"Specifically?" Jiraiya asked.
Naruto adopted a contemplative expression. "When I was little, I was sleeping once, and I drifted into a dream where I was in front of a big gate. Then, a pair of claws stuck through the gate, trying to scratch me."
Taking a sip of tea and offering Jiraiya a cup, Naruto continued, "At first, I was quite scared, but then I saw it couldn't get out, so I wasn't afraid anymore. But then it suddenly roared, startling me."
"But, if it roared at me, and I didn't roar back, wouldn't that be a loss? And you know, old man, I love music, so I sang to it."
"At first, it roared back at me, but then it probably got tired and stopped roaring..."
Jiraiya looked at Naruto with an expression that screamed, Are you messing with me? But he couldn't detect any hint of falsehood from Naruto's expression or body language. Because what Naruto said... was all true.
In his previous life, when he was a child, he once encountered a wolfdog trapped behind an iron gate. Its barking startled him, and his little temper flared up. He sat on the ground and sang to the dog for a long time. Later... that dog stopped barking at anyone.
Naruto turned and crushed a stone with the hand coated in Nine-Tails Chakra, saying, "I promised it I wouldn't sing for these two days, so it lent me its chakra."
Jiraiya took a sip of tea to calm himself. He was genuinely startled by Naruto's actions. His gaze at Naruto was unnatural, a look that roughly translated to: You're so impressive, do your parents know?
After a moment, Jiraiya asked, "What did you sing?" He genuinely wanted to know what song was so powerful that even the Nine-Tails couldn't withstand it.
Naruto turned back to him. "How old was I back then? Of course, I sang..."
Jiraiya's teacup shattered from his grip. He exclaimed in shock, "Nursery rhymes!?"
The Nine-Tails, which had stumped all of Konoha, was subdued by nursery rhymes?!
"Mm." Naruto nodded, completely truthful. He really did sing nursery rhymes back then. And what's wrong with subduing a pig demon with a nursery rhyme?
"Of course, it was nursery rhymes at first, but then I changed it." Naruto appeared calm on the surface, but his mental space was a chaotic mess.
The Nine-Tails, with a single claw, punched its chest. If you can't speak properly, then don't speak! This old man's lifelong reputation is ruined by your yellow-haired braggart mouth! If this gets out, how am I supposed to be a fox?!
Thud... The muffled sound of a fist hitting flesh.
Rolling a few times to dodge the fist, Naruto bobbed amidst the fleshy waves. "Then what do you want me to say?!" Should I say you've been fed fatter than Tonton?
Another claw slammed down. "This old man doesn't care what you say, but that's no reason for you to slander this old man!"
Thud.
Dodging another punch, Naruto pouted. Do you even need slandering looking like that? I'm worried about what to say when I see the Sage of Six Paths later. The conversation in Naruto's mind was probably like this:
Himself: "Six Paths, this is really an orange fox."
Six Paths: "I died early, but don't think you can trick me with a pig."
Thump, thump, thump...
In the mental space, the Nine-Tails' chest thumped loudly, and Naruto bobbed and swayed amidst the fleshy waves.
Outside, Jiraiya rubbed his temples and asked, "Then what do you sing now?"
"Ahem..." Naruto cleared his throat and performed a live rendition of the Land of Snow's theme song.
Thirty seconds later, Jiraiya released his hands from his ears. "Alright, alright, stop singing." At this moment, Jiraiya inexplicably felt some sympathy for the Nine-Tails. The singing was truly terrible, absolutely deadly.
Logically, with Naruto's vocal cords, his singing shouldn't be bad, but just like how his Transformation Jutsu couldn't turn into a Rasenshuriken, this was a cognitive impairment.
In his previous life, his singing was terrible; his friends would rush to the bathroom when he sang. So, in this life, he couldn't sing well either. This could be seen from how his clones would change every time they sang, indirectly breaking this cognitive impairment, essentially self-hypnosis.
