"Old man, who are you?"
Jiraiya's voice echoed faintly through the empty void. His gaze moved from the tomoe to the face, studying the figure suspended in midair. The man sat cross-legged on nine black Truth-Seeking Orbs, his posture steady. The spheres beneath him rotated slightly, as though maintaining some stable state of levitation. His face was old, his skin lined with the marks of time, yet his eyes held a light at odds with his age, as if they could pierce the surface of time and see far beyond it.
Hearing Jiraiya's question, the old man floating in midair tilted his head slightly, as though weighing his words. "That is indeed a question. However... I am somewhat concerned about whether the name passed down among the people matches the name I give myself."
Having said that, he slowly turned around. As he turned, his outline became clearer-not because his form changed, but because its details began to reveal themselves one by one. Two short horns grew from his head, extending upward from his temples, their tips slightly curved, their shapes symmetrical and natural. In the very center of his forehead was a red spiral mark, its color deep and its edges distinct, as though it had been drawn with some pigment that would never fade.
Jiraiya froze. He knew every word, and could understand every sentence taken separately, but strung together, they seemed woven into a structure beyond anything he had expected. He could neither find a reason to argue nor come up with a suitable response right away. Staring at the horns and the mark on the man's forehead, he went over the information again in his mind, trying to find anything in his memories that matched it.
The old man continued, "I am the embodiment of peace