The legacy of the yellow flash

Part-39

Within the large body of water that surrounded Amegakure No Sato, a small toad stuck its head out of the water. This was not so strange. Amphibians of all kinds were often found near or around the water, and considering how much precipitation Amegakure received there were far more toads there than there would be anywhere else.

However, while there didn't seem to be anything remarkable about this toad, what it did next would easily be something that stepped out of the bounds of reality. Where if anyone that was not a shinobi had been watching, they undoubtedly would not believe what they were seeing.

The toad opened its mouth, almost as if to croak. Before the creature could even make a noise, however, a large hand, followed by an arm came out. This was soon followed by a head full of white hair, another arm, a body wearing a red and green Kabuki outfit and a set of legs. When the man's body was all of the ways out, Jiraiya of the Sennin stood up.

"Amegakure," the man muttered, an unusually sombre expression on the man's face. "I never wanted to come back here."

Amegakure was a small, yet highly industrialized hidden village located in an unnamed country. Its architecture was composed of several metallic skyscrapers with rowed ducts connected to them and mazy power lines surmounting. Several smaller villages also surrounded Amegakure. As its name suggested, it rained almost constantly due to a storm above the village.

It was a place that held many bad memories for Jiraiya, memories of several of his many failures, of his loss against Hanzo, the deaths of his three students. There was a lot about the village that would haunt the Sennin until he died.

Straightening his back, Jiraiya, the Gama Sennin of Konoha and one of the most powerful men in the world began making his way into the sprawling village.

Pain's head snapped up as he looked out at the falling rain. His eyes narrowed.

"Pain?" asked Konan, seeing the look on his face.

"Someone has managed to infiltrate Amegakure," Pain said. Konan narrowed her hearing that "Judging by their chakra and the fact that I didn't feel them until they entered suggests they are skilled."

Jiraiya unsealed a plain tan traveller's cloak from a seal hidden in his vest pocket. Putting it on he threw the hood up and walked out from under the small overhang he had used to stay out of the rain. As he wondered where the best place to start gathering information would be, he came upon a little shop with an old lady selling pork buns outside.

He grabbed one of the buns off the stove the old lady had on. "Ack!" he quickly began tossing the hot bun from one hand to the other in surprise. Though he supposed it shouldn't be, it had been on a stove after all. It was supposed to be hot.

When it finally cooled down enough so that he could hold it in one hand he reached into a pocket with the other and pulled out some money.

"Baa-chan, I'll take one of these," he said to the old lady, holding the money out to her.

"Anytime," the old lady said as she took the money. As her hand closed around the ryō she eyed him warily. "You know, I haven't seen you around here before. You're not from around here, are you?"

"That obvious, huh?" said Jiraiya with a jovial smile and a laugh. "Well, I'm a writer, you see. I do a lot of travelling for a magazine I write in about regional specialities." Jiraiya gave himself a mental pat on the back at picking this particular persona to adopt when he saw the woman's suspicion melt away and a smile to take her face. As a spymaster, he had to always come up with false jobs and such to keep suspicion off his back. It helped that he was at least partly telling the truth, he was a writer after all.