Chapter 642: Jiraiya Goes Undercover

Things had now reached an incredibly frustrating stalemate.

If Kashin Koji continued committing crimes while Jiraiya remained in hiding, Jiraiya would eventually notice something important.

Even when he restricted his own movements and kept a camera recording everything he did, victims would continue appearing elsewhere.

That would prove the real culprit was someone else and that Jiraiya didn't have a second personality after all.

Once he realized that, Jiraiya could investigate other possibilities, eventually uncover the truth, and start training seriously again.

Unfortunately, through a rather unfortunate series of coincidences, Jiraiya's decision to hide had also forced Kashin Koji to stop showing himself.

And from Jiraiya's perspective, the situation looked completely different.

He had restrained himself, stayed hidden, and taken every possible precaution. The attacks had stopped immediately afterward.

Didn't that make it even more likely that he was the problem?

When Orochimaru learned what was happening, he decided he needed to intervene.

Before changing his outlook on life, Orochimaru's ultimate ambition had been to master every ninjutsu in existence and achieve immortality.

Afterward, however, he'd come to understand that an individual's abilities had limits. Human potential itself was limited, and there was only so much one person could accomplish alone.

Instead of obsessing over acquiring every power personally, he'd learned to enjoy guiding other people toward greater strength.

That was why he'd taken such pleasure in helping Sasuke master the Rinnegan's abilities and assisting Nagato in effectively hijacking Uchiha Madara's Rinnegan.

And now, when it came to Jiraiya, Orochimaru felt the same way.

His goal was to help Jiraiya get his life back on track, find the motivation to train seriously, and become stronger.

He wasn't simply trying to make Jiraiya suffer for his own amusement.

So when Orochimaru realized the situation had become a deadlock, he decided to give things a little push.

He knew Jiraiya well enough to predict what would happen next.

If Jiraiya believed something had gone wrong with his body, he would inevitably sneak back into Amegakure to investigate the surgery and search for the relevant research records.

Kashin Koji, on the other hand, was the exact opposite.

Orochimaru had implanted a subconscious restriction into him, preventing him from returning to the place where he was born.

That meant the solution was straightforward.

As long as Orochimaru left a few carefully chosen clues in the operating room or laboratory, Jiraiya would eventually discover them and find a way out of his predicament.

There was practically no chance of the two running into each other.

Orochimaru wasn't particularly concerned. He simply made a few adjustments to the laboratory's security system and added toads to the whitelist of permitted visitors.

Now all he had to do was wait and see when Jiraiya would return.

...

Several days later, a small toad quietly infiltrated the laboratory.

Jiraiya didn't emerge from its body.

He was still firmly committed to the principle that if he could remain hidden inside a toad, then he absolutely would.

The last thing he wanted was for his supposed second personality to suddenly take control and commit another terrible crime.

He already knew what had happened during the previous incidents.

Fortunately, Tsunade had treated the victims, and nobody had died. As far as the immediate damage was concerned, the situation had been resolved.

But who could guarantee that the next incident wouldn't be worse?

What if his second personality hurt someone beyond Tsunade's ability to heal?

Jiraiya wasn't willing to take that risk.

Hidden inside the little toad's stomach, he could still sense his surroundings, almost as though he were piloting a miniature mecha.

And before long, he discovered exactly what Orochimaru had deliberately left for him.

"Hm? What's this?"

The little toad swallowed a sheet of paper, bringing it into its stomach so Jiraiya could examine it.

It was an incident report.

According to the document, several serious mistakes had occurred during Jiraiya's operation.

The first concerned the cultivation of his replacement organs.

Originally, the laboratory had possessed everything necessary to grow the required organs independently.

However, in an attempt to save time and materials, Kabuto and Amado had chosen to clone an entire body instead, then remove the organs needed for transplantation.

The remaining clone had been handed over to Amado for further research.

Once those experiments were complete, the plan was to destroy it.

After all, the clone had never been activated. It possessed neither memories nor an awakened consciousness, so disposing of it would have been a simple matter.

Unfortunately, another major mistake had occurred.

While Amado was chatting with his daughter during one of her visits to the laboratory, he accidentally activated the electrical disposal system.

