Chapter 160: Intelligence

 

"You have been away a long time," Hiruzen said.

Jiraiya sat across from his teacher in the Hokage's office. The years between visits contained wars, Minato's death, Orochimaru's defection, the Uchiha massacre, and students Jiraiya had continued searching past.

"I was not wandering without purpose."

"You published several novels."

"A shinobi can have two purposes."

Hiruzen did not smile. "Why have you returned?"

Jiraiya described the Great Toad Sage's dream. A variable had appeared near the path of the Child of Prophecy. It seemed beneficial, but its identity and location were unclear. Jiraiya wanted recent intelligence on changes large enough to affect the future without announcing themselves as wars.

He gave Hiruzen the exact language and his written interpretations. Hiruzen noticed how many possibilities rested upon images that could not be questioned. Prophecy entered the intelligence record as a source with unusual history, uncertain mechanism, and no independent confirmation.

"I will not assign surveillance to every talented child because a toad dreamed of branching lines," Hiruzen said.

"Neither will I."

"You missed a war while searching for one child who might prevent all wars," Hiruzen said. "Do not ask me to treat ambiguity as an order."

"I am asking for information, not troops."

That distinction allowed the conversation to continue.

Hiruzen began with Amegakure. Several years earlier, Tonbo had infiltrated after ANBU attempts failed. He discovered Pain, multiple bodies sharing the Rinnegan, Zetsu, and an organization extending contracts through small countries. Tonbo trapped Pain long enough to gather observations and escaped rather than pretending victory.

Hiruzen also described what Konoha did not know. The original bearer remained unidentified. The bodies' source, control range, and replacement process were uncertain. Konan's paper techniques and Zetsu's infiltration complicated surveillance. Any plan built around one known Path would fail if Pain deployed the others differently.

Jiraiya stopped moving when Hiruzen mentioned the eyes. He remembered Nagato as a starving child who learned every technique with frightening speed. The Rinnegan did not prove that Pain was Nagato, that Nagato remained alive, or that the person leading Amegakure fulfilled prophecy. It made all three questions urgent.

"What did the bodies look like?"

Hiruzen provided authorized descriptions, including the corpse Tonbo had recognized from an older mission. Jiraiya found no face he knew. The shared vision and remote coordination suggested that the visible bodies were controlled, not independent bearers of the eyes.

One detail unsettled him: chakra receivers embedded in flesh. Jiraiya had taught Nagato to use ordinary hand seals, not corpses linked through rods. If Nagato stood behind Pain, years had transformed both method and purpose. If he did not, someone else possessed the eyes or the body.

Jiraiya requested the names of Yahiko and Konan in the search, but Hiruzen required him to explain why. He disclosed the three Amegakure orphans and his years as their teacher. The information turned a speculative connection into a testable lead and exposed how long he had kept a relevant relationship outside Konoha files.

"And Akatsuki?"

"It undercuts the great villages in small-country missions, gathers money, recruits S-rank missing-nin, and protects its leadership through compartmentalization. Orochimaru joined and recently left. Itachi has joined."

The economic strategy mattered. Small countries paid less, received high completion, and shifted dependence away from villages tied to great nations. Akatsuki could build legitimacy before revealing any larger plan. Treating it only as a criminal band would miss the clients who considered it useful.

Jiraiya absorbed the sequence. A former student might control Amegakure. His former teammate had entered and abandoned the same organization. Itachi, whose public crime concealed political layers, now worked beneath Pain.

"The variable could be Tonbo," he said.

Hiruzen considered it. Tonbo's childhood, Academy years, war service, marriage, techniques, and promotions were documented. His growth had accelerated through unusual insight, but no single day marked an impossible arrival.

"Traceable does not mean ordinary," Hiruzen said. "Do not turn him into an answer because you met him this morning."

He listed other changes: Naruto surviving under different social support, Hagoromo integration, Yakumo's continuing life, revised police structures, Orochimaru's movement, and Akatsuki's market growth. A variable might be one person, accumulated decisions, or a prophecy's way of describing uncertainty. Jiraiya had not mentioned the bathhouse.

"News travels quickly."

"The police report arrived before you."

Jiraiya promised to resolve the complaint and returned to the Rinnegan. He requested Tonbo's full operational report under the same controls used for external intelligence partners. Hiruzen granted a supervised reading and required any contact with Amegakure to be coordinated. Jiraiya's history with three children there made solo action especially dangerous.

"You are not forbidden to care about them," Hiruzen said. "You are forbidden to let care conceal your plan from everyone expected to rescue you."

Jiraiya accepted more quietly than usual. In the Analysis Team, Tonbo read a report about Gatō.

After the Hagoromo attack, legal pressure and rival shipping interests weakened his expansion without removing him. Gatō later seized control of the Land of Waves port and entered conflict with a company backed from the Land of Hot Water.

The most recent confrontation produced impossible casualty reports. One hired shinobi survived wounds that should have been fatal, continued fighting after impalement, and was stopped only when barriers separated him from the field. Witnesses described ritual marks, blood use, and a religious group operating outside the weakened Hot Water village structure.

Tonbo separated confirmed facts from recognition within older memories. The pattern suggested Hidan and the Jashin cult. The report did not contain either name.

The distinction protected future teams from false certainty. An immortal opponent might use a different mechanism. Ritual blood could be deception. The Hot Water faction might contain several people with related methods rather than the one name Tonbo remembered. He assigned confidence levels to every inference. He wrote an assessment rather than a declaration.

Possible immortal or self-repairing hostile. Do not assume pain, bleeding, organ damage, or decapitation ends action. Prioritize distance, restraint, dismemberment only as necessary to stop immediate attack, and sealing that prevents reassembly or outside access. Avoid blood exposure. Preserve witnesses and ritual evidence.

He added medical protocol: do not use living personnel to test immortality, do not approach exposed blood without protection, and do not assume absence of pulse makes restraint unnecessary. Captured persons retained rights even when their body violated ordinary expectations.

Gatō's mercenaries had learned the target's nature only after catastrophic loss. They adapted through numbers and containment, allowing Gatō to retain the port at enormous cost. The Land of Hot Water faction withdrew rather than disappear.

The conflict explained how a shipping magnate who once threatened an entire clan could later rely upon ordinary guards and unstable contractors. Loss accumulated even when a man remained wealthy.

Tonbo forwarded the assessment to Hiruzen, the new Military Police intelligence liaison, and border teams near the Land of Hot Water. He requested historical reports on missing shinobi, religious killings, and bodies recovered with ritual damage.

Shimon asked whether the report connected Gatō to the Uchiha crisis. Tonbo said no. Gatō linked the Hagoromo arc and the Land of Waves economically, not every threat in the village. Intelligence analysis failed when a familiar villain became the answer to unrelated evidence.

On another floor of the Tower, Jiraiya opened Tonbo's Amegakure report. Two intelligence paths had begun moving toward the same organization.