10 Jiraiya-I

Jiraiya walked leisurely into the base and paid careful attention to everything he saw. Either someone else had beaten them to the punch, or they had intruded during some twisted experiment.

The walls were splattered with blood and the floor was littered with corpses, and he hadn't even started yet. Someone else had done it for him. He had already flooded the base with scout toads and was waiting for them to point him in the right direction.

Anko and Hana were accompanying an Anbu squad and scouring a different part of the base. The old man thought that such a force was necessary, but Jiraiya didn't think so. He knew that Orochimaru was spotted in a base almost a country away. Still, for a change, it was nice to have other people shoulder half the work for him. Ever since their team broke up, he had always worked on his lonesome.

He walked past numerous labs with dead scientists and experimental subjects and couldn't help but wonder whether this was one of Orochimaru's maniacal traps.

As he was inspecting one of the bloodied labs, he felt a scout toad dispelling. He burst into action the next moment, swiftly travelling to the location where the toad was last present.

Within a few moments, he was in front of a large laboratory. Inside the lab was the answer to why the base was in such a sorry state. The target, Shin 'Uchiha', was scrambling in a hurry, packing everything into sealing scrolls with one arm. To the side were discarded clothes, dripping with blood.

Shin stopped abruptly as one of his many eyes caught sight of Jiraiya.

"Jiraiya of the Sanin," he snarled as he took a defensive stance, ready for battle.

"Shin 'Uchiha' eh?" Jiraiya asked, making air quotes when he said Uchiha. "Are you sure that you aren't Orochimaru's kid instead? You look pasty enough to pass for one."

"How dare you make fun of the Uchiha? I will show you the power of the Uchiha clan," the deluded moron snarled as the implanted eyes throughout his body whirled in agitation.

"Sure, if you say so," Jiraiya sighed as he lost all motivation to ham up his own bit. There was no use doing so against this poor sap.

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Jiraiya looked at his opponent in pity. Shin was insane, there was nothing else to say about it. He was incredibly weak and had nothing going for him. The insane youth thought that having so many Sharingan implanted in him gave him some major advantage.

Shin was entirely dependent on his Mangekyo ability which allowed him to telekinetically manipulate his tools and weapons. There was no Izanagi that he had been warned against, no major genjutsu proficiency, and next to zero ninjutsu displayed. All he did was attack with the chakra scalpel in close range. When Jiraiya moved out of range, he was attacked by flying knives, which he quickly deduced to be Shin's Mangekyo ability.

It might have been enough to get rid of the scrubs in the base, but it was nowhere near enough to deal with Jiraiya. Maybe he would have gotten stronger later on. It was his misfortune to have come across Jiraiya at this point.

He was also missing an arm, which had been gifted to Danzo. All in all, it didn't take Jiraiya more than a couple of minutes to demolish his opponent.

"Give up kid. You were in the process of cleaning out this base and betraying Orochimaru, right? Come with me to Konoha. I can guarantee you that we'll smoothen things for you if you manage to give us information about Orochimaru," he appealed.

"The same village that branded Itachi Uchiha as a missing-nin? Never," spat Shin as a greyish barrier began swirling around him, centered on his right eye.

Jiraiya didn't wait for whatever jutsu it was and dashed toward Shin way faster than the teen could react. A blue sphere of chakra had already formed in his hand and was spinning rapidly.

As his Rasengan pierced through the spherical barrier, he could feel the jutsu trying to transport the contents of the barrier somewhere else. Alas, Shin seemed to be too inexperienced to instantaneously use the space-time jutsu. Before the jutsu could transport anything, the Rasengan slammed onto his torso and ground his insides to a pulp.

With a resounding crash, Shin was bodily thrown to the wall.

Jiraiya walked up to Shin and saw that his torso was caved in due to the Rasengan. He quickly checked the vitals and concluded that Shin was dead.

"What a nutjob," he mumbled as he went about sealing the body. For all his talk, Shin didn't know anything about the Uchiha. Or else he could have easily made this fight a massive headache for Jiraiya. But then again, a fake was a fake.

