Even though Gengetsu Hōzuki originally swallowed his pride and posed as one of Chiyo's suitors just to investigate Uchiha Madara's scheme, this specific job really only required one person.
It wasn't exactly a "the more, the merrier" situation.
Since Sarutobi Hiruzen was stepping up to the plate, there was absolutely no reason for Gengetsu to drag himself into the mess.
Just look at Hiruzen.
To expose Madara's grand scheme, he hadn't hesitated to kidnap an old woman in broad daylight, right in the middle of Sunagakure.
Honestly, kidnapping people was supposed to be a Raikage specialty.
"I actually think sending her over to Kumogakure might be a better move," Jiraiya suddenly chimed in.
"Jiraiya, you?!" Sarutobi Hiruzen—who had literally just declared that he and Jiraiya would stand united as master and disciple to guard Granny Chiyo—felt instantly betrayed, staring at his student in sheer disbelief.
Jiraiya totally ignored Hiruzen's wounded glare.
'If the old man wants to guard Granny Chiyo, he can guard her himself. Why the hell does he have to drag me down with him?'
Originally, for the sake of global security, Jiraiya was willing to make a small personal sacrifice.
But now that someone else was actively volunteering to shoulder the burden, why did he still have to suffer?
Spending prolonged stretches of time with an ancient woman would definitely damage his physical and mental health.
If he lost his creative spark and couldn't write high-quality novels anymore, or worse, if his upcoming manuscripts genetically mutated because his soul got permanently corroded, who was going to take responsibility?
Just surviving this current Granny Chiyo incident was bad enough.
He had no clue how many expensive trips to the red-light district it would take to fully purify his traumatized soul.
If he kept this up, he might sustain permanent psychological damage. He absolutely refused. Hard pass.
"What does any of this have to do with Kumogakure? Weren't they the only major village that didn't bother sending a representative this time?" Rōshi asked, completely lost.
"That is exactly why all of you are just too naive." Jiraiya faked a look of deep, profound wisdom, closing his eyes and solemnly shaking his head.
If it weren't for the fact that he was still currently rocking the exact same swollen sausage lips as Kakashi, the pose might have actually looked convincing.
"Think about it carefully. We now know for a fact that those of us who traveled all the way out here do not actually harbor any genuine affection for Granny Chiyo. Therefore, by inverse logic, the people from the village who deliberately stayed away are the ones who truly, deeply admire her."
"..."
"What kind of bullshit logic is that?" Hearing this, Gengetsu felt like his own brain cells had started punching each other, and he couldn't hold back his cursing.
"Don't rush me. I have hard evidence! The Raikage possesses a signature taijutsu called the Lightning Oppression Horizontal Chiyo Dance. I want everyone to carefully savor the exact phrasing of that technique," Jiraiya declared, waving his hand to present his undeniable proof.
"Lightning Oppression what?"
"That sounds insanely intense!"
Hiss...
Everyone sucked in a collective breath of cold air.
Just hearing the name of the jutsu sounded unbelievably indecent.
Not only did it heavily imply an improper, scandalous relationship, but it practically screamed of bizarre, niche fetishes.
Granny Chiyo, who had been peacefully eating metaphorical popcorn on the sidelines, shuddered when she heard the name.
'Damn it all, there's even a lightning-oppression segment?!' She had absolutely no intention of experiencing something like that!
"Then what the hell does the 'horizontal' part mean?" Gengetsu pressed.
"Uh..."
"Horizontal. You seriously don't even know what horizontal means? You need me to spell that out for you? For some of the strongest powerhouses in the entire shinobi world, aren't you all a bit too disappointing?
"Honestly, if you didn't know, you should have just said so earlier. If you had asked me earlier, wouldn't I have told you? If you sit there and don't say anything, how am I supposed to know that you don't know? Right? Isn't that basic logic?"
As Jiraiya aggressively talked in circles to stall for time, his brain scrambled, pushing the unfiltered imagination of a veteran smut novelist to its absolute breaking point.
Finally, right before the crowd ran out of patience and jumped him, Jiraiya secured an explanation.
