A Tragic, Thick Barrier Now Separates Us

Inside the ramen shop, the heat and the sea breeze intertwined.

When the wooden door was pushed open, the wind from the harbor surged in, carrying a salty, fishy scent. The chill in that wind lowered the temperature of the space, which had felt stiflingly hot due to the crowded patrons.

The soup pot on the stove was still bubbling and steaming, but to Jiraiya, those noises seemed to have drifted far away.

Jiraiya felt a momentary sense of daze as he listened to the distant, formal way Kou addressed him.

His gaze fell upon Kou's face, resting on features that were once familiar but had now become strange.

Compared to the youth in his memories who always wore a gentle smile, the man before him possessed a sharpness and exhaustion in his brow, along with a hint of... resentment toward him.

A bitter smile could not help but surface at the corners of Jiraiya's mouth:

"Lord Jiraiya, is it..."

"When you were still in Konoha, you clearly always called me 'Teacher Jiraiya'."

Mei Terumi stood behind Kou, her emerald eyes filled with shock as she listened to Jiraiya's bitter words.

"Teacher?!"

Her gaze shifted back and forth between Kou's back and Jiraiya's face, her heart churning with turbulent waves:

"This guy, is he actually a disciple of that legendary Sannin?"

She suppressed the shock in her heart and forced herself to calm down, her mind racing:

"But if that's the case, why would he defect?"

"With Jiraiya's status and connections in Konoha, his disciple should have had a limitless future no matter where he went."

"Could it be... related to the Uchiha Clan massacre that happened not long ago?"

She recalled the incredible intelligence she had received from Konoha just a short while ago.

The Uchiha Clan had vanished from Konoha overnight.

And the perpetrator, it was said, was a thirteen-year-old boy named Uchiha Itachi...

She suppressed the turmoil in her heart, observing Kou and Jiraiya ahead with a probing gaze.

Now, the matter of the ruins in the Land of Whirlpools had to be set aside.

Investigating the ruins could be delayed; the Jiraiya before her was clearly more important.

A big shot like him hiding his tracks to come to the Land of Water was a major event that could trigger a diplomatic incident!

What was his purpose in coming to the Land of Water? What exactly did he intend to do? As a high-ranking official of the Mist Village, what attitude should she adopt toward him? Should she reveal her identity to him?

She looked at Kou's back, a flicker of contemplation crossing her emerald eyes.

"Uchiha Kou, what exactly is he thinking right now..."

Kou looked at the bitter smile on Jiraiya's face, something churning deep within his black eyes.

He suppressed the surging emotions in his heart, looked at Jiraiya with a calm expression, and spoke slowly:

"But you never accepted my address of 'Teacher' for you, did you?"

The words were light, yet they pierced Jiraiya's heart like a needle.

"So you really do resent me..."

Jiraiya caught the sarcasm in Kou's tone, his eyes dimming slightly.

He remained silent for a moment, the expression on his bold face becoming complex—filled with guilt, helplessness, and the awkwardness of wanting to explain but not knowing where to begin.

His voice was low, carrying a hint of exhaustion:

"The reason I never acknowledged your status as my disciple was because..."

"Because of my identity as an Uchiha, right?"

Kou impatiently provided the answer for Jiraiya.

His voice was cold, and the sarcasm in his black eyes was undisguised:

"Unlike that idiot Obito, he wasn't highly regarded within the Uchiha Clan.

Having Brother Minato, who had a high probability of succeeding as the Fourth Hokage, serve as his instructor and teacher could appease the Uchiha Clan, who couldn't squeeze into the core power circle of Konoha, without causing too much unrest within the clan."

"But I was different. I was the face of the Uchiha Clan at the time.

If you, a core figure of the Hokage's faction, had taken me as a disciple, it would have inevitably caused a massive reaction from the Uchiha.

At the time, we were on the eve of the Third Ninja World War. With the situation in the ninja world becoming increasingly tense, internal strife was something that had to be avoided at all costs."

Kou continued in a flat tone:

"Your decision to deliberately keep your distance from me... I naturally understood it very well."

Yet, the word "understood" carried an indescribable irony.

Jiraiya listened to Kou's response, the light in his eyes dimming bit by bit.

His lips parted slightly, as if to say something, but then he closed them again.

That bold, usually smiling face was now etched with a profound, unspeakable exhaustion.

His shoulders slumped slightly, and he looked as though he had aged ten years in an instant.

Kou watched Jiraiya's dejected appearance, his brows knitting tightly together:

"You need not shoulder the responsibility for my defection."

