Chapter 44: Go Ask Someone Called Gamamaru
Don't be too eager to ingest energy, especially high-calorie energy. If you don't exercise much, it's easy to get fat.
Kitahara's body rapidly expanded due to the imbalance of natural energy and Yin-Yang Release, looking round and quite festive...
Soon its height surpassed Jiraiya's. Uchiha Itachi, at a loss, stroked the crow's feathers, and with a slight exertion, actually felt a fleshy sensation...
"Kitahara..." The little boy, feeling the rolling ball of flesh under his hand, looked at the two toads in panic, "Quickly, take a look, what's going on?"
The old toads had never seen such a situation either and could only speculate based on years of experience, "...Perhaps it absorbed too much natural energy..."
"There's also another possibility..." Shima suddenly interjected, "Yin-Yang attribute chakra is the easiest to fuse with natural energy. Perhaps because Great Sage Kitahara absorbed too little natural energy, it caused an abnormal movement of the vast chakra within its body..."
Uchiha Itachi listened with a bewildered expression... He didn't understand...
Jiraiya, however, understood. The problem was that Kitahara had extracted and absorbed a massive amount of natural energy almost instantly just now. He felt Shima's words weren't quite right either...
"Caw..."
A Tailed Beast Bomb shot out from Kitahara's beak...
Boom!
In the distance, yellow sand filled the sky...
Kitahara simply condensed the natural energy and Tailed Beast Bomb within its body and expelled them. Its expanded body finally shrank, returning to its original size.
"What a simple and crude way of using it..." Fukasaku saw the crow's crimson eyes and quickly changed his tune, "No, it should be the fastest and most correct way to handle it..."
Natural energy was inherently violent and could easily cause internal mutations. Unexpectedly, this crow had easily solved this problem...
The Great Toad Sage's prophecies had never been wrong. Fukasaku and Shima, the two toads, believed this so-called future Sage still needed growth or guidance...
Unexpectedly, it already possessed such formidable power now! Those fellows who could stir up the winds and clouds of the ninja world while holed up in their caves in the future were truly terrifying!
"It seems Lord Kitahara doesn't need our guidance at all..." Fukasaku sensed the sage art chakra within Kitahara's body and bowed, "May all your endeavors be successful!"
"...Caw?"
Kitahara looked at the two elderly toads in confusion as they dispelled their summoning and vanished. It actually still had many questions!
Uchiha Itachi was also full of questions, "Teacher Jiraiya! Are they... your summoned beasts?"
"...No... you can't really say that, can you?" Jiraiya stammered and shook his head. Although, among the toad population of Mount Myoboku, apart from the Great Toad Sage, he could summon every single toad...
That was because of the summoning contract he had signed with Mount Myoboku.
"They belong to the Sage land, Mount Myoboku..." Jiraiya thought for a moment, believing he could tell Itachi more about the unknown lands.
He had originally planned to find an opportunity to go to Mount Myoboku and ask if Uchiha Itachi could learn Sage Mode or sign a summoning contract...
The problem was this disciple had a particular fondness for his own crow. There was nothing wrong with that... Kitahara could neither sign a summoning contract nor did it possess a summoned beast's innate ninjutsu...
Jiraiya thought Itachi was keeping a pet...
Who knew this cub was actually raising a Great Sage!
"Itachi, it seems you truly have no fate with Mount Myoboku..." Jiraiya looked at his bewildered disciple and couldn't help but sigh, "...I should still tell you about the Sage lands!"
"Sage lands?"
"That's right!" Jiraiya nodded, looking at the crow on his disciple's shoulder, "It is currently refining sage art chakra and is about to become the fourth Great Sage of the ninja world!"
The little boy remained ignorant, "Sage art chakra? Great Sage? Fourth?"
"You..." Jiraiya found that his disciple seemed to have almost no understanding of this aspect and facepalmed, "Forget it, let me first tell you about the Sage lands of the ninja world! Well... I estimate this crow... Crow Sage probably can't tell you these secrets either..."
Uchiha Itachi looked at Kitahara on his shoulder, which was converting sage art chakra. He didn't quite understand what Kitahara was doing, but he could sense it was training...
What rare diligence! As a Ninja Crow, besides eating and sleeping, all it did was bicker with Sasuke... This was truly the first time he had seen Kitahara so serious!
After they found an open space, Jiraiya closed his eyes and began to recall, "A long, long time ago, I was training the Summoning Jutsu in the village..."
"Teacher Jiraiya, I remember you should be less than forty years old this year, right..." Uchiha Itachi suddenly interrupted him.
"...You found out. Actually, I'm not even twenty yet..." After a moment of silence, Jiraiya nodded seriously and began to spout nonsense, "Probably eighteen..."
"...That's too fake. Father said you are his senior..."
"So listen carefully! Itachi!" The irritable old man wanted to hit someone... If not for worrying that this disciple's lack of understanding about Sages might cause him to miss an opportunity, he wouldn't want to mention those things!
After briefly explaining the three unknown Sage lands of the ninja world, Uchiha Itachi finally savored the information and said softly, "The summoned beast Orochimaru summoned that day..."
"That's right, its name is Manda, and it's from Ryuchi Cave!" Jiraiya said with a grave expression, "The White Snake Sage is the most mysterious Sage in the ninja world, and Ryuchi Cave is also the hardest to find among the unknown lands..."
"...It seems that besides Teacher Jiraiya, no one else has found Mount Myoboku either, right?" Uchiha Itachi suddenly said, "According to this logic, Lady Tsunade..."
"This is a bit more complicated."
Jiraiya looked up, "I accidentally entered Mount Myoboku due to a summoning jutsu mistake. Orochimaru learned the location of Ryuchi Cave by signing a blood contract with snakes..."
"Because Tsunade likes me very much, she told me some things about the Slug Sage... Shikkotsu Forest. In the earliest times, there was another contractor, the First Hokage who founded the village, Hashirama Senju."
"The First Hokage?" Uchiha Itachi showed timely surprise. Hashirama Senju who thrashed the Uchiha... The God of Shinobi...
Jiraiya also felt a yearning as he spoke, not paying much mind to the Uchiha beside him, "That's right! As far as I know, Lord First Hokage was also the first human to master Sage Mode!"
"Caw!" The crow, having finished its cultivation at some unknown point, looked at Jiraiya boasting... It merely refuted one point: Hashirama Senju was not the first to come into contact with Sages.
Of course, he was even less so the first to master Sage Mode.
"Teacher Jiraiya..." Uchiha Itachi dryly translated the crow's words, correcting the error in Jiraiya's statement, "Kitahara said, the First Hokage wasn't the first..."
"Then who was it?"
Of course, it was Uchiha Itachi's kinsman and ancestor, the ninja world's number one doting older brother, the Sage of Six Paths!
"..."
But this time it was the crow's turn to be silent. As far as it knew, the Sage of Six Paths' chakra hadn't dissipated after his death; he might be watching him... This matter might not be speakable, but it wasn't entirely unspeakable either...
"Caw!"
Kitahara secretly gave itself a thumbs-up. It neither lied nor could it be faulted for such a thing, and it could even conveniently trick Jiraiya a bit, teaching him a small lesson...
Uchiha Itachi could sense that the information Kitahara provided was ill-intentioned and could only say weakly, "Teacher Jiraiya, Kitahara wants you to go ask a fellow named Gamamaru... I think it's best not to ask..."
"Hahahahaha! Itachi! Don't worry!" Jiraiya patted his disciple's shoulder, "Judging by the format of this name, it's a junior from Mount Myoboku. I'll ask Bunta when I get the chance!"
"..."
(End of this chapter)