Jiraiya moved through the trees like a bad rumor.
No bouncing. No posing. No kabuki theater intro. Just raw, high-speed travel that turned the forest into a green smear.
He'd been running for three hours. He should have been running for six.
The intel had been perfect. Too perfect. A hidden lab near the Fire Country border, smelling of snakes and forbidden experiments. It had Danzō's fingerprints all over the delivery method and Orochimaru's stink all over the destination.
It had been a hole in the ground.
Empty. Cold. A decoy set to keep the Toad Sage looking at the wrong map while the real snake ate the bird in the nest.
"Old fool," Jiraiya spat, and he wasn't sure if he meant Danzō for setting the trap, Hiruzen for letting Danzō exist, or himself for falling for it.
Probably himself.
He crested the final ridge. The tree line broke. The view opened up.
Jiraiya skidded to a stop, sandals carving deep furrows into the dirt.
Smoke.
Not the thin, gray wisps of a campfire or a kitchen accident. This was a column. Thick, black, greasy smoke that rose from the center of Konoha like a bruise on the sky.
The wind hit him a second later.
It didn't smell like home.
It smelled like ozone, wet timber, and the distinct, copper tang of a lot of blood drying all at once.
Jiraiya's stomach dropped out.
The Prophecy. The Great Toad Sage's ramblings about choices and destruction and saving the world. Jiraiya had spent a lifetime wandering, thinking the choice was out there—in the Rain, in the mist, in a book he hadn't finished writing.
He'd been looking at the horizon while his own house burned down.
He moved again.
Faster this time. Desperate.
Konoha was a mess of shattered tiles and shock.
The fires were out, mostly. The screaming had stopped, replaced by the low, frantic hum of a hive that had been kicked over. Med-nin ran patterns in the streets. Chūnin shouted orders that sounded thin against the silence of the wreckage.
Jiraiya hit the main gate and didn't slow down.
"Halt! State your—"
He didn't even look at the guard. He just let his chakra flare—heavy, toad-oil thick, unmistakable—and the poor kid stumbled back like he'd been shoved.
"Jiraiya-sama?" the guard squeaked.
Jiraiya was already gone.
He didn't go to the hospital. He didn't go to the evacuation shelters.
He went up.
He scaled the side of the stadium arena, ignoring the stairs, ignoring gravity. He hit the roof tiles of the VIP box and kept going, vaulting toward the highest point of the devastation.
The roof where the barrier had been.
It looked like a god had taken a bite out of the architecture.
Tiles were pulverized to dust. Scorch marks traced the path of dragon fire. The stone was cracked deep, fissures running like veins toward the center.
And in the middle of it all, a helmet.
The Hokage's hat.
It sat on the stones, red and white, abandoned.
Jiraiya stopped.
His chest heaved. Not from exertion. From the sudden, absolute lack of air in the world.
There was no body. They'd have moved it already. Of course they would. You don't leave the God of Shinobi cooling on a roof like a forgotten tool.
But the chakra residue was still here.
Heavy. Old. Familiar.
And fading.
Jiraiya walked over. His steps felt loud.
He crouched and picked up the helmet.
It was lighter than it looked. Cloth and stiffened fabric. It shouldn't have weighed anything.
In his hand, it felt like a mountain.
"You are too loud, Jiraiya," a voice echoed in his head, forty years young. A bell cracked against his skull. "A ninja must be quiet. A ninja must endure."
Jiraiya ran a thumb over the rim of the hat.
"I'm quiet now, old man," he rasped.
He sat down on the scorched tiles.
His legs just… gave up. He folded onto the roof, helmet in his lap, and stared at the empty air where his teacher had died.
He was the last one.
Orochimaru was a monster. Tsunade was a ghost who drank to forget she had hands.
And Hiruzen…
Hiruzen was just gone.
The team was dead. The legacy was rot and ruin. And Jiraiya was the only one left sitting in the ashes, holding a hat he never wanted.
The silence lasted exactly three minutes.
Then the vultures landed.
"Jiraiya."
The voice was dry as dust.
Jiraiya didn't turn. He knew the sound of Homura Mitokado's voice. He knew the click of Koharu Utatane's sandals.
They arrived with an ANBU escort that stayed politely back, faceless statues guarding the transition of power.
The elders didn't look at the scorch marks with grief. They looked at them with assessment. Calculating repair costs. Calculating weakness.
"You are here," Koharu said. "Good. We need to discuss the transition."
Jiraiya felt a spike of revulsion so pure it almost made him gag.
He stood up, turning slowly.
"He's not even cold yet," Jiraiya growled.
The chakra around him bristled—spiky, agitated hair of a lion sensing a threat.
Homura adjusted his glasses. He didn't flinch. "The village is vulnerable. The barrier fell. The Hokage fell. Our enemies will smell blood in the water before the sun sets."
"Weakness invites war," Koharu added. "We need a Fifth. Immediately."
They looked at him.
Expectant. Certain.
They looked at him like he was the obvious next line in a ledger they'd been balancing for fifty years.
Jiraiya looked back.
He saw the village below—smoke rising, people hurting, a boy with a fox in his gut probably wondering if he was still allowed to exist.
He saw the hat in his hand.
If he put it on, he was admitting it was over. He was admitting Hiruzen was history. He was admitting he was the adult now, the one who had to sit in the chair and make the choices that killed people.
He remembered the prophecy. A student who will change the world.
He remembered Minato.
He remembered the way Hiruzen had looked at him, disappointed and fond, every time he left.
"Don't," Jiraiya said.
Homura blinked. "Jiraiya, this is your duty. You are the only—"
"I said don't."
Jiraiya shoved the hat toward them. Koharu caught it reflexively, looking offended that she had to hold a physical object.
"I'm not the man for that chair," Jiraiya said. His voice was flat. Hard. "I'm not a leader. I'm a spy. I'm a writer. I'm the fool who arrived three hours too late to save his teacher."
"That is precisely why—" Homura started.
"Find someone else."
Jiraiya turned his back on them.
"Jiraiya!" Homura barked. "Where are you going?"
"To check on the boy," Jiraiya said without stopping. "And then I'm going to get a drink. Don't follow me."
He didn't wait for their permission.
He vaulted off the roof, dropping into the smoke-stained air.
He needed to find Naruto. Check the seal. Make sure the kid hadn't exploded.
And then he needed to get the hell out of this village before the grief caught up to his legs.
Because if he had to carry the memory of Team Hiruzen alone for one more day, he was going to break.