Inside the ramen shop, steam mingled with the sea breeze.
When the wooden door opened, the harbor wind swept in, carrying a briny stench. Its chill lowered the temperature by several degrees in a space already stuffy with diners.
The broth still bubbled away in the pot on the stove, but to Jiraiya, the din had faded into the distance.
Jiraiya heard Kou address him so formally, and for a moment, he felt dazed.
His gaze settled on Kou's face, on features he had once known so well but that had now grown unfamiliar.
Compared to the boy who had always worn a gentle smile in his memories, this man had a sharper edge to his features, a wearier air, and a hint of... resentment toward him.
A bitter smile involuntarily appeared at the corners of Jiraiya's mouth.
"Lord Jiraiya?"
"Back when you were still in Konoha, you always called me 'Teacher Jiraiya.'"
Mei Terumi stood behind Kou. Hearing Jiraiya's bitter words, her emerald eyes widened in shock.
"Teacher?!"
Her gaze shifted between Kou's back and Jiraiya's face, and a storm of disbelief rose within her.
"This guy is actually a student of one of the legendary Sannin?"
She forced down her shock and quickly regained her composure, her mind racing.
"But if that's the case, why did he defect?"
"Given Jiraiya's status and connections in Konoha, his student should have a bright future wherever he goes."
"Could it have something to do with... the Uchiha Clan Massacre not long ago?"
She recalled the unbelievable report from Konoha that she had seen recently.
The Uchiha Clan had vanished from Konoha overnight.
And supposedly, the one responsible was a thirteen-year-old boy named Uchiha Itachi...
She suppressed the turmoil in her heart and watched Kou and Jiraiya up ahead, trying to read their intentions.
For now, the matter of the Land of Whirlpools ruins could wait.
The investigation could be postponed. Jiraiya in front of her was clearly far more important.
A major figure like him had secretly made his way to the Land of Water. That was serious enough to spark a diplomatic incident!
Why had he come to the Land of Water? What exactly was he planning to do? As a member of the Mist Village leadership, how should she treat him? Should she reveal her identity to him?
She looked at Kou's back, a thoughtful glint passing through her emerald eyes.
"What is Uchiha Kou thinking now, I wonder..."
Kou looked at Jiraiya's bitter smile, something churning deep in his dark eyes.
He forced down his roiling emotions. Calmly meeting Jiraiya's gaze, he spoke.
"But you never accepted me calling you 'Teacher,' did you?"
His words were quiet, yet they pierced Jiraiya's heart like a needle.
"So you really do resent me..."
Jiraiya heard the mockery in Kou's words, and his eyes dimmed.
He fell silent for a moment. His usually boisterous face grew complicated, showing guilt, helplessness, and the awkwardness of wanting to explain but not knowing where to begin.
His voice was low and weary.
"The reason I never acknowledged you as my student was because..."
"Because I belonged to the Uchiha Clan, right?"
Kou impatiently answered for Jiraiya.
His voice was cold, the mockery in his dark eyes undisguised.
"Unlike that idiot Obito, he wasn't important within the Uchiha Clan.
Having Minato, who was very likely to succeed the Fourth Hokage, serve as his jonin leader and teacher could appease the Uchiha Clan, who had no place in Konoha's inner circle of power, without giving the clan too much to think about."
"But I was different. I was the face of the Uchiha Clan at the time.
If you, a central figure in the Hokage faction, had taken me on as your student, it would have caused a huge reaction among the Uchiha.
The Third Ninja World War was already looming. With tensions across the Ninja World rising, sparking internal conflict was something that had to be avoided."
Kou continued in an even tone.
"I understand why you deliberately chose to keep your distance from me."
But the word "understand" carried a bitterness that was hard to miss.
As Jiraiya listened to Kou's reply, the light in his eyes slowly faded.
His lips parted slightly as if to speak, then closed again.
His usually boisterous face, so often lit with a smile, was now filled with a deep, indescribable weariness.
His shoulders sagged, and he looked as if he had aged ten years.
Kou frowned deeply at Jiraiya's dejected state.
"You don't have to take responsibility for my defection."
Kou's voice softened, but that softness only made his words heavier.
"After all, we were nothing more than acquaintances, when you get right down to it.
In the end, we didn't spend that much time together, aside from the period when we were studying the Rasengan, did we?"
