"Looks like this much is all I could do for you, Jiraiya," Gamabunta said, though his hands were resting on his short sword which was still several times larger than many ninja present there.
After the last two combination attacks, the enemy forces had almost dwindled. The remaining had done the smart thing to disperse and make it harder for Gamabunta to target them one by one.
To be clear, he was still better than any jonin present there, without a doubt would be able to handle one or two jonin at a time.
But his massive size might be used against the Konoha ninja. He could be used as a shield by the enemies. While he would be handling some jonin, others might use his massive size to run away without being noticed by Konoha ninja.
Since he could understand this much, so did Jiraiya.
"Thanks for your help, I will handle things from here," Jiraiya said, jumping off Gamabunta's head and directly running toward the closest jonin.
Gamabunta took this as his cue and Poof—the massive presence on the battlefield vanished. But this didn't increase the security in the heart of Kumo ninja at all, because this meant there was now a Kage level ninja in the field actively hunting them.
They knew individually they didn't stand a chance against Jiraiya at all, even if they were in their top forms, let alone these half-burned ones.
Heck, even a squad of elite jonin would not be able to handle him, but 2 squads, 3 squads, 4 squads—the more the number increased, the more chances of their survival increased.
The commander of the outpost was having these calculations in his mind while he was surveying the Konoha forces around him and what his eyes and barely functioning outer array told him.
'Only 30? Is Konoha treating us as a joke?' the commander thought. They had 235 ninja in the outpost, f**king dammit, and they didn't even hide this fact. A fortress of an outpost as secured as theirs would have needed a force thrice of the size present there.
And to deploy such a force would have meant war, and now here they were, facing their impending doom, against what? A force one-eighth of their size. The anger burning inside of him for them to be treated like that stung much more than the burns on his body.
But he was the commander of the outpost; he couldn't let his anger cloud his judgment.
'They are making a circle around the outpost, not wanting us to run away, huh, and with Jiraiya hunting us in here, we will just be sitting chickens in a pen ready to be slaughtered. But we can't run away either. These fuckers are more than ready to counter most of the area... What?'
While the commander was thinking of a plan to let as many of his comrades run as possible, another variable reduced his options by a huge margin once again.
Jiraiya created three shadow clones, sending them in all other three directions Jiraiya was not present in. This meant the option of brute forcing was out of the box.
If they gathered enough of their ninja to breach the net Konoha had created, Jiraiya would just summon his cursed frog to kill his comrades. With his options shrinking at rapid paces, the commander finally made up his mind to choose the last plan, the one with most risk but most chance of success.
Two teams would be formed to create two holes around the circle Konoha had created. One would go toward Jiraiya, or at least the one they thought was Jiraiya.
The plan was simple: Jiraiya would only summon one frog, which may or may not be enough to handle all of the ninja targeting that point. But even if they got the shorter end of the stick and somehow all died, the other group would only have to face Jiraiya. Even an S-rank ninja would succumb if 15 jonin attacked him from all sides.
So the commander sent his orders. Due to the circumstances, by the time it took for every Kumo ninja to get the order, the number of ninja had been reduced further.
Though the ninja present there were all experienced and trained ninja, just their survival in this situation was enough proof of their competence. They modified their orders according to the present number.
The orders were clear: the ninja who were less injured in the fire would form two teams, 15 members each, and would try their best to run away, while the rest of the thirty ninja who were injured would have to give their all to stall Konoha ninja from altering those two teams' paths.
These orders were same as saying—'Die for your comrades' retreat'—but none of the ninja present there even thought of going against those orders.
They themselves could guess the situation they were in: a very bad situation, with chances of survival frighteningly low. Even if they gave their all, it was only a matter of time before they died at the hands of Jiraiya or one of the Konoha scum.
So they agreed to the proposed plan of their commander. If even one of the teams managed to breach the circle Konoha ninja had created, it would force them to allocate some ninja to pursue that team, in return giving them a chance to run away.
Now with a clear goal in mind, Kumo ninja moved with a sense of purpose. Long gone was the headless chicken run; now each injured ninja made their way toward Konoha jonin surrounding the outpost, while two groups formed going in opposite directions of each other.
Seeing this, there was not a single frown on Jiraiya's face; rather, one could catch a small smile hiding somewhere.
'It is frightening, how accurate that Nara's plan can be,' Jiraiya thought as he moved to intercept the team coming his way. He had made it as clear as day that he was the REAL one, with him having the highest chakra and being at the same place as he had been from the start.
As he went ahead to engage 15 jonin and elite jonin level ninja from Kumo, the other 15-person team of Kumogakure went toward the area just between two of Jiraiya's shadow clones.
Sadly, their perfect plan was already within the expectations of a lazy ninja from Konoha, and the Konoha ninja were already prepared for such a scenario.