The Cursed Sharingan

Chapter 17

As much as he wanted to the great toad sage of Myoboku could not appreciate the red light district he found himself passing by. Unfortunately he had more important matters to deal with-correction, matters so important that he couldn't afford to waylay or arrive late to. It was with a longing look and forlorn glance that he strode away. The legendary shinobi had to console himself by mentally promising himself a week of debauchery and research once this whole debacle was dealt with. The Konoha ninja was en-route to his meeting spot at the border of River Country where he had been staying for the past few days. He was a little wary of having this meeting on the border of River and Rain (so close to their enemy's base), but the position was the best place to include all members involved.

He had sent a missive to Sasuke and Taka the previous day and had received a reply that they would be at the meeting place on time. It made matters easier that the group was less than a day's travel away.

The location, dangerous as it may be also lessened the burden on Nagato and Konan. It was imperative to their plans that Tobi not find anything suspicious with their actions. As such, Jiraiya decided the risk was worth taking. Even if it meant a little more caution was necessary, the sooner the meeting was concluded the better-for those two especially.

Luckily enough Konan had also sent word in her own way and the two would be arriving without issue. This lessened most of his worries, but he wouldn't relax completely until everything was ironed out and everyone returned to where they were supposed to be, with the knowledge of what they would need to do.

He unfortunately didn't have much notice to give Tsunade-hime so Kakashi wouldn't be joining this meeting. As far as information went the Copy-nin was definitely the most behind. The Sannin imagined his former team-mate was having quite the chat in her office at this moment. Kakashi would not take the news of Naruto being alive and that it was kept from him well. Despite that though, Jiraiya had faith he would see their reasoning. It is rare to reach thirty years old as a ninja and the Hatake had more than proven his skill and intelligence during his twenty plus years of service to Konoha.

After exiting the small border village he had stayed in the white-haired male switched to running at a ninja pace, no longer worried about gaining unwanted attention. It wouldn't take him very long this way to arrive at his destination.

With a sigh, his morose thoughts turned to the last member of the meeting. Itachi was fortunate enough to avoid the effort of travel. With Moritani-mura being the farthest away from the meeting, it was agreed that Sasuke would reverse summon him. The younger Uchiha brother had made sure to give Itachi a matching scroll to one he carried beforehand. The weary shinobi sighed, running a hand through his hair roughly. Itachi had him deeply contemplative and worried. The situation Nagato had brought up was both alarming and heart breaking, at the same time he couldn't help but respect Itachi even more for being able to hide an illness like that so skillfully. The Sannin knew he was not a slouch at observation-it was a perk of being a spy master with a world-wide spy network. He just knew things, simple as that. This, was something he did not know although it really should have been. He squashed down his irritation at Itachi never informing him while being his informant in Akatsuki. 'That brat could have really messed things up' he thought irately before forcing himself to focus on the present.

The situation had him worried, needless to say. Although his main focus should be on the battle Jiraiya found himself more worried about the aftermath. He really did not look forward to Naruto finding out about this. Even worse would be Sasuke's reaction. Although the younger Uchiha deserved to know as much as Naruto, Jiraiya couldn't risk something going wrong in the battle. As harsh as it sounded he needed every shinobi (and kunoichi) he had in top fighting condition. Dropping a bomb like that on Sasuke and then expecting him to fight in what was sure to be the most challenging battle he has faced to date was not something Jiraiya was prepared to do. He apologized mentally to the teen, but remained firm in his decision. 'This is more important than the desires of individuals', he thought guiltily.