A Forbidden Phrase in Battle

"Naruto, listen to your dad. Keep protecting Sara."

Choza Akimichi also spoke up for once. "Besides, splitting up will make us more efficient."

"But..."

Naruto Uzumaki still wanted to refuse.

As a junior who had traveled back from more than a decade or two in the future, he had grown up under Uchiha Aoba and Namikaze Minato's guidance and protection ever since he was born.

That was why Naruto had been eager lately to show off in front of his two elders.

But he hadn't found a suitable opportunity.

At long last, his chance had come. He'd thought he could show what he was capable of before Mukade realized Sara had already left with her people, but they had rejected him outright.

Naruto felt like he was about to burst with frustration.

As if he could read his son's mind, Minato smiled helplessly. "Naruto, follow orders. Your mission right now is to protect Her Majesty. Leave the fighting to us."

"Don't worry. You'll get your chance to show what you can do later."

"Okay."

Naruto hesitated, but finally agreed. "I'll go back to protecting Sara."

"Be careful, all of you."

With that, he quickly set off after Sara.

"Ah, kids have so much energy," Choza remarked. Then, realizing that might sound wrong, he turned to Aoba. "Don't get me wrong. I wasn't talking about you."

"..."

Aoba stared at him, speechless. "You didn't have to go out of your way to clarify, Choza."

"Haha..."

Choza laughed awkwardly and cleared his throat. "Anyway, I'll take the lead from here."

"It's about time I stretched my legs."

He took a pill from his pouch. As the giant puppet drew closer, he tossed it into the air, leaped up, caught it in his mouth, and swallowed it.

The next instant, his body swelled until he was nearly as large as the giant puppet.

"Super Multi-Size Technique!"

"Damn Konoha Ninja! You're such a nuisance!"

Mukade cursed furiously, then charged at Choza, hoping to knock him aside with the force of his rush.

"Looks like you're underestimating me."

Choza snorted, crouched slightly, and planted his feet firmly.

A deafening BOOM rang out as they collided.

A massive gust of wind burst from the plaza, centered on the two of them, and swept outward.

Aoba and Minato immediately pulled back without hesitation, leaving Choza to handle the fight for the moment as they carefully searched for an opening to strike.

Choza had successfully stopped Mukade's charge, but a muffled grunt escaped him. Before the giant puppet could react, he swiftly raised his knee and slammed it into the puppet.

Caught off guard, the puppet was knocked off the ground, its entire abdomen caving in.

As the saying went, when your enemy was down, you finished him off.

Choza wasn't about to waste such a good opportunity. A smooth series of quick attacks followed one after another.

The giant puppet was beaten so badly it couldn't fight back.

Large sections of its defensive shell cracked apart.

When Choza landed his final heavy punch, the giant puppet was knocked to the ground and stopped moving.

"Is it over?!"

Choza panted and asked in a low voice.

Minato said nothing, but Aoba slapped a hand against his forehead.

Was that really something you could say?

Everyone knew that if either of the following two things happened during a fight, the enemy was definitely still alive.

And not only alive, but bouncing around full of energy.

The first was the law of "smoke but no damage."

The bigger the cloud of smoke from the fight, the less damage the enemy had taken—possibly none at all.

The other was Choza's situation.

He'd seemed to unleash a flurry of powerful attacks, only to ask, "Is it over?" and declare all his effort wasted.

Aoba sighed, already prepared to step in.

Sure enough.

A bolt of purple lightning struck the puppet, and in the blink of an eye, it returned to its original state.

What left Aoba even more speechless was that, through his Sharingan, he could see the giant puppet's chakra still increasing. It had at least doubled compared to before.

"Damn it! That still didn't kill him?"

Choza cursed and was about to attack again.

"Wait, Choza."

Minato shifted his gaze from the top of the tower to the battlefield and frowned. "Don't waste your energy. It's obvious what's happening. As long as the Dragon Vein remains intact, no matter how many times we smash the puppet..."

"It'll keep restoring itself."

Choza had noticed that too, and looked troubled. "But we can't just do nothing and let him go after Queen Sara. We still have to hold him back."

"Then we'll take turns attacking. If Her Majesty manages to shut down the Dragon Vein, we'll win."

Minato thought quickly. With the giant puppet constantly restoring itself thanks to the Dragon Vein, he really had no other options.

To buy Sara time to shut down the Dragon Vein, they had to rely on a strategy that would consume their stamina and chakra.

But Minato wasn't sitting idle, either.

He created a shadow clone and used the Flying Thunder God Technique to appear right behind Naruto.

A few minutes earlier, deep underground.

Naruto followed at the back of the group. Listening to the sounds of battle from above, he felt unbearably anxious.

He desperately wanted to go back and help, but he didn't dare disobey Aoba and Minato's orders.

While he was wrestling with those conflicting feelings, they reached their destination.

After Sara had her people settle in the Inner Court, she finally let out a sigh of relief.

"Sara, is this where we shut down the Dragon Vein?" Naruto asked anxiously, looking around.

"No. It's in the other direction."

Sara shook her head and said no more. After closing the Inner Court's gates again, she led Naruto farther inside.

They passed through a doorway.

The sight before him made Naruto's eyes widen in surprise.

There was a huge interior chamber. A narrow path stretched toward the center, where a technique pattern identical to the one in the puppet factory had been drawn on the floor. The Dragon Vein's energy was far more intense here.

"So this is where the entire Dragon Vein of Rōran is controlled?"

A gentle voice rang out.

The moment Minato landed after using the Flying Thunder God Technique, he saw the scene before him.

"Dad?!"

Naruto jumped in fright and cried out.

Sara paid no attention to Minato's sudden appearance. All her focus was on the Dragon Vein.

A purple circle of light appeared in her hands once more and merged into the technique pattern.

The space, which had been shrouded in purple energy, began to dim from the ground upward, until not a trace of the Dragon Vein's energy could be felt anywhere in Rōran.

"We did it!"

Sara finally relaxed and sank to the ground.