"Dude, what are you doing?!"
Naruto had still been reeling with shock and emotion after suddenly learning that Minato was his father and the Fourth Hokage. When Yue Uchiha suddenly attacked without warning, shock and fury flooded his bright blue eyes.
"Yue Uchiha! Don't you understand what a disaster this could bring?!"
Minato's usually gentle expression darkened completely.
To protect Naruto and the fading Space-Time Passage, he had no choice but to forcibly interrupt the Sealing Jutsu that was erasing their memories. His kunai swept through the air in a golden blur, knocking away every incoming Shuriken.
"Clang, clang, clang—!"
Amid the flying sparks, the memory-sealing technique failed completely.
"Disaster? Minato, you think too highly of yourself and too little of this world."
He hadn't attacked to kill Minato. He'd done it to conduct a reckless experiment with space and time.
As a transmigrator, he'd been struggling to breathe under the pressure of the invisible World Correction Force.
Changing White Fang's fate had triggered a backlash. Changing Obito's fate had triggered a backlash. So... what if he forcibly tore open a breach in the movie's timeline and created a logical contradiction between it and the main timeline?
What if Naruto Uzumaki returned to the future with memories of "I met my dad" and "I know who the Fourth Hokage is"? What if Minato Namikaze survived with the memory that "my son is named Naruto"?
What would the World Correction Force do when these two memories, which should have remained on parallel paths, converged?
Would it strike him down with divine punishment, or forcibly twist reality to fix the bug?
Yue didn't know, but he was willing to gamble.
His left eye, Yagokoro Omoikane—the "Dice of Probability" that could magnify even the tiniest chance without limit—was his greatest trump card, letting him challenge the world's will without fear of being erased on the spot!
He had enough ocular power to revive himself once.
"Dude... who are you, really? Why are you betraying the village?!"
Naruto's body had already begun to dissolve into light. He shouted at Yue Uchiha, tears still clinging to the corners of his eyes.
"Remember everything that happened today, Naruto."
"And don't call me dude. I'm not that old. I'm only twenty-one."
"Whoosh—!"
A blinding burst of white light illuminated the entire underground chamber beneath Rōran.
Naruto Uzumaki and Yamato vanished into the end of time, carrying with them their shock, confusion, and the crystal-clear memories of a past and a family that absolutely should not have existed. They returned to their own future.
The hall fell silent.
Only ragged breathing remained, along with the Dragon Vein's extinguished remains.
"You're insane, Yue Uchiha. You've forced causality from another era onto them!"
Minato Namikaze slowly straightened. For the first time, his blue eyes burned with such intense bloodlust toward a fellow villager.
Naruto's appearance had made Minato suspect that he was his future son.
Yue's words had confirmed it beyond doubt.
As a father and a Konoha shinobi, he would never allow an unstable element that threatened Konoha's future and Naruto's safety to remain.
"I have every reason to kill you right here!"
A flash of gold!
Minato moved at blinding speed. Combining the Body Flicker Technique with the Flying Thunder God, he left behind an afterimage—and appeared right in front of Yue.
The specially made, three-pronged kunai whistled through the air, aimed straight at Yue's throat.
In his left hand, a high-density Rasengan had already formed, cutting off every possible escape route.
It was the Yellow Flash's furious strike!
Yet faced with this point-blank combination, a killing blow capable of instantly taking down an elite jonin, Yue didn't even try to dodge. Instead, a terrifying burst of ocular power erupted from his crimson eyes, enough to make the soul tremble.
"Did you think beating that mechanical bug just now was the best I could do, Minato?"
"Susanoo!"
Dark red chakra, solid as matter, exploded from Yue's body like an erupting volcano!
The raging chakra winds crushed the rubble around them to dust.
Minato's Rasengan, powerful enough to pulverize steel, struck a massive, thick bone of dark red chakra that had suddenly thrust out of empty space, just ten centimeters from Yue's face.
"Grrrk—!"
The Rasengan ground furiously against the bone, showering the air with blinding sparks, but it couldn't penetrate even an inch!
"What... is that monster?!"
Minato's pupils shrank to pinpricks.
He looked up and saw a towering skeletal giant, dozens of meters tall and made entirely of dark red chakra. It stood in a shockingly imposing stance, shielding Yue at its center.
The giant had only just begun to take shape, yet its terrifying pressure, like that of an ancient demon god descending upon the world, already left Minato struggling to breathe.
The legendary divine power of the Uchiha Clan—Susanoo!
Manifested right before his eyes!
The dark red skeletal giant swung its enormous arm. Like swatting a fly, it swept toward Minato with a force that seemed capable of toppling mountains and overturning seas.
"Flying Thunder God!"
In the thousandth of a second before the bony arm could smash him into pulp, Minato relied on his terrifyingly fast reflexes to force the Flying Thunder God Technique into action.
"Thud!"
Minato's figure reappeared on the ruins a hundred meters away. His chakra had been so badly drained that he staggered upon landing and dropped to one knee, gasping for breath.
Choza Akimichi and Shibi Aburame had also rushed to Minato's side.
At the sight of the dark red giant, as fearsome as a demon, both battle-hardened Konoha jonin looked horrified.
"Minato, are you all right? What kind of jutsu is that? His chakra is practically on the level of a Tailed Beast!"
Choza swallowed and gripped his staff tightly.
Minato kept his gaze fixed on Yue in the distance, cold sweat beading on his forehead.
His hard-fought battle against Mukade, especially the repeated strain of using the Flying Thunder God and Taiji Rasengan to protect Naruto, had already drained his chakra.
Now he faced a Yue Uchiha at full strength, with the Mangekyō Sharingan activated and a legendary defensive jutsu at his command. If the fight continued, their squad was very likely to be wiped out.
The best option now was to flee.
"Amenominakanushi!"
An overwhelming force of gravity swept over Minato and the others. It felt as if space itself were tearing at their bodies.
Without hesitation, Minato pushed his chakra past its limits and used the Flying Thunder God to take Choza Akimichi and Shibi Aburame out of there.
"Thump!" Minato collapsed to the ground.
"Minato!" Choza Akimichi and Shibi Aburame's eyes narrowed.
"Damn it, Minato needs medical attention immediately. We have to get back to Konoha as soon as possible."
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