Chapter 63 - Jiraiya Struggles

Inside a fairly sized store towards the center of the village, Kagami was laying on his back as he was under a bench working. On a counter not far, Mira was eating chops watching as many walked by looking on in interest. Many which she just waved to keep moving as they just kept watching.

"Jiraiya should be here in a few hours." Mira said. "Hiruzen mentioned that he is dropping by the village for a few days."

"That's good. I need his help with how nature's energy affects a living person." Kagami replied.

"The legendary Sage Mode?" Mira asked. "If I remember, Jiraiya hasn't mastered it."

"Well, some data is better than no data. Not to mention I'm not exactly a fan of testing such a dangerous thing without a way to save ourselves."

Mira just shrugged since she didn't really have much knowledge on Nature Energy. She just knew due to her Grandfather talking to the First Hokage and Jiraiya Sage Mode. Other than that, she can't make much sense of Kagami notes as he tends to be all over the place and write in numbers anymore.

As for the numbers, Hiruzen suggested Kagami encrypt his information. So Kagami began writing most of his notes in numbers, so besides a bunch of zeros and ones. She couldn't understand a single thing from them anymore.

--

A few hours later, Kagami was inside his laboratory when Mira walked in pulling a man in his forties. The man had long white hair and appeared fairly tall and muscular. Though, seeing how he dragged on the ground, Kagami only guessed his height by the man's legs and torso length.

"I didn't expect Jiraiya to show up this way?" Kagami commented.

"Caught him at the hotspring." Mira grumbled. "Do you know how weird it is to see naked women hopping over the wall with towels in hands."

"No, but I'm willing to find out." Kagami rubbed his chin, until he saw Mira stare. "Just kidding."

"So I heard you needed my help for something." Jiraiya stopped struggling.

It is not that he didn't want to escape, but felt like he couldn't. First he found himself easily subdued by Mira and now before Kagami. His senses he honed over his years screamed it was impossible.

"You two certainly have gotten stronger since last time." Jiraiya said.

"It's been about seven years, hasn't it." Kagami answered him. "So what did you expect?"

Jiraiya just laughed awkwardly before coughing to change topics. "So the old man has told me you needed my help with something."

Nodding, Kagami motioned him to follow and Mira dragged him inside the laboratory. After having Jiraiya swallow a few nanobots and waiting a few moments to let them spread.

"I need you to activate Sage Mode." Kagami said as he turned a screen online.

On the screen, an image of Jiraiya appeared and a list of health concerns that nanobots are currently working on fixing. Most are from training or old injuries as well some natural age. However, one of the major health concerns was a certain organ and system.

"How many women have you been with in the last forty-eight hours?" Kagami asked.

"None, in my younger years, Tsunade hit me so hard I always had an issue." Jiraiya turned red as he told his dark history. "While it functions normally, it left my body in such a state."

Mira just gave a stare of not believing it, but Kagami just waved it off. He truthfully didn't care what the man did, hence he moved on. After all, he was more interested in knowing more about senjutsu than Jiraiya sex life.

After allowing the nanobots to run its course of healing. Since Kagami wanted the best data, he gave Jiraiya a quick fix. prepared the bots for data collecting at a push of a button.

"Alright, we are all set. Begin."

Jiraiya nearly fell off his chair at the bluntness, however he nodded. So he closed his eyes and began what Kagami assumed to be natural energy. However, after a few moments,Jiraiya seems to change his mind and bit his finger.

"Summoning Jutsu."

In a puff of smoke, an elderly toad with large white bushy eyebrows appeared. The toad wore a cape of sorts on its shoulders, while also having wrinkles. Clearly an old toad, but Kagami knew this toad was important.

"Why did you summon me, Jiraiya boy."

"I need your help for Sage Mode, Fukasaku." Jiraiya then went on to explain in a whisper.

It took Jiraiya a few minutes to convince the toad, but in the end he nodded. More because he was curious and soon, Jiraiya's features changed. His nose swelled up and warts appeared. While the red tear marks stretched down his cheeks while his hair became more wild.

"Interesting." Kagami noted as he looked at the data coming in.

From what he could see, Jiraiya's body is reinforced by nature's energy as it integrates with his body. However, since it wasn't perfect, Kagami noticed the energy seems to fluctuate greatly at times. Which showed some of Jiraiya body hardening almost like stone, but not quite.

"Interesting." Kagami said. "Well, try to hold out for as long as possible. The more data I can get, the better."

Jiraiya lightly nodded as he was told to help Kagami the best he could. Even if he felt this was lacking and didn't understand much of what was displayed. He continued his best while Fukasaku began chatting with Kagami.

--

After allowing Jiraya to leave, Kagami looked at the data presented before him. Not only did he get all this data, but quite a bit of information from Fukasaku. Not the old toad told him a bunch about their type of sage mode, but more about the broader sense of nature energy.

"Is nature energy really that broad as that toad said?" Mira asked.

"No." Kagami shook his head. "We don't need to sign a contract with one of the Sage Lands to learn it."

"Then why insist?"

"Maybe he didn't know or believe we could figure it out ourselves." Kagami shrugged. "Well, it's time for dinner, so let's head home."

"Ok," Mira smiled.