Without knowing why these spies met their end as they walked through the mist and became statues that now sit in plain sight of my house as lawn ornaments. This served as both a warning and a practical purpose. See these statues served as conduits for natural energy to flow and by scattering them about my yard the natural energy flows from one to another smoothly rather than just sort of sitting there. It was for this reason that any petrified entities were left in the three sage regions rather than gotten rid of.-
The flowing natural energy was simply better for turning the areas into hotspots for natural energy. The stuff flowed after all and the more flowing there was the more natural energy was drawn in. Still the most curious and equally sad part was that a few of these statues showed talent with natural energy as their expressions at the time of their perishing said that they were terrified. Without some degree of talent in sage mode you wouldn’t even realize that you were being petrified until you suddenly found yourself in the pure lands.-
Anyways a few days after my discussion with my sensei about the research she got approval from the council for funding it and we could finally begin. While I turned my attention and effort there something else happened that finally pushed my sensei over a line, Han of Iwagakure had mysteriously gone missing. This finally prompted her to send Jiraiya to investigate the Akatsuki as now close to half the tailed beasts were in their hands. Before when they were just mercenaries the sheer number of S rank shinobi in their group was concerning but not problematic really since they were just mercenaries.-
Now however it was obvious they had some deeper plan and she wanted to know what it was and why it needed tailed beasts. The toad sage of course also saw the need for this information and left with a smile despite how dangerous it was. With my focus going into the research however I wasn’t told of this until it was far too late for me to send one of my beasts with Jiraiya for safety. The man was certainly powerful and could escape on his own against multiple S rank shinobi if he wasn’t drastically outmatched but something about the Akatsuki rubbed me the wrong way and I couldn’t put my finger on what exactly.-
They seemed like a fairly normal mercenary group if one ignores the fact their members were all of the S rank variety. They gathered funds and operated as any normal mercenary group might up until they revealed their sinister side and started taking out jinchuriki’s. That statue they were using to do exactly that most of all bothered me as it felt extremely wrong. Like it wasn’t actually a statue at all but some sort of living thing that was being rejected by the world itself.-
Let me tell you that was no mean feat to pull off as the world was a lot less judgmental than any human on it’s face and so to make it hate you enough to cause outright rejection you had to do something REALLY bad, like devour the souls of the dead or some such equally horrible thing. Whatever the hell that statue was it was clearly involved in something absolutely heinous if they world itself was rejecting it like that. As a result the fact the Akatsuki were using it also didn’t bode well at all.-
A few weeks later my fear was realized right as I was starting to believe Jiraiya was going to be fine, he died. Pa, the toad sage from Mt. Myoboku showed up in the village with the news and a message literally carved into his back by Jiraiya. The message was written in code that only Naruto figured out and pointed at a chilling idea. “The real one is not among them.” It said after translated and referred to the ones who fought and killed Jiraiya, the Pains. According to Pa and the data Jiraiya had already sent back the Akatsuki were going to come for Naruto and so my yellow haired friend left with Pa to Mt. Myoboku to train in sage mode like Jiraiya before him.-
I had offered to train him myself but he rejected it to follow in his own teachers path and learn from the toads. I could only accept this and turn my attention back to the research while the village mourned Jiraiya’s death. My sensei in particular mourned the hardest and felt the most guilt over his death as she was the one who sent him on that mission despite knowing it was going to be extremely dangerous.-
I felt little for his passing as not only had he accepted the risk of death that comes with being a shinobi but I barely knew him myself. Perhaps that seems callus of me but he knew that shinobi always run the risk of being killed on a mission and had still chosen to go. For that alone he had my respect but sadness was not something I felt for his loss, not when I didn’t know him enough to really care. The village like always moved on even after the funeral service and the addition of his name to the monument of shinobi lost in the line of duty.-
Soon a year passed by and only a little of worth had occurred during this time. The first was that we had developed four extraordinary techniques utilizing lifeforce during this time. Each targeted a specific sector of the medical field, Cells, Prenatal care, Lost limbs and Congenial diseases specifically. It wasn’t perfect but it was a whole hell of a lot better than what we had before the research covered those topics. I won’t go into the details of the experiments as some of them were less than morally sound or humane for that matter but they were worth it in my opinion.-
The second thing that had happened over this year was more a series of things really as every tailed beast save the eight tails, nine tails and three tails had been captured by the Akatsuki. The three tails not because it was hard to get for them but rather that they simply couldn’t find it with all the seals I had around that lake keeping people from finding the place. It was rather funny hearing the reports of the members searching all over the land of water fruitlessly.