The first morning in the giants' world dawned with a faint, greenish light filtering through the canopy, accompanied by a symphony of strange sounds: high-pitched chirps, distant howls, and the constant buzzing of large-scale insectoid life. Jiraiya awoke in the cramped cavity between the roots, his small body aching and stiff from the cold, damp night. Hunger was a constant gnawing in his stomach, and thirst parched his throat.
Leaving his precarious shelter was an act of calculated bravery. He moved slowly, his childlike eyes scanning the surroundings with the sharpness of a seasoned predator. The moss beneath his hands was slippery, and the air was still thick with the smell of earth, decay, and danger.
Priority number one was water. Remembering his years of survival training in the mountains and forests of the Elemental World, he knew that clean water was vital and often a gathering point for dangerous creatures. He listened closely. The sound of running water was the target, a promising whisper in the jungle chorus.
He moved silently, using the dense vegetation as cover. Every leaf he stepped on, every branch he brushed against, was a risk. His body was small, but the noise he made seemed amplified in the comparative silence between the roars of the Titans. He used the basic stealth techniques he had taught countless genin: move slowly, observe before acting, use the environment to his advantage. It was like starting from scratch, but the theory was seared into his mind.
He found a trail. Not giant footprints, but the marks of smaller creatures, heading downhill. The trail led him to a small stream that wound between rocks covered in strange lichens. The water seemed clear, flowing over smooth stones. However, the bank was exposed. A dangerous place.
He watched. Small, brightly colored, lizard-like creatures nervously drank from the stream, their eyes constantly scanning their surroundings. Higher up, in the branches of a tree, a being with iridescent wings lurked, watching the lizards. The food chain in action, in a new world with different players.
Jiraiya waited, hidden behind a clump of giant ferns, until the lizards dispersed. He crept closer to the stream, keeping his head down and his eyes alert. He knelt carefully, feeling the cool water against his fingers. He drank in small sips, aware that filling up too quickly could be dangerous. The water was cool and instantly revitalized him.
With his thirst quenched, his hunger became more pressing. Food was more difficult. He didn't recognize most of the plants. Were they edible? Poisonous? He remembered the lessons on identifying edible and poisonous plants from his ninja training, but the shapes, colors, and smells of this flora were completely alien. Experimentation was a life-threatening risk.
He decided to focus on less risky food sources, if they existed. Perhaps edible insects or small, harmless-looking fruits. As he explored near the stream, he heard a rustling sound nearby. He froze.
Three creatures, resembling giant stick insects with sharp jaws, emerged from the undergrowth. They were the size of large dogs and moved with surprising speed. They had detected him. His instinct screamed: Combat! Jutsu! Summon! But his child's body didn't have enough chakra for a meaningful jutsu, and his summoning connection to the toads... would it even exist in this world? And a child couldn't fight these things directly.
Instead of facing them, his ninja mind calculated an escape route. There was a pile of vine-covered rocks a few meters away. The terrain was uneven, difficult for the creatures, but manageable for a light body.
"Damn, even as a kid I have to run away!" he thought with a mixture of frustration and dark humor.
He ran, his childlike legs moving as fast as they could, agile enough to dodge roots and rocks. The stick insects chased him, their multiple legs drumming against the ground. Jiraiya launched himself toward the pile of rocks, slipping through a narrow opening between them. The larger, stiffer creatures had a hard time keeping up. He bought himself a few precious seconds.
Once inside the rocks, he used his infiltration knowledge to move stealthily, looking for another exit or a place to hide until they lost interest. The inside of the rocks was damp and smelled of mold, but it offered temporary protection. He could hear the creatures outside, scraping the rocks and making irritated clicking noises.
"Fine, Jiraiya," he muttered to himself, his childish voice sounding strange. "Brute force won't help you here, at least not yet. You have to be smart. Like on S-rank spy missions, but with fewer tools and a less cooperative body."
After what seemed like an eternity, the sounds of the stick insects faded. The threat had passed. He emerged from his rocky hiding place, exhausted but unharmed.
The experience reinforced the lesson from the day before. His body was fragile, but his ninja mind was his most powerful weapon. The ability to assess situations, improvise, utilize the environment, and, above all, not give up. His physical abilities would have to be rebuilt from the ground up, adapted to this new body and the energy of the world. But the foundation, the knowledge of an elite shinobi, was there.
He continued his search for food, choosing to try small, dull-colored berries that presented no obvious signs of danger (a calculated but necessary risk). He found some that had no unpleasant taste or immediate effects. A small victory.
He observed how the jungle trees seemed to react to environmental conditions, how certain flowers opened or closed at different times of the day, how weather patterns changed rapidly, shifting from stifling humidity to torrential rains in minutes. Each observation was another piece in the puzzle of this alien ecosystem.
As the day drew to a close, he found a massive, ancient tree with a hollow base, wide enough to offer a more stable shelter than the cavity between its roots. It smelled of earth and the wood itself, with a distant echo of the musky scent he associated with the Titans, but it seemed safe. He slipped inside, feeling a small measure of relief.
Surviving that day had been a constant series of challenges and small triumphs. He'd found water, tasted some food, evaded predators. It wasn't the life of a Sannin, with villages to rest in and clear missions. It was the basic, primal existence of a creature trying not to be eaten.
But as he settled into the hollow of the tree, he felt a growing determination. He had survived. He had used his memories, his intelligence. This world was dangerous, yes. But it was also a blank slate. A place where he could start over, not as the Jiraiya who had failed in some ways, but as someone new, forged by the experience of two realities.
The memory of the giant ape's roar echoed in his mind. The Titans. That was the true scale of power here. And if he wanted to have any purpose in this world, if he wanted to understand the intervention of the cosmic entity, he would need to reach that level of power. The path would be long and arduous, starting from the fragility of a child in a hostile jungle. But Jiraiya had never shied away from a challenge. Especially one so... interesting. He closed his eyes, his mind filled with plans and the awareness that tomorrow the fight for survival would begin again.
.
Hello everyone, what did you think of the chapter? Please let me know in the comments. If you want to download the full book, it's available on my KO-FI page. The link is here. 👉
🤩ko-fi.com/winterstar01/shop🤩