"It's Tobi from the Akatsuki!"
The Superintendent General found it hard to believe. This was the fifth Superhuman to appear today. These normally elusive beings were gathering in Sapporo City to manifest their powers. Could there be something extraordinary about Sapporo City?
And this frequency was far too abnormal!
Based on the Superhumans' scattered remarks, the Metropolitan Police Department's Expert Group had deduced that some sort of constraints must exist between these monsters. Crossing between worlds could not be easy.
Could the doors between the two worlds have gradually opened since the Crimson Moon, allowing Superhumans to descend so frequently and interfere with reality?
"So Orochimaru, Jiraiya, and Tsunade really did study under the same master? That differs somewhat from The Tale of the Gallant Jiraiya, but folk legends often become distorted as they spread. It could have been a derivative work, or an adaptation by the author."
The Superintendent General, who had been trying to decipher the Superhumans' conversations through lip-reading, looked thoughtful.
From the partial testimony of several ordinary people caught up in the Mount Myōboku incident, the Metropolitan Police Department had determined that Orochimaru and Jiraiya shared an unusual relationship. They were both enemies and friends, rather than mortal foes as portrayed in the novel.
"But what does 'Sannin' mean?" The Superintendent General frowned.
The Metropolitan Police Department was not surprised that the Toad Sage Jiraiya was a ninja. In The Tale of the Gallant Jiraiya, the protagonist Jiraiya was the son of a powerful family in Higo and a ninja himself.
"Sannin sounds like a collective title for Jiraiya, Orochimaru, and Princess Tsunade. It seems the three are even more closely connected than we inferred."
Above the ruins of Sapporo City, Tobi, wearing the Spiral Mask, landed as lightly as a weightless feather and greeted them