Showing Weakness as a Strategy and Crushing with Moral High Ground

"Whoosh!"

A blinding blue flash tore through the stagnant air of the hospital room. It was the spatial fluctuation unique to the Flying Thunder God technique.

Namikaze Minato's figure vanished from the doorway in an instant. Within a thousandth of a second, he appeared above the hospital bed, his right hand gripping the custom kunai that had been hanging inverted from the ceiling.

Chakra surged down his arm, and the blade descended with a piercing shriek capable of tearing through anything!

However, the moment before the blade could pierce its target, Minato's golden pupils contracted to the limit.

In his line of sight, there was no enemy attempting to counterattack or dodge as he had anticipated. There was only the black-haired ANBU, clutching Kushina tightly to his chest, using his own defenseless, thin back to block the entire trajectory of the lethal strike.

He was risking his life to protect her!

"Damn it!" The muscles at the corners of Minato's eyes twitched violently.

He was a perfect candidate for Hokage, a hero of Konoha deeply imbued with the "Will of Fire." His moral compass and pride would never allow him to pierce a Konoha ninja from behind while that ninja was "sacrificing his life to protect a comrade" in front of his fiancée. Even if this man reeked of something suspicious!

In the blink of an eye, Minato forcibly twisted his wrist.

The violently descending chakra was abruptly cut off, and the excruciating pain of his meridians backflowing forced a muffled groan from Minato. The edge of the kunai grazed Baishi's back, slamming into the iron frame at the edge of the hospital bed.

"Bang!"

Sparks flew as the steel bed frame was sliced through like tofu. A violent gust of wind whipped past Baishi's neck, shearing off a few strands of black hair.

This was the moment Baishi had been waiting for.

He understood Namikaze Minato too well. This "perfect genius," propped up on a pedestal by the system and his own reputation, had a fatal weakness—they cared too much about so-called bonds and the greater good.

Just as Minato's form stalled, the old momentum spent and the new yet to be born.

Baishi took a sharp breath of dust-filled air, his chest heaving violently. He didn't even acknowledge the kunai that had just grazed him; instead, he deliberately tensed his muscles, causing the scabbed-over puncture wound on his collarbone to burst open completely.

"Pfft—"

A large mouthful of bright red blood sprayed from Baishi's mouth, splattering onto Kushina's fair cheeks and long red hair.

"Baishi!"

Kushina shrieked. Her dark golden vertical pupils were instantly filled with bloodshot veins, and Nine-Tails chakra exploded across her body like boiling magma.

She reached out with trembling hands toward Baishi's back, her palms covered in warm blood. In reality, it was the blood flowing from Baishi's collarbone, but in the eyes of the terrified and paranoid Kushina, this was ironclad proof that Minato had attempted a cold-blooded murder.

"Lord Minato..."

Baishi leaned weakly against the headboard, his face as pale as paper. He gasped for air like a broken bellows. In those pitch-black eyes, there was no anger, only a suffocating sense of humility and despair.

He raised his hand with great difficulty, pushing the near-berserk Kushina away.

"Don't blame Lord Minato..." Baishi's voice was intermittent, every word accompanied by bloody foam spilling from the corners of his lips. "It's... it's my worthless life that isn't worth it. A bottom-tier cannon fodder like me, who isn't even a Chunin, was always meant to die in the mud of the borderlands."

He turned his head, looking at Namikaze Minato, who stood frozen by the bed, with a gaze of extreme reverence mixed with a hint of relief.

"Lord Minato." Baishi forced a miserable smile. "If you feel that my existence will tarnish your reputation as a Hokage candidate... or ruin your relationship with Lady Kushina... then do it."

Baishi released his hands from his chest, leaving his vitals completely exposed.

"As long as Lady Kushina can come to her senses, as long as she can return to your side... I am willing."

Every word dripped with blood, every sentence struck at the heart.

Outside in the hallway, there was a deathly silence. Several ANBU ninjas looked at each other, their eyes uncontrollably filled with strange emotions toward Minato.

A critically wounded comrade from the bottom ranks, willing to offer his neck to the blade just to fulfill his commander's love and reputation.

And that usually sunny and warm Yellow Flash now looked like a bullying tyrant, still holding a blood-stained kunai in his hand.

Minato's head buzzed.

He gripped the hilt of the kunai so hard his knuckles turned white. He looked at Baishi's flawless, weak face, and an unprecedented chill crept up his spine.

Green tea!

This bastard is acting! He's using the most despicable means to manipulate people's hearts!

"Shut your mouth!" Minato gritted his teeth, growling in a low voice, the veins on his forehead throbbing. "Do you think you can get away with this pathetic sob story? The chakra signature on your body..."

"Namikaze Minato, get out!"

A shrill, furious roar interrupted Minato's interrogation.

Kushina spun around abruptly, five thick Adamantine Sealing Chains lashing out like enraged venomous snakes directly toward Minato's face.

Minato was shocked, pushing off the ground to leap backward.

"Rip!"

The chains grazed his shoulder, tearing a massive hole in the flak jacket that symbolized his status as a Jonin.

Kushina stood tall, her red hair dancing wildly in the violent airflow. Tears mixed with Baishi's blood traced a path down her chin and dripped onto the floor.

