Chapter 35
Naito Village
Ryoma, Jonin
Jiraiya of the Sannin, one of three legendary ninja who received their titles from Hanzo himself, for their immense achievement of actually surviving an extended battle against him mostly intact during the Second Ninja War. Student of the Third Hokage, previous leader of Konoha. Teammate to Tsunade and Orochimaru, both equally legendary ninja in their own rights, and mentor of the current Fourth Hokage, who may be the single most dangerous ninja alive.
"Genin- run to Pao-Pao Bridge immediately, do not stop until you reach it and link up with Jonin Tsubame. Complete the mission and return to Suna from there." Ryoma ordered harshly, hands immediately going through the seals to produce a sand clone. Dust from the previous clone swirled together again, reforming his shape. Four motes expended. Forty motes remaining.
Every name in that list was a S-rank ninja by an unquestionable margin. A monster capable of clearing entire battlefields of lesser ninja on their lonesome. Titans of chakra and skill that shaped the rest of the ninja world around their antics.
"But what about-"
"That was a direct order Genin!" Ryoma barked and glared, Sato immediately flinching back and then leaping away. Clone-Ryoma, Cloma, leapt forwards towards the source of the horizontal hurricane as the giant toad continued to loom in the distance. Ryoma reached into his vest-pocket and withdrew a chakra pill, immediately crunching down and swallowing the fruit, nut, and meth mixture. Almost immediately his reserves started to noticeably replenish, hypercharged by the drug.
Jiraiya 'The Gallant' was known for two main patterns of behavior. The first was his lecherous attitude, visiting whorehouses, spying on women's bathhouses, writing fairly popular smut-adventure stories, and similar. The second thing he was famous for was butting his head into missions and situations that had nothing to do with him or his village and immediately throwing himself into supporting one side according to his moral sense.
The second thing made him immensely frustrating for most villages to negotiate with. Ryoma whipped out his field-scroll, rolling it across the ground in front of himself and starting to unseal components. He threw his bulky outer jacket off, hurriedly grabbing accessories and locking them into place on the mk3's frame.
Cloma landed next to Captain Arada, who stood with iron fan unfolded, glaring at the giant toad in the distance. "...Jiraiya…" The old ninja growled, before glancing in his direction. "Jonin- where's the genin?!"
"I ordered him to evacuate the region and complete the last objective." Cloma quickly responded, withdrawing a pair of kunai in defensive posture. "The Kyojutsu has yet to be employed, employing it now will absolutely compromise its security now that Jiraiya has appeared on the field. What are your orders?"
Arada glared at the giant toad in the distance, before huffing. "We will attempt negotiations. If negotiations fail, be prepared to support me against the Sannin for as long as you can. Collateral damage will have to suffice for partial mission completion. Do not employ the Kyojutsu under any circumstances."
Ryoma was afraid he was going to say that. Arada leapt forwards, jumping twice and landing just to the side of the immense groove his wind had carved into the earth. Cloma leapt to follow, landing next to him in a crouching, ready stance. The immense toad leaned forwards to look at them, planting its toad-knuckles into the ground to kneel, still holding its massive sword, and tilting a huge eye down.
On top of its head, the tall, white-haired form of Jiraiya stood with one leg raised. Locked into a dramatic kabuki pose and grinning down at them, palms facing towards them and fingers splayed wide.
"Jiraiya of Konoha! Our mission calls for the destruction of this village! Do not interfere!" Arada boomed out, clearly abandoning the optional objective of secrecy in the process. He slammed the end of his iron fan down.
In many ways, Ryoma was very glad that Jiraiya was here, making his team leader abandon the need to totally wipe out the village to maintain secrecy. That meant he didn't need to deploy the Mk2 to stomp a small town worth of civilians to death. Not yet, at least. Perhaps ironically, the Mk2 was explicitly designed for that kind of work, built as a prototype for a model designed to annihilate the hordes of plant-zombies that were coming in the future apocalypse.
Of course, a design suited to wipe out hordes of plant-zombies was also very applicable to wiping out hordes of normal people, something that Ryoma didn't quite realize while designing and constructing it. Shame on him for not picking up on the fact that a giant puppet built to stomp armies to death and break through fortified lines would be useful for other things too.
Jiraiya being here meant he could avoid at least one more instance of that in his lifetime. Unfortunately, it also meant that they were likely about to get their teeth kicked in by one of the most legendary ninja to ever live.