Though he was supposedly offering comfort, the anger and mockery in his words were impossible to conceal.
"After all, if we weren't that close, why didn't you come back seven years ago?"
Kou stared at Jiraiya, his gaze heavy, and ground out the words.
"In the letter I sent you, I wrote in a panic about my anxiety over my talent and the bottleneck I'd hit in my training.
If you'd come back in time, you might even have arrived just in time for..."
His voice sank, as though the words had to be dragged up from deep in his throat.
"That 'accident' called the Nine-Tails Incident."
Silence fell.
Kou fixed his heavy gaze on Jiraiya, who stood before him looking utterly dejected.
I really still can't let it go...
He thought in silence, coldly watching the man in whom he had once placed his hopes.
Seven years ago, after failing to prevent Rin's death and Obito's descent into darkness, he had already foreseen the coming Nine-Tails Incident.
But he hadn't despaired. On the contrary, he had still been full of hope for the future.
After all, Obito had been able to carry out the Nine-Tails Incident largely because Konoha's strongest fighters were mostly absent at the time.
Of the Konoha Sannin, Orochimaru was away on a mission, Tsunade had left the village, and Jiraiya was wandering the world.
All Konoha could rely on were the Third Hokage, nearing the end of his prime, and the young Fourth Hokage, Namikaze Minato.
At the time, Minato was the only one who could stay by the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki's side, since he was her husband.
And if he hadn't spent so much chakra fighting Obito, Minato's skill in Sealing Jutsu meant he wouldn't have needed to use the deadly Dead Demon Consuming Seal to seal the Nine-Tails.
If Konoha had had even one more top-tier fighter during the Nine-Tails Incident, the damage it caused could never have been so severe. It might not even have happened at all!
Jiraiya, who had both top-tier sealing skills and the strength to hold Obito at bay, was unquestionably the best person for the job.
Kou had placed his hopes in Jiraiya.
He had sent Jiraiya a letter, pleading in the most urgent terms for him to come back and help him solve the "problem" that had been troubling him for so long.
He had revised the letter again and again, only sending it once he was sure every punctuation mark conveyed just how "urgent" the matter was.
*As long as Jiraiya comes back, there's a good chance the Nine-Tails Incident can be prevented.
If Minato survives, the Uchiha Clan's situation will definitely be much better than it was in the original timeline.*
Back then, he had lain in his chair, staring at the ceiling, and played out that "wonderful future" in his mind over and over.
*...If everything goes well, maybe we can even keep that dumbass Obito here.
He hasn't done anything unforgivable to his teacher yet. If I explain things to him, maybe I can still save him.*
*...But if he really can't be saved, then we can make him the next scapegoat.
We can pin every damn thing on him. With a common enemy, we can ease some of the internal tensions between Konoha and the Uchiha.*
The corners of his mouth had lifted in a smug grin, pleased with his "master plan."
Woohoo! No matter how you look at it, I win. I can't even see how this could go wrong!
As long as Jiraiya comes back, everything will be all right!
We're going to win!
Back then... he had truly believed it.
But what happened next plunged him into an icy abyss.
Jiraiya didn't come back.
He didn't even send a single reply.
The letters Kou had sent sank into the sea like stones, without so much as a ripple.
During that time, he went to ask the gate guards every day whether any letters had arrived for him. Every time, the answer was the same: "No."
He began to wonder whether someone had intercepted the letters, whether Jiraiya had failed to receive them, or whether something else had gone wrong.
But later, information he got from other sources disproved every one of those suspicions.
Jiraiya had received the letters. He simply... hadn't come back.
No matter how urgently Kou pressed him in his later letters, how desperately he pleaded, even begged, Jiraiya still didn't return...
The Nine-Tails Incident happened anyway.
He stood on Uchiha Clan grounds, watching the orange-red figure rise in the distance, watching the enormous beast under the Sharingan's control rampage through Konoha's streets, watching familiar buildings collapse one by one beneath its massive tails.
There was nothing he could do.
His Three Tomoe Sharingan could make out every body torn apart by the Nine-Tails, every face twisted in despair.
But there was nothing he could do.
The futures he had thought he could change, the people he had thought he could save, the bright tomorrows he had thought he could bring about through nothing more than "hard work"—they had all turned to ash before his eyes, little by little...
(Do you think the pacing so far is acceptable, or does it feel a little slow?)
Before you continue