"Reputation? Status?" Kushina's voice was cold as ice. "In your eyes, are these things more important than a living human life? He was pierced to the bone by Iwagakure's Poison Blade to save me! He can barely stand, and you're actually forcing him to die!"

"Kushina, I didn't!" Minato tried desperately to explain, but his words seemed so pale in front of his enraged fiancée.

"I heard it clearly!" Kushina pointed toward the door, her fingertips trembling slightly. "Didn't you suspect he was a spy? Didn't you think he was lying to me? Fine, then step over my dead body to kill him!"

Clatter!

More golden chains erupted from behind her, shielding the hospital bed until it was airtight.

Minato stood amidst the wreckage, looking at the red-haired girl who once had eyes only for him, but now guarded against him as if he were an enemy.

His tactical mind, of which he was so proud, completely crashed at this moment.

What could he do?

Defeat Kushina? Forcefully kill Baishi?

Setting aside the fact that a Nine-Tails rampage would destroy half of Konoha, even if he succeeded, he would never earn Kushina's forgiveness for the rest of his life. The Konoha higher-ups would never allow someone who triggered a Nine-Tails incident out of jealousy to ascend to the position of Hokage.

This was Baishi's open conspiracy.

Using the weakest posture to hijack the highest moral ground. Without drawing a drop of blood, he had forced this genius, renowned throughout the ninja world, into a dead end.

"Good... very good."

Minato took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing the surging chakra within his body. He slowly loosened his grip, letting the specially made kunai drop to the ground with a crisp clatter.

He took one last deep look at Baishi, who was being shielded behind Kushina.

Through the gaps in the golden chains, Baishi still appeared weak and dying. But Minato swore that in the eyes of that low-level ANBU, he saw a fleeting, undisguised mockery.

It was like looking at a defeated dog.

Minato turned around, his back appearing more desolate than ever before. He didn't look at Kushina again, walking straight through the corridor and disappearing from everyone's sight.

The crisis was temporarily averted.

Inside the ward, the Adamantine Sealing Chains slowly retracted into her body. Kushina slumped beside the hospital bed, as if all her strength had been drained away.

She scrambled to pick up bandages, trying to plug the blood continuously gushing from the wound on Baishi's collarbone.

"Don't move... I'll stop the bleeding for you. You'll be fine, I won't let you die..." Kushina's voice was thick with sobs, her tears falling onto Baishi's chest, scaldingly hot.

Baishi lowered his eyelids, masking the absolute coldness in his heart.

He didn't push Kushina away again. He understood the principle that too much is as bad as too little. He had already successfully planted a seed called "indebtedness and favoritism" in Kushina's heart.

He only needed to wait for it to take root and sprout, growing into a towering tree capable of overturning Konoha.

"Lady Kushina..." Baishi said softly as he let her bandage him, "I'm a little tired."

"Sleep, I'll stay here and watch over you. No one can take you away." Kushina gripped his hand tightly, as if clutching at the last straw.

Baishi closed his eyes, his consciousness sinking into darkness.

Three days later.

In the early morning at Konoha Hospital, the air was filled with the faint scent of disinfectant.

Baishi changed into a clean ANBU uniform. Thanks to the terrifying recovery ability of his incomplete Uzumaki Sage Body, the deep, bone-piercing puncture wound had already formed a thick scab; as long as he didn't engage in intense combat, it would basically not affect his movements.

During these three days, Kushina had stayed by the ward without leaving his side. Minato never appeared again. The Third Hokage also seemed to have temporarily suppressed the ANBU investigation procedures due to the Nine-Tails jinchuriki's firm stance.

Everything seemed to have returned to calm.

Baishi pushed open the heavy glass doors of the hospital; the morning sun was a bit dazzling, making him squint.

He could finally leave this cage watched by countless eyes.

He needed to return to the safe house as soon as possible to organize the chakra that had surged over the past few days, while also planning the next simulation. Although Minato had retreated for now, that genius intuition would never be easily extinguished.

Baishi stepped onto the bluestone path, heading toward the small wooded trail outside the hospital.

The early autumn breeze carried a hint of chill.

"Rustle--"

A withered yellow leaf fell from a branch.

Baishi's footsteps suddenly stopped.

He didn't look back, but the keen perception brought by his max-level Lightning Release caused his back muscles to tense to the limit in an instant.

The trajectory of that falling leaf was wrong.

The wind was blowing south, but the leaf had shifted half an inch to the north in mid-air. That was a tiny vortex caused by chakra flow breaking through air resistance.

"Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!"

Without warning, three pitch-black shadows lunged silently from the blind spot of the treetops. No killing intent, no wasted movements, only cold machines existing purely for the sake of erasure.

Wearing Raccoon Dog, Fox, and Owl masks.

Root.

Shimura Danzo's patience was even shorter than Baishi had anticipated. Minato's concession had instead made this old dog hiding in the depths of Konoha smell the danger of losing control completely.

Three short blades coated in deadly poison sealed off all of Baishi's escape routes.

Baishi stood where he was, his right hand slowly reaching toward his ninja tool pouch. The corner of his mouth beneath the mask curled into a cold arc.

Just in time. His muscles and bones, fresh out of the hospital, needed a few dog lives to get warmed up.