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Back at the Art Store in Konoha, the reading hall was finally complete as the big names arrived one after another.
Jiraiya entered with an unusual calm, and took his copy from the shelf without any fanfare.
Tsunade had expected a full theatrical performance from him the moment he saw himself on the cover, and she had prepared three cutting retorts in advance for that exact purpose.
But the man merely looked at the cover for a few seconds, then said quietly as he paid Rob:
"Good composition. The boy in the front, the master opening the way behind him… whoever drew this understands what teaching means."
Then he took his seat not far from his student Minato, and opened the volume straight to its first page.
Tsunade stared at him with narrowed eyes.
'Who are you, and what have you done with Jiraiya?'
In truth, there was a simple reason behind the man's change. Ever since his counterpart's appearance at the end of Volume Ten, and since his late-night conversation with Rob, Jiraiya had decided to treat this manga with a different kind of seriousness.
Those pages were no longer just an entertaining story to him — they were a mirror of the man he would one day become… and of a student who would one day stand before him.
And Jiraiya, however much he seemed a loud fool to people, had never once been a true fool.
…
Shortly after him, the Third Hokage Hiruzen Sarutobi entered, and at his side, the lady of the Uzumaki clan — Mito.
Those who rose in respect were spared by a calm gesture from the Hokage.
Mito crossed the hall with steps that hurried for nothing, her elegantly tied red hair catching the lamplight.
To newer visitors of the store who did not know her, guessing her true age was impossible. The woman who had lived alongside the First Hokage himself, who by all rights should be in the twilight of old age, looked as though time had merely brushed her lightly, apologized, and moved on: taut skin, an upright figure, and eyes whose brightness had never dimmed.
As for those in the know, they knew the secret well: the glowing violet diamond upon her forehead.
The Strength of a Hundred Seal — the pinnacle of medical sealing arts — which let the lady of the Uzumaki walk between the shelves of a manga store like a legend in the prime of her youth.
Hiruzen offered her a copy with a slight bow, and the two took the customary place at the head of the reading hall — that spot which none of the store's regulars dared approach even on the most crowded of days.
Mito did not read the back summary first, as everyone else had.
Her eyes stayed on the cover — specifically on the enormous eyes of the toad dissolving into the deep green background.
"Mount Myōboku extends its hand as well…"
the lady whispered to herself.
Then she turned the volume over, read the summary once, and stopped at a single line.
Struggles to harness the power of the Nine-Tailed Fox chakra locked within him.
Mito knew that weight well.
She had carried it for whole decades — since the days of her husband Hashirama, until the day the fox passed from her body into the body of the little red-haired girl… the day that should have been her last, were it not for the quiet young man standing behind this very store's counter.
Mito raised her eyes toward Rob for a moment, then turned them calmly toward the quiet corner of the hall, where Kushina sat beside Minato, absorbed in her volume.
The current bearer.
'Hold on, little one…'
Her eyes returned to the blond boy on the cover.
'For the women who know the weight of what you carry… are sitting in this very hall.'
And the rest arrived one after another: Hatake Sakumo, who took a seat near the entrance with the dust of the road still on his uniform; the current head of the Uchiha clan, Hogaku, who sat by the western wall alongside his son Fugaku, in the spot from which the Uchiha could see everything while hardly being seen; and the councilor Mitokado Homura, who opened his volume with the care of a man opening a classified file.
And so, before that day's mid-morning had risen, all of Konoha began reading Volume Eleven at nearly the same moment.
[— Manga Scene —]
Atop the huge toad, the white-haired man stood in a full theatrical pose, one hand extended before his face.
"Who are you?!"
Naruto shouted, pointing his finger at him.
"Thank you for asking!!"
"I am the hermit of the toad spirits of Mount Myōboku — also known as… the Toad Sage!!"
"A… a sage?"
And after the dust settled and Ebisu was written off as a casualty of the "data gathering session," Naruto charged toward the man in fury.
"Hey! You perverted sage! Look what you did to the supervisor of my training!!"
"He interrupted my data gathering session."
"Data gathering session?"
The man raised a small book with pride.
"I am a writer. A writer of short novels."
"And what do you mean by 'gathering data'?! You were just peeping on the girls' bath!! Stuff like that at my age is considered mere nonsense — but for an old man like you to do it is a crime!!"
"Fool!!! I am no ordinary pervert!!"
