Boom—!!!
The violent explosion startled Aoba awake as well.
"No—!!!"
"The Five Great Shinobi Countries clearly could have..."
The giant Puppet, half its head sliced off, was still spouting trash.
Aoba knew Mukade was about to detonate the Dragon Vein. He immediately controlled the sand to bind Mukade, but even a starving camel was bigger than a horse. The sand ropes wrapped around the Puppet were easily torn apart.
Mukade used the last of his strength to rush toward the underground Dragon Vein and detonate its energy.
The violent explosion swept through the entire underground space.
The uncontrolled Dragon Vein energy began to run wild, and the ground started collapsing.
There was no desperate rescue. Aoba had prepared in advance, using sand ropes to bind Minato, Naruto, and Sara. Even Yamato, who had coasted through the battle, finally recovered enough to use Wood Release to support them.
When Yamato glanced at Aoba standing nearby with an utterly calm expression, his gaze turned exceedingly strange.
This guy always wore sunglasses and liked feeding crows. If Yamato remembered correctly, Aoba was part of the Intelligence Division, and he had even been Kakashi's contemporary.
Who would have thought he looked like this when he was young?
And... what was with that gourd?
And that sand...
Minato took back the Flying Thunder God Kunai he had given Naruto earlier and used it to seal the rampaging Dragon Vein.
As the Dragon Vein was sealed, those violent energy fluctuations dispersed as well.
Naruto and Yamato's bodies began emitting a faint white glow—the sign of spacetime correction.
Aoba knew the crucial moment had arrived. A faint blue light flickered beneath his sunglasses, so subtle it was nearly imperceptible.
``` [System Directive: Initiating memory backup procedure.]
[Converting memories from the current time period into a data packet...