Hearing the voice, Jiraiya could only stop in his tracks. He felt a bit speechless. What else did this guy want to say? Was he having second thoughts about the sentence? He began to feel a sense of unease.
Ryōsuke stared at Jiraiya and spoke slowly. "In the future, when you are traveling outside the village, stay away from the Rain Village. If you go there... you will die."
This was Jiraiya's eventual fate. At the end of the Second Great Ninja War, he had stayed behind in the Rain Village to take in three orphans—Nagato, Yahiko, and Konan—and taught them ninjutsu. However, ever since Yahiko was driven to his death by the schemes of Hanzō and Danzō, Nagato and Konan had become 'filial' disciples in the most ironic sense. For the sake of their so-called peace in the shinobi world, they would ruthlessly murder their own teacher.
Jiraiya had shown them immense kindness. If he hadn't taught them ninjutsu and given them the ability to protect themselves, they would have been killed long ago in a hellhole like the Rain Village. What kind of 'peace' could be achieved by someone who couldn't even tolerate their own master?
The members of the Uchiha team found Ryōsuke's words hard to believe. The Rain Village was just a small hidden village. Although it housed a figure like Hanzō the Demi-God, it shouldn't be that dangerous for someone like Jiraiya. Jiraiya's strength was evident from the fact that he forced Ryōsuke to use the Eight Inner Gates. He was undoubtedly a Kage-level powerhouse. Killing a Kage-level expert was extremely difficult in the shinobi world. Aside from Hanzō, the Rain Village had no other famous masters. If Jiraiya wanted to escape, he should be more than capable of doing so.
Tsunade's brow furrowed deeply. Why would Ryōsuke say such a thing? Was Jiraiya really destined to die in the future? This made her worry despite herself. Jiraiya might be a peeping tom, but that wasn't a death-worthy offense. Was there some terrifying hidden power within the Rain Village?
Over the past decade, the Rain Village had become extremely isolationist, as if it were cut off from the rest of the world. Outsiders had no way of knowing the situation inside. Hanzō the Demi-God had indeed been powerful enough to fight all three Sannin at once in the past, but many years had passed since then. Jiraiya had grown significantly and could even use Sage Mode. Even if he couldn't defeat Hanzō, he should be able to retreat safely. He had a contract with the toads of Mount Myōboku; at the very least, he could use a Reverse Summoning Technique to escape. Furthermore, Hanzō was mainly dangerous because of his wide-range poison attacks, which were effective in large-scale battles but didn't necessarily grant a decisive advantage in a duel. It was hard to imagine Jiraiya dying there.
Yet, she also found it hard to believe that Ryōsuke would intentionally mock Jiraiya. There had to be some basis for his warning. Jiraiya, hearing Ryōsuke's words, felt a surge of anger despite the warning.
"You bastard! I've already agreed to serve my time, and now you're cursing me to death?"
Even if he was no match for Uchiha Ryōsuke, it wasn't easy for others in the shinobi world to kill him. Besides, why would he go to a place like the Rain Village where it rained all year round? There was nothing fun to do there.
Ryōsuke knew his words were abrupt, so he wasn't angry at Jiraiya's rudeness. He decided to prove it.
"Don't resist. I'm going to show you some images."
As he spoke, he slowly activated his three-tomoe Sharingan. His ocular power focused, and he cast a Genjutsu to show Jiraiya fragments of memory. Jiraiya felt the Genjutsu and instinctively wanted to fight it, but when the other man told him to look at something, he decided to see what it was.
As the Genjutsu took hold, Jiraiya was plunged into darkness. Then, the scene shifted. He saw himself impaled by several black rods, dying on a cold platform.
Jiraiya's expression turned grave. Was this really his death? Looking at the environment, it truly appeared to be the Rain Village. Was this just a fabrication created by Uchiha Ryōsuke to play a trick on him?
Then, he noticed the six people surrounding him. They all wore black cloaks with red clouds and had orange hair. They were strange and expressionless. Were these the bastards who killed him? When his eyes landed on the ripples within their pupils, his own pupils shrank.
'The Rinnegan?'
Shouldn't those eyes belong to Nagato? His heart began to race. What was going on? If he had suspected a prank before, he was starting to believe it now. After all, those were the Rinnegan. The reason he had taken those three disciples in the Rain Village in the first place was because Nagato had unintentionally revealed the Rinnegan. The Rinnegan was a legendary eye, the mark of the Child of Prophecy.
Years ago, during his training at Mount Myōboku, the Great Toad Sage had made a prophecy: he would one day meet the Child of Prophecy and become their guide, and this child would be the key to peace in the shinobi world. That was why Jiraiya had stayed in the Land of Rain for so long.
Jiraiya was now completely baffled. What exactly had happened in the Land of Rain?
Suddenly, the vision shifted again. Jiraiya returned to reality and snapped awake. He immediately looked at Uchiha Ryōsuke and asked seriously, "What you just showed me... is it something you made up, or is it the future?"
Ryōsuke replied, "It's real, of course. Didn't you see the Rinnegan and people you find familiar in those images?"
Jiraiya was shocked. The other man actually knew the secret of the Rinnegan. "Since you know about the future, you must know what happened in the Land of Rain, right?"
The matter of Nagato, the Child of Prophecy, was of the utmost importance; it concerned the future peace of the world.
Ryōsuke simply smiled. "You don't need to know that. As long as you don't go to the Rain Village, you won't die."