The Hero of the Hot Spring District and the Oath Called "Protection"

In the Ninja Academy classroom after school, most of the students had already left. The setting sun crept in through the windows, casting long shadows from the wooden desks.

Minato was lowering his head as he carefully packed his schoolbag, muttering tomorrow's lunch menu under his breath. "Rolled omelet, thick-cut rice balls, and some pickled radish... En's been saying everything's too salty lately. I'll have to use two fewer spoonfuls of salt tomorrow."

What a perfect wife and mother!

Resting his chin on one hand, En looked at that gleaming golden head and spoke as if casually.

"Minato, have you heard of that one among Konoha's Three Legendary Sannin who writes novels?"

Minato stopped what he was doing. His clear blue eyes instantly lit up like two fine sapphires.

"I've read one! I found Lord Jiraiya's The Tale of the Utterly Gutsy Shinobi in a corner of the library. It was super interesting! The protagonist never gives up. I want to become a shinobi like that someday too!"

En rolled his eyes hard inside.

Kid, that's only because you can only read books from the all-ages section right now. If you ever see the other kind of "masterpieces" that make him famous throughout the shinobi world, your pure little heart will probably shatter into a QR code on the spot.

But since he had already cast the hook, it was time to reel it in.

"Then do you want to meet him?" En asked slowly, sounding like a wolf dressed as Little Red Riding Hood's grandmother.

Minato nodded again and again, his golden hair bobbing along.

Weekend.

Konoha's southern district, the famous hot spring street.

Mist lingered here year-round, and the air carried a faint scent of sulfur. Minato followed behind En, looking around eagerly, his face full of anticipation for good food.

"En, is there a good ramen shop around here? Or are you treating me to barbecue?" Minato asked, rubbing his stomach.

En kept both hands in his pockets and never slowed his pace, but his eyes were discreetly searching the tall walls lining both sides of the street.

"There's something better than ramen and barbecue."

Minato tilted his head, looking utterly confused. "What could be better than ramen?"

En suddenly stopped, lifted his chin, and pointed at the building ahead with the thickest steam rising from it.

"Someone you admire."

Minato followed En's gaze and froze where he stood.

A tall white-haired man was sprawled atop a wooden wall over three meters high.

He wore a ridiculous red-striped short coat and wooden clogs, clinging to the wall in an extremely lecherous pose that also placed a brutal demand on his core strength. His huge head was desperately craning over the wall, his eyes wide as bells, and a suspicious, glistening liquid even hung from the corner of his mouth.

Minato swallowed with difficulty. Pointing at that back, his hand trembling, he asked, "En... what is that uncle doing?"

En remained expressionless, his tone perfectly flat. "Research."

"What... kind of research?"

"Academic research into the physical reactions and aesthetic extensions produced when human anatomy intersects with hot spring temperatures," En said with a straight face.

The moment he finished speaking, a shrill female scream burst from inside the wall.

"Ah—!! Pervert!!"

Then, as though a symphony had reached its climax, the dull thuds of wooden washbasins striking the wall, the splashing of boiling water, and the women's furious curses all intertwined into a deafening uproar.

The white-haired man atop the wall was clearly startled. He frantically tried to dodge the soap and washbasins flying at him, only for his wooden clog to slip.

"Whoa, damn—!"

With a heavy thud.

A large white-haired man fell hard from the three-meter wall in the shape of a spread-eagle, kicking up a cloud of dust as he landed with perfect accuracy at the feet of two twelve-year-old boys.

Jiraiya rubbed his backside, which felt like it had been smashed into eight pieces, and climbed up awkwardly. He had just planned to dust himself off and make a quick getaway when he turned around and met two pairs of unblinking eyes.

One boy had blond hair and blue eyes, his gaze as clean and pure as a spring. It made even a seasoned veteran like Jiraiya feel a trace of guilt and shame.

The other had black hair and black eyes, with a cold, still presence like a stone resting at the bottom of a river.

Jiraiya's hand froze halfway through brushing off the dust.

