"Chiba?"
Jiraiya was slightly startled as he looked at Ebisu, who stood before him with furrowed brows and a grave, earnest expression. A hint of astonishment appeared on his face.
"Is he... really alive?"
Seeing Jiraiya's surprise, Ebisu, who had left the wall railing and walked over to him, could not help asking again.
Clearly, this question was extremely important to him.
Or rather, he desperately wanted to know the answer right now.
I see...
Word has already gotten around. It looks like Teacher Sarutobi has made it public.
For Ebisu, who had accepted Chiba's death for so many years, suddenly being told that the past decade or so had all been a lie—that Chiba was alive, had returned to the village, and had even received the Hokage's approval to exercise the authority of an acting Hokage—it was only natural that he would find it hard to accept.
Or rather, hard to believe! After all, this had been concealed for more than ten years, and the entire Shinobi World had been deceived.
Hearing Ebisu's urgent question, Jiraiya understood.
To be honest, he had been quite shocked when he received the news.
Strictly speaking, his teacher had kept this matter even from him. When he first learned of it, his reaction had actually been much the same as Ebisu's.
However, he had spent all these years outside gathering intelligence, and his experience was far broader than Ebisu's.
The various shinobi villages, the various dark forces, and all manner of sensitive intelligence—taken together, especially the reactions of the villages and dark forces to certain specific matters—had made him deeply suspect whether Chiba was truly dead.
During the Nine-Tails' Rampage, he had been in enemy territory gathering useful intelligence for the village. By the time he returned, especially after seeing Kumogakure's situation at