Ch179. Jirayia in Uzushio 3

It took a whole week for Jiraiya to finally calm down his jumpiness after the sudden scorching welcome by the so-called Sun. A week he fruitfully spent marking every useful information about the accessible part of Uzushio he could get his hands on. He was Konoha's spymaster, after all! Even the creepiest and hottest scare of his life wouldn't be able to prevent his peeking tendencies from resurfacing.

Now, Jiraiya was sneaking through the dark back alleys of Uzushio, on his way to the closed-off parts of the village. He was perfectly aware of being monitored this past week. That's why he left a shadow clone with enough chakra to last for two days in his hotel room. Jiraiya had no illusions his shadow clone would stay there either. He knew it would not be even an hour later his shadow clone would go and try to find a pretty girl to flirt with. That too was exactly according to his plan, no matter he had no control over that marvelous quirk of his clones. This way, the annoying observers would see exactly what he wanted them. Him, flirting with somebody. Perfect alibi.

'All I have to do now is to sneak in, get as much intel as possible, and sneak out without being discovered and nobody can pin anything on me, hehe.' Jiraiya thought while sidestepping yet another of the hidden alarm seals that littered the back alleys close to the restricted areas.

He was already in the section in-between the restricted and the accessible areas, nimbly traversing the shadowed parts of the alley while using chakra to hide. Unfortunately for Jiraiya... that was where his little infiltration quest ended, for the Uzumaki clan was not foolish enough to leave easy-to-spot alarm seals all over the alleys without any reason.

Jiraiya's sight blurred as his body suddenly felt weaker, causing him to support himself with his hand on the nearby wall. His world spun before he was driven to his knees at the feeling of weakness. At first, Jiraiya thought it to be a genjutsu and tried to flare his chakra only to find out... he couldn't access it. His eyes briefly widened in panic before rolling back as the man's body powerlessly fell forward, unconscious.

Not even a second after his body hit the ground, two figures stepped out of the nearby shadows. One of them was the green-haired Sun while the other was Kaya Uzumaki who prodded Jiraiya with her foot a bit.

"This never gets old. They always spot all visible alarm seals and get cocky." Kaya chuckled. The thing that defeated the mighty Sannin was actually one massive chakra suppression seal placed in-between the accessible and the restricted area. Anyone who was entered, civilian or otherwise, would drop down unconscious because their bodies and minds would register them being near chakra exhaustion despite them having their reserves full. Actually, Kaya had no idea about its in-depth workings. All she knew that anyone who was not keyed into it would be incapacitated, hence no spy ever reached the restricted section. Well, there still was the threat of flying but considering the entire restricted section was under the same chakra suppression…

"You know that he would not spot this trap no matter how long he looks around. The seals are in the walls and deep in the ground. It's not really a matter of skill at sealing anymore." Sun, or more commonly known as Pakura, said as she took off her mask. She decided to come to Uzushio herself the second it was confirmed Jiraiya was skulking around... which was almost a month ago. Clearly, after this month, she held some resentment for the man because his presence kept her away from Rei.

"Yeah, you got a point... Still, it doesn't make it less hilarious how everybody so valiantly steps into the chakra suppression field only to keel over a second later. If they waited a bit on the edge, they would get out of it easily after recognizing something was wrong but they all just hurry and by the time they realize their chakra is acting weird, they have no time to escape." Kaya seemed almost wistful as she said that. "Uzushio is frankly impenetrable due to this seal. If only it could be made portable. We would win every single fight because our enemies would just drop unconscious."

Pakura snorted as she crouched near Jiraiya and started to look through his pockets, "You know that's impossible. Rei had twenty clones drawing seals for half a year in order to set up the chakra suppression field all over the restricted section of Uzushio. The thing requires far too many seals and far too much precision to make this portable... Oh, here it is!"

Pakura smiled at the small scroll she found and unrolled it, quickly reading the contents while Kaya busied herself with trying to discern the location of her ANBU guards. She was something like acting Kage of Uzushio so she knew they were somewhere around her but these ninjas trained by Ringo... honestly, even though Kaya prided herself in being chunin level ability-wise, she had not even smidge of an inkling of where exactly her guard detail was located.

'Maybe they ditched me? I would most definitely not even notice...' Kaya frowned only to be pulled out of her thoughts as her hand instinctively sprang, catching the scroll Pakura threw at her. Kaya's eyebrows furrowed, giving Pakura an inquisitive look but only got a 'go on' gesture in return.

