Gamakon lay sprawled across Jiraiya's forehead protector, his purple skin glinting with an eerie luster beneath the curtain of rain.
He extended a claw to wipe the water from his face, his tone lazy yet carrying a chilling edge. "That corner up ahead... it should be about time, shouldn't it?"
Jiraiya came to a halt. His eyes, usually narrowed in a squint, opened slightly to reveal a sharp, piercing glint.
He didn't speak. Instead, he reached into his robe, pulled out a map, and made a show of examining it. In reality, the corner of his eye had already locked onto the seemingly tranquil woods ahead.
"Ah, according to your prophecy, those 'Lightning Brutes' from the Cloud Village should be lying in wait just up there."
Jiraiya tucked the map away, his lips curling into a disdainful arc. "Trying to scavenge for scraps at the border while Konoha is still reeling from the Nine-Tails Incident, or maybe just hunting a few Leaf ninja to take back as trophies... those guys sure know how to dream."
Before they had set out, Gamakon had told him explicitly: there would be an ordeal on the road to the Rain Village.
An elite assassination squad from the Cloud Village was lurking on their essential path, intending to intercept and kill Konoha shinobi to test the village's strength following the Nine-Tails Incident.
In the past, Jiraiya might have chosen to take a detour. After all, it was better to avoid unnecessary trouble since his primary goal was the Rain Village.
But now?
Jiraiya rolled his neck, the joints letting out a series of crisp cracks.
"It just so happens that kid Minato mastered his Perfect Sage Mode, and it's made me itch for a fight these past few days." He lowered his center of gravity, his muscles tightening in an instant as chakra began to surge through his meridians. "Let's use these unlucky bastards to test out our new man-and-toad tactic."
"Understood."
Gamakon gave a sinister chuckle. His purple body hunkered down slightly, and his belly began to pulse rhythmically. "Same old rules: I'm in charge of 'swallowing,' you're in charge of 'hitting.' Don't drop the ball, old man."
As they spoke, Jiraiya didn't slow down. Instead, he strode boldly toward the corner.
The moment he stepped into the shadows of the woods—
"Zzzzt—!"
The ear-piercing roar of thunder suddenly exploded.
Four figures blurred into motion like hawks diving for prey, erupting simultaneously from the canopy, the undergrowth, and behind boulders.
They were four shinobi clad in white high-collared vests, wearing Cloud Village forehead protectors.
Their coordination was flawless. Without a single word of wasted breath, they struck with lethal intent.
Four blades, wreathed in high-voltage Lightning Style chakra, locked onto Jiraiya's throat, heart, lower back, and legs.
Lightning streaked through the rain in four jagged blue lines, moving so fast that one wouldn't even have time to blink.
"Die! Sannin of Konoha!"
A predatory growl erupted from beneath the lead Cloud ninja's mask.
They had been lying in wait for a long time, betting everything on Jiraiya being exhausted and distracted after his long journey.
However, faced with this lethal encirclement, Jiraiya didn't even move to weave a sign.
He simply stood his ground, a trace of mockery appearing on his wrinkled face as he slammed his palms together.
Clap!
The crisp sound of his hands meeting was surprisingly sharp amidst the thunder.
Immediately following, a massive, suffocating wave of natural energy erupted from his body without any warning.
In the past, if Jiraiya wanted to enter Sage Mode, he needed to remain perfectly still for a long time and summon the two Great Sages, Fukasaku and Shima, to assist him.
But now, things were different.
Gamakon, perched atop his head, had begun frantically devouring the surrounding natural energy five minutes prior.
This purple toad from another world possessed a terrifyingly high affinity for natural energy!
There was no need to summon the two Sages.
There was no need to remain still.
Because Gamakon was the perfect 'External Battery.'
"Sage Art: Needle Senbon!"
Jiraiya's white hair hardened instantly, flaring out like the quills of a startled porcupine.
Whiz! Whiz! Whiz! Whiz!
Countless strands of hair, each as hard as diamond and infused with Sage Chakra, shot out indiscriminately in every direction with Jiraiya as the epicenter.
This wasn't a standard ninjutsu; it was an area-of-effect slaughter enhanced by Senjutsu.
Faster than Lightning Style!
Harder than steel!
"What?!"
The pupils of the four charging Cloud ninja contracted violently.
The Lightning Style Armor they took such pride in was like fragile tissue paper before these strands of hair infused with natural energy.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
A series of dense metallic impacts rang out, followed immediately by the dull thud of blades piercing flesh.
The four lightning blades were forced back. With no way to gain leverage in mid-air, the four Cloud ninja were instantly pinned like pincushions, screaming as they were sent flying backward to crash heavily into the mud.
Blood mingled with rainwater, staining the ground red in an instant.
"This... what kind of technique is this?!"
The leader of the Cloud squad was the strongest. He had managed to escape disaster at the last second using a Substitution Jutsu, but even he was in a wretched state now, his left arm pierced by several strands of hair, blood flowing freely.
He looked at the stationary Jiraiya in horror.
At this moment, Jiraiya's face didn't show the exaggerated toad-like features of the past.
His nose had only grown slightly larger, his eye markings had deepened, and his pupils had turned into horizontal gold slits. Aside from that, he remained almost entirely human.
