On the screen, the scene changed to another location in Amegakure.
Tendo Pain and Konan stood in the shadows. Suddenly, Tendo Pain abruptly turned his head, his gaze becoming extremely sharp, a cold light flashing through his Rinnegan.
Konan noticed his abnormality and asked softly, "What's wrong?"
Tendo Pain's expression quickly returned to calm. "Someone is disturbing my rain. This chakra... he is strong."
The screen quickly flashed through scenes of Jiraiya infiltrating Amegakure to gather intelligence, including the process of him actively chatting up beautiful women to obtain information.
Tsunade sat behind the office desk, watching Jiraiya's piggish expression on the screen.
And when Jiraiya on the screen looked at the hostess's chest with a lecherous expression, leeringly as he said, "Well Tezuna-chan, you look just like someone I know... Your names are similar too, so I couldn't help but request for you. It was well worth the long journey here."
Tsunade in the Hokage's office could no longer control herself. Her face flushed red with anger, and she suddenly punched the real Jiraiya in the face, sending him flying!
"Jiraiya, you bastard! I think you deserve it, you really deserve to die!" Tsunade's voice echoed through the office. Her fist was still trembling slightly, clearly from extreme anger.
Even after saying this, she was still furious. So she grabbed the teacup on the table and threw it at Jiraiya again. The teacup traced an arc through the air and precisely struck Jiraiya on the head.
Jiraiya clutched his head and scrambled up from the ground, smiling awkwardly. "That was the future me, not the present me..."
"The future you is still you!" Tsunade glared at him. "A leopard can't change its spots!"
Hiruzen watched his two disciples, who were already several decades old, still acting so unreliably, and helplessly rubbed his forehead, smiling bitterly as he shook his head.
However, this was just an interlude. Soon, Jiraiya, who had infiltrated Amegakure, found out that Hanzo of the Salamander was dead, that Amegakure was currently under Pain's control, and about the Rain Tiger at Will Technique.
Realizing that he had been exposed, Jiraiya quietly went to a certain hidden place, summoned a toad, carved a movement mark in advance, made preparations to retreat at any time, and sent the scroll toad recording the key to Naruto's seal back to Konoha.
Meanwhile, Konan, who was monitoring him from the shadows, had already discovered the identity of the intruder. However, she did not raise the alarm. Instead, as paper gathered, she quickly arrived beside Animal Path Pain.
"Well?" Animal Path Pain asked.
"It's Jiraiya," Konan replied, her expression somewhat dazed.
"I see... Jiraiya-sensei, huh?"
"How nostalgic..."
"What'll you do, Pain?" Konan couldn't help asking.
"He's not on our side, right? Then we'll kill him. It's far too late for regrets. And I came forth in this body just to kill the intruder."
[At this time, Konan still couldn't bear to let Nagato personally kill Jiraiya, so she chose to strike first.]
[However, as mentioned before, Jiraiya's Oil + Fire naturally counters Konan's Paper Release. So, in front of Jiraiya, Konan was easily subdued in just a few exchanges.]
On the screen, Jiraiya, controlling a middle-aged Rain Shinobi, quietly slipped into the dark and damp underground pipes, infiltrating the location of the Akatsuki.
But the moment he walked into the room, the Rain Shinobi controlled by Jiraiya was instantly wrapped in countless sheets of paper!
Elsewhere, paper condensed like snowflakes, transforming into a woman with fluttering blue hair and a paper flower on her head.
A paper spear formed in Konan's hand, carrying cold killing intent. She then fiercely stabbed it toward Jiraiya, showing no trace of the master-disciple bond.
"Fire Style: Flame Bombs!"
Jiraiya, as an experienced shinobi, had long since hidden his real body in the shadows.
A scorching fireball roared out, rushing straight at Konan. Under this fire release strike, Konan's body was directly dispersed.
"Toad Subjugation... Art of the Manipulated Shadow, huh?" Soon, Konan's body once again reassembled from the paper.
Clearly seeing who it was, Jiraiya was shocked inside, but his expression remained unchanged. "I was hoping to lure out a fellow named Pain, but little did I expect you to take the bait. You've honed your Jutsu magnificently. But even more, you've become quite a woman, Konan."
"I thought you had died... Instead, you turned into a flimsy sheet of paper."
"Who exactly is Pain?"
Konan did not answer. Instead, she used Paper Release to condense a pair of wings, flew into the air, and started shotting countless paper Shuriken.
Jiraiya flipped over and easily dodged the incoming paper. "Toad Oil Bombs!"
He raised his head and spat out a large mass of oil from his mouth, soaking Konan's paper, and then his white hair, like a waterfall, instantly surged and tightly entangled Konan.
"Can't spread your wings with all that oil, can you? You used to love origami, and were the kindest among the three kids. What became of the other two?" Jiraiya, seeing victory within his grasp, spoke up to ask.
"How are Nagato and Yahiko? I heard they had died. Were they just rumors too?"
Hearing that, everyone in the Shinobi World couldn't help but look somewhat speechlessly at Jiraiya. He didn't understand the current situation of his three disciples at all!
The rumors of death were true. Yahiko was dead beyond any doubt, and it was your Konoha's Danzo who had helped do the good deed.
On the screen, Konan, still in mid-air, lowered her head, unwilling to answer.
Seeing this, Jiraiya had a guess form in his heart. "I see... So this Pain is one of them, eh?"
At that, Konan finally spoke. "What's your purpose? Appearing before us after all these years..."
"I heard that you had died. I never expected things to turn out like this."
"I bet now you're thinking... that you should've done what Orochimaru suggested back then..." Konan suddenly said.
"You saved us instead. But it's too late now... We've embraced his ideology and made our move."
"I don't regret letting you live at all," Jiraiya replied. "But I'm so disappointed..."
"I taught you Ninjutsu to enable you to live through those harsh times. You were all, without a doubt, my students. The world may still be a cruel place, but to attack me without a greeting... This is too sad."
*****
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