Jiraiya had barely finished introducing himself when the entire battlefield fell deathly silent.
Every ninja stopped what they were doing and looked toward the white-haired man standing atop the toad's head.
"Lord Jiraiya!"
"What a unique entrance!"
"We'll definitely win!"
"Yeah!!"
The ninjas below raised their weapons one after another, erupting in thunderous cheers.
The noise jolted Jiraiya back a step. Somewhat surprised, he said to the Blue Toad beneath his feet, "Gamahiro, I think they've been stunned by my handsomeness!"
Gamahiro: "."
Nagato: "."
Konan: "."
At that moment, Konan slowly floated over to Nagato's side.
As she gazed at Jiraiya's figure, a trace of complicated emotion welled up in her eyes, only to be quickly concealed. "It's Jiraiya. Those were truly nostalgic times."
"He won't stand with us!"
Nagato withdrew his gaze, his voice utterly devoid of human emotion. "Kill him. I'll do it myself. At this point, there's nothing left to be attached to."
Seeing Nagato's indifferent expression, Konan took a deep breath and spoke.
"I'll do it!"
As soon as she finished, she instantly transformed into countless sheets of white paper and flew into the sky, finally reassembling into her complete body before Jiraiya.
Reunited with her teacher once again, Konan did not know what to say.
When they had parted, there had been so much she wanted to say but could not.
Now that they had met again, there was still so much she wanted to say but could not.
"I thought you were dead. Who knew you'd become weightless scraps of paper?" Jiraiya looked at Konan, whose eyes were lowered, his voice somewhat hoarse. "Hundreds of billions of Exploding Tags... Konan, you loved folding paper. You were the gentlest of all those children."
On his way here, he had received the latest battlefield intelligence