Chapter 641: Run! I Have a Second Personality!

While Kakashi worried that writing novels might have driven Jiraiya into becoming a deranged criminal, what was Jiraiya himself doing?

And why had everyone concluded that he'd vanished during one of his pleasure-seeking excursions?

Naturally, Jiraiya hadn't fled because he was guilty.

After arriving at the pleasure district, he'd spent his days drinking, entertaining himself, and throwing money around without a care in the world.

Kashin Koji had taken advantage of those opportunities to carry out his attacks.

Unfortunately, Jiraiya was drunk so often that he never noticed anything unusual.

Whenever he heard about something Kashin Koji had done, he simply assumed he'd done it himself while intoxicated. On several occasions, he'd even paid for Kashin Koji's visits without realizing it.

That only made the evidence against him more convincing.

Everything seemed to indicate that Jiraiya and the perpetrator were the same person.

By the time Jiraiya finally sobered up properly, he was completely dumbfounded.

News of the attacks had already reached Konoha, and Tsunade had begun investigating.

Since Jiraiya had absolutely no idea what he'd been doing during his drunken episodes, his first thought was that Orochimaru's operation had somehow made him too powerful.

Perhaps he'd lost control of his newly restored abilities and accidentally injured someone.

But he quickly realized that explanation didn't make sense.

There had been plenty of occasions when he was sober.

And when he was sober, his abilities were perfectly ordinary.

Compared to his weakened state before the operation, he'd simply returned to normal. He certainly hadn't gained some terrifying, uncontrollable strength.

Besides, it wasn't as though Jiraiya had never gotten drunk before.

Even while intoxicated, he'd always been a fairly harmless fellow.

So what the hell was going on?

Then Jiraiya remembered something Orochimaru had said when assigning the operation to Kabuto.

Orochimaru hadn't merely planned to grow replacement tissue from Jiraiya's cells.

He'd also mentioned modifying and optimizing it.

Could that be the problem?

Perhaps the modifications had given Jiraiya some kind of hidden backup system that activated under certain circumstances, allowing him to unleash tremendous power without realizing it.

Like Tsunade, Jiraiya had never completely abandoned his suspicions about Orochimaru.

And after thinking everything through, he began to suspect that something really had gone wrong with Orochimaru's technology.

To a traditional shinobi, genetic engineering and human cloning were deeply questionable technologies that violated natural and ethical boundaries.

Surely it wouldn't be surprising if someone who used them eventually suffered terrible consequences.

Then another possibility occurred to him.

What if the transplanted organs had somehow created a second personality that he couldn't control?

Jiraiya had recently watched Naruto's experiences with Dark Naruto inside Engraved Tsukuyomi, so his mind immediately made the connection.

Perhaps Jiraiya had developed a weak secondary personality.

Whenever he became intoxicated, his primary consciousness lost some of its control, allowing that other personality to emerge and take command of his body.

In simpler terms, his little head had somehow started controlling his big head.

The realization terrified him.

And that was why Jiraiya decided to hide.

It wasn't that he was unwilling to accept responsibility.

He was afraid he couldn't control his hidden personality.

He had no way of knowing when that second personality might suddenly take over. All he could do was isolate himself as much as possible and quietly investigate what was happening.

While Konoha searched for the criminal, Jiraiya conducted his own investigation from the shadows.

And the more he learned about Konoha's findings, the more convinced he became that he really did have a second personality.

Especially after he discovered just how thoroughly Konoha had verified the evidence.

First, the investigators had compared biological samples from Jiraiya's ordinary visits to the pleasure district with the fragments recovered from one of the victims.

The results matched perfectly.

To make sure the culprit hadn't deliberately planted evidence to frame Jiraiya, the investigators had also performed additional examinations while the victims received treatment.

They used genjutsu to assist with the investigation, then brought in members of the Yamanaka clan to inspect the women's memories.

The results confirmed that the victims hadn't been lying.

The person they'd encountered really had been indistinguishable from Jiraiya in every way except for the mask covering his face.

Of course, someone determined to argue his innocence could still point out that the perpetrator might have used the Transformation Technique.

Even the intimate details the women recognized could theoretically have been obtained through genjutsu or secret techniques before the attacks.

