Ryosuke halted his steps and turned back to ask, "What did you say?"
It wasn't that Ryosuke hadn't heard clearly. He was questioning Jiraiya.
"How do you even have the face… to say that?"
Jiraiya took a deep breath. "Ryosuke, you can't carry an injured person while chasing Orochimaru, and you definitely can't leave him to Takeshi and Mayuri. With their strength, they absolutely can't protect Sasuke."
The name Uchiha carried far too much weight.
An Uchiha who was alive, away from Konoha, and unable to protect himself, was enough to make countless bounty hunters and ninja villages go crazy.
"Also, "
Jiraiya pointed to the Thorned Crown on Sasuke's head.
"It's keeping Sasuke in a delicate state of balance. Any fluctuation could destroy that balance. If you bring him into battle, it'll kill him. Ryosuke, I know you don't trust me, but..."
Jiraiya lowered his gaze, fists clenched tightly.
"I want to do something."
Because he was Jiraiya, he had hesitated in the most crucial moment of the fight, allowing Orochimaru to escape.
But also because he was Jiraiya, he wasn't a purely self-serving, profit-driven ninja.
He still had honor in his heart.
That's why, even though Ryosuke was about to leave, Jiraiya took the initiative to shoulder the burden of protecting Sasuke, trying to make up for his mistake even if it was thankless.
Jiraiya waited in silence.
A few seconds later, Ryosuke gave his answer, "Fine."
"But I want to write a 'Protect Sasuke' command into your 'heart'."
"Until I revoke that command, protecting Sasuke will take priority over everything else, even above the Will of Fire that you uphold. Are you willing?" Ryosuke stared at Jiraiya.
It was a harsh condition.
Ryosuke had expected Jiraiya to refuse, but surprisingly, Jiraiya didn't hesitate for even half a second.
He nodded in agreement.
Ryosuke looked deeply at the unkempt man before him. The coldness in his eyes began to fade.
"Take responsibility for your own mistakes... not bad. You're a real man."
"White Snake."
White Snake still had its arrogant attitude, tilted head, chin raised, staring down at Jiraiya as if from its nostrils.
With one hand, it struck Jiraiya's body.
"Zzzka, kada!"
Like an old DVD ejecting a disc, Jiraiya froze, and two discs popped out from his face.
Ryosuke retrieved both.
One was a Ninjutsu Disc. The other was a Memory Disc.
Just as Ryosuke suspected, White Snake's disc extraction couldn't extract Jiraiya's years-honed physical strength.
In other words, physical capabilities weren't within the range of extraction.
For example, the Uchiha clan's bloodline limits, the Raikage's immense physique, or Sasuke's current chaotic energy state.
These couldn't be stripped using discs.
After confirming this, Ryosuke looked at the two discs in his hand.
If he wanted to, he could now spy on Jiraiya's memories, turn him into a puppet obedient to his every word, or even kill him cleanly and swiftly.
But the man before him had entrusted his life and soul to Ryosuke… for the sake of a single word, honor.
Ryosuke would never stoop so low.
White Snake inscribed a command into the memory disc.
Unlike Heaven's Door, which could engrave complex commands directly onto the soul...
White Snake's commands could only contain simple, clear directives. In the end, Ryosuke wrote, [Protect Sasuke.]
Then he reinserted the disc.
Jiraiya jolted, suddenly coming back to his senses.
He touched the spot where the discs had popped out, he didn't feel anything strange.
But the moment he looked at Sasuke, a deep impulse surged in his heart, "I must protect this child."
Even though he knew this impulse came from Ryosuke's power, Jiraiya couldn't bring himself to resist it.
"So this is a 'command'... it's just like..."
Jiraiya thought of the legendary Konoha genjutsu, Kotoamatsukami.
A power that controlled people's hearts, it was terrifying.
But more terrifying than the power, was the man in front of him.
Jiraiya could clearly sense, aside from the 'Protect Sasuke' command, Ryosuke hadn't taken the opportunity to inscribe a second instruction.
