__________ POV Narration __________

Jiraiya was confident in himself.

Even though he and his team had lost to Hanzo, they weren't discouraged.

Hanzo was a person close in strength to the current God of Shinobi, their teacher.

It was already impressive that they didn't die fighting him, although that was mostly thanks to Tsunade managing to make an antidote to his poison.

Although, Tsunade herself was not the same after the war. Jiraiya understood her, she had lost too much in it, and no longer wanted to have anything to do with it.

She was off on her own now, which was a bit concerning to Jiraiya, who knew her habits, but he also knew she was strong, so he trusted she'd be safe in the end.

He also trusted his teacher. Which was why he didn't even think about Ken having bad intentions with the Toad Sage.

Ken's whole reputation could only really be summed up by the word 'infamy' after all. Jiraiya found his exploits to be quite frightening.

He was a figure at least on par with Hanzo when it came to status, and he wasn't believed to be any weaker than anyone by the world at large.

Overall, he was a person that warranted both fear and respect. Therefore, Jiraiya decided to treat him casually, to see how he would react. To better judge his character on his own.

Much to his surprise, Ken didn't seem to care at all, he even allowed himself to get dragged out of the Kage's office.

The Assassin did start walking by his side after leaving the office, but it was already enough to establish that the assassin wasn't a violent man, or at least he wasn't stuck up and impulsive.

Jiraiya was pleased with that conclusion, so he proceeded to go outside with the assassin, who followed him without exchanging many words.

No one stopped them, and no Anbu came after them either. Ken was still dressed in his tattered civilian clothes, so he took out a coat and covered his body with it.

Jiraiya didn't react much to that, he just started speaking about their next steps.

"So, first of all, I want to go and talk to my team. I have to inform them that I'd be away for a while.

You can come with me, we'll leave right afterwards..." The Toad Sannin's words rang out as they left the large doors of the Kage building.

"I can stick around. I don't have anything else going on right now..." The Blind Monster simply nodded and continued following the Sannin, who quickly increased his pace after they left the courtyard.

The two of them jumped from roof to roof at a moderate speed for Ken. Jiraiya then stopped suddenly, prompting the assassin to do the same.

"What is the matter?" The assassin asked as he spread out his senses slightly and turned his head in the same direction, trying to find what the Sannin was looking at.

Lo and behold, it was a bathhouse. With, presumably, women in it.

Ken could feel their bodies through the steam, but he didn't care to focus on them hard enough to make out their exact shapes.

Jiraiya was a lot less reserved, he took out what Ken assumed was a pair of binoculars, and laid on his belly signalling the assassin to do the same.

"Can you see it? One of life's many beautiful treasures..." The Perverted Sannin didn't even bother checking if Ken had tried to hide himself, he was just too enraptured by the sights.

Ken didn't bother crouching or anything, he only stood there with his hands hanging by the side, too stupefied to even know how to react.

"... Umm, I am a blind man."

That seemed to be enough to make Jiraiya exclaim in surprise. "What?!?" Loudly.

Obviously, someone down in the bathhouse heard the commotion and decided to look up, Ken immediately turned into a blur when he felt her move.

He landed directly on a different roof and proceeded to observe the scene that ensued with his non-eyes from the distance.

First, the Sannin didn't realize he was noticed by the women below, too surprise by what he had just heard, then he inevitably noticed when they started throwing whatever they could find at him.

Soap, brushes... Shuriken and water dragons?

There were apparently some shinobi among the women inside.

Jiraiya may have been a pervert, but at the very least he was skilled. He managed to dodge most of them after the first bar of soap hit him in the face and broke the binoculars he was using.

After that, he turned into a puff of smoke and evaded the rest of the attacks.

Ken decided not to comment on the incident and just went forward to the Training Grounds where Jiraiya's students were already waiting.

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He recognized Minato from the moment he had spread out his senses in the village.

"Hello children, my name is Ken... I am also known as the Red Dot by many." The assassin's gruff voice broke through the silence as he appeared in front of the children, standing tall with his arms crossed.

Minato almost instantly recognized him, putting two and two together as his eyes shined. But he decided to not speak out.

It was the smart choice on his part, as he didn't exactly know how much was public about the situation, they were matters that greatly affected their village's well-being, and they couldn't be spoken about in the open.

The children each introduced themselves, including Minato, who claimed he'd become the Hokage in the future with pride in his voice.

'Hokage, huh? Is he trying to impress me or something? Regardless, he does seem to have the talent for it...'

Ken sighed as he spoke to the children a bit more, and after a few minutes, Jiraiya also showed up, looking completely fine, if not a bit out of breath.

"Apologies! I got lost on my way in life..."

The Sannin didn't seem to look any different than he did when he entered the Hokage's office.

Minato and the other children immediately started speculating about what he was doing.

"I bet he was off peeping into the bathhouse again..." They hit the nail right on the head, it likely wasn't even close to the first time though Ken didn't need any confirmation for that.

Jiraiya also didn't confirm nor deny it, he merely glanced at Ken with what the Assassin assumed to be a bit of embarrassment before coughing into his own hand and looking at his students with a serious gaze.

"The three of you will have to do some self-studying today. I have a personal mission, and I'll be away with Lord Ken.

I don't know when exactly we'll be back, so don't be surprised if you don't hear from me in a day's time or so."

