Interlude 16
Naito Village
Jiraiya of the Sannin, Jonin of Konohagakure
Ryoma the Braggart. Jonin of Sunagakure, suspected ANBU. Participated in the Third Ninja War in a frontline position immediately after graduation, utilizing a wide variety of ninja techniques native to Suna including puppets, poisons, explosives, and ninjutsu. Key participant in the Golden Tea affair, and one-time messenger of critical strategic intelligence to Konoha.
Jiraiya kept his fists raised, even as he slowly stepped across the wide gaps between the earth pillars. Smart of the kid to counter his Underworld Swamp in such a way. Opposite to him, the Braggart slowly moved in a counter-circle, fists also raised in a firm and direct stance. Bundles of wood and metal stuck fast to various parts of his body, some sort of puppet contraptions.
Normally, a puppeteer would need to use their hands to control a puppet, and the Braggart's hands were occupied with holding onto the nasty gauntlets of his. These must be controlled in some other manner, but he didn't immediately see how. "Not going to try to stop me? I'm getting closer to the gourd, you know?" Jiraiya asked with a half-serious grin. "Didn't you say something about getting your Team Leader back and getting out of here?"
He really wanted to just outright ask what was going on down in Wind country, but they didn't give him a straight answer last time he tried that. Most recent intelligence indicated that they were being squeezed a bit by their Daimyo, but still had more than enough funding to last well more than a decade. With the Konoha alliance, they should be more open to missions in Tea, Grass, and Hotsprings. Furthermore, Minato had already confessed his plans to suggest more frequent shared operations to alleviate some of their funding issues and strengthen the alliance.
More than a decade of funding left at minimum and things looking up for them in the long term- why were they making moves into Iwa now? Jiraiya needed more info.
The braggart tilted his head, the eye-rimmed hat and glaring lenses over the pure white shroud giving him a distinctly creepy vibe. "The bomb has already been planted."
Jiraiya's eyes widened slightly, flashing down to see-
-nothing. He swung his hair around, channeling chakra through it as he did, and hands smashing into a set of seals. "Needle Jizo!"
A fluffy white barrier of iron-hard, sharpened hair covered his form just in time for another barrage of senbon to smash into it and bounce off. They had been fired from the blocky tubes mounted on his opponent's hips. One eye peered through the extended armor of iron-sharp hair, seeing the Braggart flip back to hang over the side of the pillar while pulling a scroll out of his vest.
The armor was new, from the last time Jiraiya looked at the kid's file back in Konoha a couple years back. He still wasn't sure of all its tricks yet. The giant fake Rashomon was also new- and Jiraiya knew it was fake because Orochimaru could summon the real things.
Sarutobi gave each of them one jutsu from the Forbidden scroll, a reward for something or another. Jiraiya had picked up his first Hair-Technique from that, Tsunade had picked something else that he didn't remember, and Orochimaru had chosen the flashy Rashomon gates. They sounded different on impact, metal instead of stone.
His hair slowly untangled from around his body, one long tendril snaking over to delicately grab the Toad Gourd and hand it over to him. He would keep the jutsu running, but it and Underworld Swamp at the same time was really too costly. He tied the gourd to his belt as the Braggart pulled back up from the side of the pillar he had been hanging from, three new stickbug-like puppets dangling from a set of strings on his left hand. The gauntlet there had folded back and locked over his forearm, leaving the hand free.
"All that just to pull some puppets out?" Jiraiya smiled. "I probably would've just let you, if you asked nicely." No he wouldn't have.
"No you wouldn't have."
Damn, this kid was good, huh?
"You should feel honored, Jiraiya the Sannin. You're the first person who gets to face my new and improved Bolters." The Braggart declared, gesturing towards him with a low fist.
"Oh yeah- what's new and improved with them, huh?" Jiraiya asked, cracking his neck and widening his stance.
"I added a canister of compressed air so they can hiss in an intimidating fashion." He declared dramatically.
True to his words, the floating, rectangular stickbugs started to make little hissing noises at him. Jiraiya stared at them for a few seconds longer, before raising a brow. "...Is that it?" He asked with an unimpressed tone.
"You'd be surprised how much mileage I've been getting out of it." The Braggart confessed, returning to a combat stance. "Ninja get jumpy when something hisses near their ears." The fact that he was telling Jiraiya this could mean two things. Either the statement was pure truth and the compressed air didn't actually do anything, or the compressed air was actually dangerous in some way. Either way, Jiraiya was going to be forced to treat it as a serious threat just in case it actually was.
Yeah, he could see how one could get some serious work out of that. "So I'm not the first one to face it, huh?"
"You're right, I lied."
Unexpectedly, the braggart twisted slightly, dodging the Shadow Clone swinging up behind him with a kunai. An unexpectedly swift turn spun him around before the clone could adjust its aim, and a gauntleted fist smashed into the side of its head.
Instantly, the Shadow Clone dispelled, shrouding the Braggart in its residual smoke. Jiraiya wasn't really surprised by that part- his arms were still feeling fuzzy from the hit the kid got in earlier. Like Tsunade handing out little baby lovetaps, the kid hit hard.
