[Who killed me, and who did I kill!]
[It was me—I killed me!]
[Beautiful callback, dying of laughter]
Jiraiya had, in the most literal sense, been done in by himself.
It had been a mess, but at least he'd made it out in one piece.
"It seems Benzaiten is complete," Hanabi said. She reached out and detached the Puppet Arms one by one, wrapping them in cloth.
"Wait—why have you packed it all up?" Jiraiya had straightened himself up, only to find Hanabi had already stowed her equipment.
"Since I'm fighting Jiraiya-sama, this sort of stand-in would be rather unnecessary. And Jiraiya-sama hasn't actually been harmed, has he?"
"Well, that's true."
He'd looked wretched, certainly—but Jiraiya had walked away without a scratch.
"So naturally, I want to face Jiraiya-sama at my very best."
With that, Hanabi turned.
The long-sleeved furisode kimono she'd been wearing—
—shifted.
In one movement, it became an off-shoulder short kimono.
She had entered Red Outfit mode.
The air around her turned cold.
Jiraiya met her gaze and got serious.
"Well then—"
Hanabi drew a kunai and tossed it upward.
Clatter—
The kunai hit the ground.
"Zhuixia!"
Hanabi launched herself into the fight, but she didn't rush forward immediately. Instead, she invoked her "personal weapon."
Countless ropes erupted from every direction around her.
Zhuixia's second ability—Blood Rust—was just as formidable on offense.
"That looks like the Adamantine Sealing Chains!"
Jiraiya read the technique at a glance.
"Ninja Art: Wild Lion's Mane Technique!"
Unlike before—when he'd used it for defense—this time Jiraiya deployed the technique at range, reaching out to intercept. White hair and crimson ropes clashed in the air, producing a sharp, metallic ring.
"That's not all! Fire Release: Flame Bullet!"
Jiraiya fired off his next jutsu immediately.
But Hanabi's weapon swept outward—a rapid volley of ice blades, one after another, meeting the incoming fire and holding it to a dead standstill.
"If Jiraiya-sama is using Fire Release—"
A voice came from behind him.
Also Hanabi.
"A clone? No—Shadow Clone?! When?!"
"Fire Release: Great Fire Annihilation!" The jutsu Hikari had used—Hanabi had filed it away and put it to work.
"Fire Release—wait, this output?!"
The Mai Shiranui and Sparkle Character Cards both provided Fire Release enhancement buffs.
"Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall!"
Jiraiya raised an earth wall to block the clone.
The moment his attention slipped—the real Hanabi charged from the front.
"Ninja Art: Needle Jizō!"
But this was Jiraiya's trap.
His retracted hair bristled outward into full-body needles, turning him into a human porcupine.
"Nani?!"
What surprised Jiraiya was that Hanabi didn't retreat.
She pressed forward—right into the needles—and came straight at him despite the piercing.
"You idiot, you'll die!"
Jiraiya hadn't expected a direct charge like this.
"Wait—is it Genjutsu?!"
He snapped back and fell away.
At that precise moment, another Hanabi emerged from the ground beneath his feet.
"Three?!"
When had she planted all these Shadow Clones?!
"Gentle Fist—!"
"This is bad!"
He couldn't afford to take a hit.
In this world, Gentle Fist was still formidable. Neji's Gentle Fist, traveling along Kidomaru's spider threads, could one-shot the entire Sound Four even while they were in their Cursed Seal states—that was the measure of it.
"Summoning Technique!"
A toad materialized in front of Jiraiya and absorbed the Gentle Fist strike.
But at that instant, yet another Hanabi appeared.
"Where is she hiding all these Shadow Clones?!"
Jiraiya stared, jaw open.
—The answer: from the very beginning.
Before Jiraiya had even arrived on the scene, Hanabi had already seeded Shadow Clones throughout the area.
More and more clones leaped out in succession.
"One, two, three, four, five, six… Which one is the real body?"
Jiraiya wasn't fighting seriously—but he was starting to regret that.
Because he wasn't fighting seriously, he was now in trouble.
"The answer is, of course—"
Hanabi's voice came from beside him.
"None of them are."
Meaning: not a single one was the real body.
"—!!"
Jiraiya understood the setup in an instant.
"Ninja Art—"
BOOM.
Clone Great Explosion.
Fire Release woven into Shadow Clones, detonating the moment they closed in on Jiraiya.
The forest erupted in flames.
"Ara ara?"
But Hanabi noticed something was wrong.
Only two explosions' worth of force had gone off here. The last four clones had vanished into some other space entirely.
"That was a close call…" Jiraiya's voice filtered through the smoke.
The other four had been teleported away.
"Was that Barrier: Toad Gourd Prison? Or did he send them inside a Rock Lodging Toad's stomach wall?"
Hanabi hadn't caught the final moment clearly.
She also knew, in the moment, that she had no way of knowing what Jiraiya had just used—so she filed the question away rather than asking.
"You little brat—you pre-planted those clones, didn't you? Before I even arrived."
Jiraiya had figured it out. This gremlin had been setting him up from the very start.
"Information-gathering and preparation in advance are part of being a shinobi, Jiraiya-sama~" Hanabi was thoroughly unrepentant.
"Six Shadow Clone explosions, each loaded with Fire Release jutsu. If you weren't ready for it, you'd take a real hit."
Jiraiya had been playing around; Hanabi hadn't gone for the throat either.
Because if she had, those exploding clones wouldn't have been packing simple Fire Release.
"Sharp tongue to go with those sharp blades." Jiraiya had been about to comment that the off-shoulder outfit actually suited her—and that she had quite the figure, even if not quite up to Naruko's level—but instead he got this little monster's antics.
"Well, Jiraiya-sama—shall I continue—ara ara?"
Hanabi had been about to push on, but Jiraiya held up a hand.
"Stop, stop, stop. If we keep going, I won't be able to hold back."
If this went on, Jiraiya had serious concerns about his blood pressure.
He couldn't help it—Hanabi's tactics were filthy.
[Called it]
[If this keeps going, Hanabi might end up turning into someone]
[A long-lost first love or something, 233]
[Honestly possible]
[Dodged a bullet]
[He got away from that too? So that's the power of a Sannin, 233]
Hanabi tilted her head.
Why was the audience against her too?
Though they'd actually gotten somewhat close to the truth.
The thing was—Hanabi had in fact been planning to split off a Shadow Clone and have it transform into Tsunade and a few other familiar faces, then hit Jiraiya with a full psychological broadside…