Sasuke and Kakashi moved in perfect unison, it was like coordination born of years of familiarity. Their chakra signatures synchronized like a practiced formation, seamless and cold. Without needing a signal, both lunged forward. Sasuke's Sharingan swirled to life, spinning fiercely with anticipation, his hand crackling violently with Chidori, while Kakashi mirrored his student's movements.
Two streaks of blue lightning charged toward the teacher and the boy under his protection.
Jiraiya had barely landed on solid ground after deflecting the last fireball when he felt it—a sharp spike in killing intent, followed by the telltale electrical hum of lightning chakra being condensed. His instincts overrode thought.
He grabbed Naruto by the shoulder, shoving him down onto the ground behind him. "Stay low, kid!"
His hands flew through seals. "Earth Release: Mud Wall!"
The earth rose immediately in a rough circle, walls snapping up to form a half-dome around them, the texture still soft and slick with chakra. Sparks of Chidori slammed into it a heartbeat later—the impact shook the entire barrier, molten cracks glowing for an instant before sealing again. Naruto gasped, ducking as tiny shards of rock rained down.
The world outside exploded with sound and pressure, the deep grinding echo of colliding chakra rippling through the forest.
Inside the dome, Jiraiya exhaled heavily, body angled defensively over Naruto.
"Oi, brats," he called through the barrier's echoing walls, his voice half-irritated, half-genuine disbelief. "Why are you attacking me if you want me to come back to the village? I was going to return anyway! I was just teasing you guys—don't you know your old sensei?"
There was a pause. Then Sasuke's muffled voice, confused and suspicious, came through. "Really? You'd come back—"
But before he could finish, the mud dome shuddered again, and part of the earth slid downward like sand. The next second, the larger dome shattered completely.
Inside, a smaller mud dome suddenly rose from the shifting ground—layers of earth chakra folding over each other in a spiraling motion, forming a dense, cocoon-like chamber. Within it, Naruto was safely sealed away, separated from the battlefield. The barrier shimmered faintly with fūinjutsu lines—proof that Jiraiya had locked it down. Now, he could fight without holding back.
The shards of earth fell away like broken shells, revealing Kakashi and Sasuke standing just a few meters away.
"Well then," Jiraiya growled under his breath, "enough games."
He weaved through seals faster than thought. "Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!"
The giant flame that erupted from his mouth roared across the clearing, engulfing both Kakashi and Sasuke's location. The heat seared the ground black, forcing both shinobi to separate. Fire illuminated the expressions on their faces—familiar, but empty, the kind of void that made Jiraiya's heart twist with unease.
Not wasting a moment, Jiraiya stomped the earth beneath him, focusing chakra into his soles. "Earth Release: Earth-Style Pillar."
The ground cracked, groaned, and shot upward, launching both him and the mud-encased dome in which Naruto was in high into the air. The pillar extended meters at a time, rising above the tree canopy. The height gave him a momentary vantage over the battlefield, but it also exposed something else. There—behind the flames and smoke of the scorched clearing—stood a third figure.
The unknown presence hadn't moved throughout the fight. They'd been standing back the entire time, watching. Even from this angle, Jiraiya could tell—the figure wasn't ordinary. The chakra emanating from them was restrained, but deep, controlled … dangerous.
Jiraiya squinted, focusing his senses while the wind whipped at his robes. "So… you're the one pulling the strings here," he murmured.
He didn't get much time to analyze. The base of the pillar below him began to shift, turning unnaturally soft.
Kakashi had already reacted. Forming quick seals while crouched, he slammed his palm into the ground.
"Earth Release: Swamp of the Underworld!"
"Earth Release again…" he muttered.
The terrain near the base transformed instantly into a viscous swamp, sucking at the bottom of the pillar like it was devouring the earth itself. The structure couldn't hold under the shifting density—cracks split across it as gravity reclaimed balance. The tall column began to tilt, then fell sideways like a collapsing tower.
"Hold on, kid!" Jiraiya shouted, springing into action. But as he turned, he realized the smaller mud dome—the one holding Naruto—had cracked... then vanished completely.
Naruto was in mid-air falling , " aaAhhhhh !" Naruto started screaming.
A puff of mist rose where it he had been.
Smoke.
"Damn it! Kid—now of all times?" Jiraiya muttered, glaring at the spot where the clone had just vanished, irritation clear in his voice.
It wasn't the real Naruto.
The real one hadn't been there, but since when.
"A clone…" the masked figure said aloud, his stomach sinking
A Cold, furious voice broke the silence.
Jiraiya turned mid-air to locate the speaker, eyes narrowing as the pillar finally broke apart beneath him. He barely managed to adjust his landing trajectory, flipping backward while forming replacement seals.
Meanwhile, a group of cloaked figures positioned themselves at the four corners of the forest. Their hands moved in perfect synchronization, forming rapid seals before slamming down onto the earth in unison.
"Space–Time Isolation Barrier!"
