"Whoosh!"
A blinding blue flash tore through the murky air inside the ward. It was the spatial fluctuation unique to the activation of the Flying Thunder God Technique.
Namikaze Minato's figure vanished from the doorway in an instant. Within one-thousandth of a second, he had appeared above the hospital bed, his right hand gripping the special Kunai hanging upside down from the ceiling.
Chakra surged wildly along his arm. With a shrill sound that seemed to rip through everything, the blade stabbed downward!
However, just as the blade was about to pierce its target, Minato's golden pupils suddenly contracted to their utmost limit.
There was no enemy in his sight attempting to counterattack or dodge as he had expected. There was only that black-haired ANBU holding Kushina tightly in his arms, using his defenseless, slender back to block every lethal attack path completely.
He was protecting her with his life!
"Damn it!" The muscles at the corners of Minato's eyes twitched violently.
He was a flawless Hokage Candidate, a Konoha hero deeply influenced by the Will of Fire. His moral boundaries and pride absolutely forbade him from stabbing a Konoha shinobi through the back in front of his fiancée while that shinobi was "risking his life to protect his comrade." Even if the man was strange from head to toe!
In the blink of an eye, Minato forcibly twisted his wrist.
The chakra that had been violently driving downward was abruptly cut off. The agony of his meridians reversing their flow made Minato grunt. The edge of the Kunai scraped past Baishi's back and slammed into the metal frame beside the hospital bed.
"Bang!"
Sparks flew in all directions. The bed frame made of forged steel was sliced apart as easily as tofu. The violent wind swept across Baishi's neck, cutting off several strands of black hair.
Baishi had been waiting for this very moment.
He understood Namikaze Minato far too well. These "perfect geniuses," placed upon altars by the system and their reputations, possessed a fatal weakness—they cared far too much about so-called bonds and righteousness.
The instant Minato's body stalled, his previous strength exhausted and his new strength not yet formed.
Baishi suddenly inhaled a mouthful of air mixed with dust, his chest heaving violently. He completely ignored the Kunai that had brushed past him. Instead, he deliberately tensed his muscles, causing the recently scabbed-over puncture wound at his collarbone to split wide open.
"Pfft—"
A large mouthful of bright-red blood spurted from Baishi's lips, splashing across Kushina's fair cheek and red hair.
"Baishi!"
Kushina screamed. Her dark-golden slit pupils instantly filled with blood vessels, and Nine-Tails Chakra exploded across her body like boiling magma.
She trembled as she reached toward Baishi's back, her hands soon covered in warm blood. In truth, it was blood flowing down from Baishi's collarbone, but in the eyes of the terrified and obsessive Kushina, this was irrefutable evidence that Minato had struck out to kill him.
"Lord Minato..."
Baishi leaned weakly against the headboard, his face pale as paper. He gasped for breath in great, ragged gulps, like a broken bellows. There was no anger in those pitch-black eyes, only a suffocating humility and despair.
He struggled to raise his hand and pushed Kushina, who was on the verge of going berserk, slightly away.
"Don't blame Lord Minato..." Baishi's voice came in broken fragments. Each word was accompanied by blood-filled bubbles spilling from the corners of his lips. "It's me... My worthless life... I'm not worthy. Someone like me, not even enough to count as a Chunin, a low-level cannon fodder soldier, should have died in the mud of the border long ago."
He turned his head and looked at Namikaze Minato, who stood frozen beside the bed, with a gaze filled with extreme reverence and a hint of relief.
"Lord Minato." Baishi forced out a bitter smile. "If you think my existence will affect the reputation of a Hokage Candidate... if you think I'll destroy your relationship with Lady Kushina, then do it."
Baishi lowered the hand protecting his chest, completely exposing his vital points.
"As long as it can bring Lady Kushina to her senses, as long as it can let her return to your side... I'll do it willingly."
Every word dripped blood, and every sentence pierced the heart.
Outside in the corridor, there was deathly silence. Several ANBU shinobi looked at one another, their eyes already carrying an uncontrollable trace of something strange toward Minato.
A gravely wounded, dying comrade from the lower ranks was willing to offer his neck for slaughter to fulfill his commander's love and reputation.
Yet the Yellow Flash, usually sunny and warm, now looked like a thug bullying someone with his power, a bloodstained Kunai still clutched in his hand.
Minato's mind rang with a loud "buzz."
He gripped the Kunai's handle tightly, his knuckles turning bluish-white from excessive force. As he looked at Baishi's flawless, feeble face, an unprecedented chill shot up his spine.
What a schemer!
That bastard is acting! He's manipulating people's hearts with the most despicable methods!
"Shut your mouth!" Minato gritted his teeth and roared in a lowered voice, the veins on his forehead throbbing. "Do you think you can get away with this pathetic self-injury ploy? The chakra reaction in your body..."
"Namikaze Minato, get out!"
A shrill roar interrupted Minato's questioning.
Kushina suddenly turned around. Five thick Adamantine Sealing Chains, like enraged venomous pythons, lashed directly at Minato's face.
Minato was shocked and pushed off with his feet, leaping backward.
"Rip!"
The chains scraped across his shoulder, tearing a huge gash through the vest that symbolized the honor of a Jonin.
Kushina straightened. Her red hair whipped wildly in the violent air currents. Tears mixed with Baishi's blood ran down her chin and dripped onto the floor.
