The Cold Turnaway That Ignored the Signal and Minato's Secret Probe

The cool morning mist flowed slowly over the bluestone pavement, while the clamor of the nearby morning market was eerily isolated from this small square.

Baishi stood with his back to Namikaze Minato and Uzumaki Kushina, his right hand resting with agonizing slowness on the ninja tool pouch at his waist. As the rough leather texture brushed against his fingertips, he could clearly feel the soreness in his forearm muscles from being overly tense.

Behind him, Namikaze Minato's thumb was already pressed hard against the wooden grip of his Flying Thunder God Kunai. To Baishi's hearing, enhanced by his max-level Lightning Release, the faint "click" of the metal clasp being pushed aside was no different from a thunderclap signaling his death.

If Baishi were to turn around now, or make any substantial response to Kushina's "distress signal," Minato would strike without a moment's hesitation. This golden-haired genius, known for his gentleness, possessed a coldness rooted in absolute loyalty to Konoha. Any potential threat that might trigger an emotional breakdown in the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki would be eliminated by him in advance.

Baishi's eyes beneath his mask remained devoid of any ripples.

He forced his Lightning Release chakra into his right fingertips with extreme precision, forcibly suppressing his body's instinct to draw a kunai and fight back. Then, he used his index finger to flick open the flap of his tool pouch and, with a perfectly natural motion, pulled out a spare, transparent chakra-conductive wire.

"Click."

Baishi wrapped one end of the wire around his wrist and fastened it to the metal lock on his ANBU bracer. The movement was fluid and seamless, without a single unnecessary pause—exactly like a ninja about to step onto the battlefield performing a final equipment check.

After finishing, he didn't even spare them a glance. The hem of his black trench coat traced a cold arc in the air as he walked forward without mercy.

His steps were steady, his pace unchanging.

With the utmost rationality, he completely ignored the distress signal from the woman who, in the simulated world, had been willing to give everything for him.

"You..." Kushina froze in place, her hands, which had been forming seals inside her wide sleeves, dropping dejectedly.

She watched that black silhouette gradually merge into the morning mist. The tears swirling in her eyes could no longer bear their own weight, crashing onto the cold bluestone and splashing into tiny droplets.

Why didn't he turn around?

Why did he pretend not to know me?

Kushina's chest heaved violently, her breathing ragged with suppressed sobs. But then, her mind, filled with paranoia, began to race frantically.

His current identity is just a low-level ANBU, while I am the high-and-mighty Jinchuriki. Minato is right there, and there must be eyes from the Third Hokage in the shadows. If he had acknowledged me just now, if he had turned around, he would definitely have been executed in secret by the Konoha higher-ups as a traitor who tried to abduct the Jinchuriki!

He is protecting me.

He would rather bear all the misunderstanding and coldness himself than protect me in this way!

Kushina bit her lower lip hard, the salty, metallic taste of blood spreading in her mouth. Deep within her eyes, which had been filled with despair, a flame not only failed to extinguish at Baishi's indifference but instead ignited with even more intense, frantic heat.

"Kushina." Minato's gentle voice sounded by her ear, interrupting her thoughts.

Minato naturally pressed the Flying Thunder God Kunai, its clasp now pushed aside, back into his pouch. He stepped forward, blocking her view of the end of the street. "Owl was just heading out on a mission. You've been too tense lately; I'll take you back to rest."

Kushina cast a cold glance at Minato. She said nothing, merely avoiding his hand as he tried to touch her shoulder with extreme disgust, then turned and walked toward the Senju Compound.

Minato stood where he was, watching Kushina's departing back. The smile on his face faded bit by bit, and a dangerous, dark glint settled into his azure eyes.

The smell of pork bone grease wafting from the Ichiraku Ramen stall suddenly felt cloying.

Minato's right hand, hanging at his side, formed a cross seal with one hand under the cover of his wide sleeve.

"Poof."

A faint puff of white smoke exploded in the shadow at Minato's feet. A Shadow Clone, possessing only one-tenth of the original's chakra, hugged the base of the wall like a phantom without substance. It slipped silently into the morning mist, following the direction in which Baishi had left.

As a strong contender for the Fourth Hokage, Minato would never allow any variable outside his control to exist. The ANBU codenamed "Owl" smelled too strongly of gunpowder, and that subtle pause just now had been full of dissonance.

Whether he was a pawn sent by the higher-ups to test Kushina or something else entirely, he had to get to the bottom of it today.

Konoha's Main Gate.

The massive wooden doors cast a heavy shadow. When Baishi arrived at the assembly point, the other three members of the Venom Fang squad were already waiting.

"Thought you trash might have deserted." Captain Venom Fang leaned against the gate pillar, arms crossed, his voice behind his mask dripping with undisguised mockery.

