Chapter 171: Jiraiya's Shock
Especially now that the number of Communication Snails had increased.
Katsuyu's wish was to see more of the ninja world, and Dana was gradually helping her to achieve it.
According to their agreement, she could, at her own discretion, share the vision of the less-confidential little slugs, a kind of VR visual journey, following the ninja as they traveled the world, and even experiencing the various new and strange foods the little slugs ate.
This novel experience had quickly addicted her, and she now spent a large amount of her time playing "VR."
As a result, her already slow learning progress had recently declined even further.
She was already a bad student, and now she was addicted to games.
Lady Katsuyu, he thought, if you keep slacking off like this, when will I be able to bomb the entire ninja world?
Just as he was about to give her some extra practice, to have her do a few more worksheets, she suddenly froze.
"Yotsuki-kun," she said, "one of my clones has died."
He froze, then his face turned grim.
The death of a little slug meant it had either been killed or captured.
This was the first time this had happened since the Communication Snails had been introduced. It had to be taken seriously.
"Where is it?" he said, his voice cold. "Tell me in coordinates."
Her antennae trembled. She was clearly flustered. She fidgeted for a long time, calculating, her antennae spinning like a propeller.
After a long moment, she hesitantly gave him a coordinate.
He immediately opened a map and searched for it. The more he searched, the darker his face became.
"So," he said after a long moment, "one of my ninja is in trouble in the North Pole?"
"Oh, wait, Yotsuki-kun," she said, flustered. "I might have miscalculated. Let me try again."
"The situation is urgent," he sighed. "Just tell me the conventional way for now."
She was visibly relieved. "From the Hidden Cloud," she said, "about seven hundred li to the south."
"Due south?" he asked. "No deviation? And seven hundred li, so exact?"
"It might not be exactly due south. Maybe a few degrees off? And maybe a little more than seven hundred li."
"...Lady Katsuyu."
"Yes, Yotsuki-kun!"
"From now on," he said, "let's do more practice problems. Diligence can make up for a lack of talent."
"...Yes," she said, her giant antennae drooping to the ground.
In the Land of Lightning, three Genin, each carrying a basket of mushrooms, were walking down a mountain.
"Sensei said this mushroom is a very precious ingredient," a boy with a watermelon-bowl haircut said. "I wonder what it tastes like."
"Don't bother," another said. "I've already tried it. It has a strange taste. It probably has to be cooked to be good."
"That's no fun," the boy with the watermelon-bowl haircut said. "I wish you could just eat it raw. I've never seen this kind of mushroom before. I wonder what kind of restaurant sells it. Have you ever had it, Amemaru?"
"Meat is delicious too," Amemaru said with a sigh. "Why don't you eat it raw? This is called an Iron Ball Mushroom. You have to roast it. My dad and I had it once."
"Then let's roast some later. We've collected so many. I'm so curious what it tastes like."
The three of them were laughing and talking as they walked down the mountain. But as they got closer to the foot, they felt that something was wrong. It was too quiet. There was a strange feeling in the forest. Normally, Sensei Mihara would have already jumped out and scared them with her signature shout.
The knowledge they had learned in the Academy kicked in. They stopped talking and took out their weapons, cautiously moving forward.
A short while later, they found the unconscious Mihara under a large tree.
There were a few signs of a struggle, but they couldn't make anything of it. They rushed over and tried to wake her up.
"Sensei Mihara! Sensei Mihara!"
Just as they were starting to panic, a ninja suddenly appeared at their side. They jumped in fright, but then, seeing the Cloud forehead protector, they relaxed a little.
The ninja who had come to help looked at the unconscious Mihara, a grim look on his face. He had been on a mission elsewhere when he had received the distress signal on his Communication Snail. He had been surprised at first; this was the first time he had ever used it. He hadn't expected a comrade to have really been attacked.
This was the Land of Lightning.
He had the three Genin step back and then examined her, analyzing the tracks around them.
"A frontal encounter," he murmured. "The fight was short. The enemy used taijutsu to take her down."
He pried open her eyelids. "She's under a genjutsu," he thought. "Dammit! Her ninja pouch and Communication Snail are gone!"
To be under a genjutsu after being attacked was a very bad sign. It meant that the enemy was likely after information, or had already obtained it.
Though there were not many external injuries, he still applied a Healing Talisman to her, to suppress any potential poison.
Soon, three more Cloud ninja arrived. They had all received the distress signal from nearby. The fact that they had received it meant that they were all Jonin who had been equipped with a snail. One of them had even brought a Chunin squad with him.
"I was the first to arrive," the first ninja said. "It took me no more than forty minutes from receiving the signal."
The four of them exchanged information, their faces grim.
This was the Land of Lightning! This was the Cloud's territory!
To have hurt one of their own in their own territory... were they taking the Cloud for a joke?
Did they not know what it meant to be a victorious nation, the strongest of the hidden villages?
"Summoning Jutsu!"
One of them immediately summoned a ninja hound and had it sniff the area.
"Baki! Any clues?"
The hound, though it could not speak, understood its master perfectly. It sniffed the area and then pointed in a certain direction.
"Let's go!"
The four Jonin left a few of the Chunin and Genin to look after Mihara and then immediately set out in the direction the hound had indicated.
No matter who it was, they had to be caught.
In another place, Jiraiya was worried. He had easily subdued the young kunoichi in the previous battle, but he had not gotten the answers he was looking for. Instead, he had gotten an even bigger shock.
He had never imagined that the ninja world could have changed so much in the six months he had been training on Mount Myoboku.
Through genjutsu interrogation, he had learned that the strange snail shell was called a "Communication Snail," and that it was provided by the Hidden Cloud to its ninja. He had seen it clearly. It was the same as Tsunade's summoned beast, Katsuyu, just smaller. And the information the kunoichi had in her mind, that the snail could be used for long-distance communication, a function he had used with Tsunade's support before, had confirmed it.
But to his frustration, though Katsuyu should have recognized him, and all the slugs should have been her clones, the one in the snail shell had completely ignored him. And when he had taken it out of its shell, it had just dissolved and disappeared.
He couldn't understand the reason, but he knew that Tsunade might be in trouble.
But what had shocked him even more was what he had learned next.
Before he had left, just to get an update on the state of the ninja world, he had asked the unconscious Mihara what major events had occurred in the past year.
And the answer he had gotten was unbelievable.
The Joint Chunin Exams, the "Night of the Purple Moon," and... the death of the Third Hokage.
He had left the village after his teacher had chosen an outstanding Fourth, thinking that the village was in good hands. He had gone to Mount Myoboku to train.
And then all this had happened. Not only had the village suffered a great loss, but his teacher...
As the only contractor of Mount Myoboku, once he was there, he was completely cut off from the outside world. No one could contact him, and the toads didn't care about what was happening in the ninja world. He had not even attended his teacher's funeral.
He unconsciously clenched his fists.
His teacher's death was in the past. He could do nothing about it now. The priority now was to find out what had happened to Tsunade.