In the rainy forest, the rain fell in steady streams, covering up the hustle and bustle. Only the sound of the pouring rain echoed in my ears, and the chill brought by the rain.

Jiraiya's figure was alone, speeding on the muddy road.

In order to collect information faster, I separated from Kakashi's ANBU team. During the operation, I contacted him at the agreed location every two hours to exchange information.

However, having stayed in the Land of Rain for more than a day, Jiraiya didn't notice anything unusual.

According to the information provided by Minato, there is a large-scale human trafficking organization at the junction of the Rain Country and the Fire Country. They take advantage of the collapse of the Rain Country after the war to carry out illegal trade activities of human trafficking.

There is a clue that vaguely points to Yuyin Village.

After a day of fruitless searching, Jiraiya had the idea to ask Kanzo, the new leader of Yuyin Village.

If someone from Yuyin Village was involved in the case, then as the current leader of Yuyin, Kanzang would know something.

Or maybe Kanzang himself is controlling all this behind the scenes.

Jiraiya didn't know much about the excavation, so the above are just his own guesses and cannot be used as evidence. Everything needs to be carefully verified.

Moreover, his trip to Amegakure was not entirely for the mission assigned by Minato. He also wanted to go there to look for traces of Nagato and others.

Jiraiya was also very worried about the safety of his three disciples who were now missing.

As a teacher, I must confirm whether the three Nagatos are alive or dead.

When he was almost at the end of the forest, an involuntary chill suddenly made Jiraiya stop his progress.

Jiraiya narrowed his eyes slightly and stopped running forward, instead walking and approached quietly.

He came silently behind a big tree, with rain dripping down his hair and cheeks. He used leaves and weeds to cover his body, and his eyes secretly glanced at an open space not far away.

I saw five people wearing black hooded coats standing in the rain, with thirteen corpses lying at their feet.

These fallen corpses were all ninjas. Nine of them were wearing Amegakure ninja uniforms and forehead protectors, while the other four corpses were wearing Konoha ANBU uniforms and had strange masks with thick colors on their faces.

It's a ninja at the root! Jiraiya's eyes widened slightly.

Although the ninjas of Konoha Root and ANBU have the same uniforms, their mask styles are very different.

The masks on Anbu's faces are limited to animal masks, and the colors tend to be soft and light. The masks worn by Anbu ninjas are solemn and solemn, with rich colors, and are not limited to animal masks.

Although Jiraiya does not often interact with people from the root, as one of the few jounin in Konoha who can participate in important meetings, he naturally has his own way of identifying the root ninja.

Why did the root ninja appear here? Who killed the root ninja? Jiraiya's heart was full of questions.

Although they dislike root things, these root ninjas are also part of Konoha.

Being killed here made Jiraiya a little angry.

But knowing that anger would be useless at this moment, each of these five mysterious people wearing black hooded coats had very powerful auras, and they were all jounin-level beings at least. They could not act on their impulses now.

Jiraiya trusted his own judgment and intuition about the situation.

When it came to fighting, there was absolutely no way he could subdue them all at once.

You need to wait for the enemy to relax before attacking unexpectedly and capture them in one fell swoop.

"Ah, the guy at the base is still as difficult as ever. But luckily I got rid of him."

In the open space, there were five mysterious people wearing black hooded coats, one of whom sighed with emotion.

The other person squatted down and picked up a sealed scroll from the muddy ground.

The texture of the scroll is very good. Even if it was soaked in mud before, after picking it up, there are no stains and it is very clean. This also means that the things recorded in the scroll are very important.

"Destroy the body, don't leave any clues."

"good."

A dozen corpses were piled into one pile, and one person formed a seal with his hands. He quickly spit out a stream of hot flames from his mouth, and burned the dozens of corpses on the spot without leaving any traces.

"Let's go. In this way, the mission will be successfully completed."

The man holding the scroll said, preparing to leave.

No one else had any objections.

Seeing the five people preparing to evacuate after cleaning the battlefield, Jiraiya knew that he could not delay it any longer.

Now is the time when they are most relaxed, and it is not clear if there is anyone else behind them. If they join up with the others, the matter will be more difficult to solve.

Without hesitation, Jiraiya's body rushed over like lightning, clenched his fist, and hit someone from behind.