No, the surprising part was that he noticed the shadow clone's approach at all. He hadn't earlier, what had changed? Jiraiya jumped to the side, avoiding the handful of kunai that whizzed towards him, tags on their handles burning in the red flare-light. A moment later, they impacted the pillar he had been standing on and went off explosively.
He was forced to keep moving, as a rain of kunai laden with explosive seals followed him from three wide angles on the other side of the arena of rock pillars. The hissing of compressed air barely audible over the chain of explosions following his steps. If he remembered right, they liked to explode after someone got close.
He reached up to pluck a handful of white hairs, stiffening and sharpening them with chakra as he flipped over another line of exploding shots. His ears were beginning to ring from all the booms the braggart was throwing around. A quick toss, and a burst of improvised needles hissed through the night, smashing into the side and back of one Bolter.
Just enough chakra and damage to disrupt the storage seal at the back. It stopped firing kunai at him immediately. He checked around the area as he flipped, spotting a glimpse of another Braggart clinging to the side of the pillars opposite to him. That must be how he reacted to the shadow clone earlier- an extra set of eyes from an unexpected angle.
Another flip and two more tosses of plucked hair disabled the other two. The entire outer edge of the pillars had been destroyed in the process of avoiding the explosive rain, shrinking their area and forcing them closer to one another.
The braggart let the bolters slowly descend, settling them down gently on top of their respective pillars with a long and low hiss. Kid had a flair for the dramatics, huh? Jiraiya made a note to avoid those pillars.
"What exactly were you trying to accomplish there, kid? All you did was shrink the area." Jiraiya grinned, crouching slightly and getting prepared to move again.
"Shrinking the area." The braggart replied plainly, getting into a running stance faced directly towards him.
Jiraiya smirked, matching the pose. So he wanted to engage in a little bit of Taijutsu, huh? "You sure you want to get into a brawl with me, kid?" If he got up close, Jiraiya would just need a single opening to trap him with his hair or toss him over the side, either would end the fight entirely.
He would need to be careful of those haymakers though…
They stared at each other silently for a few long seconds, the flares finally about to touch the swamp. Once they hit, the night would return to its previous level of darkness. Five meters. Three meters. One meter.
The red light disappeared.
They met in the middle of the area, fists smashing into forearms as they struck and blocked simultaneously. A burst of chakra through his knuckles shattered the gauntlet and cracked the armor beneath- a technique that Tsunade could do much better than him. A rasengan would've just taken the limb off entirely- but that was a bit much right now.
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He grit his teeth feeling the impact against his own forearm, even through the layer of mesh and padding, needing to stick himself to the pillar below just to hold himself in place from the force. The Braggart was way stronger than a kid his age should be.
He twisted his hand around to grab the Braggart's wrist- the Braggart chopped the hand down and up to smash his knuckles into the crook of Jiraiya's arm.
Jiraiya's arm bent and his fingers extended, hooking onto the arm as he pulled back and raised a knee.
The Braggart collapsed forwards at the waist as Jiraiya's knee met his stomach. Jiraiya pulled back to-
The Braggart's hand clutched around his wrist. In defiance of any momentum, the Braggart rapidly spun on his heel, carrying Jiraya around and twisting down.
Jiraiya grunted as his back shattered through a pillar, smashing through layer of packed earth with his spine. He threw himself forwards into a handstand and up- his wooden sandals smashing against the Braggart's helmet with a heavy boom.
He flipped over in the air as he rose, readying a sweeping kick as he turned. Head knocked back, the Braggart was unable to avoid the kick, and-
-Immediately twisted, impossibly changing his momentum to avoid the kick and smashing his own heel into Jiraiya's side.
Jiraiya wheezed as he flew to the side, rolling through the air as he did, breath knocked from his lungs. The puppeteer was somehow puppeteering himself via that armor- changing his momentum and positioning almost in an instant. It was throwing off all the normal rules of hand to hand combat that Jiraiya was familiar with.
It was a pretty nasty trick.
He grabbed the wire before it could pull the Toad-Gourd away from his belt, twisting around and landing on his feet at the edge of the area, grinning as he did. A few pillars away, the Braggart's upper face exposed from the kick Jiraiya had just landed, having torn away his hat and goggles to reveal the hair, eyes, and bridge of the nose.
About half a bloodstained face stared at him, hair and brow soaked in sweat and a gush of blood covering one eye.
Jiraiya narrowed his eyes. "...Have we met before? You look familiar, kid." He could've sworn he's seen this face before.
The kid's eyes were pretty expressive, blinking at him confusedly. Where had he seen this face before? "I don't- I don't think so? Maybe during the Third War- I was told you killed my sensei at some point."
A flash of regret shot through him, followed by mild confusion. "...Did I?" He wasn't all that active on the Konoha-Suna front during the Third War. "Well- I'm sorry about that, in any case."
"Eh- It was a war and we were on opposite sides." The kid shrugged slightly. "I probably killed someone close to you at some point during it- I'd be a hypocrite to get upset."
