The dark-red blood trickling across the ground lent a lurid splash of color to the lifeless town in the Land of Water; the spreading reek of blood soon overpowered the stench of trash along the street.
Uchiha Izumi chose to carry out her own brand of absolute justice in the Land of Water.
Even if the children before her had been sold to traffickers by their own parents—in this country that might not even count as a crime.
But to the young woman, acting as if nothing were wrong would itself be a desecration of justice.
The rules written into the Land of Water's laws aren't necessarily right.
That, too, was something Chizumi-senpai had taught her.
If your conviction and your actions are clear as a mirror—no confusion, no betrayal of the will of justice—then what you do is true justice.
So—
She struck down the three traffickers. Three fleeting flashes of steel, and their lives were taken.
But she did not kill them in a gruesome way.
In front of these severely malnourished children, who were clearly already traumatized, she absolutely could not let them witness anything excessively bloody; that would only shock them further.
So Izumi chose the simplest, cleanest method:
One blade through the heart, stopping it cold.
Only when the three traffickers' faces went blank and their bodies collapsed limply to the ground did the blood begin to seep from the wounds in their chests.
"Don't look down at them," Izumi said, having already sheathed her blade without a trace. She crouched slightly and smiled at the children chained before her. "Look at me. My name is Uchiha Izumi, a ninja from Konoha's Police Force. Starting today, these bad people will never be able to hurt you again."
Biwa Jūzō walked over, his expression complicated. "You and Uchiha Chizumi mean to purge the evils here in the Land of Water. But if you also intend to look after this lot, will you still have time to enforce justice?"
Izumi fell silent for a moment.
"We can't just do nothing—and Chizumi-senpai has tacitly allowed this," she exhaled softly. "When evil appears before me, and it's within my power to execute it, choosing not to act… that kind of indifference is something I cannot accept. I chose to believe in absolute justice and to follow Chizumi-senpai so we could purge all the evils in the shinobi world.
"Great or small—if it's within my power and within my sight, I won't let it go."
This time it was Jūzō's turn to fall silent.
Looking at the timid little ones, he said, "I have a few people I trust here in the Land of Water. I can pay them to look after these kids."
Izumi stood and smiled. "Thank you."
Jūzō kept his face stiff. "Don't forget I'm in Uchiha Chizumi's camp now. Strictly speaking, I believe in absolute justice too.
"I'm your comrade now. If a brat like you can devote herself wholly to justice, then so can I."
Biwa Jūzō-san—sharp tongue, soft heart. In truth, he wanted to help these children even more than I did, Izumi thought.
Meanwhile,
Konoha.
Jiraiya forced himself, for the moment, to forget that Sarutobi Hiruzen didn't understand his search for the Child of Prophecy.
He tracked down Uzumaki Naruto yet again, struck a comically absurd pose in front of him, and blocked his path. "Ta-da! Ta-da! Ta-da! Child of Mount Myōboku! One of Konoha's Legendary Sannin! The freest maverick in the shinobi world! The Great Sage Jiraiya has arrived!"
Grinning with bared teeth, Jiraiya said, "Uzumaki Naruto, you keep turning me down because you don't know how amazing I am. I can mold you into Konoha's finest Kage!
"I can teach you all kinds of formidable jutsu. You know there's something terrifying sealed inside you, right? I can teach you how to control it—how to wield its power!"
"Hey, creepy old man." The cool, youthful voice didn't come from Naruto but from Sasuke beside him. "This is the fifth time. If you pop up to bother us again, we're reporting you to the Police Force."
Naruto frowned, face full of distaste. "I already told you—I'm not interested in your tutelage.
"Iruka-sensei teaches me, Chizumi-sensei teaches me, Izumi-senpai and Jujiro-senpai teach me, and Gramps the Hokage gives me pointers sometimes.
"I don't need some weirdo 'Sage' like you!"
Jiraiya blinked. "Pervy Sage?!"
Arms crossed, Sasuke said coolly, "Don't think we haven't looked into you, creep. We know some of your novels are pretty indecent. We've even heard the rumors—people say you used to peep at women's baths.
"Don't let us catch you in the act, old man, or we'll throw you in Konoha Prison for a few years."
Cold sweat beaded on Jiraiya's forehead—he hadn't expected these two brats to have read his books.
In their eyes, his celebration of manly art—ahem—was indeed a bit indecent.
But Icha Icha Paradise isn't just smut!
The real heart of it is the ninja way he'd distilled!
He exhaled. It seemed he would have to reveal a little to make Naruto realize the burden he bore.
Jiraiya straightened and grew solemn. "Naruto. Since you believe in absolute justice, you must know this shinobi world is rotten to the core."
Naruto nodded.
Following Chizumi-sensei and Izumi-senpai, he'd witnessed plenty of evil.
What he'd seen in Konoha alone had been shocking—enough to shake someone his age to the core.
"The shinobi world needs reform. Only through a proper transformation can it recover from its decay. And the one who will bring that change—the Great Toad Sage of Mount Myōboku calls him the Child of Prophecy!"
