But neither Pain looked worried. Both wore smiles, as though their plan had worked.
Jiraiya felt the threat vanish and released Needle Jizo. Standing on the centipede's head, he had just begun to relax when his expression froze.
A defeated summoned beast should disappear and return to its own world to recover, just as the Hell Three-Headed Hound had. But this centipede showed no sign of vanishing. Its body was still here, which was deeply strange.
While he was puzzling over it, something changed. The chunks of flesh Needle Jizo had torn away began to writhe, then abruptly turned into centipedes just like the first and lunged at Jiraiya.
The huge centipede beneath his feet, motionless until now, suddenly stirred. As if it had recovered completely, it whipped its head upward, trying to throw him off.
Jiraiya glanced down. Several centipedes writhed below him; landing among them would be bad. He thought for a moment, then leaped up, rapidly formed hand seals, and shouted, "Earth Release: Yellow Springs Swamp!"
The ground beneath the centipedes instantly turned into an enormous swamp of yellow mud. They could not run, and the more they struggled, the deeper they sank.
The woman sprang away with a tap of her foot. She watched as the centipedes slowly disappeared beneath the mud, then vanished with a final bang.
Watching from the side, Uchiha Itachi could not help marveling. Jiraiya truly deserved his place among the Sannin. Ordinary people could never match that kind of power.
Even two Pains together had failed to defeat Jiraiya. In the distance, Nagato wore an odd expression as he muttered to himself, "He really is my teacher."
No sooner had he spoken than the woman on the battlefield used the Summoning Technique again. With a bang, another orange-haired Pain appeared instead