"This... this is no Summoning Technique! You... who exactly are you?!"
Jiraiya's voice trembled violently across the empty Training Ground. He stared fixedly at Shengu Xuan, who hovered in midair. His eyes, which had seen countless people, now held nothing but undisguisable horror.
A night breeze heavy with the smell of earth swept past, whipping sand and dust into the air. Gamabunta's hill-sized body remained embedded in the deep crater, his enormous belly heaving, every breath accompanied by a muffled groan of pain. The massive short sword he took such pride in had snapped in two, its pieces stuck helplessly in the distant earth.
Shengu Xuan looked down at Jiraiya from above, a cold smile full of malicious amusement curling his lips. He slowly slipped both hands back into the pockets of his casual pants. Beside him, over a hundred Flying Shadow Ninja beat their hideous, fleshy wings, hovering quietly in midair like loyal, vicious hounds, their scarlet eyes locked on the prey below.
"Who am I?" Shengu Xuan's voice was so flat that not a ripple could be heard in it, yet it struck Jiraiya's heart like a heavy hammer. "Old man, you're asking the wrong question. You should be asking yourself just what kind of being Konoha has provoked."
"You..." Jiraiya gritted his teeth and tried to muster the chakra remaining in his body, but the aftereffects of that punch were still ravaging his internal organs, leaving him barely able to gather the strength to form hand seals. He knew perfectly well that if this black-haired boy truly intended to kill them, neither he nor Gamabunta would leave this forest alive today.
He could fly without any chakra fluctuations; he could summon terrifying monsters that could neither be killed nor burned away without forming hand seals; with nothing