"No, don't say that, Lord Mirai. Compared to an adult who wielded the Flying Thunder God, I still had quite a gap to make up. Even compared to Lord Mirai, I was far behind..."
"Hm? Ahaha, hahaha... You kid were still as good with words as ever, hahaha..."
"By the way, Lord Mirai, my mission wasn't just to find Guy and the others. There was another task personally assigned by the Third Hokage: to find you in the Land of Rain and bring you back..."
"Find me?"
"Ah, yes. At first, Might Guy and his companions were merely undergoing ordinary training in the Land of Grass, nothing special. However, according to Lord Orochimaru's intelligence, that country was developing a special ultimate spirit beast for war. The key to activating the ultimate spirit beast seemed to be a treasure of the Land of Grass—the Nine-Seed Lotus."
Orochimaru
"Spirit beast?"
When Mirai heard Minato mention those two words, he was instinctively startled. Wasn't Orochimaru the kind of guy who liked to bury himself in a corner researching patience and conducting all sorts of strange experiments? Why would he be carrying out an infiltration mission in the Land of Water?
Oh, I understood. The ultimate spirit beast of the Land of Water must have caught his interest. That was why the guy had gone undercover... Hmph, Orochimaru...
Through Minato's explanation, Mirai and the others learned that the Third Hokage had once dispatched a covert investigation team. Later, only one member of the team had survived by luck. After providing some information, that person died from severe injuries.
Ultimate Spirit Beast
This was the only information the Third Hokage and several other senior officials had obtained. No country, no location, no specific description, no designs or any other information. Only the five words spoken