This was the 'Semi-Perfect Sage Mode' facilitated by Gamakon.
While it couldn't quite match the flawless state of Minato, where no physical changes were visible at all, it was a quantum leap compared to his previous 'half-man, half-frog' appearance.
The most critical factor was speed.
No charging time; just an instantaneous explosion.
"Cloud Village brats."
Jiraiya lowered his joined hands, feeling the continuous, surging sense of power within his body. A grin spread across his face, reaching almost to his ears. "You should check who your opponent is before starting a fight. Are you people not updating your intel these days?"
"Retreat! The intel was wrong! This guy is a monster!" The squad leader made an immediate decision, clutching his wound as he prepared to activate the Body Flicker Jutsu to flee.
He had thought this was just a lone Sannin—someone he could escape from using Nintaijutsu even if he couldn't win. He hadn't expected to face a Tailed Beast in human skin.
That level of instantaneous chakra output was simply not within the realm of what a human should possess.
"Run? Did you ask for my permission?"
Gamakon sat on Jiraiya's head, a flicker of playfulness crossing his toad eyes.
He suddenly opened his mouth wide, aiming at the figure attempting to flee.
"Sage Art: Toad Oil Bullet!"
A jet of oil as black as ink erupted from Gamakon's mouth at a staggering speed.
Coordinating with this was the Fire Style Jiraiya had already prepared.
"Fire Style: Flame Bullet!"
Boom!
The oil fueled the fire, and the fire harnessed the wind.
The originally ordinary C-rank Fire Style, bolstered by Sage Chakra and toad oil, transformed instantly into a roaring dragon of flame.
Rain?
Before this terrifying heat, the downpour was vaporized into white steam before it could even hit the ground.
"Aaaaaagh!"
The Cloud captain didn't even have time to finish his hand signs before he was completely swallowed by the fire dragon.
The shrill screams lasted only two seconds before falling silent.
The remaining three heavily injured Cloud ninja watched the scorched earth, their will to fight collapsing entirely, replaced by nothing but endless despair.
Too strong.
Why was Jiraiya, one of Konoha's Sannin, this powerful?
He was completely different from the data in their files!
Jiraiya dispersed the sparks at his fingertips as his Sage Mode slowly faded away.
Although the overflowing sense of power receded, the excitement on his face could not be hidden.
"Amazing, Gamakon!"
He reached up and patted the toad on his head, his voice full of pleasant surprise. "That coordination was perfect! In the past, I needed the two Sages to help me gather energy for ages. Now it's this smooth?"
"Obviously."
Gamakon rolled his eyes and exhaled a puff of white smoke. "I'm the one risking my life to filter that natural energy for you. If you couldn't handle a few small fry with that, you might as well retire and go write erotica full-time."
Though he sounded casual, the high-intensity intake and output from a moment ago had left his belly feeling a bit sore.
However, the results were significant.
This 'External' Sage Mode might not have the infinite uptime of the fusion with the two Sages, but in terms of explosive power and startup speed, it was an absolute weapon in actual combat.
Jiraiya walked over to the surviving Cloud ninja.
The three of them were now scared out of their wits, trembling as they tried to scramble backward.
"Don't kill me... We're the Raikage's..."
"That's enough. Shut up."
Jiraiya cut off their pleas, his eyes turning cold in an instant.
Though he usually acted carefree, having lived through two Great Shinobi World Wars, he knew better than anyone that mercy to an enemy was cruelty to oneself.
Especially on a sensitive mission to the Rain Village, he couldn't leave any survivors to leak their movements.
"Gamakon."
"On it!"
Gamakon flicked his tongue out. The long, purple tongue snapped out like a sharp sword, tracing three elegant arcs through the rain.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Three muffled sounds later, the world fell silent.
Jiraiya looked at the corpses without the slightest discomfort.
He skillfully wove signs, summoning several small toads to drag the bodies underground, cleaning up the scene perfectly.
"The Cloud Village is reaching too far."
Having finished with the site, Jiraiya resumed his journey, his expression turning solemn. "If even their elite squads are out here, it seems the peace of the shinobi world isn't as stable as it looks on the surface."
"Peace?"
Gamakon scoffed. "There's no such thing as peace in this world; it's just everyone taking a breather. The Cloud wants to scavenge during the chaos, the Stone is waiting in the wings, the Mist is in a civil war... Minato's seat as Hokage isn't an easy one to sit in."
"True."
Jiraiya sighed, reaching up to press down the brim of his rain-soaked hat. "That's why we have to go to the Rain Village. The Akatsuki... Nagato, Yahiko, Konan... if that masked man Obito really is involved with them, then this world is about to fall into chaos again."
The rain grew heavier.
The road ahead became even more muddy and difficult to traverse.
But Jiraiya's pace became more resolute.
That brief battle hadn't just verified his coordination with Gamakon; it had allowed him to reclaim a long-lost confidence.
He might not have the monstrous talent of someone like Minato, but he, Jiraiya, wasn't so old that he couldn't swing a blade anymore.
"Let's go, Gamakon."
Jiraiya looked deep into the curtain of rain. In that direction lay the Land of Rain.
"Let's go see what's become of those ideals soaked in the rain."