"Naruto, stay here and get some proper rest. Mommy will be here soon."
Inside a residence somewhere in Konoha, Minato Namikaze gently placed the blond, whisker-marked infant in his arms—who had cried himself tired and seemed to have drifted off listlessly—into the crib before him. Looking at his son, whose eyes were already closed as he began sucking on his fingers, a loving smile unconsciously spread across his lips. After softly stroking his son's head, he spoke quietly.
Kushina...
I'm sorry! As those words left him, the loving smile on Minato Namikaze's face gradually froze. Thinking of his wife still in the stone delivery room, his heart grew heavy, guilt and self-reproach slowly welling up within him.
He knew very well that he had been lured away. The instant he chose to save Naruto, he had already made a choice.
He had abandoned his wife to save his son.
At the final moment, he had still failed to heed Chiba's advice.
By now, his wife was likely no longer in the delivery room, but had been captured by that Space-Time Ninja.
In other words, despite such a meticulous plan and Chiba's painstaking scheming, he had still ruined everything.
"Naruto, wait here for a little while. Daddy will bring Mommy back right away!"
However, Minato Namikaze was still Minato Namikaze. Though guilt-ridden and fully aware that the situation was dire, he was not the slightest bit discouraged. If anything, an even more urgent conviction surged from his heart.
That was...
To save his wife! After saying this, Minato Namikaze took a slight breath, slowly closed his eyes, raised two fingers, and began sensing his Flying Thunder God marks.
He had left a Flying Thunder God mark on Kushina. As long as he could sense it, he could go directly to her