Kaya swept the contents of the scroll with her eyes only to derisively snort after she was done. "There is nothing of importance. He found out exactly nothing in the last week of visiting brothels day and night." She rolled her eyes. Yeah, Kaya might have felt a bit of contempt for this so-called best spymaster of Konoha. Especially after seeing him 'at work'.

Pakura, however, had a different opinion, "You know I took you with me to give you a bit of a lesson." She sighed, her eyes gazing at Kaya in an admonishing way, "He did not find 'nothing'. He found out a lot actually. Sure, the information in that scroll is easily accessible to any spy who could be bothered spending some time snooping around the unrestricted areas. But with all the information he found out and categorized, Konoha ninjas will have an easier time acclimatizing in this village, giving him a bit of an edge over ninjas from other hidden villages. He mapped out everything from the best shops and their location to the quickest escape routes." Pakura lectured as a smirk appeared on her face, "And look! He even included all the brothels and his personal ratings. Isn't it just a delight to know your mother's Red Heaven is his personal favorite?" Pakura mentioned, knowing Kaya's opinion on the topic, and giggled at the peeved expression of the redhead.

"Don't expect me to be proud of that." Kaya huffed and angrily stomped her foot into the ground. She was not happy with this part of her mother's holdings. Far from it. No matter how good of an information network it provided.

"Alright, alright," Pakura shook her head in amusement as she put the scroll back into Jiraiya's clothes. "Don't get so angry with me. It was just a simple joke, jeez." She said as her eyes landed back onto Jiraiya's body, and her slight gentle smile slowly turned into an irritated sneer while her eyes narrowed in anger.

'Oh, boy…' Kaya somehow started pitying the white-haired man.

Frankly, Rei told Pakura to let it go and leave Uzushio to sort this situation with Jiraiya out. She... didn't listen. She simply could not. As someone raised on stories of the Sannin, someone who knew about Jiraiya's prowess in espionage... she could not calm down knowing he was currently in Uzushio. So... she personally went to sort the situation out.

The worst mistake of her month.

Jiraiya, to be perfectly honest, was an incredible spy. Three whole weeks, he preserved in probing and prodding the defenses of Uzushio from every possible angle, trying to find a way how to secretly enter the village. The first week? It was funny, hilarious even. The second? It started to become irksome. The third, however, Pakura had had enough of seeing his hundredth attempt without him getting the hint it simply won't work.

Thankfully, just as Pakura was about to decide to go and make eunuch from Jiraiya, the man finally realized he is not as good with seals as he apparently thought himself to be and stopped making an idiot out of himself by trying to deactivate the disgusting amount of detection seals around the village, placed there by the best Uzumaki seal-grandmasters in Uzushio.

Pakura's judgment might have been a bit screwed though. Jiraiya rightfully deserved to be called Seal Master as he didn't trigger even one detection seal in the three weeks he tried to get past them. Pilfering some knowledge from Minato who was taught by Kushina or not, Jiraiya was simply too inexperienced and didn't know the right techniques to do anything with Uzumaki seals. If one simply looked at his skill level and compared it with other non-Uzumaki seal users... then yes, Jiraiya was one of the best.

Alas, this was Uzushio he was trying to get into...

So... with Jiraiya unable to get in secretly, he opted for going in boldly. He walked inside through the main gate. Jiraiya actually briefly thought about disguising himself first but if the security seals around the village were any indication, he quickly determined it would not work, and being discovered would make everything worse for himself.

For that, Pakura respected his ability as an infiltrator and the sheer guts he showed by tackling this in such a straightforward manner. If this was any other village, he would probably succeed too since it took some time even for Pakura to notice the swap of the man with his shadow clone. Only a tracking seal she snuck into his pocket during her brief visit alerted her that the white-haired bastard in front of her was not the original and led her to the location of the real Jiraiya before he was knocked unconscious.

"Now... how to punish the man in the most humiliating way that would make Rei praise me." Pakura's eyes darkened and glinted in a peculiar way that made Kaya take a step back when Pakura turned towards her with a mischievous smile, "Hey Kaya... You said the brother of the Earth Daimyo, one of the five grand nobles of the Land of Earth is currently visiting the village, right?" Pakura's eyes started to hover over Jiraiya's unconscious form, narrowed in a catlike way with a bit of glee in them. "I wonder..."