Hearing the conversation between the two Rain ninja, a serious look crossed Jiraiya's face.
A god?
Could it be that the leader of the Akatsuki is still the so-called Demi-God, Hanzo the Salamander?
"Confess now, or I'll use my ultimate technique!"
With that, Jiraiya activated the Shadow Clone Technique.
In a flash, three copies of Jiraiya appeared, each holding a feather, poised to attack with… tickling?
"W-Wait… no, please… don't…"
The Rain ninja instantly began to panic.
Yoruha, watching this scene unfold, suddenly felt a deep sense of secondhand embarrassment.
If these were two beautiful kunoichi, maybe this would be tolerable… maybe even a little fun…
But two full-grown men?
Jiraiya! What kind of degenerate plan is this?!
Was this what happened when you couldn't compete with him in writing novels, Jiraiya? So you turned to this?
"Stop. Seriously," Yoruha said, stepping forward quickly. "Let me think of a better way before this gets even more disturbing."
Jiraiya turned to him with a smirk. "Oh? You interested in doing the interrogation instead? Here—these feathers are custom-made. They really do the job."
Yoruha's expression darkened.
Without hesitation, he smacked Jiraiya on the back of the head. "Old man! What the hell are you even doing?! I'm still a kid! Can you not do something so gross right in front of me?!"
Jiraiya flew backward, landing in a heap with a very familiar exasperated expression.
"Kid? Please. Like everyone doesn't already know what's going on between you and Sam…"
Still… it's enviable…
Then, Yoruha knocked the two Rain ninja unconscious with a casual palm strike and used a simplified version of the Yamanaka Clan's Mind Reading Technique to skim their surface thoughts.
Truth be told, when it came to information about Nagato, these two were practically useless.
Yoruha already knew far more than they ever could.
"Find anything useful?" Jiraiya asked, brushing himself off.
Yoruha gave a short nod. "Yeah. A few key things."
He shared just enough about Nagato and Pain to be helpful—mentioning shared vision and the absence of the real body. But he kept the deeper truths to himself.
After all, even these two Rain ninja shouldn't know more than necessary.
Vision sharing and no main body present—those two alone would give Jiraiya a massive tactical advantage.
"Shared vision and no real body…?" Jiraiya muttered, frowning.
That information was huge.
Could it be these two idiots were secretly more important than they looked?
No—just lucky.
"They share vision, so sneak attacks won't work. And since the real body isn't among the six, even if you defeat one, it doesn't mean anything. The enemy can use feigned death tactics to lure you in. You'll need to stay alert," Yoruha explained.
Pain's Six Paths were all relatively weak on their own—except for the Deva Path—but together, they were deadly.
They'd employ every kind of strategy:
Baiting and gathering combat intel through rotation battles
Draining chakra in prolonged fights
Faking defeat to land deadly counterattacks
Group seal formations and battlefield control
Mass resurrection as a backup tactic
It wasn't that they were strong individually—it was their coordination and unpredictability that made Pain so dangerous.
Tactics meant everything in this era.
So really, Jiraiya's death in the original timeline had nothing to do with lack of strength—it was because he got outplayed.
"…I get it," Jiraiya said slowly. "So what about Hanzo the Salamander? What happened to him?"
He still found it hard to believe that the leader of the Rain Village had changed hands so completely.
Jiraiya had fought Hanzo before—he knew firsthand how powerful the man had been.
"Hanzo is dead. Pain killed him," Yoruha said quietly.
Jiraiya's eyes widened.
Then he exhaled, long and low, and his shoulders dropped.
"Yeah… figures. No matter how strong you are, time catches up."
Even someone known as a demigod couldn't escape the weight of age.
"Yoruha," Jiraiya said after a pause, "the situation's more complicated than I thought. Let's infiltrate the village tomorrow morning. I still want more intel on Pain—this isn't enough."
Yoruha nodded. "Alright."
Even though he already knew everything, he couldn't just blurt it out.
So for now, he'd go along with the plan.
The two returned to the inn for the night.
Early the next morning, they quietly slipped out, successfully shaking the Rain ninja tailing them.
Jiraiya summoned a toad using his Toad Mouth Binding Technique—one that would sneak through the water system into the village.
The toad paddled through the current and emerged from a drainage channel inside the Hidden Rain Village.
Once ashore, Jiraiya leapt out from its mouth.
And almost at the same moment—
Whoosh!
Yoruha reappeared beside him, teleporting in using Flying Thunder God.
"Yoruha… something's off," Jiraiya muttered, frowning. "The rain here—it feels different."
Though it looked the same, he could sense it—the faint tingle of chakra in every drop.
"I've heard of this," Yoruha replied casually. "The Rain Tiger at Will Technique. It's a barrier jutsu from the Uzumaki Clan. The user mixes their chakra into the rainfall, so any intruder is sensed the moment they enter."
"The Uzumaki Clan?" Jiraiya raised a brow. "There's still someone from that clan in the Rain Village?"
The Uzumaki had long since been scattered and nearly wiped out. If this technique was being used here, it meant one of their descendants had survived—and was now helping the Akatsuki.
More importantly, if the technique was active… they'd already been detected.
"Relax," Yoruha said. "It can alert them that someone's here—but it doesn't give them our exact position."
Jiraiya nodded. "Then we should split up. Let's use contact toads to relay any discoveries. If one of us runs into trouble, the other will know immediately."
"Fine by me. But if things get ugly, call me right away. I'll teleport to you instantly," Yoruha said.
This wasn't an all-out war. Their goal was to gather intel—not destroy the village.
As strong as they were, going head-to-head with the full power of the Hidden Rain would be suicide.
So, splitting up was the right call.
And with that, the two vanished into the streets of Amegakure.