Click.
The sound was faint, but it struck Baishi's eardrums like a hammer.
He did not look back. His left hand clenched sharply in midair.
No flash or blast from an Explosive Tag came from the passage beyond the door. There was only a muffled pop, followed by the stench of burned flesh seeping through the gap.
Kikaichū.
The Aburame Clan operatives in Root. They had smothered the Explosive Clay with a swarm of tiny insects, sacrificing their bodies to break the chain reaction.
A dense rustling came through the heavy Iron Door. Thousands of beetles were gnawing at the Sealing Formula along its seams.
Danzo had a keener nose than Baishi had expected, and his men had tracked him down with unnatural speed.
Baishi's gaze turned cold. Without panicking, he formed three hand signs. "Earth Release: Rock Lodging Destruction!"
Boom!
The load-bearing rock wall outside the Iron Door collapsed. Several tons of stone crashed down with the concentrated toxic acid Baishi had hidden in the wall. A few brief screams rose from outside, then vanished beneath the dull crunch of bones breaking under rock.
The collapse and acid would hold off the pursuers for at least twenty minutes.
But this safe house was finished.
Baishi turned and pressed a steady finger against the line of glaring red text on the ghostly blue screen—[Night of the Nine-Tails · Namikaze Minato's Fate Line].
"Minato, I'll take your finest hour."
Weightlessness.
A violent sensation of being torn away pulled at his nerves, and his vision went utterly black.
When his feet touched solid ground again, the sickening reek of blood and amniotic fluid rushed into his nose.
Cold autumn wind slipped down his collar, raising goosebumps across his skin.
Baishi opened his eyes.
Through the holes in his plain white mask, he saw a hidden cave outside Konoha. Torches burned around him, casting monstrous shadows across the rough stone walls.
"Barrier Team, keep your Chakra output steady! Don't let up!"
Nearby, an ANBU squad leader barked the order under his breath. Veins stood out on the back of the hand gripping his Ninja Blade.
Baishi glanced down at himself. He wore a standard Konoha ANBU uniform, with a Short Blade at his waist. Identity details planted by the system flooded his mind: codename Sparrow, an ANBU guard assigned to the third defensive line outside the delivery chamber.
From deep inside the cave came a woman's muffled, agonized cries.
Kushina was giving birth.
Baishi melted into the shadow of a towering tree's crown and forced his heartbeat down to forty beats per minute. He knew exactly what would happen tonight.
This was the ultimate battle that had made Namikaze Minato a legend in the original story, and the tragedy in which he lost everything. Save his wife. Fight Obito. Seal the Nine-Tails. Die alongside Kushina. This fate line gathered some of the Shinobi World's deepest bonds and most powerful twists of fate.
Baishi intended to sever Minato's fate line in the middle of that clash and take Kushina's unforgettable bond of life and death for himself.
The risk was immense. One mistake, and Obito's Kamui would twist his head off, or a Tailed Beast Bomb from the Nine-Tails would grind him to pulp.
Yet Baishi felt no fear. His eyes held only a gambler's fierce excitement at the sight of an incomparable prize.
Minato's Flying Thunder God needs a marked location. Obito's Kamui needs physical contact to absorb a solid target. If I can exploit the fraction of a second between their techniques... Baishi's mind raced through hundreds of ways to intervene.
The night wind stopped.
Leaves ceased to sway. Even the insects in the grass fell silent, as though some invisible pressure had crushed their cries.
Every muscle in Baishi's body tensed.
He did not turn his head. From the corner of his eye, he watched the two ANBU closest to the cave entrance.
There was no fluctuation of Chakra in the air.
But behind the two ANBU, space rippled like still water struck by a pebble, forming eerie spirals.
A hand in a Black Leather Glove emerged from the ripples.
Then came a loose black robe and a tiger-striped mask that exposed only the right eye.
Uchiha Obito.
He was like a ghost risen from the Underworld, without footsteps or breath. His scarlet Three-Tomoe Sharingan radiated a chilling power in the darkness.
The two ANBU below noticed nothing. They kept watching the mountain path ahead.
Obito slowly raised both hands, holding one above each ANBU's neck.
The moment his fingers touched their skin, Kamui's spatial distortion would snap their necks.
Baishi lay hidden among the branches, holding his breath. Three poisoned Shuriken were already tucked between his fingers, but he did not move.
He did not try to save his two comrades.
Revealing his position early to a monster who wielded Space-time Ninjutsu would be suicide. He needed Obito to enter the cave, draw Minato away, and extract the Nine-Tails from Kushina.
That would be his one perfect chance to steal Minato's place.
Crack.
Two sharp snaps of bone sounded at once.
The two elite ANBU did not even twitch. They crumpled like empty sacks, their heads hanging at unnatural angles.
Obito stepped over their bodies and walked toward the Barrier at the cave entrance, leaving footprints in the sticky blood.
Just as Obito was about to pass through the Barrier, a terrifying surge of evil Chakra erupted inside the cave. The Nine-Tails had sensed the Sharingan calling to him and roared savagely within the seal.
Obito stopped.
He tilted his head slightly. Without warning, his scarlet Sharingan looked through layers of leaves and fixed precisely on the crown where Baishi hid.
"A little rat... hiding in a tree?"
His cold, hoarse voice seemed to cross space and burst beside Baishi's ear.
Obito's body dissolved into a spiral ripple and vanished.
Baishi's pupils contracted. He found me!
Without hesitation, he drew the Short Blade at his waist on instinct and stabbed hard behind him, while forming a one-handed sign with his left hand.
Before he felt the blade strike flesh, a cold, gloved hand reached out of empty space and clamped around his throat.