The Shura Arena Begins to Show

Debris from the masonry still tumbled through the air, the acrid scent of gunpowder mingling with the thick, metallic tang of blood as it flooded into the cramped hospital room.

Namikaze Minato stood at the doorway, which had been pulverized by a Rasengan. In his left hand, he had originally been carrying a bouquet of vibrant cosmos—Kushina's favorite flowers. Now, the wrapping paper was shredded by the violent air currents, and the golden petals, mixed with gray dust, scattered silently across the floor.

The man known throughout the ninja world as the Yellow Flash, Konoha's most perfect candidate for Hokage, stood frozen in place as if struck by a high-level binding jutsu, unable to take a single step forward.

His face, forever gentle and perpetually bathed in sunshine, was now as rigid as a cheap mask worn for too long. Beneath that mask, his sanity was crumbling inch by inch.

His gaze pierced through the smoke and dust, pinning itself firmly onto the hospital bed.

The red-haired woman was straddling the waist of the black-haired youth, her hands pressed firmly against his shoulders. Crimson blood stained her beautiful profile, and a trace of eerie red still lingered at the corner of her mouth. On the right shoulder of that low-ranking ANBU, a deep, bone-exposed bite mark was oozing fresh, hot blood.

This was no simple embrace.

It was a fanatical mark. A frantic act that only a beast guarding its food would perform to declare ownership over its mate.

Minato's heart gave a violent twitch. Jealousy, like a poisoned kunai, mercilessly shredded his chest. He had known Kushina for so many years; even when he had rescued her from the Cloud Hidden's kidnapping, she had never looked at him with such intensity, a gaze so profound it bordered on paranoia.

And yet now, this devotion, which belonged solely to him, was being poured without reservation onto a low-level ant he had only just begun to suspect of treachery yesterday.

"Lord Minato..."

Lying on the bed, Baishi deliberately made his voice tremble, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed a mouthful of blood-tinged saliva. The custom-made Flying Thunder God Kunai pressed against his carotid artery radiated a lethal chill. The blade had already broken the skin, drawing a thin, crimson line of blood.

"I truly... do not know why Lady Kushina is acting this way... I am merely an ANBU executing a mission."

Baishi managed to squeeze just the right amount of trepidation toward the Kage-level powerhouse into his eyes, his chest heaving violently, feigning the frailty of someone suppressed to the brink of death by the Nine-Tails' chakra.

However, in the absolute blind spot of Kushina and Minato's vision, Baishi's right index and middle fingers, hidden beneath the bedsheet, were locked tightly onto the fuse of a miniature Explosive Tag. Chakra had already been silently injected.

If Minato's wrist pressed down even half an inch further, he would not mind detonating a flesh-and-blood firework in this room capable of blowing the roof off half of Konoha Hospital.

Minato did not look at Baishi. He focused all his attention on Kushina, attempting to reclaim their past bond from those dark-gold, slit pupils.

"Kushina." Minato's voice was terrifyingly hoarse, his lips forcing a curve that looked worse than crying. "Stop this. Come home with me."

He tried to use the gentlest tone possible to mask the tumultuous frustration roiling within him.

Kushina did not move.

The Nine-Tails' red chakra churned around her, scorching the temperature in the room to an extreme high. She glanced down at the line of blood on Baishi's neck caused by the kunai, and her dark-gold pupils instantly shrank to the size of needles.

Without a moment's hesitation, Kushina thrust out her left hand and grabbed the blade of the Flying Thunder God Kunai.

Sshhh—

The sharp, chakra-infused metal instantly sliced through her palm. Crimson blood dripped along the blade, striking Baishi's cold collarbone and splashing into a glaring flower of blood.

"Are you insane?!"

Minato's pupils contracted, his heart tightening violently. He instinctively tried to withdraw the kunai, only to find it welded in place by a powerful surge of Adamantine Sealing Chains, as immovable as if cast in pig iron.

"I told you... to take this thing away."

Kushina spoke each word with chilling, bone-deep frost. The veins on the back of her hand bulged, and she let the blood flow freely; instead of letting go, she pushed the blade of the kunai away from Baishi's neck, inch by agonizing inch.

"Minato, if you dare touch him again, I will tear this hospital down today."

Silence fell.

The medical ninjas and ANBU who had just arrived outside the corridor were all stunned into stillness by this terrifying killing intent, not daring to even draw a full breath.