Naruto and Sasuke exchanged looks.
"I've wandered the world for years searching for the Child of Prophecy," Jiraiya said. "I never imagined the true Child of Prophecy was right here in Konoha!"
Sasuke seemed to catch on. "Creepy old man, don't tell me your Child of Prophecy is this dobe Naruto."
"Yes." Jiraiya nodded bluntly. "Naruto is the Child of Prophecy—the savior who will transform the shinobi world. But that requires my careful guidance. He needs me to show him what this world really is; only then can he become the savior foretold."
He spoke earnestly. "That's why I won't let this go. Naruto, you don't just shoulder justice—you shoulder the entire shinobi world."
Hearing this, Fukasaku and Shima, perched on his shoulders, finally relaxed.
It seemed little Jiraiya had cast off his hesitation.
Coming clean to Naruto meant he'd embraced the resolve to teach the Child of Prophecy.
Hiruzen's disapproval hadn't shaken him much—only left him momentarily dazed.
"To place the mountain of the shinobi world's future on a single child—that's irresponsible and selfish. At least in my view… As for what my main body thinks, I can't say; perhaps it agrees with me."
Just then, a clear, pleasant woman's voice rang out from nowhere—jarringly out of place.
Jiraiya froze.
The two sages on his shoulders stiffened; their pupils shrank as they locked their gaze onto Naruto's blond hair.
Something tiny wriggled out from it—a small slug.
"Is that…" Fukasaku murmured, "a split body of the Slug Sage? They say each split has its own personality and mind. Sometimes the main body's consciousness descends into a split, too."
Gravely, Shima said, "Dear, shouldn't we be asking why the Slug Sage is here at all? It's only a split body, but—hmm?"
Suddenly Shima stared, stunned, at Sasuke.
There was a Slug Sage split body perched on his shoulder as well!
In the same soft voice as the one on Naruto, it said, "This child has refused you again and again. You don't need to keep pressing him. You should respect his wishes—even if he's still young."
Shima realized something was off. "Why does this Uchiha brat have one too?"
"Because Shikkotsu Forest has reached an understanding with Uchiha Chizumi—or rather, an alliance," another slug's voice answered.
Now even Jiraiya was sweating.
He looked down, squinting hard, and spotted a split body smaller than an ant at his feet—the one that had just spoken.
From a nearby rooftop, another tiny slug called out, "Following a child around again and again seems a bit much, Jiraiya-sama."
Another flea-sized split body had somehow settled into Jiraiya's hair. "And if Naruto is truly to change the shinobi world, why must Mount Myōboku be the one to train him? Is this really the Great Toad Sage's prophecy—or the Great Toad's personal desire?"
Jiraiya felt a chill crawl over his skin. He hadn't even noticed a split body drop onto his head.
So this was the power of a "sage" from one of the Three Sacred Lands?
"Besides—" came the Slug Sage's voice from behind him, "prophecy isn't immutable. If the future can be foretold, it can be changed. How can the Great Toad Sage be sure the trajectory of the future hasn't already shifted?"
Feather-light split bodies drifted on the breeze as a spectral voice murmured, "If the future has changed, how can the Great Toad insist that pushing events along the old prophecy will still yield the same result?"
A split body larger than a person materialized behind Naruto and Sasuke and spoke slowly: "Mount Myōboku has meddled in the shinobi world for too long. Perhaps it's time to let things follow their natural course?"
The Slug Sage's gentle voices layered and echoed from all directions: "Do we make a fair point?"
Soft as the Slug Sage sounded, Jiraiya, Fukasaku, and Shima found it terrifying.
Without realizing it, they were surrounded.
There was no telling how many split bodies lay hidden across Konoha—one had already slipped onto Jiraiya's head.
Had any slipped in through his nostrils, ears, or… other openings?
This was unmistakably a warning from the Slug Sage to Mount Myōboku!
Shikkotsu Forest had entered the game!
And since Shikkotsu Forest had only the Slug Sage, Shikkotsu taking the field meant the Slug Sage herself taking the field—
a sage who'd lived for over a thousand years!
"Jiraiya, this isn't good," Fukasaku whispered gravely. "Maybe the Slug Sage won't break with Mount Myōboku over this, but if a clash erupts, the civilians around Konoha could be in danger."
Shima hissed, "Why sugarcoat it? We don't know how long she's been setting this up around here. We have zero intel.
"If she really moves—when the three of us are completely unprepared—we could be badly injured in an instant. Unless… we enter Sage Mode immediately.
"But striking that stance in front of the Slug Sage would basically mean open hostility."
Jiraiya didn't even dare take a deep breath, afraid he might inhale some invisible split bodies.
"I've never seen Tsunade summon the Slug Sage to pull a stunt like this," he muttered. "It looks like she's serious about stopping Mount Myōboku from approaching the Child of Prophecy. And her alliance with Uchiha Chizumi… is real."