It was only after the inn's okami threatened to have a restraining order placed on him that, with great reluctance, Jiraiya the legendary Sannin, the great Toad Sage, and bestselling author of the hugely popular Icha Icha series removed himself from its premises.
It wasn't that he was afraid of the local police – not by a long shot – but if his dashing mug were to be plastered on posters all around the nation's bathhouses, his research would sadly come to a screeching halt, and then what would he say to his adoring fans?
Hitting the road again, Jiraiya tactfully thought to make himself scarce from that area (for a few months) and mulling over his well-worn map, decided to head north to Snow country. He'd heard that the women there had the most beautiful pearly white skin, and that the hot springs there were medicinal...and indeed, Jiraiya thought that he deserved some time spent healing, with the heartache he now nursed at the thought of his self-imposed banishment from his own country.
Instead of heading directly by a land route, which would lead him on a cumbersome path straight through the borders of several nations, Jiraiya decided to board a ship, as a sea route would both be faster, and make for a nice change in pace. In fact, for the next installment of Icha Icha, he had been thinking of having his main character engage in a whirlwind romance at sea with the beautiful maiden daughter of a ship's captain (which would of course have to end tragically so that he could write a sequel).
The journey was cut short however as it seemed that, despite the thick fog surrounding the Land of Waves, most ships stopped at its main port city to refuel, as well as to load and unload goods.
Hearing from the captain (who, to Jiraiya's great disappointment, had never married nor fathered any daughters) that the ship would be docked for several hours, he went ashore with the intention of stretching his land legs. And for the first time in many years, he found himself speechless with shock.
Jiraiya had been walking past a row of disheveled buildings near the port's center, when he saw what looked like a small child crawling on the ground. His lower body was covered by a black rubber tarp and it was only after Jiraiya gave the boy a second glance that he realized that the boy didn't have any legs. The child's face was bony and drawn, and the only signs of life were his hands, which relentlessly slapped down on the ground before him and pushed his body up just a few inches at a time.
"Where are you going, child?" Jiraiya asked softly, kneeling beside him. However, the boy didn't seem to hear him; instead, silently, he kept pushing himself forward.
"If he makes it to the other side of the city by tonight, he'll get fed," said a young girl, who'd been poking lethargically at the ground with a stick.
Jiraiya paused. "Fed? By who?"
"People who think it's funny," said the girl with a shrug.
Something hard clenched in Jiraiya's stomach, and he got up. He looked around, and as if seeing for the first time, finally noticed the hard gazes of the passing people and the listless children gathered at every corner.
Jiraiya had heard the rumors, of course, about how a man named Gatō had managed to get his claws on a small island nation and sucked the very life out of its people. At the time, he'd merely thought that it wasn't any of his business and had passed it over. But hearing was not the same as seeing, and the mild discomfort he had felt then now turned into full-blown sorrow.
It had been a long time since he had seen people brought down to such low levels. It had been bad in Konoha for a while following the Nine-Tails' attack, but nowhere near what he saw here. No, the last time Jiraiya had seen such a bleak setting had been during the Second Shinobi World War, when orphans on war-torn battlefields had been like particles of sand on a beach.
When he returned to the dock, his mind was a storm of roiling thoughts, but one made itself the clear winner.
"We're leaving in ten minutes, you'd better return to your cabin," said the captain, leaning over the railing of the ship.
Jiraiya rummaged in his pocket, and finding a coin, he flipped it up to the man, who caught it with an adept grab.
"I'll be staying here for just a bit longer," he called up to him. "You can keep the change."
Waving his hand, letting the captain's farewell wash over him ("Hold on a - hey, come back here! This isn't the full fare!"), Jiraiya began to head for the nearest bar, where he would hopefully be able to pry from the loose lips of a drunken sailor the full story of the country's current sorry state of affairs.
...
The sun was low in the sky when they reached the dock; the fog for once was gone, leaving behind a gradient of purple to orange that then dissolved into murky water. There were only two boats there: one was a battered-looking fishing boat that had likely seen much better days. The other was a cargo ship, with black steam belching obnoxiously from a smokestack – it was on this ship that they'd be getting on.