Minato's hand, gripping the kunai, trembled slightly. He watched Kushina's bleeding palm, watched her bare her fangs at him like a mother wolf protecting her cub, and his perfect Dao heart suffered a massive fracture in that moment.

Why?

Just because of this low-level ANBU, a man full of lies who had forged the traces of the battlefield?

"Kushina, your mind has been influenced by the Nine-Tails' chakra!" Minato suppressed his surging rage, his voice rising sharply. "This person is extremely dangerous! He survived an ambush by Iwagakure, and the traces at the scene were all fabricated. He is not some low-level cannon fodder; he is deceiving you!"

"Cough, cough... cough!"

Just as Minato attempted to expose the truth, Baishi, pinned beneath her, began to cough violently at the perfect moment.

He deliberately forced up a mouthful of blood, which spilled from the corner of his mouth and stained his pale chin. He looked at Minato with an expression of extreme weakness, tinged with a hint of humility.

"Lord Minato is right..." Baishi gasped, his voice intermittent. "Lady Kushina... you have mistaken me for someone else. I am just a lowly life that can be sacrificed by the higher-ups at any time... how could I have ever saved you?"

Baishi tremblingly raised his left hand and gently pushed at Kushina's arm, feigning a desire to draw a line between them.

"Please, go back with Lord Minato... He is the future Hokage, a hero of Konoha. It is not worth falling out with Lord Minato for the sake of cannon fodder like me, rotting in the mud."

Every word and sentence was a dagger aimed straight at Minato's lungs.

Baishi knew exactly how to deal with a genius who possessed such a perfect persona. The more humble you appeared, the more you retreated, the more it served as proof in Kushina's eyes that he was suffering grievances and enduring humiliation.

Sure enough.

The moment Baishi finished speaking, the paranoia in Kushina's eyes burned to its absolute peak.

"Shut up!" Kushina turned her head abruptly, growling at Baishi. But there was no anger in that growl, only a heart-wrenching pain so intense it was suffocating.

When she turned back to look at Minato, her gaze had turned completely cold.

"Minato, did you hear that?" Kushina gritted her teeth, tears swirling in her eyes but forced back by sheer will. "He is on the verge of death, yet he is still thinking of your reputation as a Hokage candidate! And you? You are actually pointing a kunai at a severely wounded comrade of Konoha!"

Minato felt as if he had been struck by lightning, his entire body frozen in place.

He looked at Baishi's pale, terrified face, countless thoughts flashing wildly through his mind. Could he really have been overly suspicious? Was this man truly just an ordinary ANBU?

No, that wasn't right! The scent of scorched air from the Lightning Release, restrained to the absolute limit, could not be mistaken!

"Kushina, move aside!" Minato took a deep breath, a flicker of resolve flashing in his eyes. He knew he could not let Kushina continue this reckless behavior today; it concerned not only the safety of the village but also his dignity as a man.

He released his grip on the kunai and instantly formed hand seals before his chest.

"Four Symbols Seal: Release!"

Blue chakra light ignited at Minato's fingertips, and his figure surged forward like a bolt of golden lightning. He intended to use the sealing jutsu to forcibly suppress the Nine-Tails' chakra rampaging within Kushina, then drag this suspicious ANBU back to the interrogation room.

His fingertips, glowing with the light of the sealing formula, bore down directly toward the seal on Kushina's abdomen.

"Don't touch me!"

Just as Minato's fingertips were about to make contact, Kushina suddenly straightened her body. She did not form any seals, nor did she attempt to defend herself.

She simply swung her hand back, and five dark-gold chakra chains erupted like vipers, whistling as they tore through the air and lashed viciously at Minato's wrists.

Minato was shocked, relying on his extreme reflexes to force his body to twist, completing a high-difficulty backflip in mid-air to narrowly evade the strike.

"Crack!"

The chains whipped against the nearby wall, carving a deep, bottomless fissure directly into the load-bearing structure.

Minato landed three meters away, staring at his fiancée with eyes full of disbelief.

"You... you attacked me?" Minato's voice trembled.

Kushina stood before the hospital bed, her red hair dancing wildly behind her like a burning flame. She gazed at Minato with the cold eyes of a stranger, and then, in front of everyone, she did something that completely shattered Minato's dignity.

She turned around, bent down, and with her bleeding left hand, gently cradled Baishi's blood-stained face.