"Haaaah?" Jiraiya boomed back, leaning forwards on the toad's head and raising a hand to his ear. "Is that Arada the Typhoon I hear down there? I thought that crusty old bastard would've died drinking his morning tea by now!"
"Interference in our mission can only damage the alliance made between our villages!" Arada continued with a booming rumble in his voice. "Are you prepared for that?!"
The legendary ninja pretended to consider that for a few moments, rubbing his chin with one hand. After several moments, he nodded firmly and shouted back. "I'll swing by Suna and apologize to your Kazekage afterwards- but this village has some really beautiful women! There's no way I can let you destroy it!" Then, the white-haired legend swiped his hands in a brushing motion down at them. "Run off and do something else, will ya?"
That declaration that he would apologize afterwards could very easily be taken as a direct threat. Arada's face was already hardened into a stony countenance. "...Assist me, Jonin." He declared, pulling his fan back. "Wind Release-!"
Cloma dropped his kunai and flashed through handseals. "Fire Release-!"
Jiraiya tapped a foot against the giant toad's brow. "Gamabushi- Water please!"
"Storm God's Sword!" Arada roared out as he swung his fan, an immense, howling tornado immediately twisting to lift and speeding forwards, deepening the immense groove in the earth as it tore its way forwards.
"Fireball!" Cloma called out, spitting a relatively modest ball of fire from his mouth and towards the massive, destructive tornado speeding towards the giant toad. Wind chakra strengthened fire chakra. Immediately the tornado was set alight, turning into a twisting column of fire that went from earth to sky and illuminating the world like a miniature sun.
Immediately, Arada leapt to the side, sticking to the shadows as he moved to flank around the giant toad. "Jonin- with me." He hissed out lowly, Cloma following immediately.
The immense, burning tornado continued to race forwards, tearing a burning line in the earth beneath it. The cheeks of the giant toad bulged momentarily. Slightly muffled by the mouthful, the immense voice of the toad rumbled over the sound of the scorching tornado.
"Water Bullet!"
A bolt of water, hundreds of thousands of gallons of it, was spat out by the toad, colliding with the bulk of the burning tornado. Almost immediately the world exploded into steam, both the burning tornado and the burst of water destructively cancelling each other out and shrouding the earth in their wake. Exceptionally good concealment for any ninja to operate it.
With a new vantage point, Arada twisted to swing his fan again-
He twisted again, leaping back and away as Jiraiya's sandaled foot smashed down on the rock he was just standing on. The boulder cracked loudly at the impact, slowly sliding apart as the legendary ninja rose back to his full and rather intimidating height before them.
"Gamabushi!" Jiraiya called out, tilting his head slightly to the side but gaze locked on them. "Prepare to intercept any jutsu that might hit the village, please!"
"Hmh. That is the way of the warrior." The massive toad responded, voice booming and earth shaking as it took several massive steps through the field of steam. "I will not resent a request such as that, Jiraiya-bushi."
"I'd really just suggest retreating." He continued, nodding towards them. "I'll kill you if I have to, but there's no need for anyone to die today. I'm sure this mission isn't worth your lives."
"This mission is critical to secure Sunagakure's future." Arada countered plainly. "For the sake of our future, I am more than ready to lay down my life."
"Something somewhere went seriously sideways if your future depends on killing a bunch of bystanding civilians and tempting another war." Jiraiya shot back with a deep frown and grumble in his voice. "What's going on over in Wind Country that something like this got approved?"
Arada responded with a much shallower wave of his fan, sending a buffeting wave of wind forwards. Cloma dashed to the side, tossing a handful of shuriken as he moved to flank.
Jiraiya leapt over the wave of twisting winds, hands flashing through seals as he spun into a kick to bounce the shuriken away. "Earth Release : Underworld Swamp!"
Cloma's eyes widened, and he immediately jumped as far up and away as he could. Arada did the same, rising high above the steam and twisting his fan beneath himself.
Beneath them, for hundreds of feet in all directions, the ground turned into noxious, bubbling mud. Trees and rocks almost immediately sank into the newborn swamp, the landscape itself clearing out into smooth and trackless bog. There was nowhere for him to land.
Arada caught his hand as he began to fall, swinging him up and around to stand on the fan as they glided over the immense black stretch of earth. A battlefield reshaped completely in a single jutsu.