Standing beside him were the Root death-soldier codenamed "Wildcat" and another burly ANBU named "Wild Boar."

Baishi hurried forward, head slightly bowed, his tone carrying a perfectly appropriate amount of trepidation: "Apologies, Captain. I stopped at the ninja tool shop to restock on Explosive Tags, which delayed me."

"Explosive Tags?" Venom Fang sneered, his gaze sweeping over Baishi's somewhat thin frame with contempt. "With your pathetic amount of chakra, you wouldn't even have the chance to light an Explosive Tag if you ran into Iwagakure elites. Enough talk, move out!"

"Yes." Baishi responded submissively, obediently walking to the front of the team to take the most dangerous position as the scout.

Four black shadows instantly turned into afterimages, darting out of the Konoha gate and plunging into the dense primeval forest on the border of the Land of Fire.

The wind whistled in his ears, and the rough tree trunks retreated rapidly on both sides of his vision.

Baishi leaped at high speed through the treetops. With every landing, he attached chakra to the soles of his feet with extreme precision, not even crushing a single leaf.

On the surface, he was focused on scouting the road ahead, but in reality, the max-level Lightning Release chakra within him was circulating frantically through his meridians at an incredibly secretive frequency.

His perception of external energy fluctuations via his lightning-attribute chakra was pushed to its limit at this moment.

He could clearly feel Venom Fang's malicious gaze locked onto his back from twenty meters behind. And further to the left flank, Wildcat's Yin Release chakra was in an eerily restrained state, ready to break away from the team at any moment.

This was all within Baishi's projections.

However, just as they left the Konoha gate by about five kilometers and entered a Redwood Forest where the light was extremely dim, Baishi's pupils contracted sharply.

Aside from Venom Fang and Wildcat.

About two hundred meters behind the team, there was another extremely faint chakra fluctuation—so faint it had almost merged with the surrounding natural energy.

The frequency of that fluctuation was incredibly stable, devoid of any killing intent, like a true breeze trailing far behind them.

Namikaze Minato.

Baishi curled his lips into a cold arc beneath his mask.

He truly lived up to his reputation as the Yellow Flash who shook the ninja world; even his tracking was flawless. If Baishi hadn't mastered max-level Lightning Release in advance to complete his cellular activation, it would have been impossible to detect the presence of this Shadow Clone.

What was Namikaze Minato planning?

Baishi's brain ran through dozens of logical deductions in half a second.

If Namikaze Minato's Shadow Clone kept following him, his plan to kill Venom Fang and Wildcat would be completely exposed. Once Namikaze Minato saw the secret of his max-level Lightning Release, the only thing waiting for him back in the village would be a double strangulation by Root and the ANBU.

He had to shake him off. And he had to do it without leaving a trace, without letting Namikaze Minato grow suspicious.

Baishi's gaze swept rapidly across the terrain ahead.

The forests of the Land of Fire were incredibly lush, and five hundred meters ahead lay a steep cliff. Below the cliff was a turbulent river shrouded in dense fog year-round. It was a zone where air currents were most chaotic and chakra sensing was most easily disrupted.

"Captain, I've found traces of tripwire traps left by Iwagakure ahead. I need to take a detour to clear them," Baishi suddenly lowered his voice and reported through his ANBU-issued radio headset.

"Make it quick. Don't waste time," Venom Fang's impatient voice replied.

Using this perfectly reasonable tactical excuse, Baishi's figure veered sharply to the right, breaking away from the team's straight-line trajectory and diving headlong into a dense thicket of bushes.

The moment he slipped out of Venom Fang's line of sight, Baishi's hands moved in a blur beneath the cover of his wide sleeves.

Ram-Boar-Ox-Dog-Tiger!

Without a single wasted movement, his chakra completed its circulation within his body in an instant.

Two hundred meters away, Namikaze Minato's Shadow Clone landed lightly on a thick tree branch. His azure eyes peered through the layers of leaves, capturing Baishi's departure from the team with extreme precision.

"Going to clear traps?" Namikaze Minato frowned slightly.

His intuition told him something was wrong. That ANBU operative called Owl had taken a route that felt too deliberate.

Namikaze Minato pushed off with his feet, his figure instantly turning into a streak of golden light as he closed the distance, landing silently above the very thicket where Baishi had just vanished.

He pushed aside the dense foliage, his sharp gaze sweeping over the dark forest floor below.

The next second, the face of Namikaze Minato, which always remained composed, suddenly froze.

In the blind spot of his vision, there was no sign of Baishi at all.

There was only a Substitution Log, its surface smeared with mud and affixed with an Explosive Tag, lying quietly in a pile of fallen leaves.

And the cinnabar runes on that Explosive Tag were glowing with a blinding red light at a violent, rapid pace!