Konoha: Starting with Sage Mode

He couldn't imagine it for a moment.

"It's true, please believe me. They were hiding in the alternate dimension inside my body last night. I'm sure I'm not mistaken. It's definitely Sage Chakra, and the Sage Chakra feels very similar to the Sage Chakra inside Lord Gamamaru's body."

"Gamagoro assured me with absolute certainty."

When Fukasaku heard Gamagoro say this, his doubts were finally dispelled. He was aware of the extradimensional ability within Gamagoro's body; anyone who entered it would have their secrets exposed to Gamagoro's eyes.

However, a ten-year-old human has managed to cultivate Sage Chakra on his own without going through these sacred sites for summoning beasts, and has even successfully mastered Sage Mode.

is it possible?

Suddenly, the golden sage mentioned in the prophecy made by the toad sage the night before flashed through Fukasaku's mind.

"Could he be the Golden Immortal?"

The immortal was surprised.

Then, he began to doubt his own judgment, because what Gamagoro said about Kirito Tohsaka was just a 10-year-old human, and it was really hard to believe that he would be a golden sage who would bring disaster to the world.

"Perhaps it will be like that in the future."

The immortal thought this.

However, Kirito Tohsaka is only a 10-year-old human child and has not done anything evil yet. It is too early for him to make such wild guesses and draw conclusions, and he may provoke a great enemy as a result.

Regardless of whether Kirito Tohsaka is the Golden Sage in the Toad Sage's language, given the strength he has shown so far, if he survives, he will definitely become a very powerful ninja in the future, perhaps even reaching the level of those two human heroes from the Warring States period.

As a super neutral force in the ninja world, Mount Myōboku should absolutely not provoke such an enemy.

"If we can't be enemies, then we can only befriend them. This human has cultivated Sage Chakra at such a young age, so he must be outstanding in cultivating Sage Techniques. But in the end, he is just a ten-year-old human. No matter how heaven-defying he is, his achievements in Sage Techniques can't compare to the Sage Techniques heritage of Mount Myōboku."

I believe he will definitely be interested in the sage techniques of Mount Myōboku. If we can befriend him, Mount Myōboku will surely be able to preserve a new lineage of sage techniques.”

Fukasaku quickly changed his mind and decided to find an opportunity to invite Kirito to Mount Myōboku, using the sage techniques of Mount Myōboku as bait to get Kirito to sign a summoning contract with Mount Myōboku.

As for who Kirito would invite to Mount Myōboku, he had already decided: Jiraiya, who was also human and a Konoha ninja. There was no one more suitable than him.

"However, we still need to consult with the master about this matter."

Soon, Fukasaku remembered the Toad Master, and then he recalled the prophecy the Toad Master had made the previous night, and a sense of heaviness crept into his heart.

If Kirito Tohsaka is truly the golden sage who brings disaster to the world, would it really be a good thing for Mount Myōboku to sign a summoning contract with him?

Also, which is more powerful, the Child of Prophecy or the Golden Immortal?

Chapter 169: Nagato's Doubts about Peace

Rewind to a dozen hours earlier, in the Land of Rain, in a border town near the Land of Fire.

An ordinary passerby was walking down the street with the flow of people. He was just like the other pedestrians around him, walking around and picking out some items from the roadside stalls. However, if someone were to observe carefully, they would see that he was following a man in black wearing a rabbit mask at a distance the whole time.

After wandering around for a while, the ordinary passerby finally followed the rabbit-masked man to a remote place.

Suddenly, the rabbit-masked man in his eyes disappeared from his sight.

An ordinary passerby, seeing this, immediately realized something was wrong and quickly turned to leave. But as soon as he turned around, he saw the rabbit-masked man emerge from a nearby shadow.

"A bug has followed me all this way, does it think I know nothing?"

Mao Tu looked at the ordinary passersby with panicked expressions on their faces and sneered.

As soon as he finished speaking, he quickly formed a hand seal, and a sharp shadow spike instantly emerged from the shadow beneath him, piercing towards the ordinary passerby.

Shadow Imitation Technique: Shadow Stitch!

"Ding ~"

The next moment, a kunai collided with a materialized shadow spike.

Even an ordinary passerby could take out a kunai from their person to block the Rabbit's Shadow Imitation Technique: Shadow Stitch.

"Hmm~, it seems you're not an ordinary person."

Mao Tu was somewhat surprised to see that an ordinary passerby had easily blocked his attack.

By this time, the panic on the ordinary passerby's face had disappeared. He stared coldly at the rabbit-masked man in front of him and asked, "Are you from the Root?"

The rabbit was startled when it heard what the ordinary passerby said.

The next moment, more than a dozen shadow spikes shot out from the shadow beneath him.

This time, ordinary passersby could no longer use kunai to block the shadow-stitch attack of the Rabbit, and were instantly pierced by more than a dozen shadow spikes.

However, ordinary passersby did not bleed.

With a loud "bang".

An ordinary passerby turned into a puff of white smoke and disappeared from the spot.

"Shadow clones, huh? Damn it."

Upon seeing this, the rabbit's expression behind the mask immediately turned ugly.

"Looks like you've been exposed, but these things were bound to happen sooner or later. Who was that guy really? Do you have any guesses?"

A slightly sarcastic voice suddenly appeared.

Suddenly, a telephone pole to the side of the Rabbit (卯兔) twisted strangely, and a Pig (亥猪) wearing a pig mask emerged from it.

"According to the information from Youji, the last person that female ninja contacted was Jiraiya. So the person who helped the White Fang team get rid of our pursuit must be him. And that guy just now was most likely a shadow clone sent by Jiraiya."

"It's a rabbit," Mao Tu said coldly, emanating a chilling killing intent.

