto's three-year training journey.

The three-year promise had come to an end.

Judging by Jiraiya's slightly rushed expression, it looked like he was headed straight to Tsunade.

Kagami was also curious about what Jiraiya would report to Tsunade after returning from his mission.

---

In the Hokage's office, Tsunade was busy reviewing documents when the door was suddenly pushed open without any manners.

Tsunade looked up, ready to yell, until she saw a long-missed face.

"Tsunade-baachan!"

Her face lit up with joy for a moment, but then she forced herself to appear indifferent.

"Oh, it's you, huh?"

"What do you mean, me? I came back to take on missions the moment my training was over!"

"Yeah, yeah, I'll assign you missions right away."

"Make sure it's the toughest one! I've gotten a lot stronger over these three years!"

"Sure you have."

Tsunade gave a faint smile, then turned to Jiraiya.

"Long time no see, Jiraiya."

"Yeah... long time."

The two exchanged a smile, and Naruto suddenly felt like a third wheel.

Jiraiya cleared his throat, pulled Naruto aside, and said, "Alright, you've reported in. Nothing else here involves you. I'll handle the rest myself."

"What? I can't stay? I have things to say to you too!"

"No need. I'll explain everything. You should go home and check in... and don't forget Sakura."

"Oh yeah! Sakura!"

Jiraiya's tactic worked, he used the mention of a girl to completely distract Naruto.

Once Naruto left, Jiraiya shut the office door tightly and finally asked the question that had been bugging him since earlier, about Moryō's resurrection.

Tsunade then explained the entire sequence of events, from Moryō's revival to his supposed defeat.

---

"How could this have happened?"

After hearing the full story, Jiraiya was deeply shaken.

The fact that a demon from another world like Moryō could die in a small country like the Land of the North was truly unfathomable.

However, since Jiraiya hadn't personally experienced this bizarre event, he couldn't fully comment on it.

"By the way, did you discover anything in the Demon Desert?" Tsunade asked at that moment.

Tsunade's question made Jiraiya momentarily put aside his thoughts about Moryō and immediately turn to talk about his discoveries in the Demon Desert.

"There are many ruins of ancient civilizations scattered throughout the Demon Desert. I suspect Orochimaru went there because of these ruins. That's why Naruto and I have been exploring them recently."

"Among them, I found a particularly unique ruin."

"The history of that place seems to far predate human civilization. The local guides couldn't identify its origins, and there were no inscriptions or monuments outside the ruins."

"It was a nameless city."

"In the temple at the center of those ruins, we found many coffins beneath the main chamber. Inside those coffins…"

"They were all Serpent Person, half-human, half-snake!"

"These Serpent Person were dressed in luxurious garments. Their coffins were adorned with precious metals, as if they had been lying there since ancient times."

"Beyond those coffins, there was a narrow wooden door."

"Opening the door revealed a completely white world. From that white world emerged an old man named Abdul."

"From the old man, I learned that Orochimaru had been there years earlier, and that he is a descendant of those ancient Serpent Person."

"Descendant of the Serpent Person?"

Hearing this, Tsunade was so surprised that she unconsciously repeated what Jiraiya had just said.

"Yes, that's what the old man said," Jiraiya confirmed.

Tsunade began to recall memories of Orochimaru from long ago.

Unlike herself and Jiraiya, who had only begun working with slugs and toads after establishing summoning contracts, Orochimaru had always been closely connected to snakes, even before entering Ryūchi Cave.

She remembered that the first creature he randomly summoned after learning the summoning technique had been a snake.

Even during their final parting, he was still raising the brown giant python from that very first summoning.

Could it really be that he was a descendant of the Serpent Person?

But what exactly were the Serpent Person? Tsunade had never heard her grandfather mention any such clan in the history of Konoha.

Still filled with doubt, she listened as Jiraiya continued, "I then asked the old man about his identity and Orochimaru's objective."

"He said one of Orochimaru's goals was to collect all the volumes of the Necronomicon, and the old man himself was its author, or one of them."

"Necronomicon?"

That obscure term reignited Tsunade's curiosity.

"Yes, the Necronomicon."

"According to the old man, the Necronomicon was written by the Alhazred clan. It records the ancient pre-human history of the world, uncovers astonishing truths about past events, and even predicts the future. It is the ultimate grimoire that runs through the fabric of this world."

"It also contains detailed records and interpretations of the Old Ones, those ancient gods we've always wanted to understand."

What Jiraiya was saying sounded insane, unbelievable even, but as Hokage, Tsunade immediately grasped the significance of the Necronomicon.

Until now, Konoha had encountered numerous inexplicable beings and events.

While efforts had been made to understand them, the investigations only scratched the surface, they could never uncover their true essence.

More importantly, the ancient archives of Konoha contained nothing that proved such things had ever existed.

Now, at last, she understood: those eerie pasts weren't beyond investigation, it was just that Konoha's history was too short, its records too shallow, to reach that far back.

The mysterious truths of the past had indeed been recorded, from a non-human perspective, in the eternally preserved Necronomicon.

And from the old man's words, it was clear that Orochimaru had visited the place years ago and had already begun collecting the Necronomicon even earlier.

This meant Orochimaru knew far more about these mysteries than anyone else in Konoha.

And going even further, could his theft of the Cthulhu statue and his defection from the village have been influenced by the Necronomicon?

"Could that be why he left the village?"

Tsunade voiced the speculation in her heart, and Jiraiya nodded knowingly. "I think that's a real possibility."

"Orochimaru has an extreme desire to explore and possess knowledge. If he obtained something that could overturn everything we know, he'd never share it, he'd leave and study it in secret."

The topic returned once more to Orochimaru, prompting Tsunade to recall something she hadn't yet told Jiraiya.

"By the way, after you went to investigate the Demon Desert, the Hozuki Castle was attacked by Orochimaru."

"What? He attacked the Hozuki Castle?"

Jiraiya was even more shocked by this than when he'd heard about Mouryou's resurrection.

"Why would he do that? Was it for the prisoners?"

That was his first instinct, after all, the Hozuki Castle held high-risk ninja prisoners from multiple nations.

But Tsunade just shook her head. She turned and opened a drawer in her desk, pulling out a letter and handing it to Jiraiya.

It was the second letter sent by the Kusa leader, issued under pressure after Tsunade demanded a detailed explanation of the event.

The letter explained the situation with the Box of Ultimate Bliss.

"What!?"

"Orochimaru opened the Box of Ultimate Bliss?!"

Jiraiya's eyes widened in shock at the words on the envelope, and he let out an involuntary shout.

He naturally knew about the Box of Ultimate Bliss, it was one of the Sage of Six Paths' tools, an ultimate weapon.

The thought of something that dangerous being opened by someone as unstable and dangerous as Orochimaru was terrifying.

But the following parts of the letter calmed his worst fears.

According to the Kusa leader, nothing had come out of the box except for one monster.

Orochimaru had killed the creature and then left. He took no prisoners, nor did he take the box.

Now, the Box of Ultimate Bliss had become nothing more than an ordinary empty container.