Because They Are Parents

High atop the canopy, Hikari watched this scene, her fingers gripping her blade trembling slightly.

It was an emotion she had never witnessed before, one that transcended life, death, and reason.

"Why... they could have easily dodged it..."

"Because they are parents."

Yue's voice, for once, carried a rare note of heaviness.

"Regardless of whether it was orchestrated by 'fate,' their love is genuine."

"Ugh!" Minato spat out a mouthful of blood; he assumed it was the tearing sensation from the Nine-Tails' claw and failed to notice the subtle anomaly.

"Eight Trigrams Sealing Style... Seal!"

Following Minato's final, desperate roar, the seal was fully completed.

The Nine-Tails' massive body dissolved into chakra amidst a blinding white light, surging entirely into the Eight Trigrams pattern on Naruto's abdomen.

And in that very instant, just as the Death God's short blade was about to swing down and sever Minato's soul connection.

"Now!"

Yue slammed his hands together, and the Yin Seal at the center of his brow erupted with an unprecedented, deep purple radiance!

His ocular power poured into his left eye like a breached dam, flooding in with frantic intensity!

The scarlet Mangekyō Sharingan spun wildly, and blood instantly stained his mask.

"Yagokoro Omoikane! Increase my probability of entering the barrier to 100%!"

"Increase the probability of me severing the Death God's contract to 100%!"

"Success rate for the Dragon Vein power scroll: 100%!"

The stacking of three consecutive "Absolute Causality" commands caused the Yin Seal on Yue's brow to dim instantly, while his left eye throbbed with a pain so intense it felt as if it might shatter. Yet, he did not hesitate; his form transformed into a bolt of black lightning, charging straight toward the absolute barrier Minato had erected!

"Who goes there?!"

Outside the barrier, Hiruzen Sarutobi and a group of Anbu, who had just arrived and were filled with grief and complexity at their inability to breach the seal, instantly raised their guard for combat.

"Don't get in my way!"

A cold, clear voice rang out in the night sky.

Uchiha Hikari descended like a crimson swallow, landing defiantly in front of the Third Hokage and the Anbu.

Facing dozens of Konoha's elite, the young girl did not draw her blade. Instead, she snapped her head up, her scarlet Mangekyō Sharingan blooming with an eerie red light in the darkness.

"Yachihoko: Guard!"

A formidable, peerless mental shockwave manifested as an invisible wall of sighs. Not only did it instantly plunge the leading Anbu into a deep genjutsu, but it also forced the Third Hokage's descending Adamantine Staff to a dead halt!

"Two pairs of Mangekyō Sharingan?! Damn it!"

Hiruzen Sarutobi's face drained of color; he realized he should have trusted Danzo!

If he had known, he wouldn't have been so "shadow-blind."

Fugaku, who was busy maintaining order, sneezed at that moment. A sudden, ominous premonition washed over him, as if some unknown malice had latched onto him from the void.

And in the mere second that Hikari took control of the outer battlefield.

Yue had already ignored the Four Violet Flames Formation variant, a barrier rumored to be impenetrable even to Kage-level shinobi. Under the protection of Yagokoro Omoikane's law of causality, his body passed through it as if stepping through ripples of water, entering the interior of the barrier as a matter of course.

"Are you... Yue?"

The dying Minato widened his bloodshot eyes, staring at the masked man who had suddenly appeared before him.

He remembered that Mangekyō pattern.

Different mask, same Uchiha.

But Yue had no time for explanations.

He snapped his head up, staring directly at the hideous, floating phantom of the Death God behind Minato, which held a short blade in its mouth.

It was the embodiment of the world's rules, summoned into reality by the Uzumaki clan.

The moment a mortal's eyes met the gaze of the Death God, a chill originating from the depths of his soul nearly froze Yue's thoughts.

"My apologies, Lord Death. I'm cutting in on this transaction today!"

Yue's right hand condensed a blade of pure black Yin Release chakra. Leveraging the absolute causality of a 100% success rate, he slashed fiercely at the translucent chain connecting the Death God to Minato's soul!

"Clang—!"

A shrill, snapping sound, audible only on the spiritual plane, echoed out.

A flicker of rage crossed the Death God's indifferent eyes, and its descending short blade froze in mid-air.

Because the contract... had been severed!

"Ugh..." Minato groaned as his soul, which had been on the verge of being extracted, plummeted back into his body. However, his physical form, pierced by the Nine-Tails, was still rapidly succumbing to death.

Yue did not pause for a second; he flipped his left hand and quickly produced the prepared Dragon Vein power sealing scroll.

This scroll was not meant for sealing objects, but served as a portable "spatial displacement instrument."

It contained the chakra frequency of the main Dragon Vein of Rōran; once activated, it could resonate with the depths of Rōran thousands of miles away and forcibly tear open a space-time channel!

By teleporting to the Dragon Vein in the past, he could then return to Rōran through that same source.

The moment the scroll unfurled, a blinding purple light erupted, and a chakra vortex several meters in diameter formed frantically beneath the trio's feet.

Hum—!!!

Just as the space-time channel opened, that familiar, eerie, and grand "malice of the world"—one that felt as if it could crush everything—descended once again!

The air within the entire barrier instantly became heavier than steel, and the full moon in the sky was even veiled in a layer of blood-red for that brief moment.

This was the world's operating program detecting a severe "logic error" and generating an erasure mechanism!

Drip.

A bead of cold sweat rolled down Yue's forehead, but he gritted his teeth, gauging the intensity of that malice.

As expected... there is malice, but it lacks the lethal, oppressive pressure I felt when stealing the Nine-Tails' chakra just now!

Yue's brain raced at high speed.

Why was stealing the Nine-Tails met with an instant death sentence, yet the level of malice dropped when he snatched the Fourth Hokage and his wife right in front of the Death God?

Because... "disappearance" is roughly equivalent to "death"!

Yue grinned amidst the howling wind.

In the script of this space-time, as long as Minato Namikaze and Kushina Uzumaki vanished from Konoha tonight, Naruto would still become an orphan, and the Nine-Tails would still be sealed.

To this timeline, them being taken away by the Death God or being taken by him to another space-time resulted in the exact same outcome!

Although he had forcibly altered the "process" and triggered a warning from the corrective force, because he had not destroyed the "core result," the corrective force had not issued the highest directive of "immediate erasure"!

Probability of survival: 5%!

I bet correctly!

Yue grabbed the collars of the near-death Minato and Kushina, dragging them forcibly into the purple space-time vortex.

"Hikari! Retreat!!"

Hearing Yue's roar, Uchiha Hikari, who was locked in combat with the Third Hokage outside the barrier, did not hesitate for a second.

Boom!

She detonated several explosive tags at her feet, and under the cover of fire and smoke, her figure transformed into a red afterimage, leaping into the purple vortex just one second before it closed.

"Don't you dare run!!"

Hiruzen Sarutobi roared, swinging the Adamantine Staff to shatter the barrier, but there was nothing left in place except for a scroll burned to ashes and the infant Naruto, who lay on the sealing platform wailing.

Minato Namikaze, Kushina Uzumaki, and those two mysterious Uchiha clansmen had vanished from this world as if they had evaporated into thin air.

"Minato... Kushina..."

The Third Hokage stared blankly at the empty ground, the Adamantine Staff slipping powerlessly from his hand, his aged face etched with despair.