Naruto: Chronicles of a Fire Ninja - Chapter 453

Chapter 453: Chapter 448: Jiraiya’s Visit

Like this, a whole month passed, and the ninja who went with the Daimyo were now back in the village. Surprisingly, the first person to come and meet Kaida was not Shisui—but… Jiraiya.

“Good morning, Sensei. I wasn’t expecting to see you before my brother,” Kaida said. He was in the training ground, alerted by one of his shadow clones dispersing when Jiraiya called for him.

Jiraiya grinned as he approached, his trademark laid-back swagger present as ever.

“Well, what can I say? I move fast when I want to, especially when there’s something important to talk about. Besides,” he smirked, tapping the side of his nose, “your brother might be fast, but I’ve got better timing.”

He gave Kaida a once-over and added with a wink, “And it’s been a while since we had a little chat, hasn’t it?”

“It has, Sensei. So, how was your mission?” Kaida asked.

“It was easy. Unless a country wants to start a war without financial backup, there’s very little chance of someone attacking a Daimyo—especially the Fire Daimyo,” Jiraiya explained.

“I wasn’t talking about that mission, Sensei. I meant the other one—where so many Jonin got injured. I was surprised that even happened when you were leading them,” Kaida replied, a smirk tugging at his lips.

Jiraiya blinked, genuinely confused. “How do you know about that? Did Sensei tell you?”

“Well, it’s hard not to know when I was the one who treated them. And before all this, Lord Third did mention that Konoha would take revenge for what those two villages did to us. That, along with the timing of your missions, all aligned a little too perfectly not to connect the dots.”

Jiraiya stared at him for a beat, then muttered with a chuckle, “Are you one-third Nara as well?”

“…No, Sensei.”

“Well, since you already know about my mission, how about you tell me about yours as well? I heard you had quite a mission yourself,” Jiraiya said.

“Yeah, I met your former teammate, Sensei, but he was not actually as friendly as you,” Kaida said.

“I want to know everything about it, don’t miss a single detail, okay?” Jiraiya said. Even though he still had his smile on, the posture, the glint in his eye, and the concentration he was putting on what Kaida was going to say was completely different from his normal behavior.

‘Truly like Naruto, not able to let go of his old friend even after all he did. Well, considering all of us are ninja who have blood of hundreds on our hands, and someone like Sensei who probably has more than ten times that amount… what Orochimaru did was not that difficult to forgive… for him.’

Even though Kaida understood the feelings of his sensei, he didn’t particularly agree with it. It was true that every person deserved a second chance, but someone like Orochimaru who had committed mass genocide for his experiments, killed whole clans and what not… no, at least not from him.

“Okay, Sensei. When we first entered the Land of Water…” Kaida gave a made-up story to Jiraiya. Since Jiraiya was the spymaster of Konoha, he did have to add some actual names, but since he had memories of quite some ninjas from the Land of Water—from both factions, it was not that hard to do.

After making up the story till he reached Kimimaro and fought with Orochimaru, he then gave the actual details about what Orochimaru was doing, how he fought, and all.

“Can you guess his chakra reserve?” Jiraiya asked.

“Yes, Sensei… he had around the same amount of chakra as me.” It was a very big statement for Kaida. Someone with both Senju and Uchiha bloodline, and a wielder of MS, his chakra reserves were massive to say the least, and for Orochimaru—someone with no clan bloodline behind his back—to have the same amount of chakra as him was quite a feat in itself.

“Hmm, so he was not using his full chakra. That means he is working on something…” Jiraiya muttered to himself, and for a second, Kaida’s brain paused.

“What do you mean, Sensei?” Kaida asked.

“Oh, he had almost one and a half times your chakra reserve. He must have left some shadow clones behind either as a backup or on some other task, a task which he deemed more important than getting an Uchiha and Kaguya… this is concerning.” While Jiraiya was having various thoughts in his mind, Kaida was panicking as well.

‘So even after all that… it was just a play for Orochimaru. If he wanted, he may have caught me?… No, I have not even used Mitotic Regeneration Seal, let alone Mangekyo techniques. The outcome is still not final, but is not as clear as I thought either… I really need to increase my strength,’ Kaida was thinking when Jiraiya started speaking.

“Well, aside from this, there was one more reason I wanted to meet you.”

“Yes, Sensei?”

“Toad Sage once again wants to meet you… Don’t make that face, it is not like last time. There is something important he wants to discuss with you.” When Jiraiya said Toad Sage wants to meet Kaida, all of the color drained from his face, like a lightning was going to strike him and there was nothing he could do about that.

Since the last visit was not good news for Kaida, he was already thinking something similar was going to happen once again.

Thankfully Jiraiya cleared the misunderstanding before Kaida could go on locking all of his family in a room with shadow clones surrounding a 100-meter area all around the room… yeah, he was really starting to plan all this. Luckily Jiraiya stopped him midway.

“Do you have any idea what he wants to discuss, Sensei?” Kaida asked, still not fully convinced, but still a little relieved.

“Not much. He is in… sleep for the last 3 months and should wake up soon. He had asked me to take you back to him when he wakes up, so stay in the village and don’t go on any mission for a week or two. I don’t know the exact date when he will wake up.”

“Okay, Sensei.”

“Great, then I will meet you when the time comes.”

“Wait a minute, Sensei. I wanted to ask something too,” Kaida said before Jiraiya could go away.

“Go on.”

“Sensei, did something happen to my body when I was at Mount Myoboku after awakening my MS?”

“Oh! You still don’t know that… yeah, you were having quite an upgrade to your chakra reserves at that time, which made your body unable to handle the speed of change… in short, your body was unable to adapt at the speed of change.

So the frogs did you a favor and placed you in some nutrient-rich tank which your body really required, fed you chakra-rich food, which if you don’t know would be better, and infused the tank with nature energy so that you wouldn’t die from all that,” Jiraiya said.

“Umm… what is nature energy, Sensei?”

Jiraiya raised an eyebrow, then grinned.

“Good question. Nature Energy is… well, it’s the life force of the world around us—something you can’t see but can definitely feel once you get a taste for it. It flows through the air, the ground, even through plants and animals.”

He crossed his arms and leaned back slightly.

“When someone gathers that energy and blends it with their own chakra—the physical and spiritual parts—they create something called Senjutsu Chakra. That’s the stuff that lets you enter Sage Mode. Something you don’t need to worry about at the moment. I will tell you more when you are ready for that,” he said.

“Thank you, Sensei,” Kaida said. With his doubt cleared, it was now time to meet with his brother.