There were still possible explanations.

But Jiraiya didn't bother making those arguments.

He had already accepted that something was wrong with him.

In fact, he became so concerned that he purchased a portable video-recording device and attached it to the front of his clothing.

If his second personality took control again, he could review the footage after regaining consciousness and discover exactly what had happened.

Jiraiya was now being extraordinarily cautious.

Even when gathering intelligence, he used the same method he'd employed when infiltrating Amegakure in the original story, hiding inside the body of a small toad.

He wasn't particularly afraid of being discovered.

What frightened him was the possibility that his second personality might seize control at any moment.

At least inside the toad, he had an additional layer of protection.

Before entering, Jiraiya had given the creature strict instructions.

Unless he spoke the correct safety password, the toad was absolutely forbidden from opening its mouth to release him.

And if he ever tried to come out but failed to give the correct password on his first attempt, the toad was to immediately return to Mount Myōboku.

That way, even if Jiraiya's supposed second personality emerged, innocent people nearby wouldn't be placed in danger.

He had taken practically every precaution he could think of.

Unfortunately, those precautions created an unexpected problem.

Because Jiraiya had hidden himself so thoroughly, Kashin Koji couldn't find the original.

Without finding Jiraiya, he couldn't fulfill his obsession with reclaiming his stolen "Kashin" and becoming complete.

So Kashin Koji could only continue wandering through the shinobi world.

Although Kashin Koji looked exactly as old as Jiraiya, he had actually only just been born.

Aside from the memories Amado had implanted into him, he possessed almost nothing of his own.

His ninjutsu repertoire was limited to Jiraiya's most basic techniques: summoning, the Rasengan, and hair-based ninjutsu.

As for Sage Mode, Kashin Koji couldn't use it.

He lacked the most important component needed to activate Jiraiya's special shortcut.

His Summoning Jutsu, however, was a different story.

That was where things became interesting.

Ordinarily, a summoning contract was bound to a person's soul.

Since Kashin Koji possessed his own consciousness and wasn't the original Jiraiya, he shouldn't have been able to invoke Jiraiya's summoning contract through his soul alone.

But the Summoning Jutsu had another characteristic.

It used blood as a medium.

And as Orochimaru had once explained, the essential difference between a clone created through biological engineering and a shadow clone was that a biological clone couldn't simply be dispelled.

If you wanted a biological clone to disappear, you had to kill it.

Otherwise, it was a completely functional physical body.

Which meant Kashin Koji's blood was biologically indistinguishable from Jiraiya's.

The original Summoning Jutsu already allowed the use of another person's blood as part of the summoning process.

There had been numerous examples of substitute summoning methods, particularly after Orochimaru lost the use of his arms and could no longer form hand seals normally.

So Kashin Koji could indeed use blood as a medium to establish a route to Mount Myōboku.

There was only one complication.

He would need to find toads willing to recognize him as their summoner.

He couldn't simply rely on the ones already loyal to Jiraiya.

And for the time being, finding Jiraiya himself was proving impossible.

Kashin Koji had little choice but to improve his own strength.

After all, he was currently weaker than the original.

If Kashin Koji had been confident he could defeat Jiraiya directly, he wouldn't have needed to resort to such elaborate schemes to frame him.

His intended strategy had always been to use someone else's blade to eliminate the obstacle.

First, make Jiraiya appear guilty of terrible crimes.

Then let the authorities capture and restrain him.

Ideally, Jiraiya would be convicted and sent to Hōzuki Castle, where Fire Release: Heavenly Prison would seal his chakra.

Once Jiraiya was imprisoned and powerless, Kashin Koji could approach him and reclaim what he believed had been stolen from his body.

That would give him the greatest possible chance of success.

Unfortunately, the plan had stalled.

Jiraiya had disappeared, and Kashin Koji had no intention of standing around waiting indefinitely.

So he decided to train, strengthen himself, and watch for another opportunity.

And in a sense, everything was proceeding exactly as Orochimaru had intended.

From the beginning, Orochimaru's goal had been to use the threat posed by Kashin Koji to pressure Jiraiya into taking his training seriously again.

There was just one small problem.

Jiraiya still had absolutely no idea that Kashin Koji existed.