Kou's voice softened, yet that softness carried an even heavier weight:

"After all, in essence, we were nothing more than mere acquaintances.

When it comes down to it, aside from that period spent researching the Rasengan, the time we spent together was not particularly long, was it?"

Though he was "comforting" him, the fury and mockery in his words could not be suppressed.

"After all, if we weren't so distant, why didn't you return seven years ago?"

Kou stared deeply at Jiraiya, gritting his teeth:

"In the letter I sent you, I wrote with the utmost urgency about my anxiety regarding the bottlenecks I had encountered in my talent and cultivation.

If you had returned in time, perhaps you might have just happened to arrive..."

His voice dropped, sounding as if it were being squeezed from the depths of his throat:

"For that... 'accident' known as the Nine-Tails Incident."

As his words fell, the atmosphere plunged into silence.

Kou gazed intently at the dejected Jiraiya before him.

I truly cannot let this go...

He whispered in his heart, looking coldly at the man in whom he had once placed his hopes.

Seven years ago, after failing to prevent Rin's death and Obito's corruption, he had actually already foreseen that the Nine-Tails Incident was imminent.

But he had not fallen into despair at the time; on the contrary, he remained full of confidence in the future.

After all, the reason Obito had succeeded in launching the Nine-Tails Incident was largely because he had capitalized on the fact that most of Konoha's top-tier combatants were away.

Of the Sannin, Orochimaru was out on a mission, Tsunade had left the village, and Jiraiya was wandering the world.

The only ones Konoha could field were the Third Hokage, who was past his prime, and the young Fourth Hokage, Namikaze Minato.

At the time, the only person who could stay by the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki's side was her husband, Namikaze Minato.

And had he not exhausted a massive amount of chakra fighting Obito, with Minato's level of sealing jutsu, there would have been no need to use the suicidal Dead Demon Consuming Seal to seal the Nine-Tails.

If only one more top-tier combatant had been on Konoha's side during the Nine-Tails Incident, the damage caused would never have been so severe, or perhaps it might not have happened at all!

Jiraiya, who possessed both top-tier sealing skills and the strength to deter Obito, was undoubtedly the best candidate at the time.

Kou had placed this hope in Jiraiya.

He had sent letters to Jiraiya, using the most desperate tone, hoping he would return to help him solve the "problem" that had plagued him for so long.

He had revised that letter again and again, until he was certain every punctuation mark conveyed a sense of "utmost urgency," before sending it off.

As long as Jiraiya returns, the Nine-Tails Incident can likely be avoided. If Minato lives, the Uchiha's situation will definitely be much better than it was in the original timeline.

Back then, he would lie in his chair, staring at the ceiling, repeatedly simulating that "bright future" in his mind:

...If things go smoothly, maybe I can even keep that idiot Obito in check. He hasn't committed those unforgivable crimes yet; if I explain things clearly to him, maybe he can still be saved.

...But if he truly can't be saved, then I'll just make him the new scapegoat. When the time comes, I'll dump every disaster on his head; with a common enemy, the internal conflict between Konoha and the Uchiha can be diverted.

The corners of his mouth lifted slightly, forming a smug "all according to plan" smirk:

Woohoo! It's a win-win either way; I can't even imagine how I could lose this one!!

As long as Jiraiya returns, everything will be alright!!

I will win!

Back then... he had truly believed that.

However, the way things unfolded left him feeling as though he had fallen into an ice cellar.

Jiraiya did not return.

He didn't even send a single reply.

The letters he sent were like stones sinking into the ocean, failing to stir even the slightest ripple.

During that time, he would ask the gate guards every day if there was any mail for him, and every time, the answer was "no."

He began to suspect that the letters had been intercepted, that Jiraiya hadn't received them, or that something had gone wrong somewhere.

But later, the information Kou obtained through other channels refuted all his previous guesses.

Jiraiya had received the letters; he just... hadn't returned.

No matter how he urged, pleaded, or even begged in the letters he sent afterward, he never returned...

The Nine-Tails Incident still erupted.

He stood within the Uchiha compound, gazing at the orange-red figure soaring into the sky in the distance, watching that massive demon beast, controlled by the Sharingan, wreak havoc on the streets of Konoha, and watching those once-familiar buildings collapse one by one under those colossal tails.

He could do nothing.

His own pair of three-tomo Sharingan could see every body torn apart by the Nine-Tails, could see every face twisted in despair.

But he could do nothing.

Those futures he thought he could change, those people he thought he could save, those beautiful futures he believed could be realized just by "trying"—they were turning to ash before his eyes, bit by bit...

(Does everyone find the current pacing acceptable, or does it feel a bit slow?)