Minato's Entrustment

Before long, Genya appeared at the site where the Nine-Tails had run amok.

The Nine-Tails had already been completely cleaved in two by that slash. Two masses of crimson chakra continuously writhed on the ground, seemingly still struggling to reassemble themselves.

As chakra-based lifeforms, Tailed Beasts had no vital points to speak of and naturally would not die so easily.

Namikaze Minato had also returned using the Flying Thunder God Technique. Fortunately, the Flying Thunder God marks had not been damaged.

In his arms, he held Uzumaki Kushina, who had already lost all signs of life, as well as a crying infant still wrapped in swaddling clothes.

Naruto truly had terrible luck. On the very day he was born, he had gone through something so tragic.

Looking at Kushina, who wore a smile despite having lost every sign of life, Minato's expression was bleak.

He was not exhausted from excessive chakra consumption, but because he had suffered an immense mental blow.

He and the Masked Man had not even exchanged many moves. Upon sensing the power of that inhuman slash, the Masked Man had decisively used the Flying Thunder God to escape.

Watching the Nine-Tails, which he had been powerless against, get cut cleanly in half by a single strike, Minato remained speechless for a long time.

It was not until a young man with Three-Tomoe Sharingan, clearly a member of the Uchiha Family, used the Body Flicker to arrive that Minato finally realized what had happened.

"Was that slash just now yours?" Minato asked calmly as he looked at the Musō Isshin in Genya's hand, identical to the katana that had seemed to connect heaven and earth moments ago.

But he already had the answer in his heart.

He remembered this young man. Though he was around Kakashi's age, he had earned Fugaku's recognition at a young age and had been nominated as the head of the Konoha Security Division.

Moreover, he had not been elevated by someone else's support. He had stirred up a reform within the Uchiha clan, winning the support of many young Uchiha and even members of the older generation.

Minato could not fairly judge his methods. Perhaps they had been a little crude.

But in terms of the overall results, Konoha's crime rate had fallen to an almost unbelievable level.

Genya looked at the two still-writhing masses of crimson chakra and said, "You already know the answer."

This Uchiha showed him, the Hokage, not the slightest respect... but since they were not far apart in age, Minato did not mind the offense.

The two suddenly fell silent.

Genya and Minato were not familiar with one another, much less did they have any common topics. For a moment, the atmosphere became awkwardly quiet.

"What do you plan to do next?" Genya asked as he looked at the Nine-Tails, which was still constantly writhing and trying to repair itself.

He was not particularly interested in the power of the Tailed Beasts, but if possible, keeping the Jinchuriki under his control would not be a bad option.

Tonight's objectives had basically all been achieved. Whatever he did next would be pure profit.

Minato fell silent for a moment before saying to Genya:

"The one who abducted Kushina tonight was a Masked Man with Mangekyō Sharingan. He used a space-time ninjutsu that could easily bypass Konoha's barrier. I failed to catch him."

Genya turned to glance at Minato and said flatly, "Don't tell me you suspect the Uchiha."

Minato gave a bitter smile. "Before this, perhaps I really would have."

If he had not witnessed that world-destroying slash, Minato's first reaction upon seeing that Mangekyō would also have been to suspect the Uchiha.

It had nothing to do with his views on the Uchiha. Any normal-thinking person who saw the Mangekyō pattern in the Nine-Tails' eyes would immediately conclude that the Nine-Tails had been controlled by the Uchiha clan's Kekkei Genkai.

But after seeing a monster as powerful as the Nine-Tails get directly split in half by Uchiha Genya's slash, and seeing that slash carve out a bottomless canyon stretching for several kilometers, Minato suddenly dismissed that suspicion.

There was absolutely no reason for the Uchiha to release the Nine-Tails. In the eyes of those red-eyed maniacs, the power of the Tailed Beasts was probably nothing at all.

Just as that mysterious man had easily controlled a Tailed Beast with the Mangekyō, the Nine-Tails was likely nothing more than a slightly larger toy in Genya's eyes.

Third Hokage... so you had been walking a tightrope all this time?

Even walking a tightrope could not describe Sarutobi Hiruzen and Shimura Danzō's actions.

Thinking back on all their suffocating maneuvers, they had simply been frantically testing the edge of death.

Genya spread his hands, knowing that Minato had imagined something extraordinary again.

He simply changed the subject:

"What do you intend to do with the Nine-Tails? If necessary, killing it outright is fine. The Nine-Tails will definitely revive in the future anyway. When that time comes, capturing it outside Konoha will require far fewer concerns."

As for the Jinchuriki's power... Genya did not completely disregard it, but it was not much different.

What he had always needed to be wary of was never the power of Tailed Beasts or Jinchuriki.

As if it had heard Genya's words, the two halves of the Nine-Tails writhed frantically, seemingly trying to accelerate their own recovery.

Yet Minato made a shocking decision at that moment.

He turned to Genya and suddenly bowed at ninety degrees.

"Genya, may I ask you for a favor?"

"What do you want to do?"

Little Sun seemed to have made up his mind:

"I will use the Dead Demon Consuming Seal to take half of the Nine-Tails with me to the underworld. I will seal the remaining half inside my child."

"Can I ask you to take care of this child?"

Genya's expression grew complicated.

He had wondered about this before. Minato was perfectly alive, so why did he insist on dying?

But after looking into Minato's eyes, Genya fell silent.

Those were the eyes of a man who had made up his mind, as though there was nothing left in this world worth holding on to.

Nothing was sadder than a heart that had died. Kushina's death had evidently dealt Minato a tremendous blow.

Otherwise, with the speed of the Flying Thunder God, it would be almost impossible for anyone in the Ninja World to kill him.

The only one who could kill this man had always been himself.

"Why not ask someone else? The Third Hokage should be here soon, right?"

Minato said bluntly, "I don't trust them."

Naruto had the Uzumaki Clan's physique. Even if Minato did nothing, after he was gone, those higher-ups would inevitably raise Naruto as a Jinchuriki weapon.

It would be better to entrust him to Genya.

At the very least, Genya had no reason whatsoever to exploit the Nine-Tails' power.

"No matter what, he is a hero's child. The Third Hokage probably would not go so far as to kill him, would he?" Genya said mildly, a trace of probing in his words.

Minato let out a miserable laugh. "A hero's child? Are there not plenty of heroes' children in the Konoha Orphanage?"

"And the Hokage's descendants are nothing special either. Everyone knows what happened to Senju Nawaki."

"Becoming a Jinchuriki... at least guarantees that he will survive."

This time, Genya was genuinely surprised. It turned out he had underestimated Namikaze Minato.