Simulated Node Lock: The Night of the Nine-Tails and Minato's Spotlight

"Click."

The sound was incredibly faint, yet it struck Baishi's eardrums like a heavy hammer.

He did not turn back, his left hand clenching tightly in mid-air.

No expected flash of fire or shockwave from an Explosive Tag blast came from the corridor outside; there was only a dull, muffled "squelch." Immediately after, the stench of scorched protein wafted through the door gap and into Baishi's nostrils.

Kikai Insects.

The Aburame Clan of Root. They had used a massive swarm of tiny insects to forcibly envelop the Explosive Clay, using the insects' own flesh and blood to sever the chain reaction of the explosion.

A dense, rustling sound came through the heavy iron door—thousands upon thousands of beetles were frantically gnawing at the sealing formula on the door frame.

Danzo's bloodhounds were sharper than he had imagined; their tracking speed was unnaturally fast.

Baishi's eyes turned cold. He did not panic, his hands instantly forming three hand seals: "Earth Style: Rock Lodging Destruction."

Boom!

The load-bearing rock wall outside the iron door collapsed with a roar, and tons of boulders, mixed with high-concentration toxic acid pre-planted in the interstitial layers, poured down. A few extremely short, sharp screams came from outside, only to be completely drowned out by the dull thud of bones being crushed by rock.

The physical collapse combined with the acid corrosion was enough to stall the pursuers outside for at least twenty minutes.

But this safe house was now compromised.

Baishi turned around, his fingertips not trembling in the slightest as he pressed heavily on the line of text flickering with a glaring red light on the ghostly blue screen—[Night of the Nine-Tails: Namikaze Minato's Fate Line].

"Senior Minato, I'll be taking your moment of glory."

Weightlessness.

An intense sensation of detachment tugged at his nerves, and his vision plunged into absolute darkness.

When his feet touched solid ground once more, a thick, nauseating scent of blood mixed with the fishy smell of amniotic fluid rushed into Baishi's nostrils.

The cold autumn wind poured in through his collar, raising a layer of fine goosebumps on his skin.

Baishi opened his eyes.

His gaze passed through the holes of a pure white mask to see the secret cave outside Konoha. Torches were planted all around, casting clawing, dancing shadows against the rough rock walls.

"Barrier Team, keep the chakra output stable! Do not let your guard down!"

Not far away, an ANBU squad leader barked in a low voice, veins bulging on the back of the hand gripping his ninja sword.

Baishi looked down at his attire. Standard Konoha ANBU uniform, a short blade hanging at his waist. Identity information implanted by the system flooded his mind: codename "Sparrow," an ANBU responsible for the perimeter of the third line of defense outside the delivery room.

Deep within the cave, the muffled, painful cries of a woman could be heard.

Those were the screams of Kushina in labor.

Baishi merged his body completely into the shadow of a towering tree's canopy, his heart rate forcibly suppressed to forty beats per minute. He knew exactly what was going to happen tonight.

This was the ultimate battle where Namikaze Minato became a legend in the original story, and also the tragic starting point where he lost everything. Saving his wife, fighting Obito, sealing the Nine-Tails, and the couple dying together. This fate line gathered the most top-tier causality and bonds in the entire ninja world.

And what Baishi had to do was to forcibly snap Minato's fate line in this game of gods, transferring Kushina's bone-deep bond of life and death entirely onto himself.

The risk was immense. A moment of carelessness, and he would have his head twisted off by Obito's Kamui or be crushed into meat paste by the Nine-Tails' Tailed Beast Bomb.

But there was no fear in Baishi's eyes, only the extreme excitement of a gambler seeing the ultimate chip.

"Minato's Flying Thunder God requires a formula coordinate, and Obito's Kamui requires physical contact to absorb solid objects. As long as I can jam that split-second vacuum period of their skill activation..." Baishi's brain operated at high speed, frantically simulating thousands of intervention tactics in his mind.

The night wind stopped abruptly.

The leaves ceased their swaying, and even the chirping of insects in the grass was forcibly cut off by an invisible pressure at this moment.

Every muscle in Baishi's body tensed.

He did not turn his head, merely using his peripheral vision to stare fixedly at the two ANBU closest to the cave entrance below.

There was no fluctuation of chakra in the air.

But behind those two ANBU, the space rippled like stagnant water hit by a pebble, forming eerie, spiral-shaped waves.

A hand wearing a black leather glove reached out from the ripples out of thin air.

Following it was a wide black robe and a tiger-skin mask that revealed only one right eye.

Uchiha Obito.

He was like a ghost crawling out of the underworld, with no footsteps and no sound of breathing. That scarlet three-tomoe Sharingan emitted a suffocating, cold ocular power in the darkness.

The two ANBU below remained oblivious, still staring intently at the mountain path ahead.

Obito slowly raised both hands, hovering them one by one over the back of the two ANBU's heads.

As soon as his fingers touched their skin, the spatial distortion of Kamui would instantly shred their cervical vertebrae.

Baishi lurked on the branch, his breathing completely halted. He had already gripped three poisoned shuriken between his fingers, but he did not move.

He did not go to save those two colleagues.

In front of a monster like Obito who had mastered space-time ninjutsu, exposing his position early was tantamount to suicide. He needed Obito to go in, he needed Obito to lure Minato away, and he needed Obito to extract the Nine-Tails from Kushina's body.

That was the only perfect opportunity for him to intercept the prize.

"Snap."

Two crisp sounds of bone fracturing rang out simultaneously.

The bodies of the two elite ANBU didn't even twitch; they slumped to the ground like sacks of rags, their heads lolling against their shoulders at an unnatural angle.

Obito stepped over the corpses, his boots treading through the viscous blood as he walked toward the barrier at the cave entrance.

Just as Obito was about to pass through the barrier, a terrifyingly evil chakra erupted from within the cave. It was the Nine-Tails, feeling the summons of the Sharingan and letting out a violent roar from deep within its seal.

Obito's footsteps faltered.

He tilted his head slightly, and that scarlet Sharingan pierced through the layers of leaves without warning, locking precisely onto the treetop where Baishi was hiding.

"A little... mouse hiding in the trees?"

The cold, raspy voice cut through the air, exploding directly in Baishi's ear.

Obito's body instantly twisted into a spiral ripple and vanished from where he stood.

Baishi's pupils constricted. He had been discovered!

Without a moment's hesitation, his right hand acted on muscle memory, drawing the short blade at his waist and stabbing it backward with a backhand strike, while his left hand formed a single-handed seal.

Before the sensation of the blade piercing flesh could reach him, a cold, gloved hand emerged from the void and clamped tightly around Baishi's throat.