Toad Sage! Jiraiya's Dangerous Instinct

On the main road outside Hidden Leaf Village, muddy puddles reflected a tall figure.

He had a wild mane of long white hair, wore a red outer coat, wooden clogs on his feet, and carried a massive scroll on his back. It was Jiraiya, who had spent years wandering outside the village to track intelligence on the Akatsuki.

His expression was ugly to the extreme. He had intended to gather information at an izakaya near the border, only to receive an urgent report through a toad messenger saying that the Hidden Leaf had been attacked by Orochimaru and that the old man had died in battle. He had rushed back the whole way at a speed that almost made even the Flying Thunder God seem too slow.

"Old man..." Jiraiya stood before the Hidden Leaf's battered gate, looking at the ruins inside that were still smoking, his fists clenched deathly tight.

He did not go to his own residence, but strode straight toward the Hokage Building.

In the corridor on the second floor of the Hokage Building, Shikaku and several advisers were so busy they were run off their feet. Jiraiya climbed the stairs and had just turned the corner.

His steps suddenly stopped.

Jiraiya's expression changed in an instant. The scroll on his back faintly gave off a low, muffled toad rumble. The instincts he had honed over years of walking the edge between life and death, even the faint precursor to Sage Mode within him, were all frantically sounding the alarm.

At the end of the corridor ahead, a young man stood leaning against the wall.

A long black trench coat, both hands in his pockets. He was not wearing a forehead protector, and the contours of his profile were sharply defined. There were clearly no chakra fluctuations erupting from his body, yet standing there, he was like a primordial beast that could devour everything at any moment.

"You're that Uchiha Yuan who came back from the dead?" Jiraiya lowered his voice, and the eyes that always carried a lecherous smile were now sharp as knives. On the way back, he had already learned through Anbu briefings about the series of bizarre and bloody upheavals that had recently taken place in the village.

Including the terrifying record of the man before him tearing apart Anbu with his bare hands, stepping on Gaara, and shattering Orochimaru's body.

Yuan tilted his head slightly, his pitch-black pupils meeting Jiraiya's gaze.

"A head of white hair, dressed like some stage performer. You're the legendary Toad Sage, Jiraiya?" Yuan straightened, showing none of the respect a junior should have for a senior.

Their gazes collided in midair in the corridor. The air seemed to solidify into substance, and even a few genin passing by felt it hard to breathe and scrambled away in a panic.

"The old man is dead, and you killed so many Anbu in this village, even overturned Danzo's Root." Jiraiya's hand slowly reached toward the kunai hidden in his sleeve. "Do you want to take over this village? Young man, too much power isn't a good thing. If your goal is destruction, I don't mind stopping you here."

After Yuan heard this, he rolled his eyes outright and laughed.

"Do all you higher-ups have persecution complexes?" Yuan walked to a stop half a meter in front of Jiraiya. "I told that bastard Shikaku ages ago, I'm not interested in being Hokage. That's the political game only you old things like to play."

Yuan looked straight into Jiraiya's wary eyes.

"You came back at just the right time. I was still thinking that with the village in this broken-down state, there wasn't even anyone who could call the shots and negotiate terms with me. Go bring back that big-breasted, brainless Tsunade. She can come back and become Hokage, and I won't interfere. As long as no one comes to provoke me, everyone can stay in their own lane."

The vigilance in Jiraiya's eyes did not relax because of Yuan's words. He looked deeply at Yuan, and that feeling of extreme danger and pressure made him certain—this man was even more uncontrollable than Orochimaru.

But he did not make a move. Right now, the Hidden Leaf could not withstand a second round of internal strife between Kage-level fighters. Keeping this Uchiha around might even make him a nuclear deterrent against external enemies.

"I'll go bring Tsunade back." Jiraiya turned around, and before going downstairs, he tilted his head slightly. "You killed a lot of people. No matter the reason, they were all ninja of the village."

With his back to him, Yuan's voice was cold enough to chill the bone. "Those were all debts they owed us Uchiha. The ones I killed were all dogs who deserved to die. If you think they were pitiful, you can go burn them some extra paper at the memorial stone."

Watching Yuan stride away from behind, Jiraiya sighed and quickly headed toward Shikaku's office.

At the same time.

The Old Uchiha Clan Compound had already come alive with new vitality.

Aunt Mihui stood before a wooden house that had just had a signboard hung up. On it were written two large words: schoolhouse.

Inside the house sat a dozen or so Uchiha descendants, ranging from six to ten years old. These children had hidden in the basement for six years, and now they could finally sit in the sunlight.

Mihui held a wooden shuriken in her hand and patiently taught the movements. "Raise your arm higher! Put your waist into it! Even without using chakra, you have to be fast, accurate, and ruthless. Starting today, aside from learning to read, every one of you will practice throwing for three hours every day. The territory Yuan fought to win for us will have to be defended by you yourselves in the future!"

The children below answered loudly, their eyes shining with a light that had been absent for a long time.

Yet amid this steady atmosphere of rebuilding, an unsettling urgent report came from the Hidden Leaf Anbu intelligence division.

Yuan had just walked out of the Hokage Building when the system in his mind once again popped up with a prompt.

[Ding! Detected that Anbu has intercepted top-level classified intelligence!]

[Orochimaru's chakra signature briefly appeared on the northern border of the Land of Fire.]

[At the same time, a border patrol discovered two unidentified S-rank rogue ninja wearing black cloaks with red clouds entering the country!]

Yuan stopped and looked up at the gloomy sky.

"The Akatsuki?"

The corners of Yuan's mouth spread, and he stuck out his tongue to lick his dry lips. Those Mangekyo Sharingan lit up of their own accord.

"These walking max-level fragment packs finally decided to show themselves."