Jiraiya wanted to avoid killing him, but in a way, it worked out for the best. All the clans would have been up in arms if they saw a dude walking with multiple implants like Shin. Moreover, if word got out that they had someone whose genes would allow transplantation of Kekkei Genkai without any chance of rejection, there would be war.

He wondered how Orochimaru kept this quiet for so long.

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The journey back from the trashed base was quick and uneventful. They had rushed back at top speed since Jiraiya wanted to be there to help in case the fallout of Danzo's takedown was too much. It took them less than a day to get back to the village.

A toad was waiting in the Hokage's office to reverse summon him just in case they needed Jiraiya immediately. Thankfully, they didn't need to use it. He couldn't have brought in the rest of the squad with the reverse summoning, so he was glad to stay with them just in case Orochimaru popped up somehow.

"Hey Sensei," Jiraiya waved at his teacher as he jumped into the Hokage's office. Kakashi and Ichigo were already there, and interestingly, their usual postures were reversed. Kakashi looked fairly okay while Ichigo seemed absolutely spent.

"I see that you're back, Jiraiya. Sitrep please," said his teacher. The next instant, the hidden Anbu guards vacated the office and the security seals activated.

Jiraiya spent the next couple of minutes recounting his adventure.

"So yeah, that was it. The target had already trashed the base in his escape attempt, so we didn't get much out of it. We didn't disturb anything, so it would still look like he struck out on his own," said Jiraiya as he was done with his debrief.

"I won't count on it. We hit Danzo, Kabuto, and Shin at the same time. Orochimaru will not be fooled by anything when things are coordinated to this level. Without his spies, he wouldn't find out about Danzo immediately, but the fact that Kabuto went dark will spook him for sure. It's better if we expect him to connect the dots. I am not sure if this invasion will still happen or not, but it is better if we prepare ourselves," said Hiruzen sensei.

"Yeah, he is spiteful enough to go through with it. Anyway, how were things on your end?" asked Jiraiya.

"Things went as planned. I don't know whether it is a good thing or not. A part of me was praying that we were wrong about Danzo, but alas, I was too blind to reality. Danzo did everything we expected him to do. That didn't make the fight easy in any way, but Ichigo managed to do everything he promised to do. Once I was on the field, it was only a matter of time before we got him. I'll show you the battle later," Hiruzen sensei sighed at the end.

"So all your traps worked eh? Good job, kid," praised Jiraiya.

"I mean, I did test the anti-Sharingan measures quite extensively with Kakashi when I was developing it. And any seal that can break free from Yakumo's Kekkei Genkai can break free from practically any other genjutsu. It took a lot of time to make, but it was worth it," said the tired boy.

"I want to take a look at the seals later on," said Jiraiya. He had always been intrigued by Ichigo's unique approach to fuinjutsu. Using existing fuinjutsu techniques is always a matter of memorization, control, and practice. Creating new seals was a different ballgame altogether. Creating a new sealing approach was something practically unheard of outside the Uzumaki clan.

"Knock yourself out. Let me know if you can manage to figure anything out," the kid said with a smirk. Jiraiya grumbled in annoyance since he knew that it would be no easy task. He had tried to decipher the seals that Ichigo had made public, but he quickly realized that they were encrypted. He spent a good amount of time trying to decode it, but he hadn't made much progress so far. It did give him the idea to encrypt his own seals, so he'd take what he got.

"Also, nobody else spotted the Fire Chakra Mode, right? Your bounty will shoot up if Kumo found out about it," said Jiraiya.

"Nope. Only Lord Third saw me using it. And he already knew about it, so we can still surprise people with it," said Ichigo.

"Normally I'd want to let it be known that we had such a technique in our hands. It would be a good deterrent, but your Zangetsu alone paints a target on you, so I'd rather not… In any case, the age of us old fossils is coming to a close. I should never have sat back on this seat after Minato passed, but nobody else was ready," said Hiruzen sensei as he glared at him. Jiraiya shrugged nonchalantly. He was never one for such a huge responsibility.