He didn't care about the legendary Sannin. Even if Jiraiya was a disciple of the Third Hokage, if he dared to obstruct Root from carrying out their mission, he would have to eliminate him.

"You want to get rid of Jiraiya? I advise you to give up that idea. Jiraiya is the Third Hokage's favorite disciple. If we take action to eliminate him, it will definitely bring great trouble to Lord Danzo."

The Pig sensed the chilling killing intent emanating from the Rabbit and offered some advice.

Rabbit didn't take it seriously and retorted, "Hmph, we dared to take action against even the White Fang Squad, are we afraid of killing Jiraiya?"

“But none of the White Fang Squad members are disciples of the Third Hokage. Our Third Hokage may seem selfless, but we both know very well what kind of person he really is.”

The pig mocked.

His clan, the Kurama clan, was once a major clan in Konoha, but now they have declined to such an extent that they are almost being kicked out of the ranks of ninja clans.

The reasons for all this, besides internal problems within the clan itself, largely stemmed from the Third Hokage's policy of suppressing the ninja clan.

The Kurama clan has suffered a decline in talent in recent years, failing to produce any powerful ninjas. Coupled with the successive deaths of the older generation of strong ninjas, they have been easily bullied by the Third Hokage.

He joined Root and became Danzo's henchman, partly because Root had something that could solve his physical problems, and largely because he disliked the Third Hokage.

Upon hearing this, Mao Tu remained silent, and the murderous aura emanating from his body quickly subsided.

He was not actually born into the Nara clan, but was a ninja from a small, now-extinct ninja clan. He was able to learn the Nara secret techniques because he showed exceptional talent for them after joining Root.

The Third Hokage's policy of suppressing ninja clans and supporting civilians caused the most harm to these small ninja clans, which already had a weak foundation.

Since the Third Hokage became Hokage, a large number of minor ninja clans have become defunct.

Therefore, he fully agreed with what Mao Tu had just said.

Indeed, the Third Hokage of Konoha is notorious for his favoritism. On the surface, he says he will vigorously support the common people in order to suppress the strength of the ninja clans, but he has not put it into practice. The Sarutobi clan behind him has never been suppressed.

Unlike Lord Danzo, who always did things by his own hands, the Shimura clan made a great contribution to Root.

Because of this, the Shimura family made enormous sacrifices.

Over the years, the strength of other ninja clans in Konoha has been weakened to varying degrees, but the strength of the Sarutobi clan has increased several times over, and the strength of the Ino-Shika-Cho clan, which closely follows the Sarutobi clan, has also improved considerably.

In Konoha today, besides the Uchiha clan, the Sarutobi clan has the largest number of Jonin.

The Third Hokage's ability to remain in his position was largely due to the Sarutobi clan and the Anbu under his control.

None of the members of the White Fang Squad have any direct connection with the Third Hokage. Even if they all died, the Third Hokage would probably just sigh and say that unless he could find concrete evidence that Root was behind it, he wouldn't kill Danzo.

But if Jiraiya were to die, even without evidence, Danzo and his Root clan would likely not survive either.

"But this guy is hindering our mission, and we can't just sit idly by. Besides, he might even report us to the Third Generation. If we don't get rid of him, he'll probably keep getting in the way like a pesky fly."

After figuring out the difference, Rabbit said with great displeasure.

He joined Root to gain power and to unleash his destructive urges. To complete his missions and gain power, he always ruthlessly eliminated all enemies who stood in his way, including so-called allies.

"Let's report the situation here to Lord Danzo first. I'm sure he won't let this go easily, hehehe~"

The pig sneered.

On the other side, Jiraiya, who was on his way back to his residence, suddenly stopped, a look of "I knew it" on his face. He thought painfully to himself, "It really is those despicable Root guys. What are they trying to do? Nawaki is the grandson of the First Hokage. Why would they attack their own comrades in the village?"

Although he disliked the people of the Root, he still considered them as his comrades.

It was utterly baffling and chilling that his trusted comrades would now turn against the grandson of the First Hokage.

Suddenly, a terrifying possibility occurred to him, and he became restless, muttering, "No, the old man wouldn't do that. He's the Hokage, the one who taught me the Will of Fire. He couldn't possibly do such a thing..."

The next moment, he suddenly accelerated, using Chakra Dash to rush towards his current residence, the lakeside cabin.

When he returned to the lakeside cabin, he began to write furiously, recording in encrypted form the details of Root's obstruction of the White Fang team's mission, and then handed it over to the ANBU ninja outside who was specifically responsible for liaising between him and Konoha.

Jiraiya handed the information over to the liaison ninja, and then quietly returned to the lakeside hut, only to find Nagato sitting on a long wooden bench outside the hut.

Upon seeing Jiraiya, Nagato immediately greeted him respectfully, "Jiraiya-sensei."

"Nagato, why are you out here? Did you have another nightmare?"

Jiraiya saw Nagato and asked with concern.

Of his three disciples, Nagato is the most talented. At only 10 years old, he has already mastered seven chakra natures, and his chakra reserves are now much greater than Nagato's. His future is limitless, but he is very fragile and has a seriously poor mental fortitude.

Because of a terrible experience, Nagato often has nightmares when she sleeps at night.

Nagato remained silent, which was taken as tacit agreement.

He had just had a nightmare in which everyone was killed except for him, and the killers were the Konoha ninjas he both feared and hated.

"Don't worry, Yahiko, Minami, and I are all here, nothing will happen."

Seeing this, Jiraiya patted Nagato's head and comforted him.

Then he continued, "And Nagato, you're already very capable. As long as you can overcome your fear and become brave, you'll definitely be able to protect everyone."

"really?"

When Nagato heard Jiraiya say that, his eyes widened, and he looked into Jiraiya's eyes nervously and asked.