Simulated World: Masked Man Infiltration and Lurking Outside the Delivery Room

The cold leather glove locked tightly around Baishi's throat, five fingers suddenly exerting force.

"Snap."

The dull sound of a cervical vertebra shattering echoed through the treetops. However, the scarlet Sharingan beneath Obito's mask contracted violently. No warm blood sprayed out; instead, violent blue electric arcs suddenly surged across the surface of the ANBU's body that he had just decapitated.

"Lightning Clone?" Obito's raspy voice betrayed a hint of surprise.

BOOM!

Blinding lightning exploded within the canopy, high-voltage current coursing wildly along Obito's materialized right arm. Forced to activate Kamui, Obito's body instantly turned into a transparent phantom, allowing the violent electricity to pass through him without resistance and split the thick tree trunk behind him into a pile of charcoal.

The smell of scorched wood mixed with sawdust quickly permeated the night air.

In a crevice of a rock wall thirty meters from the explosion, the real Baishi lay in the mud like an inanimate stone. He had compressed his max-level Lightning Release chakra deep into his cells with extreme precision, forcibly dropping his body temperature to freezing and suppressing his heartbeat to a faint twenty beats per minute.

Cold sweat dripped from the tip of Baishi's nose, hitting the muddy water without making a sound.

He knew the broken mechanics of Kamui all too well. Half a second before Obito appeared, he had used a visual blind spot to weave the signs for a Lightning Clone, while his real body slipped underground under the cover of wind-blown leaves. This was an absolute intelligence suppression; if it had been his real body gripped just now, his neck would have been snapped.

Obito re-materialized from the void, shaking his slightly numb right hand. He scanned the surrounding darkness coldly.

"Boring tricks."

Obito did not continue searching. The Nine-Tails' chakra fluctuations in the delivery room had reached a critical point, and Namikaze Minato's sealing technique was weakening. His target was the Nine-Tails; he had no time to play hide-and-seek with a rat that knew a bit of Lightning Release. He turned, his body transforming into a distorted vortex ripple, passing directly through the thick Four Red Yang Formation barrier.

Lying in the mud, Baishi slowly exhaled the stale air from his lungs.

First hurdle, cleared.

Like a gecko, he climbed silently along the rock wall, watching the slaughter outside the delivery room through a gap in the barrier.

Obito's movements were devoid of any excess, textbook-level assassination. The three elite ANBU guarding the entrance didn't even have time to draw their ninja blades before black rods pierced their hearts from the void. Blood dripped onto the stone floor along the rods with a rhythmic ticking sound.

Sarutobi Biwako had just turned around when Obito's palm struck her back. The spatial distortion's crushing force instantly shattered her internal organs, and the Third Hokage's wife collapsed limply into a pool of blood without even a scream.

The thick scent of blood drifted out from the cave entrance, completely overpowering the original stench of amniotic fluid.

Baishi's hand, gripping his short blade, was steady as a rock, his eyes devoid of pity. In the ninja world, weakness was the original sin. His gaze moved past the corpses littering the ground and locked firmly onto the golden figure deep within the delivery room.

He needed Obito to go in; he needed Obito to draw Minato away. Only in the cracks of a battle between gods could a cannon fodder like him tear off the largest piece of meat.

"Waa—"

A crisp cry of an infant pierced the oppressive night sky.

On the delivery bed, Kushina, her red hair soaked through with sweat, gasped weakly. Her face was pale as paper, her chest heaving violently. Namikaze Minato was ecstatic, his hands weaving signs rapidly as he prepared to use the Eight Trigrams Sealing Style to suppress the Nine-Tails' chakra that was violently overflowing from Kushina's abdomen.

At that very moment, Obito appeared behind Minato like a ghost, holding the newborn Naruto in one hand.

"Step away from the jinchuriki, Fourth Hokage." Obito's voice was devoid of warmth as he pressed a kunai precisely against the infant's delicate neck. "Otherwise, this brat will only have one minute left to live."

Minato's pupils contracted sharply, his golden hair trembling slightly from extreme tension. His hands, mid-seal, froze in mid-air, veins bulging on the back of his hands.

"Wait... wait! Calm down!" Minato's voice betrayed an undisguisable panic.

In the shadows, Baishi narrowed his eyes. It was time. This was the greatest weakness of the original protagonist—too many bonds, too many concerns.

Obito let out a mocking snort and tossed Naruto, who was covered in explosive tags, into the air, while his right hand quickly wove a seal, preparing to activate Kamui to suck Kushina into another dimension.

Minato did not hesitate; it was the instinct of a father. With a flash of golden light, he vanished from the spot, transferring himself and the infant in mid-air to a safe house in the distance.

BOOM!

A violent explosion echoed faintly from afar; it was the sound of the explosive tags detonating.

The delivery room was completely empty.

Only Kushina remained, locked by sealing chains, her chakra nearly exhausted, with Obito looking down at her from above.

"Minato..." Kushina called out her husband's name in despair, warm tears sliding from the corners of her eyes. The weakening of the seal caused the Nine-Tails' chakra within her to overflow uncontrollably, and the red fox cloak began to boil on her skin, scorching her meridians.

Obito walked slowly to the bed, his leather boots making dull thuds on the stone floor. That scarlet Sharingan rotated slowly in the darkness, exuding a suffocating chill.

"Namikaze Minato is an excellent Hokage, but he cannot save you." Obito extended his gloved right hand, his fingertips aimed at Kushina's lower abdomen. "I'll take the Nine-Tails."

Space began to ripple in a spiral pattern; the suction of Kamui had already locked onto Kushina's body.

Just as Obito's fingers were about to touch the sealing formula, and just 0.1 seconds before Kushina closed her eyes in total despair.

In a blind spot of shadow less than five meters from the delivery bed, a pair of cold eyes that had been suppressed for a long time suddenly snapped open.

The lurking ghost bared its fangs.

Baishi's left hand instantly crushed the fuses of three high-explosive tags, while his right hand gripped a short blade coated in lethal poison. The max-level Lightning Release chakra compressed to the limit within his body erupted like a bursting dam! The muscle-tearing sensation caused by the lightning stimulating his cells surged through his entire body, bought at the cost of extreme speed that broke the sound barrier.

The blade tore through the air, striking straight for Obito's throat!