"So how's the fallout? I need to check with my contacts to see how much information got out as well," said Jiraiya.

"It's bad. We found records of kids being kidnapped or coerced into Root, like Torune Aburame. They all need to go through intense rehab before we can even think of integrating them into the force. Some would be unsalvageable even... Many clans are pissed off already. The silver lining is that nothing about the Sharingan theft is known to the others. But his disgusting experiment with the Mokuton can't be hidden. The tree has already grown large enough. A lot of vegetation has popped up around it as well. It hasn't even been a whole day. I'm reluctant to cut it down though. It can prove to be useful for Tenzo."

"I'll check it out later with Ma and Pa. If the growth is as abnormal as you say, it might be a nexus for natural energy," he said.

"I was going to order you to do that anyway. Watch over Tenzo as he tries to understand how that tree came into being. I believe that his Mokuton will jump leaps and bounds if he figures out what makes it click. If he manages to realize his potential, we would have a strong shinobi protecting our village," said the Hokage.

"Yeah, I'll do it. We don't want him messing around with senjutsu unsupervised and turning into stone," mumbled Jiraiya.

"Good. I have Koharu and Homura under house arrest too. Depending on the results of the investigations on their involvement with Danzo, it would either be a forced retirement, or something more serious and permanent. I have been too lenient with my friends. Both of them are fired regardless of what we find out. I myself will retire after all this comes to a close," he sighed.

"So you've decided who will take up the hat?" Jiraiya asked.

"Not yet. This leads us to the next topic. Tsunade needs to know. She won't be happy with what has been done with her grandfather's cells, but she deserves to know. I'll write up a letter. Find her, deliver it to her, and bring her back with you."

"You sure she'll return?" he asked skeptically.

"I let her off the hook since she was hurting. But she has to see some things through. I know what to say to her. She'll be here," he said, looking way older than he already was.

"If you say so. Now what do we do about this?" asked Jiraiya, placing the scroll containing Shin's body on the table.

His teacher sighed once more despondently and got up from his seat.

"I had Ichigo seal up Shisui's eye. It's an incredible resource that I don't want others to know about. It also can't be used repeatedly without Lord Hashirama's cells. It will be our safety net against insurmountable odds. I have a key, Ichigo naturally can open it as well, but if we can't trust the person who revamped our village's barriers, then we are too far gone anyways. No offense my boy," he said.

"None taken, Lord Third," chirped the boy.

"Kakashi has a key since he knows how to properly use the Sharingan. He is the designated user for the eye if we ever need to unseal it. I will give you the last key. Keep it safe. I will hand over the master key to the person I crown as the next Hokage. Ichigo, please explain the mechanism to Jiraiya," he said.

"Well, as you can infer, the master key can open the seal on its own. The Hokage will have that seal key with them. The three lesser keys are there just in case the Hokage falls in battle or is unreachable during the emergency. All of these keys are needed at the same time to open the safe. Of course, none of these keys are physical. I will impart the fuinjutsu keys to the bearers and include sufficient anti-theft measures in them. The location of the eye itself will have several monitoring and arresting seals," he said.

"I don't know why you want me to use it, Lord Third. I can barely function with one eye," mumbled Kakashi, alluding to the chakra drain of the implanted Sharingan.

"Oh hush, Kakashi. You are one of my most capable shinobi. Moreover, this is where Shin's body ties in," said Hiruzen sensei.

"Wait, you want to use it?" asked a frowning Jiraiya.

"I don't want to stoop to the levels of Orochimaru and Danzo, but it will be incredibly stupid of us to not study how his cells work. No live subjects at all costs. And no desecration of any graves to replicate long-lost Kekkei Genkai. I'll only allow Tsunade to work on it. It's better if information about the corpse doesn't spread around. For now, we'll seal it alongside Shisui's eye. But if she can learn something from it, then we can find a way to reduce the chakra drain from Kakashi's implant. It'll be another boon to us."

