By the time Jiraiya and Sasuke made it to the remotest part of the Land of Water, Sasuke had to accept brute force wasn't going to get him out of the Toad Prison.
Jiraiya hadn't stuck him to the wall since the first day, but it didn't matter. Whatever Sasuke tried, the living surface of the prison always let the Sannin leave and not him.
"If you aren't taking me back to the village," Sasuke said, "then what's the point of holding me here? I have no reason to tell Madara what you're doing."
"But telling him isn't the only way you could interfere. If not Madara, you'll go back to Orochimaru, and that would be just as bad."
Sasuke crossed his arms skeptically. "Why? If he goes after Madara, that would help you."
Jiraiya sat down on the fleshy floor and began unwrapping their food, as usual. After a moment, he gave a reluctant hum. "I hoped that, by now, you'd want to help me fight Madara instead."
Sasuke gave a fake snort of laughter. "You've kept me trapped in here without telling me anything. That does not make me want to help you."
"It's generally against my policy to hand out dangerous secrets to runaways."
"But it's your choice to let me out or not. Like you said, I can't escape."
Jiraiya gave a long sigh and leaned back against the wall. Sasuke waited.
"Time's running out, isn't it?" Sasuke said. "Naruto has been gone for days. Madara probably knows by now it's a trap. The moment he realizes the Sanbi isn't going to appear, he'll leave."
"He hasn't caught on, at least not yet. Several of his spies have already been sent into Kiri. We've captured the most obvious ones, and fed false information to the better ones. Everything looks like we're preparing for the real thing."
"Are we in Kiri now?"
"No, but we're in Water. I told you, it's my job to figure out how Madara will move. If I'm lucky, maybe I can intercept him before he reaches the village. But if that fails, the people there will be ready."
"And what makes you so sure Orochimaru will be there too?"
Jiraiya closed his eyes in muted aggravation. "I'm not sure. Getting Naruto back is my priority, but if Orochimaru steals Madara's eye, he steals Naruto too. And if Orochimaru obtains a space-time jutsu, it would be worse than you can imagine."
Sasuke didn't like not knowing something, and vague hints made him impatient. "Madara isn't the only one with that ability. There is another living Uchiha out there who can do the same thing. You said it's of no concern, but to me it's—"
Jiraiya gave a small, annoyed sound. "You not being caught up is becoming a pain. Alright, listen. Here is what we can do." He leaned forward. "There are some details I need to hold back, but I can give you the gist of what's been going on. At the very least, you should understand what happened to Naruto last year. Then Orochimaru or Madara can't try to hold that information over you."
"I just want to know why it matters now."
Jiraiya took a deep breath, then let it out slowly. "And spare me the disbelief. I'm not in the mood to argue. There's something that goes beyond the types of dimensional jutsu known about before now. Something beyond moving from place to place. I guess... you could call it time travel."
"Time travel?" Sasuke repeated.
"I can't go into the details." Jiraiya said. "The point is, Orochimaru figured out how to do something like that, but it has limitations. He can draw a person's chakra and life energy from another time, containing them in a vessel of his own making. That leaves the person's original vessel nothing but an empty shell."
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I Will Become the Wind
FanfictionNaruto has made it back to the past, determined to save his friends and prevent the Fourth War. But his three-month-long absence has already sparked changes in the timeline, making his knowledge of the future increasingly unreliable. Fortunately, he...