He had great power, but showed restraint. He could kill without blinking, but held reverence for life.
There was no shortage of strong people in this world.
But Jiraiya hadn't met someone like Ryosuke in many years.
"What are you thinking about?" Ryosuke's voice snapped Jiraiya back to reality.
He took Sasuke from Ryosuke, performed a summoning jutsu, and called forth a large toad.
"I'll go to Mount Myoboku and ask the Great Toad Sage for help. Even with the 'command'… I still want to say this, Ryosuke. Today, I owe you. If Sasuke gets hurt again..."
"I'll bring you my head."
Ryosuke nodded.
POOF!
Jiraiya, Sasuke, and the toad vanished together, heading for Mount Myoboku.
The village fell quiet.
Ryosuke looked around at the corpses and venomous snakes, sighing lightly, "Life… really isn't worth much, huh."
He reached into the pool of snake blood that had spilled from Kunitsukami's corpse and picked up the Dragon-Snake Pearl.
A dense stream of natural energy flowed into him.
In the previous battle, Ryosuke had unleashed his most powerful attack, shattering the barrier, slaying Kimimaro and Jūgo, and severely injuring Orochimaru.
He recalled the details of that moment, an immense flood of natural energy entered his body, and with the Ripple-enhanced physique already pushed to its limits, he broke through the boundaries of human capability.
To describe it, it was like transcendence.
If normal Ripple was the wave produced by vibrating cells...
Then this was a resonance at the foundational level. If he could grasp the principles and patterns of that resonance, 'Maybe... I can surpass the limits of humanity.'
Ryosuke stored the Dragon-Snake Pearl away.
Foundational resonance, he still needed time to explore it.
Even though he had seemed relaxed during the fight, it was incredibly dangerous. One misstep would've caused foundational collapse, turning him into a puddle of flesh.
"Resonance at the base level... is enough to force the curse mark's power out of the body. There's no need to go looking for Orochimaru at all."
"The only pity is... Sasuke can't master this ability.
Actually, anyone capable of producing chakra likely can't."
Once natural energy entered, chakra would cling to it, disrupting the delicate control Ripple required.
Ryosuke shook his head, stopped thinking about hypothetical scenarios, slung the Ruin Greatsword on his back, and headed in the direction Orochimaru had escaped.
———
[Three Days Later]
[Akatsuki's Underground Base]
On the fingers of the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path, figures emerged one by one.
Sasori.
Kakuzu.
Konan.
Uchiha Itachi.
Kisame Hoshigaki.
Deidara.
Zetsu.
And the leader, Pain.
Eight people, some real, some projections, stood atop the fingers of the statue.
In the dim, shadowy space, Pain's Rinnegan swept across the group, a chilling, oppressive aura of absolute control filled the air.
"Is this another mission? Who are we killing?"
Deidara, hands in his pockets, golden ponytail swinging, spoke with arrogance and vigor.
He and Kisame were the newest Akatsuki recruits.
Kisame was relatively composed, but Deidara was different. Freed from his dull village, with no one to control him, he now only wanted his art to explode across the world.
"Not a mission, punishment for a traitor," Konan said.
At the word "traitor," one name came to everyone's mind,
Orochimaru.
After failing to assassinate Uchiha Itachi, he fled. Akatsuki had been tracking him ever since.
But Orochimaru was unmatched in the arts of escape and hiding. To this day, they still hadn't caught his tail.
"You found Orochimaru's trail?" Kisame asked.
He was Itachi's new partner, and curious about his "predecessor."
"We did," Konan said.
"He's currently being hunted down by Ryosuke and has fled to the Land of Fields."
'Ryosuke?!'
The Akatsuki members reacted with surprise.
Deidara's eyes lit up.
Uchiha Itachi's brows furrowed slightly.
Even the always stone-faced Sasori showed a flicker of interest.
Pain's cold voice echoed, "Bring back Orochimaru, and Ryosuke. Who will go?"
"I will."
Uchiha Itachi said, "My genjutsu can counter all of his abilities."
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