At the sight of the kunai, Yue Uchiha's eyes narrowed. His gaze instantly locked onto it, and his body instinctively sprang backward.
Almost in the same millisecond, a golden flash appeared out of nowhere where the kunai had been.
Minato Namikaze's stern face snapped up. A violent Rasengan had already formed in his hand, and he ruthlessly slammed it toward Yue's chest!
"I've got you, Yue Uchiha!" Minato's voice was as cold as ice.
It all happened so quickly that an ordinary person wouldn't have had time to react.
But just as Minato's Rasengan was about to hit Yue, an orange-clad figure suddenly barreled into him from the side like a madman!
"Don't you hurt him!!"
Without a second thought, Naruto drew a kunai and put all his strength into swinging it at Minato's wrist. He even threw his own body in front of Yue Uchiha to shield him.
"What?!"
Minato's blue eyes contracted sharply.
He had been focused entirely on Yue Uchiha and hadn't expected the blond teenager beside him to risk his life to protect an A-rank rogue ninja.
And the boy even wore Konoha's mark on his forehead.
Damn it!
If that Rasengan landed, the boy would be dead or crippled!
In the span of a thousandth of a second, Minato displayed reflexes far beyond those of an ordinary person.
He forcibly twisted his wrist, narrowly diverting the Rasengan's trajectory.
Boom!
The Rasengan grazed Naruto's shoulder and smashed into the metal wall beside him, tearing a massive crater into the thick wall. The violent gust of air sent Naruto flying.
"Close one..." Minato dispelled his chakra, still shaken, and stared intently at Naruto, who had been blown to the ground.
"What the hell are you doing?!" Naruto scrambled to his feet and shouted furiously at Minato. "He just saved my life! And he's a fellow Konoha ninja. Why did you sneak up on him?! And that Rasengan of yours..."
Naruto suddenly fell silent, staring blankly at the Konoha Forehead Protector on Minato's forehead.
Minato was equally stunned.
He looked at Naruto's blond hair, exactly like his own, then at the Konoha Forehead Protector he wore. An intense sense of absurdity welled up inside him, along with an indescribable feeling of... familiarity.
Since when did Konoha have someone like this?
"Fellow ninja?"
Minato drew a deep breath and quickly collected himself.
He knew this wasn't the time to dwell on the boy's identity. If he didn't explain things, the hothead might be completely manipulated by Yue Uchiha.
"Kid, I don't know who you are, but he's tricked you."
Minato straightened and looked past Naruto, fixing his gaze on Yue Uchiha behind him.
"He's no longer a fellow Konoha ninja. He's Yue Uchiha, an extremely dangerous A-rank rogue ninja wanted by Konoha's High Command."
"A... rogue ninja?"
Naruto froze and turned to Yue Uchiha, his eyes full of disbelief. "Mister, he's lying, right?"
Yue shrugged. "He's not lying. I really am a rogue ninja. As for why I left the village, I don't want to talk about it."
"B-but why?"
Naruto looked devastated. The words "Uchiha" and "rogue ninja" hit a particularly sensitive nerve, and his voice began to tremble. "Everyone was doing fine in Konoha. Why become a rogue ninja? Sasuke too..."
Seeing Naruto grow confused, Minato took the opportunity to step forward. "I'm with Konoha's Anbu. We're carrying out a secret mission issued by the Third Hokage. Wherever you're from, step aside and don't interfere with our mission."
Naruto gritted his teeth and spread his arms, standing firmly between them. "So what if you're Anbu? Even if he is the rogue ninja you say he is, I'd have been cut in half by that puppet if he hadn't stepped in! How can fellow Konoha ninja attack each other without even asking what happened?!"
"Foolish."
Just then, Yue Uchiha's mocking voice came from behind Naruto.
Minato's eyes turned cold. He knew he couldn't let this unknown newcomer throw the situation into further disarray.
His figure instantly left a golden afterimage as he swept around Naruto's guard like a gust of wind. The specially made kunai in his hand, brimming with killing intent, shot straight for Yue Uchiha's throat!
"So fast!" Naruto didn't even have time to turn around. Everything blurred before his eyes.
"Nothing personal, Yue Uchiha. Once we get back to Konoha's interrogation room, you'll have plenty of time to explain why you deserted!"
Squish!
Minato's movements were fluid, and his kunai pierced Yue Uchiha's shoulder with pinpoint accuracy.
But the expected spray of blood never came. He didn't even feel the slightest resistance from muscle.
Poof!
In a burst of dazzling white smoke, the "Yue Uchiha" Minato had stabbed vanished with a muffled thump, turning into a mass of chakra that dissipated into the air.
Minato's movements abruptly halted, and his blue eyes shrank. "Shadow Clone?!"
Minato wasn't the only one stunned. Naruto, who had just turned around to stop him, stared blankly at the gradually dissipating smoke. "Mister... was that a Shadow Clone?"
Minato quickly straightened and looked around the empty ruins, his expression unusually grim.
As the "Yellow Flash," renowned throughout the Ninja World, he'd actually been fooled right in front of him by the most basic Shadow Clone!
"Did he form the hand signs in the instant that blond boy knocked my Rasengan aside and stirred up the dust?"
Minato's mind raced as he immediately reconstructed the scene.
Yue Uchiha had used the blind spot caused by Naruto's collision and the brief confusion it created to make a clean getaway. He'd even deliberately left the Shadow Clone behind to keep them talking, completely delaying Minato at the best opportunity to pursue!
Escaping the Yellow Flash twice in a row—this level of skill could rank among elite jonin.
"Sure enough, you can't underestimate any ninja."
Minato tightened his grip on the kunai and gave the still-bewildered Naruto a complicated look. After a long pause, he sighed.
He couldn't just abandon this blockhead, could he?
Meanwhile, in the ancient city of Rōran, high among the upper levels of a building complex hundreds of meters tall,
the real Yue Uchiha was slipping silently between the labyrinthine purple-black metal pipes, as nimble as a nocturnal cat.
Thump.
His mind stirred as he instantly received the memories sent back when the Shadow Clone below had dispersed.
"Oh? He figured it out that quickly? No wonder he'll become the Fourth Hokage. His reflexes and judgment really are at a monstrous level."
As he raced along, Yue's lips curved into a faint smile. "Still, thanks to Naruto's bullheaded sense of loyalty, those few seconds were more than enough."
As a transmigrator with the perspective of a god, Yue Uchiha knew exactly why he had risked being hunted by Minato Namikaze to venture alone into the heart of the Land of Wind.
"The Dragon Vein"!
Before you continue