There is no feeling of hitting the body.

The fist passed through the chest from behind, and the body of the man who was attacked by Jiraiya suddenly turned into scorching flames. Jiraiya's expression changed, and a burning pain immediately came from his arm.

Fell into a trap!

The other four people surrounded him and took out their kunai and waved them at Jiraiya mercilessly.

The chakra in Jiraiya's body surged rapidly, his arms escaped from the shackles of the flames, and he dodged backwards in embarrassment.

Poof!

After dodging three of the kunai, his chest was still cut open by a kunai, and blood spurted outward.

Jiraiya took a breath with lingering fear, covering the bleeding chest wound. He didn't know whether it was sweat or rain flowing on his face.

If I had slowed down my movements just now, I'm afraid I would have directly explained where I was.

These people's movements are also very sharp and straightforward, without any sloppiness, and they almost complete it in one go.

"I thought it was some little mouse peeking from the side. It turns out to be Lord Jiraiya, one of the Sannin of Konoha. I wonder what your purpose is here?"

The man in black holding the scroll smiled at Jiraiya very relaxedly.

The face is hidden under the shadow of the hood, and the appearance cannot be seen clearly.

But judging from his rich tone, he was an adult male.

"It's nothing, I just came out for a walk. But it's a bit unfair."

Jiraiya laughed jokingly, not caring at all that this was a very serious situation for him.

"What?"

"Because only you know me, but I don't know you. Doesn't this seem very unfair?"

Jiraiya stared closely at the five unidentified people in front of him.

"You really forget things, noble people. We should have fought against you Konoha on the battlefield of Grass Country. But to Master Jiraiya, one of the three ninjas, we are indeed inconspicuous little characters.

That’s all, it’s normal if you can’t hear our voices.”

The man who spoke with the scroll lifted the hood on his head, revealing a male face. Like Jiraiya, he had white messy hair.

The other four people also took off the hats that concealed their faces. They were not very familiar faces, but they were not strangers.

After Jiraiya saw the faces of the five people, after a brief recognition, he took a deep breath and his eyes became more cautious.

"So it turns out that they are the famous Xuan Yu Zhong. You are frequent celebrities in the underground black market of the ninja world."

The Xuan Yuan Zhong is a bounty hunter group that has risen rapidly in the underground black market in recent years. They are engaged in various employment activities, and they especially cooperate closely with Yanyin Village.

They are called "ninja hunting ninjas" by those who do good things. Each one has a special secret technique. It is unknown where it comes from, but its ability is strange. It belongs to a special school of ninjutsu that will lead to death.

Since his debut as a bounty hunter, his mission completion rate has reached over 95%, and he has almost never failed.

More than two years ago, when the war between Konoha and Iwagakure broke out in the Land of Grass, the Xuanzhu were hired by Iwagakure more than once to sneak attack on Konoha's supply points, causing great losses to Konoha at that time.

Naturally, Jiraiya didn't have a good impression of this kind of ninja mercenary group that was engaged in various sabotage operations throughout the ninja world.

A group of ruthless executioners who only know how to kill and have no morality in their hearts.

"Since you are here, does that mean you are planning to do something bad again?"

"Taking people's money and eliminating disasters with them is the capital we can be proud of in the underground black market."

The insect man chuckled.

"It seems there is no way to negotiate peacefully."

Jiraiya said regretfully.

"Don't be so righteous. You ninjas from the five major countries are originally a killer group raised by the daimyo. There is no essential difference from us. If there is, it means that you are stronger, so you are just.

One side.”

Hearing the cold words of the insect man, Jiraiya was about to refute, but the person opposite him had already begun to form seals:

"Water Release·Water Dragon Bullet Technique!"

A water dragon more than ten meters long rose up from the ground, roared into the sky, and then fell from the sky, hitting Jiraiya's position.

Jiraiya continued to retreat backwards and formed seals with his hands.

"Earth Escape·Yellow Spring Marsh!"

The five insect men immediately lost their footing, and the surrounding land instantly turned into a bottomless swamp, intending to swallow the five people's bodies into it.

"If you surrender now, it's still too late -"

Before Jiraiya could finish speaking, the native boy among the five pressed his palms on the surface of the swamp, transmitting chakra from his palms.
To be continued...