In that brief instant after climbing up, when his mind had relaxed most completely, the senjutsu perception he had cultivated over the years activated on its own like a cat whose tail had been stepped on!

Under the faint perception of Sage Mode, the scene before him changed completely.

The blond brat's chakra was pure, resilient, immense, and arranged with astonishing order. For a twelve-year-old civilian child, the quality and control of that chakra were frighteningly refined. He was an absolute genius.

But what made Jiraiya's pupils contract sharply was the black-haired brat.

Jiraiya's brow twitched violently. Beneath the black-haired brat's body, which in the deeper vision of senjutsu appeared to belong to a "waste" who might not even be able to perform the Three Basic Techniques, lurked a violent energy!

That power was still weak, like a tiny flame, but its essence was far too terrifying. It was like a living volcano in hibernation!

When had Konoha Village produced a monster like this? And an Uchiha at that?

Naturally, En noticed Jiraiya's suddenly sharp scrutiny. He knew the fish had taken the bait.

Within a second, En's gaze shifted from indifference to the fanatic excitement expected of a twelve-year-old. He immediately switched into an actor's performance mode.

"Y-You're the legendary Lord Jiraiya, aren't you?!" En hurried a step forward, his admiration nearly overflowing from his voice. "I read about your deeds in the Ninja Academy textbooks. One of Konoha's Three Legendary Sannin, the Toad Sage! You're incredible!"

Such blunt and passionate flattery was clearly very effective against someone as flamboyant as Jiraiya. It even diluted the vigilance he had felt moments earlier.

He immediately straightened up and coughed twice to hide the awkwardness of having been caught peeping. Then he flung his arms wide and struck an outrageously exaggerated kabuki pose.

"Hahaha! That's right! Brat, you've got a good eye! This Sage is the Toad Sage of Mount Myoboku, Jiraiya-sama, the man who can make crying children shut up and maidens fall in love—!"

Along with the exaggerated movements, he gave his wild white hair a vigorous toss.

Minato stared in complete shock, his worldview being rebuilt from the ground up.

En gave that overblown performance an eight out of ten in his heart. He deducted two points because Jiraiya currently had a wooden washbasin from the hot spring perched on his head, making the whole thing absurdly comical.

Though Minato did not know how powerful the legendary Sannin truly were, his beastlike instincts told him that this unreliable-looking uncle was definitely an unimaginably powerful shinobi.

He stepped forward, raised his head, and his eyes shone with blazing intensity.

"Lord Jiraiya, I want to become Hokage someday!"

Jiraiya looked down at the blond brat and dropped his exaggerated expression.

"Can you teach me ninjutsu?" Minato asked directly, without beating around the bush. Sincerity was his greatest weapon.

Jiraiya fell silent.

Those clear blue eyes were filled with pure, untainted longing. There was no clan ambition, no political calculation.

The Great Toad Sage's ancient prophecy flashed through his mind like lightning—you will take a disciple who changes the shinobi world.

Jiraiya looked at Minato, then raised a hand and casually plucked a verdant leaf from a roadside tree, handing it to him.

"Blond brat, use chakra to stick this leaf to your forehead."

Minato took the leaf solemnly with both hands.

"When you can keep it there for an entire day without it falling off, whether you're eating, sleeping, or fighting, come find me."

A classic Jiraiya-style test. It seemed simple, but it was actually an extreme test of fine chakra control.

Then Jiraiya slowly turned his head, his deep gaze settling on En.

"And you, Uchiha brat? Do you want to become Hokage too?"

En shook his head, his expression calm.

"No."

Jiraiya's eyelids lifted slightly, and an invisible pressure faintly bore down on him. "Then what do you want to do?"

En lowered his head and looked at his right hand, which appeared completely ordinary.

He raised his head again, his black eyes meeting Jiraiya's sharp gaze. He spoke each word distinctly.

"I want to protect the people I want to protect."

"And while I'm at it—right the wrongs of this world."