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Cloma performed a long series of handseals, kneeling down on the fan and staring down at the shock of white hair on the field below. Jiraiya was standing on a lone pillar of rock, staring up at them with an unreadable expression from this distance, illuminated by the bright moon. After an eleventh seal, he called out his jutsu.
"Earth Release : Practice Brick Technique." A D-rank justu he had learned to diversify his lineup of techniques, the very simple jutsu took a section of earth within a fairly generous distance near the user and raised it in relatively fragile rectangular sections. Normally it was used to make walls for quick cover.
Below them, dozens of earth pillars rose from the otherwise inhospitable swamp in a four meter by four meter grid pattern. Arada flipped his fan around as Cloma dissolved into sand, falling out of the sky and landing on one of the pillars.
From the distance, more and more earth pillars began to rise out of the ground, letting a more-laden Cloma leap forwards upon them to cross the swamp and return to Arada's side. One hand burdened by a bulky gauntlet and the other occupied with carrying a trio of Bolters in the air over his head.
"Toad Oil Bullet!" Like an improvised artillery piece, the legendary ninja leaned back and began to shoot massive globs of oil out of his mouth, which arced through the air in a pattern that would saturate their position entirely.
Cloma's gauntlet folded back and his bolters dropped out of the air, biting a thumb and flashing through handseals. "Summoning : Rashomon!" Three motes expended, clone had one mote left.
Immediately they were engulfed in smoke, a massive earth wall appearing before them and rising thirty meters high. The wall was, in truth, an immense stone gate with its face carved into the shape of a demon's grimace. Something Ryoma made in mimicry of the real Rashomon Gates through the use of practice brick technique and a whole lot of time.
Using the jutsu to make a barrier this big would be massively expensive in the moment, to the point that summoning it in was tremendously cheaper. And once he had decided to summon in a giant stone wall, he decided he might as well blatantly copy the 'real deal' with his design. The real Rashomon Gates were either built or found by the First Hokage of Konoha, and Ryoma had no idea how to get his hands on a contract for those.
Fortunately for his purposes, a fake Rashomon was basically as good as a real Rashomon. Oil bombs crashed into the outlet face of the massive stone gate, even as the gate began to slowly sink into the dark swamp below. Keeping the 'splash zone' on the outer face like this would prevent Jiraiya from using it to set their scant 'safe' terrain on fire.
He caught his bolters before they fell into the mud, bringing them back up over his head and letting the gauntlet fold forwards again. "The objective is looking fairly untenable at the moment, Captain." Cloma grunted, eyes dating between the top and the side of the fake Rashomon as it slowly slid into the earth. Where was he going to attack from?
"He's utilized several high ranking jutsu already." Arada grunted, eyes narrow and body still as he watched the top and other side. "The longer this battle goes on, the greater the advantage grows in our favor. Simply endure."
Ryoma really didn't think they were going to outpace Jiraiya the Toad Sage on chakra capacity anytime soon, even if they weren't using as many expensive jutsu as he was.
Any further talk was cut off as a shape leapt over the top of the Rashomon gate, towards them. A hail of bolter-fire filled the target with poisoned needles, making it burst into smoke and reveal itself to be a rapidly-burning sphere of some kind. Arada swung a fan, a wave of wind carrying the sphere up and away just in time for it to explode violently in the air.
A blurring shape appeared around the side of the gate, holding a violently spiraling orb of chakra and shooting towards Arada's side. Arada fell back on his earth spire, barely avoiding the intimidatingly purring ball of condensed energy and swinging up and around, folding his fan as he did so.
The side smashed into the figure's underbelly, practically folding it before smashing it up through the air. Arada stabilized and unfolded his fan, ready to attack the-
-puff of smoke. A clone.
A second Jiraiya blurred out from the side, following shortly in the wake of the first with yet another ball of spiraling chakra in hand. A hail of bolter-fire deflected by simply holding the orb up and letting the sphere of energy grind thin metal rods to dust unheeded.
Arada swiftly leapt back, the spiralling ball smashing into the earth pillar he once stood upon and shredding it immediately, a wave of dust covering their little battlefield and obscuring them once more. Cloma fired bolters into the position until they ran empty, chasing the blurs in the dust and then sending the three disposable puppets forwards to explode.
A sound behind him. He twisted into a heavy haymaker.
