A while earlier.
The Konoha Arena no longer resembled a stadium.
The rooftop was gone, smashed inward like a crushed skull, taking half the stands with it.
Stone slabs lay piled atop each other, broken seating jutting out at obscene angles.
What used to separate the arena floor from the spectator rows was now a single open clearing, dust-choked and slick with blood, connecting the test grounds to the outer plateau.
Snakes were everywhere.
Small ones slithered through cracks and corpses.
Medium ones coiled around shattered pillars, striking at anything that moved.
Massive ones crushed whole clusters of shinobi beneath their weight, scales scraping stone as they turned.
Orochimaru stood at the center of it, robe torn, skin peeling at the edges, smiling.
The Sound Four held a loose, wavering perimeter, bodies battered but still moving, curse marks flaring as they forced themselves to function, carving out space with brutal attacks.
Kabuto drifted through the gaps they opened, precise and clinical, not fighting the battle so much as harvesting it, slipping in to claim killing blows wherever resistance faltered.
Waves of parts of Konoha shinobi kept arriving.
ANBU. Clan members. Regular jōnin.
Chūnin dragged civilians back through evacuation routes carved into the ruins.
The most important nobles had already been pulled out, bloodied but alive.
Others had not been so fortunate.
Bodies were everywhere.
Hiruzen Sarutobi was not among them.
What remained of him had been scattered into the rubble long ago, cut apart, crushed, buried, erased so thoroughly that even mourning felt impractical.
Orochimaru barely spared the battlefield a glance.
His attention was still fixed on one man.
Might Guy.
Guy moved like a living weapon, skin flushed deep blue, steam rolling off his body in violent waves.
Each step cracked stone.
Each punch erased snakes by the dozen, shockwaves rippling outward as if the air itself was breaking.
Too fast. Too strong.
Orochimaru's tongue flicked out, tasting the air.
"So this is the Seventh Gate," he murmured.
Guy didn't respond. He didn't need to.
His answer came as a kick that split a giant serpent in half, the recoil launching him straight back at Orochimaru.
Orochimaru twisted aside, body liquefying at the impact point, shedding skin and flesh like an old coat.
The blow still sent him skidding across the ground, carving a trench through debris.
Annoying.
Poisons were useless.
Guy's circulation was too fast, chakra burning everything away before it could matter.
Even nerve agents barely slowed him.
But the gate had limits.
Time. Damage.
Overclocked self-destruction.
Orochimaru extended an arm, snakes erupting from his sleeve, weaving seals mid-motion.
"Fine," he hissed. "Then I'll simply help you burn out faster."
He was close. He could feel it.
Another trap. Another forced exchange.
One moment where Guy overcommitted.
Then—
A pressure rolled across the battlefield.
Not killing intent. Not chakra flaring wildly.
Something deeper. Heavier.
The snakes froze for half a heartbeat.
Several Konoha shinobi turned at once.
Someone whispered, "That chakra…"
Another choked, "No way…"
A tall figure landed at the edge of the clearing, stone cracking beneath his feet.
White hair. Red markings streaking down his face. Cloak torn, but posture solid.
Two small toads perched on his shoulders, hands pressed together, eyes closed in concentration.
Jiraiya exhaled slowly.
Sage Mode.
And his appearance in it showed far fewer toad mutations, the animal traits subdued rather than overt, as if his Sage Mode had grown more refined instead of more monstrous.
It was cleaner than before.
Less distortion. Less excess.
The natural energy around him flowed in steadier currents, dense and focused.
He still needed the two toad elders to enter and maintain it, but the balance was better.
Stronger.
The battlefield reacted.
Konoha shinobi straightened, exhaustion momentarily forgotten.
"It's Lord Jiraiya."
"The Toad Sage…"
"We're not alone anymore."
Kakashi's visible eye widened slightly. "Master Jiraiya…"
Guy skidded to a halt mid-charge, steam pouring off him as he turned his head.
"Lord Jiraiya," he said, grinning through bloodied teeth. "You're late."
Jiraiya's gaze swept over him, sharp and measuring, taking in the damage, the strain, the reckless resolve, then softened just a fraction.
"Yeah," he said quietly. "There are always brave, capable idiots who jump in first and keep everyone else alive."
Then his eyes shifted.
They landed on Orochimaru.
The rubble. The snakes.
The absence where Hiruzen should have been.
Sage Mode sensory mode did the rest.
The truth slammed into him in an instant.
The residue of chakra.
The pattern of destruction.
The unmistakable signature of his former teammate.
His breath caught.
For a moment, the battlefield noise faded.
"Sensei…" Jiraiya muttered.
Not confusion. Not denial.
Grief. Rage.
Guilt, sharp and immediate.
He had chased Orochimaru for years.
Always a step behind.
Always arriving after the damage was done.
This time, he had arrived to pieces.
His jaw clenched.
The ground beneath his feet cracked as his chakra spiked, then steadied, forcibly restrained.
"So," Jiraiya said, voice low, dangerous. "You finally did it."
Orochimaru smiled wider, eyes gleaming.
"Oh? You felt it already?" he asked lightly. "Sage Mode truly is convenient."
"You butchered him," Jiraiya said.
No shouting. No theatrics. Just fact.
"Our teacher."
"Ah," Orochimaru replied, tilting his head. "If it helps, he died clinging to nostalgia."
Jiraiya's fists trembled.
Behind him, one of the elder toads clicked his tongue. "Careful, brat. Let it focus you."