A new barrier began to take shape—vast, circular, and forming with alarming speed. Pale streaks of sealing energy carved through the air, tracing intricate lines that shimmered as they spread outward across the forest perimeter. The luminous threads connected, tightening their pattern until the formation began to close inward—slowly, inevitably—like the jaws of some unseen beast.
Within moments, the entire forest lay ensnared: the cave, the trees, even the first barrier that had already trapped Jiraiya and Naruto along with Kakashi, Sasuke, and the masked figure. All of it was now about be sealed inside a second, far greater confinement.
The masked man moved with speed that didn't belong to ordinary humans. Even Jiraiya could barely follow.
"Kakashi," the man's voice cut sharply through the chaos, calm but firm. "Get Sasuke. We're leaving. Now."
Kakashi turned his head slightly—there was hesitation in his movement, some internal déjà vu struggling to surface—but the command overrode it. He began moving toward Sasuke, who stood half-kneeling and panting near the flames, fatigue creeping in despite whatever control was manipulating them.
He didn't reach him.
The sky blazed—the aftermath of chakra igniting air.
"Fire Release: Flame Bullets!"
Jiraiya's voice thundered from above. A second later, a volley of fireballs descended from the heavens, spinning like meteor showers breaking through smoke.
The concentrated chakra bullets slammed into the way the kakashi was moving towards. Kakashi had to dodge the fire bullets moving back barely evading them.
Jiraiya landed hard, just in front of Sasuke. The boy was moving again, charging with Chidori in hand, towards Jiraiya.
Jiraiya didn't dodge this time. His hair glowed for a split second with chakra. "Wild Lion's Mane!"
His white mane elongated like living ropes, striking forward faster than Sasuke's eyes could follow.
One bundle caught Sasuke's wrist mid-charge; another wrapped around his torso, lifting him clean off the ground before slamming him hard into the earth. The sound echoed like a drumbeat—the impact strong enough to snap Chidori's focus clean out of his control. The lightning faded, leaving Sasuke unconscious beneath the white cocoon binding him.
"Sorry, kid. If it's the only way to save you, you can hate me for it later."
Jiraiya straightened just as glowing sealing arcs completed their circuit. The outer barrier's formation was seconds from finishing.
Kakashi stood ahead, his movements uncertain now, body language stiff—as if resisting something internally. Jiraiya exhaled deeply, realizing this couldn't go on like this. "Both my best student and my student's student…" he muttered. "What have they turned you two into?"
His fingers came together in seals once more. "Flame Style: Toad Oil Flame Bullets!"
A massive dome of oily, burning fire erupted outward from his position, creating a full sphere of inferno that separated him from everything else. The heat expanded outward like a living wall. Even the forming barrier began to flicker under its intensity. The ground sizzled and blackened, smoke obscuring vision.
Kakashi shielded his face with his arm, his mask singed. He couldn't take another step closer to Jiraiya without sustaining burns—but he didn't retreat either. His chakra flared, readying for a counter.
And then, the flames began to bend. Space itself trembled—like a heat wave given shape. The air warped, gravity dragged light toward a single point.
He was there.
The masked figure.
Now directly in front of Kakashi, cutting through the shimmer of burning air. The swirl of space bent around his body, like reality itself was obeying him. His right eye—unmistakably a Sharingan—focused on Jiraiya with quiet intensity.
For the briefest second, Jiraiya saw it clearly through the fire's haze: red iris, black concentric ring.
Not Sasuke's, not Itachi's—it was different. The pattern rotated, hypnotic, spiraling like a whirlpool.
A storm of realization passed through Jiraiya—he had seen something like this before, decades ago, in fragments of mission reports and forbidden files. A Mangekyō pattern unknown to most of the shinobi world.
An Uchiha.
"You—" Jiraiya began, but it was already too late.
The masked man reached out, placing a gloved hand on Kakashi's shoulder. The space around them folded inward, reality itself distorting like liquid sucked into a drain.
The man's voice was calm but cold, faintly carrying through the battlefield. "We'll meet again, Jiraiya-sensei."
The last thing Jiraiya saw was the swirl enveloping them both—the masked figure and Kakashi—disappearing like they'd never existed at all.
The moment they vanished, the outer barrier completed its final connection point. A pulse of sealing chakra expanded in a perfect sphere across the forest, sealing everything within.
Ash swirled through the fierce light as Jiraiya stood alone in the silence that followed, his hair retracting, Sasuke unconscious at his feet.
The fire's glow faded. The forest exhaled smoke.
Somewhere in the distance, a faint echo rippled through the closed loop of the seal—a warped reflection of sound that might have been laughter.
And then even that was gone.
The barrier was complete.
Jiraiya raised his head slowly, staring into the shimmering edges of the energy dome surrounding him, his jaw tightening.
"An Uchiha who can slip through space without even forming seals…," he muttered. "Looks like the game's changed again."
He bent down, lifted the unconscious Uchiha gently, and exhaled.
He glanced up into the smoke-filled sky.
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