"The 'horizontal' actually refers to Ōnoki."
"Ōnoki?!" Rōshi gasped in sheer shock, suddenly staring at Jiraiya with massive anticipation. "Hurry up and explain! What the hell is going on?"
"I already established that the people who didn't show up are the ones who truly, madly admire Granny Chiyo. Do you honestly think Ōnoki turned back early just to monitor Uchiha Madara? No! He chose to withdraw halfway because he flat-out refused to weaponize his pure, untainted love for Granny Chiyo as a cheap tool to counter Madara! He refused to stain his romantic ideals!
That is exactly why, the second Ōnoki realized we shared his tactical objective, he immediately retreated. And precisely because he deduced that none of us were actually romantically interested in Granny Chiyo, he realized he didn't have to worry about getting cucked!
"Think about Ōnoki's legendary title. What do they call him? Ōnoki of Twin Scales! That is the shinobi world officially praising his uncanny ability to maintain precise balance between two raging extremes.
The lightness and heaviness of his unique Earth Release, the ruthless hardness and flexible compromise of his political methods... all of these form the foundation of his title. 'Both Scales' refers to perfect equilibrium.
But strictly speaking, the word 'balance' isn't fully accurate. A balance can still tip. Only something perfectly horizontal is truly impartial and level. The true, hidden meaning behind Ōnoki's title is a scale permanently locked in a horizontal state! Therefore, the 'horizontal' in the jutsu directly targets Ōnoki!"
"..."
After Jiraiya wrapped up his passionate TED Talk, the entire group fell dead silent.
'That... actually sounds disturbingly reasonable,' they thought.
"Then why the hell would the Raikage specifically use 'lightning oppression' on Ōnoki and Chiyo?" Gengetsu pressed harder.
"Because they have a massive blood grudge!"
This time, Jiraiya fired back without skipping a beat.
Right now, raw inspiration was violently surging through his veins like a flash flood.
He felt as if he had finally unlocked the secret formula behind Kakashi's wildly successful Vigorous Paradise series.
'So that's how he plots that garbage!' Jiraiya thought. 'How incredibly satisfying!'
"The Third Raikage—the biological father of the current Fourth Raikage—was literally ground to dust by an army of ten thousand Iwagakure shinobi through sheer attrition. Think about it realistically. The Third Raikage fought until his final breath. Did he cleanly cut his own throat to preserve his honor and ascend to the Pure Land? Or did he burn his chakra so completely that he didn't even leave himself enough strength to commit suicide, pouring every last ounce of violence into killing Iwa shinobi? Knowing the Third Raikage's notoriously unyielding personality, it was definitely the latter, right?
Then picture this: after the Third Raikage finally burned out and collapsed, do you honestly believe the surviving Iwa shinobi—who just watched their comrades get slaughtered for three days and three nights straight—were going to just grant him a clean, honorable execution?
After enduring three days of nonstop butchery, could the mental state of those Iwa shinobi realistically remain stable?
Obviously not!
Those traumatized Iwa grunts absolutely carried out a horrifically unspeakable act of revenge on the Third Raikage!
He might not have been dead yet, or his corpse might not have fully cooled, but he definitely couldn't fight back!
Sure, Iwagakure and Kumogakure eventually sat down to negotiate, and Iwagakure officially returned the Third Raikage's corpse.
They probably even scrubbed the body clean to hide the evidence.
But if someone truly investigated, they could definitely still detect the lingering scent of that ultimate humiliation.
And so, the Fourth Raikage—who forged a bitter blood feud with Iwagakure and Ōnoki over his father's brutalized corpse—secretly swore a blood oath. He would exact the ultimate revenge on Ōnoki!
"The very name Lightning Oppression Horizontal Chiyo Dance is the Raikage aggressively reminding himself of his vow! He wants to bind Ōnoki, electrocute him with lightning, and forcefully dance with Granny Chiyo right in front of him! That's just the poetic translation. In practical terms, it means the Raikage wants to kidnap Ōnoki's precious beloved and ruthlessly cuck him as the ultimate revenge!"