…Man, what the hell were they teaching those kids down in Suna? That kind of apathy… He was glad the kid wasn't mad at him for it- but the kid should be mad at him for something like that.
"Anyways. I'm about to win, in case you wanted to just hand over the Gourd so I can run away first." The Braggart declared, raising a finger and pointing at him.
Jiraiya raised an unimpressed eyebrow. "I've known about your sand clone down near the pillars for a while now, kid." He tugged on the wire connected to the kid's thigh-mounted contraption. He was more than ready to deal with it.
"Oh?" The kid's eyes narrowed smugly. Layers of sand began to slough off his body. Jiraiya's eyes widened. "Then do you know about the poison gas that the Bolters have been releasing this whole time too?" The apparently-real Braggart jumped up from the side, hands flashing through seals and chest expanding.
Poison? He hadn't noticed any change in his performance so far. He took a quick sniff, immediately fixating his attention on the air around himself. But he hasn't been anywhere near the-
When he was smashed through the pillar. He ripped the wire towards him, attempting to snap it off the mounting. The distinct scent of…
…That wasn't poison. That was gas. Like a bog-swamp ready to blow- he hadn't noticed the sharper scent before thanks to his own Underworld Swamp already stinking up the place.
"Fire Release-!"
Kid had turned the region of the pillars into a gas-bomb. Jiraiya gave a little smile, letting go of the gourd to free up both hands. The kid immediately started to reel the gourd in, leaning back and unzipping his flak vest.
"-Fireball!"
Jiraiya finished his handseals before the kid did, despite starting later. A hot fireball came from the second Braggart's lips, racing down to the area near the first discarded puppet. Immediately after, it dissolved into free-falling sand. A bluff there- how was the kid going to protect himself in the middle of the blast…?
"Needle Jizo."
A shield of white needles completely surrounded him, closing in an impenetrable barrier. Just as it closed around his eyes, he saw the fireball set the air ablaze, and a seal revealed on the kid's chest.
Dharma-style dualistic fire-nature aligned chakra storage seal. One of those fire-eaters the kid had developed.
Jiraiya smirked as he was completely engulfed. A moment later, a deafening boom and sweltering heat enveloped him.
A few seconds later, his hair slowly pulled away from around him, massive scorched clumps of it falling out and into the swamp below. He was alone on the pillar- the other pillars blackened and scorched. The kid was… Jiraiya cast his gaze around, listening carefully.
…There he was, running away from the battlefield about as fast as he could, armor crumbling and jumps unsteady. Jiraiya briefly considered dismissing the Toad Gourd, allowing it to return to Mount Myoboku and thus maintain his hold over the prisoner, but dismissed the idea after a moment.
His goal was mostly just to protect the village, not capture or hurt either of them. He'd let the Gourd dismiss itself- once it was empty again. He stopped maintaining the Underworld Swamp, thus ending its 'sticky' properties and letting it return to being normal earth again.
Behind him, the immense fake-Rashomon disappeared in a massive burst of smoke, half-eaten by the chakra-rich swamp and leaving an immense space in the earth. A space that was rapidly refilled with surrounding soil.
"Not a bad performance for a kid, eh, Gamabushi?" Jiraiya called out, shaking out his arms and hopping across the shattered pillars over to the spectating toad. His limbs still ached from the beating they had taken, and he probably needed to invest in slightly more armor. Maybe another layer of mesh and thick kimono for the torso?
The puppet-suit there- it increased the kid's mobility, so it stood to reason that it could increase the Braggart's physical strength as well. That must be why he was hitting so hard- Jiraiya was actually being punched by a Jonin and a puppet at the same time.
"Indeed, Jiraiya-bushi. He will be a fine warrior in time." The immense toad rumbled, bringing a hand down and allowing him to jump up onto it. The toad croaked as he brought the hand up, letting Jiraiya jump across and sit on his head again.
"Still, an attack like this is really troublesome…" Jiraiya muttered to himself, rubbing at his chin. "I need to head over to Wind and ask around some, after this. What changed to make them so aggressive against Iwa here?"
"The hot winds of change, flows over sands and sunsets, shattering the earth." The old toad rumbled, planting the tip of his sword in the earth and slowly turning his head to spot any further attackers.
Jiraiya chuckled. "Right back to the haiku, eh Gamabushi?"
"It is the way of the warrior, cra-roak, cra-roak."
He laughed, leaning back on the toad's head and taking several deep breaths, filling his lungs with non-toxic air. As far back as… the very first moment, really- that's when the kid started setting up that final trap. Most ninja couldn't think that far ahead in the moment, it was a credit to his tactical ability to pull something like that off at all.
He frowned, crossing his legs, propping an elbow on his knee, and resting his chin on his palm.
He had seen that face before- but where?
"We'll remain vigilant over the village until Iwa ninja arrive to start defending it, alright Gamabushi?" He called out, reaching down to give the toad's head some heavy pats. "It'll probably be a few days, so sorry about that."
"No need, Jiraiya-bushi. This too, is the way of the warrior. Cra-roak."
Good old reliable Gamabushi. Always ready to spend days defending something with him.