Before boarding, Naruto and the others exchanged farewells with their benefactor.
"I appreciated your escorting me here," Kaine said with a gracious smile, dabbing at something in her eyes with her sleeve. "I'll never forget you all...and I hope you won't forget me, either."
"Oh we will," Sai promised pleasantly.
Mayu smiled tremulously. "Goodbye Kaine-san..."
"You have to be brave, Mayu," said Rai, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder.
"I know..."
"Well let's get going then," said Naruto a tad impatiently.
With a final wave, Naruto and the others boarded the ship, which they found themselves fortunate to have caught. It would have been tough to find one leaving Wave country on such short notice, but with Kaine backing them, money had exchanged hands and the ship's captain had agreed to make a short detour back to Fire country.
"You kids are ninja?" The captain, a gruff-looking man with a thick black mustache, eyed their hitai-ate suspiciously. "Awfully young, aren't you?"
"Actually, our growths got stunted by our training. We're probably around your age...assuming you're sixty or so." The captain couldn't have been a day over fifty, but with his usual placid smile, Sai displayed his remarkable aptitude for lying through his teeth. Naruto privately thought to himself that the boy could probably do quite well for himself in the chūnin betting games.
"We appreciate you going out of your way to take us back to our country," said Mayu earnestly.
Leaning over the side of his ship, the captain spat out a wad of something black and slimy into the ocean, giving Naruto an unwelcome inkling of what the murk in the water could be. "Before that though, we'll be making a pit stop at a port town farther up north."
"That'll be just fine," said Naruto. "Now, if you'll excuse us...we'll be resting in our cabin."
"We're tired and we have our own food, so unless the ship catches on fire or something, you don't have to bother with us," Rai added helpfully.
"Your own food, eh? Well I'm not complaining," said the captain. Then with a grunt of dismissal, he turned around to shout something at a passing crewmember.
Naruto and the rest of his team slipped into their cabin, where for about an hour, they rested on rotting bunk beds that creaked with every slosh of a wave against the ship's hull. When they felt the ship still and footsteps increased in volume around them, they each removed their hitai-ate and pulled on a nondescript cloak. Making sure that their faces were hidden below the hoods, they crept out onto the boat's deck one by one, being careful to mingle with the small crowd of people who were getting off the ship. It had grown dark and damp, and their cloaked figures did not stand out from the others, who were similarly dressed.
Just as Naruto stepped foot on the gangplank, however –
"Hey, you lot!" A crewmember hollered down at them, and they froze, wondering if they'd been caught.
"Yes?" Mayu asked, shuffling around. The man – or rather, boy – looked down at them imperiously through beady eyes, and in that split second, Naruto began to reach for the kunai strapped to his thigh.
But then, the boy's expression caved in, and leaning forward, he lowered his voice. "It's my turn to peel the potatoes so I can't go on land but...get me something I can chew on for a bit? I'm feeling queasy. Here...I'll even give you a coin for it."
He flipped something toward them that glinted under the dim dock lights as it spun, and with a practiced hand, Rai grabbed it smoothly out of the air.
"Of course," Rai answered, looking down at the coin, and then back up at the boy with a predator-like smile.
"I owe you," said the boy gratefully with a queasy smile. However, as soon as the boy had disappeared from sight, Rai pocketed the coin with a whistle.
"Rai!" Mayu hissed.
"What?" Rai said defensively. "He had to learn his lesson sooner or later."
As they exchanged small talk, the four casually separated from the rest of the group, and once Mayu had indicated that the coast was clear, they slipped down the wall to the river that spanned the town. The darkness of the night and the shadows of the overhanging bridges and walls hid them; directing their chakra to their feet, they began to run across the water's surface as silently as they could.
Only when they had left behind the last building of the port city, did Naruto allow himself to even slightly relax.
"Think that was good enough?" Rai muttered. Naruto glanced around, straining to extend his senses as far as he could. They were now in marshland, and with the moon almost completely blocked out by clouds that evening, even their trained eyes found it hard to make out anything in the horizon.
"The most obvious presences are gone now...but to be sure, I'll keep the clones around for as long as I can," he said quietly.
It had been Kaine's idea.