The forest's dim light stretched long, motionless shadows between them—Jiraiya, Naruto, and the two unexpected figures standing just ahead.
Sasuke didn't answer Naruto's call. Not even a flicker of recognition broke his face. His entire body language was wrong—there was no tension, no pride, no controlled anger or arrogance that usually accompanied him. Instead, there was a strange lightness, a casual dissociation that felt like watching a puppet whose strings were being pulled by someone else.
Sasuke turned his head lazily toward Kakashi, who stood beside him. His Sharingan remained dormant, but his eyes gleamed faintly red for just a fraction of a second as he spoke, his words unnervingly calm.
"If I catch Naruto…" Sasuke said, his tone disturbingly childish, "...will you treat me to a meat dinner?"
He said it the way a little brother might ask for a reward after running an errand.
Kakashi glanced sideways at him, his single uncovered eye narrowing behind the familiar mask—but even that eye, sharp and intelligent under normal circumstances, looked wrong. The relaxed, almost lazy air he always carried wasn't there. His voice, when he spoke, carried an odd calm that made Jiraiya's skin crawl.
"Yeah, okay. But be careful, alright? I'll hold off Jiraiya-sensei. We'll take Naruto to the old guy, Danzo. He's offering payment. After that, we'll have all the meat and sake we want."
He gave a small, careless laugh that sounded forced—empty.
"Let's finish this quickly, Sasuke. The others might arrive, and I don't want to share the reward."
For a moment, the forest stood silent except for the faint hum of insects and the whisper of falling leaves.
Jiraiya's expression darkened as the words sank in, while next to him, Naruto looked completely stunned—as if his brain couldn't keep up with what his ears were hearing.
Kakashi—the Hatake Kakashi, the man who'd served loyally under the Third Hokage, one of the village's most respected jonin, the point of contact Jiraiya himself relied on for intelligence—was talking about ransoming Naruto for meals and drinks.
And Sasuke, Konoha's golden prodigy, was agreeing in the tone of a child bargaining for candy.
"Wha…" Naruto's voice trailed off, lost in disbelief. "What are you guys talking about… ah—?"
Before he could finish, Sasuke blurred forward—a sudden, explosive dash that sliced through the air like lightning. His movements were too fast for Naruto's untrained eyes to follow, but Jiraiya reacted instantly.
The old shinobi's reflexes were still sharp despite his age. His leg snapped out in a brutal arc, catching Sasuke's momentum mid-lunge, and with one precise kick, he sent the boy flying back to where he'd started. Sasuke spun through the air, landing on his feet in a crouch that barely displaced the leaves.
He looked up, his dark hair shadowing his eyes. For a heartbeat, there was something almost clear in them—confusion, hesitation—but it vanished as quickly as it appeared.
"Old man Jiraiya," Sasuke said, his voice unnervingly calm again, "why won't you come back to the village? Danzo-sama's been calling for you for months now. He even offered you the Hokage's position—you'll have your place, your name, your respect. All he's asking is for Naruto to return to the village with us. We can all live together. Like a family again."
Kakashi nodded, stepping forward so that the distance between them closed by half. His chakra stirred faintly, creating subtle pressure on the clearing.
"Yeah, Jiraiya-sensei. Just come back with us. No one wants to fight. You've always hated that kind of thing anyway, right? You ignored the Hokage's summons multiple times—we had to do this. Orders are orders. Even I don't want it to come to this, but please... don't make us force you."
Naruto stared at them both, completely at a loss. The meaning of their words only half-registered; his heart couldn't accept what his ears were telling him.
"Wait—what? You mean the Hokage's summons? What are you talking about? And Danzo? He—he's not the Hokage! My grandpa—"
Naruto's voice broke, the rest choked by disbelief.
Jiraiya's face hardened, his sharp gaze frozen on his once-trusted pupil. His voice carried no humor, no trace of the man who once laughed in the face of danger.
"Hah… you brats are talking nonsense." He straightened, crossing his arms leisurely though his body shifted subtly into a fighting stance. "That bugger Danzo would never let go of being Hokage now that he's grabbed the seat. And the way you two are acting—your chakra, your words... none of it fits."
Behind his words, something old and dangerous awakened in his tone, something that reminded Naruto of what it meant to be one of the Three Legendary Sannin.
"As for me," Jiraiya added dryly, "if someone's offering me Hokage , I have already turned it down before and wouldn't want now too. I've got... other things to research. The next volume of Make-Out Paradise won't write itself."
His grin was tired, almost heavy, but he held it just long enough to signal Naruto not to panic.
"Why don't you hand me a note next time instead of this weird little play you've put together?"
Kakashi's eye narrowed.
"You really won't listen then…"
Before Jiraiya could respond, Kakashi's hands blurred through a rapid sequence of seal signs, faster than what Naruto could track. The motion was muscle memory—a sequence both efficient and deadly.
"Earth Release: Earth Flow River," Kakashi said in that same quiet tone he used to announce attacks that didn't need shouting.
The ground rumbled beneath Jiraiya and Naruto, cracking open into rippling folds of mud that turned solid ground into a slick river of sliding earth. The two barely had time to react before the world under their feet shifted violently.
"Sensei!" Naruto yelled, his arms flailing as he lost his footing, the sudden suction-like force pulling him down into the sinking dirt.