The students quickly stopped speculating and immediately nodded at their teacher's words.

It seemed that they still respected their teacher, despite his odd habits. Ken still found it difficult to take the Sannin as seriously as before.

'Well, let's hope he doesn't try peeping on the toads or something like that...'

He just hoped the Sannin would be able to salvage whatever was left of his professionalism, to at least last him till the end of the mission.

All he needed to do was take him there anyway, Ken could leave on his own or ask the toads for help. The Assassin didn't quite know why Jiraiya claimed he'd be spending a long time there.

'Maybe he's trying to gain an alibi in order to do something shady?'

Immediately, thoughts of Jiraiya disguising himself as a woman and entering the bathhouse appeared. Ken immediately thought of warning the Hokage as well.

'Well, Jiraiya seemed awfully casual earlier... It's safe to assume this isn't the first time that happened, so the Hokage should be aware of it.'

Ken ended up just shaking his head and deciding to mind his own business. Jiraiya was likely relatively tame if no one had done anything about it yet.

After Jiraiya was done giving a speech to his students, they all nodded and went off to train, Minato only looked back once, giving Ken one last look before leaving for good.

"Now, that was interesting..." The perverted Sannin spoke out, either referring to what had happened earlier with the Bathhouse or Minato, Ken couldn't quite tell.

"Let's just forget about earlier." Ken shook his head, knowing there was no point in talking about it in the first place.

Jiraiya seemed to agree, as he nodded with a stupid smile on his face before biting his finger and placing his hand on the ground.

"Summoning Jutsu!"

A seal spread on the ground and a giant puff of smoke appeared where the Sannin's arm touched the ground.

Ken took a few steps back as he felt a larger being appearing underneath Jiraiya's hand.

The blind assassin could feel it through the smoke, a gigantic toad with a scar over its left eye. Its tongue had a series of stud-like piercings on both the upper and lower side.

It also wore a large open vest and carried a massive blade at its hip.

In its gigantic Toad Mouth was a large pipe from which Ken assumed all the smoke was coming from, as the one from the jutsu should've dispersed at some point.

"Gamabunta! I'm glad you could make it!" Jiraiya sat cross-legged on the toad's head with his arms crossed.

He raised his head to the sky and gave a deep laugh, as he did his best to look cool.

"What do you want you brat?!" The Toad's deep voice reverberated throughout the entire training field.

Ken just tilted his head from the side when hearing the gigantic summon speak out. Its size was easily as great as a Tailed Beast.

"I need you to take me and my friend to Mt. Myōboku!" Jiraiya exclaimed with a proud look on his face, as he turned his head towards Ken, who was still observing the giant toad.

Gamabunta turned its head towards Ken, eyes shot wide open as it finally noticed the assassin's presence.

"Huh? A brat like you can even hide from m-... No, you're not normal..." Gamabunto sniffed the air around Ken as it brought his face closer to him.

He was impressed at first, a man with such skill that he could even hide from a sage. But then he noticed that Ken's entire body was shrouded by Nature Energy, making him indistinguishable from his surroundings.

'A cloak of Nature Energy. Is he a sage? No, this doesn't even feel that natural, to begin with... Humans shouldn't ever have this type of control over Nature Energy.'

"I'm glad you can already tell that I'm not normal, it means I was right in reaching out to the Toads. But the one I need to speak to is the Great Toad Sage."

Unlike Gamabunta, the regular Turtle Summons, no matter how big, usually couldn't tell that he was much different from other humans.

Only the Elder Turtle could tell the difference, unless he used his Scaled Sage Mode, of course, but he didn't even look human in those moments anyway.

Meanwhile, Gamabunta sniffed him out right away.

"Hmm, you want to speak with Great Geezer... Fine!" The Giant Toad huffed some smoke, while Jiraiya on his head started complaining about getting ignored for too long.

He didn't get to do that for long though, as Gamabunta acted quite fast.

His tongue extended at unexpected speeds, coiling around the Blind Monster as it brought him into the Toad's Mouth.

Ken didn't struggle nor bother to dodge, he merely allowed himself to be pulled into the Toad's mouth.

Jiraiya followed him soon after that, apparently being pulled into the Frog's belly screaming at it to stop.

He patted off the Toad's saliva while spitting in its mouth a few times and cussing at it, which made the stomach of the frog morph and... Punch him in the stomach?

"..." Ken just 'watched' silently as the Sannin recovered his composure.

"S-Sorry you had to see that, Gamabunta likes to play jokes on me..." Jiraiya patted his stomach with a smile on his face, while Ken just turned his head towards him.

"... Well, you can rest assured, I didn't see anything, I never do.

But why are you coming with me again?" Ken's words made the Sannin awkwardly scratch the back of his head before he clapped his hands together and said.

"I want to meet the Great Toad Sage too! Maybe he'll give me some pointers on how to better enter Sage Mode..."

Ken just nodded at his words, while he felt their surroundings on the outside completely change in an instant. It was a strange way to confuse and overload one's senses.

'A reverse summoning will always leave me a bit 'dizzy' huh?'

"We're here, come out!"

Ken could feel the ripples in his surroundings as the giant Toad spoke out.

The assassin merely chose to follow Jirayia and exit the toad's mouth.

After coming out, The Sannin turned around and looked at Ken with quite a bit of excitement.

"Welcome to Mount Myōboku!"