"Come here for a moment." Jiraiya waved Naruto over. He wanted to check the seal. What Naruto said was too outlandish; he was half-skeptical.
Jiraiya genuinely found it hard to believe. People were unwilling to believe that a demon fox's personality would be that of an amiable husky. People preferred to believe it only knew rage. People particularly preferred to believe that its personality should only know destruction, damn it.
"What do you want to do?" Naruto asked, surprised.
"Lift up your shirt and let me see."
"That's awkward." Naruto refused. Although no one else was around, exposing his belly felt particularly uncomfortable.
Jiraiya said sternly, "Let me see!" I've seen you bathe already, what's so awkward about seeing your belly?
"Why are you yelling so loud?"
Naruto took off his shirt a meter away from him. Old man, I'm warning you, don't do anything strange, or I can't guarantee you won't have a bowl-sized scar on your chest.
Because Naruto was channeling Nine-Tails Chakra, the seal was already visible. Jiraiya leaned in to examine it and found that other than some cracks, the seal was normal. Cracks were to be expected.
The Fourth Hokage had left an opening when he sealed it, and after so many years, it was normal for it to loosen. Moreover, Naruto often used Nine-Tails Chakra for fun; it would be strange if there weren't any cracks.
After observing for a long time, Jiraiya found that Naruto really could activate some Tailed Beast power on his own. Although controlling Tailed Beast power through singing sounded ridiculous,
there was a precedent: Killer B, the Eight-Tails Jinchuriki of the Hidden Cloud Village, was a Jinchuriki who could control Tailed Beast power while singing strange songs.
Jiraiya had heard Killer B's singing during his travels and knew the commonality between the two: both sang terribly. Perhaps Killer B's singing was even slightly better than Naruto's.
Anything, once it has a precedent, becomes less difficult to accept.
He told Naruto to put his shirt back on. Jiraiya asked, "Then why didn't you say anything earlier?"
Naruto pulled on his shirt. "No one asked me."
Jiraiya scratched his head. It seemed that no one from Konoha had ever actually asked him.
So, the blame for not knowing that their village's Jinchuriki could control Tailed Beast power lay with the Third Hokage? Not entirely with him, but also with Danzo.
After all, if Danzo hadn't spread rumors, the Third couldn't have placed a gag order on the entire village. Of course, given Naruto's reclusive nature as a child, a gag order wouldn't have made much difference anyway.
Abandoning the idea of shifting blame to his master, Jiraiya asked again, "How much can you control now?"
It wasn't difficult for a Jinchuriki to control a Tailed Beast's power; any Jinchuriki could. The true challenge was controlling enough without going berserk.
Naruto extended four fingers. "A maximum of four tails."
Four tails was the limit he could say, because he and the Nine-Tails had experimented. If four tails represented an eight-centimeter thick fox-chakra cloak,
then five tails would be ten centimeters, six tails twelve, and so on, increasing by about two centimeters per tail. The Nine-Tails didn't want to expose its true size, so Naruto could only say four tails.
"Then last time?"
Naruto knew Jiraiya was referring to the fight with Shukaku. He replied, "They have a grudge. It said if I fought Shukaku once, it would lend me chakra once for free."
"Tailed Beasts have grudges too!?"
"I don't know about others, but those two do."
Jiraiya heard for the first time that Tailed Beasts could hold grudges. He mumbled to himself, "Why?"
Naruto really couldn't explain this to him. He couldn't just smack the table and say, "Well, back in the day, Kaguya ate the fruit of the divine tree and gained eternal life, then her son sealed her on the moon.
The Sage of Six Paths split the Ten-Tails into nine beasts, and the foxy one alone received special favor..." Whether Jiraiya believed it was secondary; he himself would definitely end up in Konoha's psychiatry department.
The two continued to discuss until dinner time, when it was time to sign in again. It was also the time for the negotiation with Orochimaru.
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