But before he was submerged, Jiraiya moved with sharp precision—his foot digging into a dry patch of ground, channeling chakra through his legs, and leaping forward in a motion almost like a toad springing from a rock into water. He caught Naruto mid-fall, grabbing the boy by his collar and pulling him free of the collapsing earth before bounding toward the far side.
They landed on a relatively flat patch of stone, mud splashing beneath them. Naruto stumbled but stayed upright, his grip tightening on Jiraiya's sleeve. His mentor didn't get the chance to steady him before the next wave of attacks came.
"Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu!"—Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!
Kakashi's voice echoed through the clearing an instant before a spiraling ball of crimson flame roared toward them, as massive as a wagon and blindingly bright against the twilight forest. The heat hit Jiraiya's face before the flames even reached them.
Reflex took over. "Needle Jizō!" Jiraiya slammed his palms together behind Naruto.
Instantly, his white mane expanded outward, hardening into thousands of needle-like hairs that curved around them like a cocoon, spinning until it formed a dense, metallic barrier. The sound of crackling chakra filled the air as the protective shell wrapped around both teacher and student. The next second, the world erupted in fire.
The great fireball slammed into the hair dome. The intense heat seared the surrounding forest, turning the air thick and choking, leaves and branches disintegrating within moments. Sparks rained across the clearing. But the barrier held—Jiraiya's hardened hair redirecting the pressure outward, splitting the core of the flame and deflecting it toward a nearby tree.
The redirected fireball collided with a massive oak, annihilating it in seconds, sending shockwaves that forced Sasuke two steps back. Ash drifted through the clearing like snowflakes, and the faint glow of embers painted everything in orange light.
Inside the barrier, Naruto pressed himself tighter against Jiraiya, coughing as heat seeped through.
"We're supposed to be fighting them?!" he shouted through the muffled roar. "That was Kakashi! Kakashi! Our Kakashi-sensei just tried to barbeque us!"
Jiraiya didn't answer right away. Sweat beaded on his forehead, his expression calm but calculating. He listened, the inferno dying into silence except for the distant hiss of burning wood.
Then he released the barrier. The hardened hair retracted, flowing back into its usual white mane. Naruto flung out his arms and stumbled away, gulping fresh air.
Outside, the ground was scorched, dark smoke curling upward from what had once been living forest. Kakashi stood where he'd cast the attack, one hand still lifted, his expression unreadable behind the mask. Sasuke had reappeared near him, his eyes tracking every movement with the predatory alertness of someone waiting for orders.
Jiraiya's eyes hardened. The light humor drained away, replaced by something sharp and deadly.
He wasn't just looking at his former comrades—he was assessing, calculating the chakra flow in their bodies. And what he saw confirmed his fears.
Their chakra wasn't natural. It pulsed unevenly, tainted, as though something foreign had rooted itself within their systems.
Naruto blinked, staring at the two people who had once been his heroes—his teacher and his rival—now standing as enemies.
"I don't get it…" he whispered. "This… can't be real."
Sasuke tilted his head, almost playfully. "Old Man Jiraiya, it'd be easier if you stopped resisting. We don't have to fight. Danzo-sama just wants Naruto safe. You can keep writing your weird books. Just… hand him over."
"Yeah," Kakashi added, his tone eerily measured. "You taught me better than this, sensei. You always said humans shouldn't be blinded by emotion."
Jiraiya chuckled hollowly. "Emotion? Kid, it's the only thing keeping me from knocking you both unconscious and giving you the beating you need."
Sasuke's eyes narrowed. "Guess there's no choice, then."
His hand reached for his sword, chakra crackling faintly around the blade like faint lightning crawling across its surface.
Before Naruto could even react, Sasuke lunged again, the air around him cutting from the sudden surge of speed. This time, Jiraiya didn't kick—he sidestepped with the agility of decades-long mastery, his hand pressing lightly to Naruto's shoulder to shove him backward.
The blade passed where Naruto had stood a second before, slicing through the remnants of Jiraiya's cloak instead of skin.
Sparks flew as steel met the invisible resistance of chakra thickened air. Jiraiya's counterattack came immediately—a palm strike, infused with enough power to knock a boulder flying, aimed squarely at Sasuke's chest. The boy twisted mid-strike, narrowly avoiding what would have shattered ribs.
"I see you haven't lost your touch," Kakashi said softly, walking forward while forming new seals . "But you're badly outnumbered, Jiraiya-sensei. You can't summon. You can't run."
"Never been much of a runner anyway," Jiraiya replied, smirking tightly despite the tension in his shoulders.
Kakashi finished his seals. Lightning crackled over his right hand, the familiar chirping sound filling the air—Chidori. Its glow carved their surroundings into stark black and blue shadows.
Sasuke mirrored the motion opposite him, lightning beginning to dance around his own sword in response, two blinding points of energy in the dark forest.
Naruto could only stare, caught between disbelief and terror, his voice almost breaking.
"This isn't right. It can't be right!"
Jiraiya's hand came up behind him, pushing him back deliberately but gently. "Stay out of this, kid. This isn't something you can fix with talk. These two—they're not themselves anymore."
The ground trembled beneath their feet as the two lightning users advanced. The forest, alive moments ago, felt hollow, the air charged with electricity and grief.
The next fight was about to begin.
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