After Sailing with the Pirate King, I Returned to Konoha - Book 3 - 176

Chapter 176: So, Art is...

"Sorry, Konan. You heard him too."

Jiraiya showed an apologetic smile to his former student, seeming somewhat embarrassed about the circumstances of their reunion.

But while he spoke, Jiraiya's actions weren't slow at all.

Palms together, head shake.

"Ninja Art: Wild Lion's Mane Jutsu!"

That head of white hair rapidly extended under Chakra's power, then quickly coiled toward Konan in mid-air.

Konan naturally wouldn't submit without resistance, paper sheets rapidly cutting toward the surroundings.

But no matter what those paper pieces touched, they would eventually be stained with ink, losing control and even having ink-formed thin ropes extend from them to bind Konan.

Even until now, Jiraiya still had no intention of taking Konan's life.

With no escape route and explosions being intercepted beforehand, Konan was experiencing such frustration for the first time.

It could be said that all her jutsu were completely countered by Jiraiya.

A teacher was still a teacher, after all.

The next moment, Konan's body was coiled by the long hair, then rapidly pulled closer.

On the other side, after severing the Asura Path's head, Naruto called out to Jiraiya and jumped into that large hole.

The situation down there was even more dangerous.

He seemed to have deliberately left Jiraiya and Konan alone together.

Konan had thought Jiraiya would bind her like this and take her back for interrogation about Nagato's whereabouts.

But unexpectedly, the dismembered Asura Path Pain was still functioning.

A severed arm hooked the ground with its fingers, then aimed its broken cross-section at Jiraiya's direction.

The next second, several sharp blades shot out.

Whoosh. The white hair was cut from the middle, and the Asura Path's head that had rolled to the ground spoke its last words like a malfunctioning robot.

"Ko-Konan... nan..."

This was because the black rods on his body used for transmitting chakra had already lost connection with the main body—like going from fiber optic back to dial-up.

Nagato could control the Six Paths of Pain at long distances, but this distance had limits.

To carry out missions across hundreds of miles, he had to bring Nagato's main body, this "signal transmission base station," along.

Therefore, Nagato's main body was currently inside a large tree made of paper, over a hundred miles from here.

The other five Pains were all rushing this way.

Although Nagato believed Jiraiya-sensei wouldn't kill Konan, Uzumaki Naruto was an uncertain factor.

He couldn't gamble.

He could no longer accept the cost of losing another companion.

Unfortunately, even though the Wild Lion's Mane Jutsu was severed, Konan still didn't flee after falling to the ground.

Because at this moment, her body was covered with dozens or hundreds of densely written characters: "Seal," "Sleep," and "Weak."

All her strength and chakra became stagnant water at this moment. Though she could sense their existence, she couldn't use them at all.

Konan even felt her thinking had slowed.

Jiraiya simply let down his hair, ink still dripping from the hair tips.

This was his use of hair as a brush, deploying the comprehensive sealing jutsu.

Without help from others, breaking free from this wouldn't be simple.

"Konan, just stay here obediently. I still have some things to ask you."

"I won't say anything."

Speaking this sentence seemed to exhaust Konan's last strength, her eyelids already closing uncontrollably under intense drowsiness.

Jiraiya went over to observe, confirming that the Asura Path Pain was completely dead this time.

But the more he looked, the more familiar this face seemed.

Jiraiya crouched there, stroking his chin, carefully observing this corpse, completely unaware that a figure was silently "growing" from the ground behind him.

Oh!

He remembered!

This person was a puppeteer he had once encountered during his travels.

Jiraiya still remembered this person advocated "fate need not be deliberately sought; people should calmly accept whatever fate comes."

Because of this, Jiraiya had even written him into his debut work, "Tales of a Gutsy Ninja."

So he died at their hands... Looking at it, this should be a human puppet made by Nagato using their bodies.

Why did you become like this, Nagato?

Just as Jiraiya was still silent there, Zetsu, who had "grown" from the ground, had already taken Konan and "submerged" back down.

But he forgot that Konan still carried Jiraiya's ink on her body.

The instant Jiraiya sensed it, he turned around, seeing Zetsu's half-black, half-white face wrapped by a Venus flytrap and Konan, who had already vanished without a trace.

"Ara, discovered."

Zetsu smiled with squinted eyes, seeming unafraid.

Jiraiya had no intention of showing mercy to others.

His hair swayed, ink transforming into countless blades shooting at Zetsu from all directions.

But before that ink could reach Zetsu, it was sucked into an invisible vortex.

The next moment, Obito wearing a spiral mask appeared from the void.

That crimson Sharingan looked over Jiraiya's body, then swept toward where Naruto had departed below.

Finally, he said nothing and retreated into the "Kamui dimension" created by his Sharingan before Jiraiya's next wave of attacks arrived.

With this delay, Zetsu had already departed with Konan.

In fact, when Nagato made this decision, they had already prepared.

According to intelligence Kisame had sent back, Uzumaki Naruto's strength was far beyond that of ordinary ninja. If underestimated, just Konan and one Pain body would likely fail.

Pain dying didn't matter, but if Konan died or was captured, Nagato would definitely lose composure, which would be very disadvantageous for his behind-the-scenes manipulation.

It could only be said that before collecting all the tailed beasts, Obito's concern for the Akatsuki organization far exceeded Nagato's.

Facts proved his prediction wasn't wrong.

This Uzumaki Naruto was even more powerful than Kisame's description.

Probably comparable to Minato Namikaze in his prime.

Having never truly fought, Obito's assessment of Naruto was still somewhat conservative.

If Naruto knew this, he'd probably learn from a certain elderly patient:

"Have you witnessed my full power?"

When previously hidden in Kamui, Obito had already seen what happened in the power room below.

So he immediately had Zetsu take Konan away and didn't plan to stay here longer.

Jiraiya still didn't understand what had happened.

At this moment, Naruto below looked at the large unknown mass before him with a somewhat subtle expression.

That was Shinnō, completely fused with Zero-Tails and having lost his human appearance.

Currently, only one face remained embedded in Zero-Tails' body surface, his limbs completely merged with the Zero-Tails' main body.

Shinnō seemed to have lost consciousness, his mouth moving but only producing meaningless gibberish.

But the increasingly swelling, destabilizing chakra around him gave an extremely strong sense of crisis.

Karin, who hadn't learned Observation Haki, just felt her hair standing on end.

While Naruto relied on Observation Haki, Sasuke used his "Disaster Sight" ability to observe the impending crisis.

"Karin, take them and leave first."

"This guy is about to explode."