His voice was not loud, but each word struck with weight.

Jiraiya was hit hard by those words. Right the wrongs of this world? What arrogant words, yet they carried an indescribable sorrow and resolve.

His senjutsu perception blared wildly in his mind again! He was certain he had not sensed wrong. This kid was not lying.

Jiraiya said nothing more. He gave the two boys a long look, turned, and lightly leaped onto a rooftop.

Before leaving, he half-turned his head.

"Black-haired brat, what's your name?"

"Uchiha En."

"En... the En in flame?" A meaningful curve formed at Jiraiya's lips as he remembered the name.

Those were two pretty interesting brats.

One was as pure as light, the other as deep as a volcano. They were even more interesting than all those pale, tempting sights in the hot spring.

On the way back, Minato was as excited as a child who had received a new toy, gesturing wildly as he spoke.

"En! Lord Jiraiya really feels incredible! He has this indescribable presence! How should I train with this leaf? I'm not sleeping tonight!"

En walked beside him with his hands in his pockets, secretly amused.

Done.

Today, the seed for his second layer of protection had been firmly planted.

Jiraiya was the Third Hokage's direct disciple. As long as Minato became his student, En, as Minato's inseparable best friend, would naturally enter the core of Jiraiya's and the Third Hokage's attention.

With a great figure whom even Danzo would not dare provoke easily keeping watch nearby, Root would have to carefully weigh the political balance among Konoha's upper ranks before trying to make a move against him.

This was a huge profit.

Night fell.

En returned alone to the dilapidated little house at the very edge of the clan grounds.

Pushing open the drafty wooden door, he did not turn on the lights. Instead, he habitually closed his eyes, and his Observation Haki silently spread out like an invisible radar net.

Fifty meters... eighty meters... one hundred meters.

The Third Hokage's ANBU were still on the roof. Even their breathing rhythm had not changed.

In the shadows sixty meters away, the Uchiha clan's watcher was still wandering about in boredom.

But in the direction watched by Root, things had changed.

The person who had previously been noticed by En whenever they came even slightly too close was gone.

In their place stood a completely new presence ninety meters away, suppressing their aura to the absolute limit.

That aura was emptier and more lifeless, without the slightest emotional fluctuation. To Observation Haki, it did not feel like a person at all, but rather a completely cold tool born solely for killing.

And that Root member who had called himself an "after-school tutor" had not appeared for three days in a row.

En opened his eyes and walked over to sit on the hard bed, his gaze especially cold in the moonlight.

Danzo was adjusting his strategy.

His next move would likely be extremely crude and direct.

The time left for En to grow was running shorter and shorter.

En took a deep breath. With a thought, he summoned the system panel in his mind.

[Host Status]

...

[Magma-Magma Fruit Evolution: 15% (+7%)]

After the evolution percentage, a line of flickering golden text had appeared within the parentheses:

(Social event achieved: Deep fate interaction with the key worldline figure "Jiraiya." Resonance of wills. Fusion rate greatly increased.)

En looked at the words and almost laughed. His tense nerves relaxed slightly.

Just taking Minato to find a teacher and putting on a deep, profound act had raised his progress by a full seven percent. The system's judgment mechanism was rather humane. As long as the wings of his butterfly affected the fate of an important character, he would receive power in return.

And now that he had reached fifteen percent, he could feel the cells in his right arm cheering. The sensation that he could transform his entire arm, or even half his body, into scorching magma at any moment was becoming increasingly natural.

Outside the window, the cold moon cast silver light across the battered wooden floorboards.

Jiraiya's appearance was an excellent way to break the deadlock. Under the cruel conventions of the shinobi world, it would be sheer fantasy for an Uchiha branch-family orphan with no backing to establish ties with one of the Sannin.

But if he made use of the Third Hokage's surveillance, Fugaku's protection, and Jiraiya's favor toward Minato, then plotted a little in the gap between them...

En lay on the hard bedboards, lightly tapping the side of his thigh with his fingers to a rhythm no one else knew.