The Toad Sage caught Cloma's arm and twisted.
Many meters away, Ryoma blinked as the second clone suddenly stopped existing. He rolled his shoulders and rose from his hidden position, as prepared as he was ever going to be. A layer of heavy black sand covered his form, and he began to run down towards the equally-dark swamp. He twisted himself sideways, jumping and landing on the side of the earth pillars before using them as stepping stones to race forwards.
Despite his regular use of jutsu, the chakra pill ensured he was still nearly full. A later crash was more than worth the current increase in battlefield endurance.
In the distance, another hurricane bloomed to life, kicking up waves of drowning mud and shredding the back of the Rashomon gate in the process.
He narrowed his eyes, continuing to race forwards and rapidly gaining visual clarity upon the scene.
Arada and Jiraiya were engaged in ferocious hand-to-hand combat, Arada using his immense iron warfan deftly to defend and prevent himself from being overwhelmed by the heavy hands of the much taller ninja currently bullying him into a corner of the spires.
He triggered the flare launcher on his right bicep with a thought and a twitch of his toes, sending a trio of hissing red stars into the sky to hang above the battlefield, illuminating everything clearly for many feet. The wind-shiki thrusters on his legs triggered with another twitch and thought, sending him racing forwards in one incredibly fast leap.
The Toad Sage glanced towards him, twisting into a kick that sent Arada flipping back to crash against the sinking Rashomon. A moment later Jiraiya had turned into a stance clearly intended to intercept him again.
"Don't block!" Ryoma roared, bringing an arm back and aligning his muscles with his frame. A pair of wires shot out from thigh-mounted attachments, grounding him to the rock pillar beneath the Toad Sage's feet. His thrusters twisted and fired again.
Just before impact, Ryoma's momentum had entirely changed, suddenly going up and over the legendary ninja's head. Jiraiya's eyes followed him up, widening as the intercepting stance changed into a hasty block.
Ryoma's gauntlet, heavy and built explicitly for punching things, crashed into the Toad Sage's crossed arms.
A blink, and a line of pillars shattered violently, falling into the mud as the legendary ninja smashed through half a dozen. Just before the final line of pillars, Jiraiya caught himself and swung around, unsteadily flipping up and righting himself once more. This left him completely open to Arada who would-
An iron fan smashed into his side. "Move, young fool!"
He hadn't been watching for an attack from his ally, of all people.
Ryoma flew back, wires dislodging and side bruising with the impact. He skipped over one pillar, then landed properly, swinging around to bleed off momentum. He coughed, focusing his gaze up-
-Just in time to see Arada ensnared in a warty tongue, thrashing violently as he was pulled into a little frog-shaped gourd. The gourd shook violently three times, before stilling as a cork slotted itself back into place on the 'mouth' of the frog.
"I'll give you one thing, you certainly pack a punch." The Toad Sage declared, wiping off the side of his mouth as he rose to his full height. Ryoma barely turned his head to face him, keeping his gaze firmly on the frog-gourd through the puppet-eyes that lined the side of his hat. "Your leader is currently stuck in my Toad Gourd Prison, however, and there's no way out of that from the inside."
Ryoma breathed out slowly, the distinct feeling of sweat on his temple and nerves in his gut as he rose again. New mission parameters, retrieve the toad-gourd containing his team leader and extract immediately.
"I'd offer to set him free, but I feel like that'll just start this fight over again." The Toad Sage continued with a grim look on his face. "And you- I'll be frank- don't seem strong enough to get through me and free him."
"No, you're entirely correct." Ryoma replied, rolling his shoulders and cracking his neck. "I'm not strong enough for that- I am, however, obligated to try."
Jiraiya stared at him for a couple seconds longer, before sighing and shaking his head, raising his fists. "I guess that's just how it is, huh?"
"I do, however, have to thank you." Ryoma continued, mind racing with ideas for how the fuck he was going to achieve this.
"For what?"
"For changing the parameters of my mission so thoroughly. I really wasn't excited by the order to kill civilians, so you showing up was pretty nice that way." Ryoma raised his own fists, slowly debating on if he had time to pull some bolters out. "Now, I just have to retrieve my Team Leader and extract as fast as possible."
Jiraiya narrowed his eyes, before letting a rueful smile cross his face. "I'll try not to beat you too badly, kid."
Ryoma had the feeling he was about to be beaten very badly.