Some People Really Get Carried Away

Early that morning, Uchiha Itachi brought back fresh water and wild fruit.

"Caw!"

Kitahara happily picked up a piece of fruit in his beak and pecked at his breakfast for the day.

"Itachi, your summoned beast isn't very qualified..." Jiraiya glanced at the crow with a fruit in his beak and began counting off on his fingers. "It can't keep watch at night, it can't catch fish... and it isn't like other scouting ninja beasts either... It's too lazy!"

Uchiha Itachi handed him a wild fruit, stuffing Jiraiya's mouth with food. "Sensei... have some fruit."

He knew Kitahara's temperament well. It was already good enough that he was willing to come out and rough it with him; how could Itachi ask any more of him? Besides, before he left home, Uchiha Mikoto had carefully instructed him to take good care of Kitahara.

"Sensei, where are we going now?"

"Well, I'm going to bring back my companion..." Jiraiya said with a hearty smile. "He got lost, so I'm going to take him back to the village."

"Is it Orochimaru?"

"Oh, you know him too?"

"One of Konoha's Legendary Sannin, Orochimaru the Cold-Blooded..." Uchiha Itachi recalled the time he had met Orochimaru. "I saw him before the Memorial Stone. He told me that life had no meaning..."

Jiraiya immediately looked miserable. He abruptly leaned close to Uchiha Itachi and warned, "Don't listen to that guy's nonsense! Not a single word he says can be trusted! He promised to help me, but he never fulfilled a single one of those promises!"

"Mm! But I was still young then, and I took his words to heart. I guessed that if I came infinitely close to death, perhaps I could find the meaning of life..."

"...That bastard doesn't even spare children!" Jiraiya could not help rubbing his forehead before harshly scolding him, "Idiot, don't you have a brain?! What happened afterward?"

Uchiha Itachi stroked the crow's wing, unable to stop himself from reminiscing. "Afterward, Kitahara saved me..."

Tracking Orochimaru was extremely dangerous, so Jiraiya did not intend to bring Uchiha Itachi into battle. If not for the Third Hokage's request, he had even planned to let Itachi stay in the village and do some small missions.

Looking at the little boy, Jiraiya secretly decided that when they got close to Orochimaru's base, he would leave Itachi in a nearby town.

According to the intelligence provided by the Third Hokage... it would only be a few days before they met that bastard!

"The Land of Wind is relatively barren. Most of its territory is desert and rocky wasteland, weathered by sandstorms year-round, with very few resources... Sunagakure's ninja have a deep understanding of Wind Release."

"Wouldn't that make them easy to counter?"

"Stupid kid! How could one of the Five Great Nations' ninja villages have only Wind Release? Aside from Wind Release, they are also skilled in puppet techniques, poisons, and a special bloodline limit—Magnet Release!"

"Are they strong?"

"Very strong!" Jiraiya nodded seriously. "I once saw a husband-and-wife pair with superb puppet skills. They caused Konoha tremendous losses... If Sakumo's swordsmanship hadn't been so strong, it would have been hard to say whether we could have won."

After thinking for a moment, he added, "Puppeteers are far from invincible. They have plenty of natural enemies, such as that woman Tsunade. One punch per puppet... She beat that old woman Chiyo until she had no temper left at all!"

"...Lady Tsunade really is strong!" Uchiha Itachi agreed with that. Setting everything else aside, she had punched Jiraiya flying during the examination that day... It had been immensely satisfying to watch...

Once Jiraiya started praising her, he could not stop. "Of course! Tsunade is the strongest woman in the ninja world, and also its strongest medical ninja. We used to be teammates..."

"Because of Tsunade, the ninja world began assigning medical ninja to teams, and so many people were able to survive on the battlefield..."

"Mikoto was in the same class as Tsunade's younger brother, Senju Nawaki... What a pity..."

"That year, Tsunade nearly caught up to me..."

As the crow listened, he shot Jiraiya a disdainful look. Some people started floating away the moment they opened their mouths...

The problem was that Uchiha Itachi did not know the truth and could not expose his lies... Thus, the master and disciple got along better and better, aside from the crow who wanted to cover his ears.

Throughout the entire ninja world, when it came to broad knowledge—whether local customs or the unique ninja arts of various nations—there was almost nothing Jiraiya did not know... And Uchiha Itachi possessed the same thirst for ninja knowledge.

One loved to talk at length, while the other loved to listen quietly.

Jiraiya felt thoroughly accomplished, while Uchiha Itachi gained a great deal.

Neither master nor disciple noticed that someone was watching them. The mysterious masked man and Zetsu were hiding far away in a dense tree, concealing themselves.

"That child is the Uchiha Jiraiya took as his disciple?"

"His name is Uchiha Itachi." The pitcher plant with black and white skin softly relayed the intelligence he had gathered. "Everyone in Konoha knows that he awakened the Sharingan..."

"Even if he's only six, that's hardly remarkable!" the masked man snorted.

"They say he awakened the Sharingan at Namikaze Minato's inauguration ceremony. Not long after the Ninja Academy began, Uchiha Itachi attended only one day of class before graduating... The next day, Jiraiya, who had returned to the village, took him as his disciple."

"The awakening of the Sharingan must be driven by an obsession with love and hate... So it seems that little brat called Itachi chose to abandon the Uchiha?" The mysterious masked man became slightly interested. He had long grown tired of that clan.

Black Zetsu could not let Obito act however he pleased, so he tried to persuade him. "Obito, Uchiha Itachi is the future clan head of the Uchiha. If he truly grows up, everything you have done in Konoha will be wasted..."

Because of Itachi's existence, the rift between the Uchiha clan and Konoha's upper ranks might take an unpredictable turn in the future! Their goal was to weaken Konoha, not to watch it rise again...

"Hehehe... You nearly died in Konoha, yet ended up accomplishing nothing!" White Zetsu suddenly cut in. "Well, you can't say that. At least Obito got his own teacher killed... Hehehe..."

Bang!

The masked man punched Zetsu's head into the tree trunk!

"You talk too much..." The masked man stared at the master and disciple chatting happily in the distance and asked, "He's only a child. If we get rid of him... Fugaku Uchiha probably won't trust the Hokage ever again, right?"

"Hehehe... How ruthless..." White Zetsu's desire to court death seemed impossible to stop. "He is the clan head's son, after all. Is this really okay?"

Black Zetsu hurriedly cut White Zetsu off and got to the point. "Jiraiya, one of the Sannin, is not someone easy to deal with... Obito, your body has not fully recovered yet, has it?"

"Don't worry about Jiraiya." The masked man shook his head. "If I'm not mistaken, that man must be planning to retrieve the traitor Orochimaru. We have plenty of opportunities... Ridiculous bonds!"

"..." Zetsu froze for a moment and decided to keep his mouth shut.

He talked so enthusiastically, but who knew who it was that kept going to Konoha whenever he had nothing to do—either visiting graves or spying on that white-haired man...

I'll make up for yesterday's update tonight. It'll probably be very late... I'll edit it during breaks in the match at midnight. The time has been set.