Jiraiya pondered on that for a moment and nodded.

"It's a slippery slope though, Sensei," he said at last.

"That's why we won't be doing anything now. I will leave it to the judgement of the new Hokage. But I do want strict measures to be taken so that we don't let our greed get the better of us. I'd normally tell you to burn the corpse and be done with it. But a war is coming to our doorstep. I can't say for sure that other villages won't join forces with Orochimaru. We will be careful not to fall to similar levels of depravity. But if we can just facilitate successful prosthetics using these cells, I'll be happy with it. In any case, it'll be ideal to dispose of the body before war comes knocking. We don't want anyone to get their hands on this. It will be bad. Even if the clans within the village know of Shin, it'll be bad. We'll focus on prosthetic limbs and Kakashi's eye, nothing else," said Hiruzen sensei with grim determination.

"Alright, the sooner we burn this to a crisp, the better," said Jiraiya.

"Any chance that you'll take up the hat, Jiraiya?" Hiruzen sensei asked abruptly.

"No chance," Jiraiya shot back without hesitation. If there was nobody else to take the role, then he might have done it. But there was no urgency, and Jiraiya was happy with how he was.

Hiruzen sensei then looked at Kakashi and Ichigo intently before switching gears once more.

"Alright. Ichigo, I'll call you in the evening for the sealing. Take rest until then. Team 15 will be instrumental against Orochimaru's forces. Train hard. If any of you need any advice, come talk to me. You're dismissed for now."

"Yes sir! We'll be ready," saluted Ichigo as he left the office.

"Kakashi, the same goes for you. I want you to prepare your genin properly. They aren't ready for what's coming," he said.

"Yes Lord Third," said Kakashi before he too left the room.

"Jiraiya, are you sure that you don't want to meet young Naruto right now? Once we get busy with this, you won't have much time," asked his sensei with a disappointed tone.

Jiraiya froze for a moment as his mind began swimming with thoughts about Naruto. He was reluctant to take anyone under his wing. He feared that even meeting Naruto would subject the kid to the accursed prophecy.

In his mind, all his students so far had met with gristly ends due to the prophecy. Minato, dead. Nagato, Yahiko, and Konan, dead. He didn't have the heart in him to teach another youngling and then outlive his student. All of them shone brightly before the world snuffed them out. Fate tested them to see if they were worthy of the prophecy, and they all failed. The weight of the prophecy bore down heavily on him. He didn't want to subject anyone else to its nonexistent mercy.

But he knew that it was inevitable. From what he heard from his sensei, Naruto had grown up to be a kindhearted young man despite all that happened to him. He'd let the kid have his peace before he subjected his cursed presence on him.

"No, Sensei. A genin's life is something to be cherished. He'll never get this phase of his life back. Let him enjoy his youth for a little longer for now. I'll make him the toad summoner before the third exam, just in case," he sighed.

Hiruzen sensei scrutinized him for a few moments before he too sighed and shook his head.

"Okay. Let's get started then. I have a few tasks for you apart from the ones I told you about. We have an invasion to thwart," he said as he then pulled out a map of the village.

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A.N: First things first, in light of the recent decision by WN to force the readers to read on the app, I have a few things I would like to let you know. The issue was fixed but it's still better if you know. My works have always been in fanfiction . net under the same name. Recently I have moved over to SpaceBattles as well, so you can find the works over there if you prefer that. Just type the title of the book in google and you'll get those in the top results.

This chapter took a long time. Partly, I was burnt out. Just couldn't get this chapter to work. On the other hand, I just landed a new job and have to relocate to a different city. So, that is also taking up most of my time.

As for the chapter, the Shin fight was nothing spectacular as he is still young and hasn't gotten strong yet. It is a cakewalk for Jiraiya. Also, Jiraiya is traumatized due to all his students dying. He doesn't know that Nagato and Konan are alive. So here, he sees the prophecy as more of a curse than a boon.

If you want to talk to me on discord, please find the invite in the auxiliary chapter.