It wasn't the silence that haunted Jiraiya.
It was the quiet resistance.
Every time he tried to summon Naruto through the toad contract — nothing came.
No chakra recoil.
No denial.
Just absence.
Not rejection.
Disconnection.
The Toads had never seen anything like it.
Fukasaku sat at the edge of Mount Myōboku, fingers steepled, eyes narrowed.
"The contract still exists," he said slowly. "But it's as if... the other side refuses to answer."
Jiraiya stared into the wind.
Refuses.
Not can't.
Not dead.
Refuses.
He didn't speak on the way back to Konoha.
Not during the wind-choked ride over the trees.
Not during the walk through the familiar gates.
Not even when ANBU greeted him and tried to offer a report.
He just walked past them.
Eyes forward.
Heart burning.
Because he'd seen that kind of severed chakra connection once before.
The day Minato sealed the fox.
He slammed the Hokage tower door open.
Tsunade looked up, eyes bloodshot, papers scattered across her desk.
"Jiraiya—?"
"He's alive," Jiraiya said.
No preamble.
No soft entry.
Just truth.
Tsunade blinked once. Slowly. Then again.
Her hand trembled against the wood.
"Don't—"
"I tried summoning him. Tried five times. The contract still exists. But he didn't answer."
"Maybe... maybe it's a mistake, a delay, a—"
"Tsunade."
Jiraiya's voice broke.
"He's alive."
She sat down hard, knees hitting the edge of her chair, eyes wide, lips bloodless.
Then she laughed.
But it wasn't joy.
It was broken.
Fractured.
Like her lungs couldn't tell if they were crying or trying to forget how to breathe.
"Why didn't he come back?" she whispered.
Jiraiya didn't answer.
He couldn't.
Because the answer lived in his silence.
The mission.
The burden.
The years of calling Naruto "Jinchūriki" first and "boy" second.
The failure to see when the light in Naruto's eyes had started to die — long before Kakashi's betrayal.
"We pushed him too hard," Tsunade said suddenly.
"He was a child and we threw him into war. We asked him to be Minato. To be Kushina. To be a hero. To save Sasuke. To be strong enough for a village that never gave a damn about him until he bled for it."
Her hands curled into fists.
"Maybe now he's showing us what happens when a boy like that stops caring."
Jiraiya sat down.
He didn't speak for a long time.
But then, softly:
"You know... when Minato handed him to me... he said Naruto would change the world."
Tsunade looked up.
"I think he is," Jiraiya continued.
"Just not the way we wanted."
The candlelight flickered.
Outside, thunder rolled across the village roofs.
And for the first time since Naruto's disappearance...
Tsunade didn't sign a single paper.
She just sat there.
Staring at the photograph of a boy in orange.