The system had been prepared to destroy the clone once the research was finished.

But because Amado triggered it by mistake, he hadn't disabled its safety restrictions beforehand.

As a result, the electrical current remained at a level that a human body could withstand.

Instead of destroying the clone, the prolonged electrical stimulation eventually activated it.

And once the clone awakened, it escaped from the laboratory.

The report ended there.

Even when fabricating a story, Orochimaru had gone out of his way to attribute every problem to human error rather than technological failure.

He didn't want to reinforce Jiraiya's existing prejudices about cloning and genetic engineering.

When Jiraiya finished reading the report, everything suddenly made sense.

So that's what happened!

No wonder he'd been hiding inside the toad for so long without experiencing a single episode involving his supposed second personality!

He'd even been sleeping and resting normally throughout that time.

Yet nothing unusual had happened.

The camera strapped to his chest hadn't recorded anything suspicious either.

Of course it hadn't!

He was a perfectly normal person!

There was no second personality!

Jiraiya felt an enormous weight lift from his shoulders.

Not only did this prove there was nothing wrong with his mental health, but it also confirmed that he wasn't the criminal who had attacked those women.

Now his objective was simple.

Find the escaped clone and help deal with it.

"Still, that clone really doesn't know how to treat women properly."

Jiraiya stroked his chin thoughtfully.

"Looks like Naruto's dark side wasn't the only one who failed to inherit the original's magnificent character."

Admittedly, the idea of eliminating another version of himself made Jiraiya somewhat uncomfortable.

But when he remembered what the clone had done, his hesitation quickly disappeared.

Not only had that bastard injured so many lovely workers in the pleasure district, but he'd even made Jiraiya pay for his visits while Jiraiya was drunk!

That was downright evil!

Absolutely outrageous!

The clone had to be eliminated.

Of course, before taking action, Jiraiya needed to gather all the available intelligence.

He wasn't called the legendary intelligence-gathering Jiraiya for nothing.

Only once he'd thoroughly investigated his opponent would he make his move.

So he continued reading.

The next section contained an assessment of the clone's threat level.

For example, the document explained that an awakened clone would possess almost exactly the same chakra characteristics and theoretical capacity for ninjutsu as the original.

However, unless memories were deliberately implanted, the clone wouldn't possess the knowledge required to perform those techniques.

Nor would it possess the original's accumulated combat experience.

Under those circumstances, the clone would be vastly inferior to Jiraiya himself.

"That's it?"

Jiraiya raised an eyebrow.

"It's that weak?"

He was practically ready to celebrate when another thought stopped him.

"Wait. Something's not right."

Hadn't Tsunade's investigation concluded that the perpetrator had also used genjutsu against those women?

If the clone really was nothing more than a helpless overgrown infant wearing Jiraiya's face, it might be capable of committing the attacks, but there was no way it could have covered its tracks so perfectly.

If Jiraiya hadn't personally infiltrated Orochimaru's laboratory to gather information, he would probably still believe he had developed a split personality.

Tsunade had been fooled too.

Which meant the clone wasn't merely capable of using ninjutsu.

It was intelligent.

Very intelligent.

Jiraiya's expression grew serious as he continued reading.

The report reiterated that a clone without implanted memories would be considerably weaker than its original.

However, as an artificially created human, a clone possessed one extraordinary advantage.

Its potential for modification.

Theoretically, enormous amounts of combat experience could be implanted directly into the clone, along with knowledge of ninjutsu from entirely different disciplines.

With the right enhancements, it could even surpass the original person from whom its cells had been taken.

"Modification…"

Jiraiya suddenly remembered something.

"Wait a minute. I remember now!"

"During the Chūnin Exams, didn't we talk about something like this on the rooftop?"

He recalled a conversation about Orochimaru's future son.

That child, Mitsuki, was an artificial human cultivated by Orochimaru.

Despite being created from another person's cells, he could perfectly utilize Ryūchi Cave's Sage Mode.

In that respect, he had already surpassed the person who provided the original biological material.

Jiraiya's expression grew increasingly grim.

If Orochimaru could create an artificial human capable of surpassing its genetic source so completely—

then what about his own clone?

Don't tell me…

Is this clone of mine the same kind of monster?