"Magnificent inspiration for writing novels comes to me when I peep at girls!"
"Liar! Stop making up excuses!! Anyway — what are we going to do about my training?!!"
"Training? You mean the water-walking training?"
Naruto tried everything after that. Shouting, demands that the man take responsibility, even complimenting the novel "Make-Out Paradise" — "Ummm… the Make-Out Paradise novel was wonderful…"
"People under 18 cannot buy or read these novels. Don't lie."
"Damn it…"
"I am a sage. I'm not foolish enough to be deceived by the words of a child like you!"
'Fine then… there's no use trying to tempt him with words.'
Naruto clasped his hands into a single seal.
"Take this!!! What about THIS?"
A cloud of smoke…
"Sexy Jutsu!!!"
And in the boy's place stood a stunning blonde girl, veiled by nothing but the smoke, winking.
The sage froze.
Then his nose erupted with blood as he screamed with both hands on his face:
"I LIKE you!!!"
'…He's an idiot!'
The blonde girl stared at him through half-lidded eyes.
[— End Scene —]
The reading hall exploded with laughter.
"Bwahahaha! The legendary Sannin felled by a child's technique!"
"That technique took down the Third Hokage in the early chapters… and now a Sannin! The Sexy Jutsu is a genuine strategic weapon!"
"Wait… so the Sannin's criterion for accepting students is one naked girl?!"
On the right side of the hall, Nawaki was sprawled flat over his volume from laughing so hard, while Kato Dan pressed a hand over his mouth in an attempt to preserve his manners — and failed miserably.
And at the head of the hall, the Third Hokage raised his fist and gave a long, contrived cough, remembering with painful clarity the early chapters… and the moment that very same technique had felled him in front of the entire village.
'That accursed technique only hunts the great.'
Tsunade turned her head slowly toward Jiraiya, having finally found her opening to deploy her prepared retorts.
"'I like you'? One naked girl and your entire legend collapsed in two seconds?"
But Jiraiya did not even lift his head from the volume.
"My future self's acceptance standards are far too lenient — I'll admit that."
he said with complete calm, turning the page.
"But look at what comes after the acceptance, not at the acceptance itself."
"…What do you mean?"
"Read and you'll see."
Tsunade stared at him once more with narrowed eyes, then went back to her volume, muttering something about men who ruin the pleasure of mocking them.
…
And soon enough, everyone understood what Jiraiya had meant.
[— Manga Scene —]
"I was joking about what I said just now. I will begin your training."
said the sage with a smile.
"Now, boy — finish the exercise you were practicing over there."
"Alright!!"
Naruto leapt eagerly toward the surface of the hot spring… took two steps… then began to wobble.
"Mmm!!"
"Hah!! Ha…"
And he plunged into the hot water with a mighty splash.
"WAAAAAAAH!!!"
The boy came out screaming from the heat, then tore off his jacket and hurled it aside in anger.
"Damn it!! There's no point wearing clothes here!!"
But the sage's eyes were not looking at the jacket.
"…"
"Hey. Try focusing some chakra one more time."
"!"
"Just do it."
"O…okay."
Naruto clasped his hands and focused, bare-chested, the steam rising around him.
And there, on the boy's stomach, the seal appeared.
The sage's eyes narrowed as he examined it with total focus.
'So this is the seal system that was used to seal the Kyūbi… It's made of two Four Symbols Seals. It must be the Eight Trigrams Sealing Style…'
'It was designed to allow the Kyūbi's chakra to leak through the Four Symbols Seal and convert into whatever he needs…'
The sage paused for a moment, then an expression of deep understanding settled over his face.
'The Fourth Hokage must have… done this to protect him.'
'But it's been blocked by a Five Elements Seal… an odd-numbered seal placed over an even-numbered seal… His own chakra and the Kyūbi's chakra are mixing in conflict — that's why it's become unstable…'
'No wonder he can't use his chakra properly… It seems someone else did this. The method is far too crude…'
The sage's features hardened suddenly.
'It must have been… Orochimaru who did this.'
"Boy. Raise your arms."
"He sure gives a lot of orders…"
Naruto muttered, raising his arms in surrender.
[— End Scene —]
This time, no one in the reading hall laughed.
"He placed a seal on the child…"
Kushina said slowly, her fingers tightening on the edge of her volume until her knuckles turned white.
