With Tsunade gone to Konoha to take over as Hokage, Rinjin completely let himself go.
In Hatake Sakumo's words, the man was in the Land of Hot Water, drifting... to the point of losing contact~
Of course, that was all joking around.
As an honest and dutiful gate guard, the only one who could stick to his post through wind and rain was Rinjin's... shadow clone.
Peaceful days passed by one after another...
In the blink of an eye, Konoha Year 67 had arrived.
In the Hokage's office in Konoha Village, Tsunade sat behind her desk, looking at Jiraiya carrying scrolls not far away, clutching her forehead with a headache.
Naruto had been attacked!
Though she wasn't clear on the specific identities of these attackers, Tsunade felt like she'd seen those black robes with red clouds somewhere before.
At the same time, news of jinchūriki from various villages being attacked came one after another.
Some time ago, the Fifth Kazekage Gaara had been attacked by an unknown bomber and had the One-Tail Shukaku extracted from him. If that old hag Chiyo hadn't used the One's Own Life Reincarnation technique, the Sand Village would have had to start selecting a Sixth Kazekage.
Besides the Sand Village and Konoha, the other three great hidden villages had also suffered different attacks.
Among them:
As for the Six-Tails Saiken and Seven-Tails Chōmei, they had long since vanished without a trace.
While she was thinking, Jiraiya across the desk spoke seriously:
"Tsunade, the organization that attacked Naruto should have their base in the Hidden Waterfall Village. I'm planning to go collect some intelligence."
"Hidden Waterfall Village?" Tsunade repeated in confusion.
She had once been to the Hidden Waterfall Village with Rinjin and had even met Jiraiya's three little students there. But that was a long time ago.
And at that time, there hadn't been any terrorist organization wearing black robes with red clouds in the Hidden Waterfall Village!
Thinking of this, Tsunade slowly spoke:
"Your student seems to be in the Hidden Waterfall Village too. Haven't they contacted you at all in all these years?"
Hearing this, Jiraiya's brow slowly furrowed as he said hesitantly:
"That student? When did Nagato go to the Hidden Waterfall Village?"
"No, I mean during the Second Shinobi War, when we three... the three kids you met in the Hidden Rain Village. You insisted on staying behind to take care of them."
"You mean Yahiko, Nagato, and Konan?" Jiraiya stepped back in shock.
"But I received intelligence from the toads that those... those three... kids died long ago! Tsunade, tell me exactly what happened!"
Seeing Jiraiya's serious expression, Tsunade also sensed something was wrong and immediately gave a detailed account of the situation at that time.
After listening to Tsunade and Rinjin's travel experiences, Jiraiya fell silent.
He had received the toad message during the late period of the Second Shinobi War, while Tsunade and Rinjin's wandering had clearly been well after the Second Shinobi War.
This...
Could those three children have survived?!
Thinking of this, Jiraiya wished he could sprout wings and fly to the Hidden Waterfall Village immediately.
He had once placed heavy expectations on Nagato. It was precisely because of this that he had nearly collapsed when he received news of the three's deaths.
His brow tightly furrowed, Jiraiya suddenly raised his head, his gaze serious:
"Tsunade, I have to go! Whether it's about Naruto being attacked or Nagato's life and death, I have to get to the bottom of it!"
With that, Jiraiya ignored Tsunade's worried gaze and walked seriously out of the Hokage's office.
Evening, Hidden Rain Village.
In the guard room, Rinjin carefully set down the brush in his hand and examined the scroll on the desk covered with mysterious patterns.
After looking for a while, he nodded with satisfaction. After the ink dried, he rolled up the scroll and tucked it at his waist.
Walking out of the guard room, Rinjin called to Fugaku by the village gate:
"Fugaku, time to get off work!"
"Alright" Fugaku nodded and said, "Sensei, how about having a drink at my place later! Hiruzen is looking forward to seeing you too"
Hearing this, the corner of Rinjin's mouth twitched almost imperceptibly. He immediately shook his head, grumbling internally.
Go to your house for drinks? I think you're the one craving alcohol and using me as a shield! I'm not going to your house to listen to your nagging wife complain~
Even if Hiruzen is looking forward to seeing me, even if your whole family is looking forward to it, I'm still not going!
Grumbling internally, the corner of Rinjin's mouth twitched twice more.
That Fugaku was also sneakily wicked. His eldest son was named Itachi, which was fine... His second son was named Sasuke, which was clearly the name of Sarutobi Hiruzen's father...
Now he'd had a third son and wasn't even pretending anymore—he actually named him Uchiha Hiruzen...
Damn your grandmother, it's lucky I'm not your enemy, or you'd probably have another son named Uchiha Rinjin!
The name Itachi was probably also some enemy's name back then!
Fugaku and his wife had managed to disgust the entire village with their sons' names!
Most disgusting of all, the village's marriage rate had actually gone up significantly. Were you all getting married just to name your sons after your enemies?
Brain ache...
Rubbing his temples, Rinjin waved weakly:
"Forget about drinking at your place. If you really want to drink, go find your Uncle Kagami—he can handle it."
Hearing this, Fugaku stroked his chin and nodded thoughtfully.
The Uchiha couldn't have a second Uchiha Kagami, right! Sensei made sense!
When it was time to get off work, after handing over guard duties to Shisui and Itachi, Rinjin tucked his hands in his sleeves and returned home.
Closing the front door and changing shoes, Rinjin walked into his study, pushed open the hidden door behind the bookshelf, and went down the secret passage.
Soon, a spacious and bright underground laboratory appeared before Rinjin.
The lab equipment was simple—a test table in the center with various bottles and jars on tables against the walls on both sides.
At this moment, a fresh corpse with no signs of life lay on the test table.
Looking closer, it was actually Mizuguma.
Rinjin walked expressionlessly to the test table, producing a small jar of blood and a scroll from somewhere.
Spreading the scroll on the ground and pouring the blood onto it, Rinjin slowly sat cross-legged in front of the scroll, muttering quietly:
"Heh~ After holding back for so many years, I'm finally going to drag you back! Don't worry, I've taken good care of the village.
"Next, I just need to wait for that rice-buying boy to go cause trouble in Konoha, and you can die one more time."
With that, Rinjin's hands rapidly formed seals.
Tiger - Snake - Dog - Dragon
Then Rinjin pressed his palms together and shouted:
"Summoning: Impure World Reincarnation!"
The next second, the blood was rapidly absorbed by the scroll, and countless mysterious patterns extended from the scroll's surface, converging on the test table.
However, the commotion Rinjin expected to see didn't appear.
Mizuguma's clone on the test table didn't move at all, showing no reaction whatsoever.
Meanwhile, the patterns on the ground spread like ink drops on paper!
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📚 BOOK COMPLETED ON PATREON!📚
This story has reached its conclusion on my Patreon!
🔥 Full story available now
💎 Exclusive bonus content & early access to new books
👉 Join my Patreon community today!
[✨patreon.com/DarkGolds]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━