He bit his finger and formed hand seals.
"Summoning Technique!"
White smoke erupted, and a gigantic toad appeared on the battlefield. It was Gamabunta, Jiraiya's signature summon.
"Gamabunta, use oil!"
Gamabunta understood. He opened his enormous mouth and spewed a torrent of sticky oil, coating every puppet at the front of the charge. Jiraiya formed hand seals.
"Fire Release: Toad Oil Flame Bullet-Modified!"
Flames ten times fiercer than before exploded outward, engulfing over a hundred puppets.
The puppets' bodies burned to charcoal in the flames, but more poured out of the hollow.
"They just keep coming," Gamabunta rumbled.
"The core of this thing is that flower bud. Unless we destroy it, the puppets will keep spawning forever."
Jiraiya leaped onto Gamabunta's head. "Gamabunta, cover me. I'm going down to take a look!"
"Are you crazy? One look at that thing down there tells you it's trouble!"
"Someone has to go!" Jiraiya looked at the endless stream of puppets, then at the faint wisps of cooking smoke rising from a village in the distance.
"If these things spread, the entire Land of Fire will suffer. I'm one of the Sannin, a shinobi of Konoha. If I don't step up now, who will?"
Gamabunta fell silent for a moment, then said, "I'll go down with you. If we die, we die together. I've lived for hundreds of years anyway. That's long enough."
"Thanks, old friend."
Jiraiya patted Gamabunta's head. Then the man and the toad charged toward the bottom of the hollow.
The puppets tried to stop them, but Gamabunta's size and strength were overwhelming. A single leap crushed dozens beneath him, and the shock wave from his landing sent another mass flying.
Jiraiya stood atop Gamabunta's head, forming hand seals, ready for anything.
They reached the bottom of the hollow and