"That snake placed a suffocating seal on a child in the Forest of Death… and let him fight through the entire exam while he was being strangled!"
Kushina was not speaking as an ordinary reader.
The red-haired girl knew — more than anyone, save one — what it meant to live with a great seal working in one's body day and night. She knew that silent weight, that presence that never sleeps in her depths.
And the thought that someone might tamper with a seal like that… that someone might reach out his fingers and strangle it on purpose…
Her whole body shuddered despite herself.
From the perspective of the general readers, the scene was simply another rescue moment to the new mentor's credit.
But from the perspective of the seal masters in the hall, the scene was saying many other things.
"An odd-numbered seal over an even-numbered seal."
Mito's voice came from the head of the hall — calm as ever, but those who knew the lady well heard a rare hardness beneath it.
"In the art of sealing, this is not random vandalism. This is the work of someone who understands the seal's structure precisely… and chooses to wound it at its most delicate points."
"Ignorance can be treated. But knowledge, when it is used like this…"
The lady did not finish her sentence. She did not need to.
Then, after a moment, she added, her eyes still on the page:
"But pay attention to the other detail… the more important one."
"The original seal itself. An Eight Trigrams seal, deliberately designed to let the fox's chakra leak into the boy."
She raised her eyes slowly.
"Whoever designed that seal did not merely want to cage the beast… he wanted the boy to be able to use its power one day."
"The Fourth Hokage, as Jiraiya said in these pages. That man sealed the greatest catastrophe in history inside an infant… and left him, within the very design, a door and a key."
"This is not the work of a sealer protecting a village from a monster."
"This is the work of a man who trusts that infant… blindly."
A contemplative silence settled over the hall after her words.
And in the quiet corner, Minato was reading the same passage for the third time.
'The Fourth Hokage…'
That title which had appeared in the manga since its earliest chapters: the fourth face on the mountain, the man who sealed the Kyūbi and sacrificed his life, the hero whose name no one in this hall yet knew.
'A seal that imprisons… and grants at the same time.'
'To seal a catastrophe inside a child, then design the restraint itself so that it becomes the child's weapon when he grows…'
Minato felt a pure engineer's admiration run through him — the kind of admiration known only to those who have stood before a complex sealing problem.
'Whoever that man was… his way of thinking…'
The boy paused for a moment, unable to find the right word.
'…feels strangely familiar.'
Then he shook his head, chased the thought away, and returned to reading.
…
From Orochimaru's perspective, seated in the deepest corner of the store, the scene was entirely predictable.
'The Five Elements Seal… a logical choice. My counterpart wanted to disable the jinchūriki without killing him — the boy is still a potential piece on the board.'
The man analyzed the scene with total coldness, the way one analyzes a report on a successful experiment.
Then he felt the stares.
He did not need to raise his head to know that half the hall was stealing glances at him. Ever since Volume Ten, this had become a customary ritual every time his future counterpart committed some new atrocity on paper.
'What a nuisance… I haven't done anything yet.'
Orochimaru licked his lips in boredom and turned the page.
'Still, I must admit… my counterpart's work is genuinely precise. Had Jiraiya not intervened, the boy would have remained disabled until the end of the exam.'
'…And that is exactly the problem.'
The man's eyes lingered on the image of the sage and his five fingers.
'My counterpart planned meticulously… and that fool's counterpart undid the plan with a single strike.'
'How irritating. Hehe~'
…
As for the Third Hokage, he was not reading the scene as an ordinary reader — nor even as a Hokage.
He was reading it as a teacher gathering evidence.
Ever since Volume Ten revealed the future Orochimaru's desire to kill him, Hiruzen had set himself one clear goal: to study that creature in the manga page by page, to understand every step of the road that had turned his student into that thing… in order to prevent the current Orochimaru from ever walking it.
'A seal that strangles a child… my student was never cruel to children.'
'When did this begin? Which moment did I miss?'
Hiruzen closed his eyes for a long moment, then opened them and continued reading with redoubled focus.
For every new page was a new piece of evidence in the most important investigation of his life.
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Upcoming chapter titles (spoilers):
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Chapter 205: Volume 11 Reaches the Four Villages!
Chapter 206: Our Ally, the Sand, Is Tied to the Sound!
Chapter 207: The Last Dance of the Crescent Moon!
Chapter 208: A Decisive Meeting!
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