"Reputation? Status?" Kushina's voice was cold as ice. "In your eyes, are those things more important than a living person's life? He was stabbed through the bones by Iwagakure's Poison Blade while saving me! He can't even stand properly right now, and you're actually forcing him to die!"
"Kushina, I didn't!" Minato hurriedly tried to explain, but his words appeared so pale before his enraged fiancée.
"I heard you clearly!" Kushina pointed toward the doorway, her fingertip trembling slightly. "Aren't you suspicious that he's a spy? Don't you think he's deceiving me? Fine! Today, you'll have to step over my corpse to kill him!"
Clatter!
More golden chains burst out from behind her, shielding the hospital bed so tightly that not even air could pass through.
Minato stood amid the ruins covering the floor, looking at the red-haired girl whose eyes had once been filled with him, but who now guarded herself against him as if he were an enemy.
The tactical mind he had always been proud of completely crashed at this moment.
What could he do?
Defeat Kushina? Forcefully kill Baishi?
Not to mention that a berserk Nine-Tails would destroy half of Konoha—even if he truly managed to do it, he could forget about ever receiving Kushina's forgiveness again. The higher-ups of Konoha would never allow someone who had triggered the Nine-Tails' Rampage out of jealousy to take the Hokage's seat.
This was Baishi's open strategy.
Using the weakest posture to seize the strongest moral high ground. Without shedding a drop of blood, he had forced this genius, famous throughout the Shinobi World, into a desperate corner.
"Good... very good."
Minato took a deep breath and forcibly pressed the surging chakra back into his body. He slowly released his hand, allowing the special Kunai to drop to the floor with a crisp clang.
He took a deep look at Baishi, who was protected behind Kushina.
Through the gaps between the golden chains, Baishi still wore that same weak, dying expression. But Minato swore that he had seen a fleeting, completely undisguised trace of mockery in the eyes of that low-ranking ANBU.
As if he were looking at a defeated dog.
Minato turned around, his back more desolate than ever. He did not look at Kushina again, walking straight through the corridor and vanishing from everyone's sight.
The crisis had been temporarily resolved.
Inside the ward, the Adamantine Sealing Chains slowly withdrew into Kushina's body. She collapsed beside the hospital bed as if all her strength had been drained away.
She hurriedly picked up a bandage and tried to staunch the blood continuously gushing from Baishi's collarbone.
"Don't move... I'll help you stop the bleeding. You'll be fine. I absolutely won't let you die..." Kushina's voice was thick with sobs. Her tears struck Baishi's chest one after another, frighteningly hot.
Baishi lowered his eyelids, concealing the absolute ruthlessness in his heart.
He did not push Kushina away again. He understood the principle that too much was as bad as too little. At present, he had successfully planted a seed named "guilt and favoritism" in Kushina's heart.
All he needed to do was wait for it to take root and sprout, growing into a towering tree capable of overturning Konoha.
"Lady Kushina..." Baishi allowed her to bandage him and spoke softly. "I'm a little tired."
"Sleep. I'll stay here and watch over you. No one will take you away." Kushina gripped his hand tightly, as if holding on to her last straw.
Baishi closed his eyes, and his consciousness sank into darkness.
Three days later.
The morning air at Konoha Hospital carried a faint smell of disinfectant.
Baishi changed into a clean ANBU uniform. Thanks to the terrifying recovery ability of his incomplete Uzumaki Sage Body Constitution, the deep puncture wound that had reached the bone had already formed a thick layer of scab. As long as he did not engage in intense combat, it would basically not affect his movements.
During these three days, Kushina had guarded the ward without taking a single step away. Minato had never appeared again. It seemed that the Third Hokage had also temporarily suppressed the ANBU investigation because of the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki's tough stance.
Everything seemed to have returned to peace.
Baishi pushed open the hospital's heavy glass doors. The morning sunlight was somewhat harsh, making him squint involuntarily.
At last, he could leave this cage watched by countless pairs of eyes.
He needed to return to the safehouse as quickly as possible, organize the chakra that had surged over the past few days, and plan the start of his next simulation. Although Minato had temporarily retreated, a genius's intuition like his would never fade so easily.
Baishi walked along the bluestone path toward the wooded trail outside the hospital.
The early-autumn wind carried a hint of chill.
"Rustle—"
A withered yellow leaf fell from a branch.
Baishi's footsteps suddenly stopped.
He did not turn around, but the keen perception granted by his Max-Level Lightning Release caused the muscles in his back to tense to their utmost limit.
The leaf's trajectory was wrong.
The wind was blowing south, but halfway through the air, the leaf had strangely shifted half an inch toward the north. It was a tiny vortex caused by the flow of chakra breaking through the air resistance.
"Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!"
Without warning, three pitch-black shadows silently pounced from the treetops in the blind spot of his vision. There was no killing intent and no unnecessary movement—only cold machines that existed purely to erase their target.
They wore Raccoon Dog, Fox, and Night Owl masks.
Root.
Shimura Danzō's patience was even shorter than Baishi had anticipated. Minato's retreat had instead allowed the old dog hidden beneath Konoha to sense the dangerous scent of completely losing control.
Three short blades coated in deadly poison sealed off every possible escape route.
Baishi stood where he was, his right hand slowly reaching toward his Ninja Tool Pouch. Beneath his mask, the corners of his mouth curled into a cold arc.
They had come at just the right time. After leaving the hospital, his muscles and bones were in dire need of a few dog lives to warm up.