Jiraiya inhaled.
Slowly. Deeply.
When he looked up again, the grief was still there.
But it was burning now.
"Might Guy," he said, without taking his eyes off Orochimaru. "You've done enough."
Guy snorted. "You telling me to step back?"
"I'm telling you," Jiraiya replied, "that if we fight him together, we kill him here."
Orochimaru laughed softly.
"My," he said. "Isn't that optimistic?"
The air tightened.
Two former teammates. Two legends.
One battlefield soaked in the remains of their past.
And somewhere else in the village, unseen, another monster was already rewriting the future.
Orochimaru, meanwhile, knew he couldn't take both of them at once here.
Sage Mode stacked with the Seventh Gate was not a problem you outplayed head-on.
There was envy there, sharp and familiar.
Jiraiya had awakened Sage Mode properly. Truly.
And Orochimaru hadn't, not despite all of his recent refinements, all his breakthroughs.
A vessel was still a vessel in the end.
And this one's base was too low, its ceiling still too rigid.
No matter how much he polished the procedure, the foundation limited him.
And the Snake Sage Mode was far more brutal anyway.
No kindly elder sages.
No patient toads balancing the flow.
Just nature chakra, tearing the unworthy apart until something monstrous crawled out the other side.
Orochimaru's tongue flicked in irritation.
Still, he wasn't cornered.
Kimimaro hadn't entered his sensory range yet, but the four girls had.
Their signatures were unmistakable now, fast, disciplined, just closing in.
He felt a thin smile creep back onto his face.
Judging by how far they had already come, by the talent and bloodlines that had impressed him even back then, letting Konoha continue to burn wouldn't be difficult at all.
Jiraiya felt them too.
Four mysterious, unfamiliar signatures, distinct and powerful, cutting through the chaos and closing in fast.
Not ANBU. Not ordinary reinforcements. Each presence carried its own weight, sharp and disciplined, like blades drawn with intent.
His brow furrowed.
"Could this be what the Great Toad Sage meant…?"
The thought came uninvited.
Because this Sage Mode, the one he was standing in now, hadn't been this clean a few months ago. Not even close.
Back then, he'd been summoned to Mount Myōboku without warning.
No contract. No request. Just pulled there outright.
Gamamaru himself had called for him.
That alone had set him on edge.
The Great Toad Sage barely woke as it was.
The last time Jiraiya had stood before him like that was decades ago, when he'd been told about the so-called "child of prophecy", the one he would need to guide, the one who might either save the world or grind it into ruin.
At times, Jiraiya had been sure he knew who it was.
Nagato, with the Sage's Eyes, the Rinnegan itself.
Or Minato, the most brilliant shinobi he had ever trained, who was then already dead before his prime.
Both paths had eventually collapsed.
So when Gamamaru summoned him again, Jiraiya hadn't known what to expect.
This time, there was no talk of a single "child".
Instead, the Great Toad Sage spoke of an "anomaly".
Something "external". Something not accounted for in the old flows of fate.
A "calamity" that wasn't supposed to exist, yet now pressed against the world hard enough to bend it.
Konoha, Gamamaru had said, might soon stand at the center of it.
That had been the part Jiraiya took seriously.
Gamamaru ordered him to stop half-assing Sage Mode.
No more treating it like a trump card he pulled out when desperate.
He was told, bluntly, to grow up.
Fukasaku and Shima were instructed to train him harder than ever before.
Not just balance drills and endurance, but techniques Jiraiya hadn't even known Mount Myōboku possessed. New methods. Old methods.
Ones that hurt. Ones that stripped bad habits down to the bone.
Even Gamamaru himself had taught him.
Advanced Toad senjutsu techniques.
Things Jiraiya had never been shown before, with the explanation given just as plainly.
"You were not fated to need them before," the Great Toad Sage had said. "Now you are."
Jiraiya had found that somewhat suspicious.
He'd known the toads for decades.
They joked with him, drank with him, and trusted him, yet somehow this had never come up?
But Mount Myōboku was like that.
Especially Gamamaru.
Obsessive about balance. About timing. About prophecy.
Silent until the moment something crossed whatever invisible line it guarded.
And honestly, Jiraiya hadn't argued much.
At the time, Konoha mattered more than explanations.
If there was a threat big enough to make the Great Toad Sage stir, then mastering Sage Mode properly wasn't optional.
He could feel Gamamaru's power even now, ancient and vast, humming beneath the mountain like a sleeping god.
A being like that didn't speak nonsense without reason.
What unsettled him most was the comparison.
Gamamaru had implied this anomaly was worse than anything Jiraiya already knew was out there.
So, worse than even the Akatsuki.
Jiraiya knew Akatsuki well enough.
He ran one of Konoha's informal spy networks.
Under Hiruzen's orders, he spent years in silent contact with an Akatsuki informant so deeply buried that even he was never told who the "super-spy" really was.
He just knew how dangerous that group was.
And still, Gamamaru had spoken as if this was something else entirely.
Back in the present, the four incoming signatures drew even closer in seconds.
Jiraiya exhaled slowly.
Whatever saving the world was supposed to mean, he didn't feel like he was the one meant to do it.
Gamamaru had made that clear, too.
He'd still urged Jiraiya to find the child of prophecy again, more than ever, to guide them properly this time.
Jiraiya had agreed.
But for now, his focus was simpler.
Save Konoha.
As for saving the world… he'd leave that to whatever troublesome brat fate decided to throw at him next.