"Ah!"
Jiraiya let out a strange cry as mories of his death flooded back.
Only then did he realize that his ti in the bathhouse was rely a beautiful dream.
The real him had died during a mission infiltrating Agakure to gather intel on Akatsuki.
And he was killed by Six Paths Pain—his own disciple...
From Nagato’s perspective, he had been very courteous to Jiraiya.
He first sent Konan to persuade him to retreat. When talks failed, he only sent Animal Path’s summons to attack, trying to force Jiraiya to back off.
After that, he escalated the pressure layer by layer, always aiming to drive Jiraiya away, not kill him.
He even deliberately revealed much information to let Jiraiya complete his mission and report back.
Throughout the battle, the choice to stay or leave was always Jiraiya’s, and he had plenty of chances to escape until he uncovered Six Paths Pain’s greatest secret.
Unfortunately, Jiraiya’s stubborn nature made him prioritize intel and the village over his own life.
That’s why he fought to the death, seeking more information.
What should have been a heartfelt teacher-disciple reunion was forced into a tragic master-killing tragedy.
If it had been Agakure’s previous leader, Hanzou the Salamander, he might have killed the intruder as quickly as possible.
But now, debating right or wrong was pointless. Neither was truly at fault.
One risked everything to gather intel to protect Konoha.
The other tried desperately to repel an intruder to protect Agakure.
Ultimately, their conflicting positions and goals led to an irreconcilable clash.
◆━⊰✧⊱━◆
The newly revived Jiraiya was undoubtedly bewildered.
"W-Wasn’t I already dead?"
"This? Edo Tensei? The forbidden jutsu developed by Nidai-sama? I rember Orochimaru mastered this technique too, right?"
"Is that really you, Nagato?"
"Wait, your eyes? The Rinnegan? You and Pain are..."
Seeing the Rinnegan in Edo Tensei Nagato’s eyes, Jiraiya’s guesses began to connect.
"Jiraiya-sensei, you’ve probably figured it out, haven’t you?"
"Six Paths Pain was controlled by from behind the scenes. I’m also the leader of Akatsuki. And yes, I’m the one who killed you!"
With things as they were, Nagato saw no need to hide and told Jiraiya directly.
Jiraiya’s Edo Tensei body trembled violently before he slowly cald down.
"So it was you! The Pain with the Rinnegan was just a puppet, and you’re the real body! The prophesied child with the Rinnegan..."
Jiraiya sighed with deep regret. The last ti he saw Six Paths Pain, he had basically guessed Nagato’s identity in his heart.
He just couldn’t confirm it, which is why he left the ssage "there is no real body" to be relayed back.
But now, it seed his guess was correct.
It was indeed Nagato’s doing!
"Prophesied child? Are you still chasing that pathetic joke? So foolish, Sensei..."
Nagato was quite displeased.
The Rinnegan, symbolizing the prophesied child, wasn’t even his.
He was rely a pawn manipulated and used—how could he feel happy thinking about this?
"It’s the prophecy of the Great Toad Sage; it can’t be wrong! Wait... you revived with Edo Tensei? But why are you an Edo body too? You..."
Though Jiraiya was usually carefree, he was sharp when gathering intel.
He quickly noticed Nagato’s oddity.
Unlike the living Konan beside him, Nagato lacked the aura of life, as if he too were an Edo body.
"Correct, I’m also dead."
Nagato admitted it honestly, with no sha.
"What? You’re dead too? Who killed you?"
Jiraiya felt a mix of sadness and regret, his emotions complex. He mourned his disciple’s death but was relieved that Konoha had lost a major enemy.
Human emotions are always this complicated, and Jiraiya was no exception.
"Naruto."
"What did you say? You were killed by Naruto?!?"
"You could say that. I lost to that junior disciple..."
"Impossible! Naruto wouldn’t kill anyone, nor could he. Wait... Nagato, what exactly did you do? Did you do sothing to Konoha..."
Jiraiya seed to guess sothing.
For Naruto to fight Nagato to the death, it must have been to protect sothing non-negotiable.
Sasuke?
Sakura?
Or the entire Konoha Village?
Jiraiya tensed, shedding his carefree deanor from monts ago.
Konoha Village was the conviction he’d die to protect!
Especially since the village held the people he loved most...
"Jiraiya-sensei, don’t get too excited. We have plenty of ti. Let tell you everything from the start."
"Let show you how fragile your naive fantasies are in this cruel, ugly reality..."
"..."
Reuniting with Jiraiya, who was practically family, and not yet eting as enemies, Nagato grew sentintal and couldn’t help but share.
He briefly recounted everything that happened after Jiraiya’s death up to now.
The storytelling didn’t take long—just over ten minutes.
But the explosive information in that short ti nearly shattered Jiraiya’s worldview.
Uchiha Obito, Uchiha Madara, Black Zetsu, the Rinnegan, Gedo Mazo, the Ten-Tails revival plan, Infinite Tsukuyomi, the God Tree... and more.
Any one of these was enough to deeply shake Jiraiya’s understanding and intelligence network.
Though he couldn’t yet confirm the truth of this information, if it was all true, the intel he’d sacrificed his life to bring back was worth less than dog feces compared to this grand conspiracy.
What was this?
So Nagato was also a manipulated pawn? His life was that worthless?
What a loss!
Jiraiya suddenly felt like crying—it was too tragic...
But to maintain his dignity as a teacher, he held back his tears.
The priority now was verifying this information and understanding Nagato’s next goal.
"Nagato, is everything you said true?"
"I’m a dead man. Why would I need to deceive another dead man?"
"Uh..."
Jiraiya fell silent. Dying once had impacted him greatly.
When he was first revived, he felt an emptiness and purity, as if he’d just finished a zero-day fast, as though nothing in the world mattered anymore.
From this perspective, both were dead, and he was revived by Nagato.
There was indeed no need for deception.
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