The air was thick with the pungent smell of limestone dust.
The broken pipe sprayed water outward, drip, drip, splashing onto the rubble strewn across the floor.
Namikaze Minato stepped over the collapsed wall, his short blond hair especially conspicuous in the dim corridor. Though his usually gentle face wore a smile, it looked like a Mask forcibly pasted on, radiating a chilling refusal to accept no.
He extended his right hand, trying to place it on Kushina's trembling shoulder. "Kushina, this is the ANBU's core area. Let go of this... young man first. Whatever it is, we can discuss it after we return."
"Don't touch me!"
Kushina twisted her shoulder violently, like a cat whose tail had been stepped on.
Crash!
Two crimson Chakra chains burst from her back without warning. Carrying an intensely violent heat, they lashed down like venomous snakes, striking the stone floor just in front of Minato's toes.
Rubble flew everywhere, scraping a tiny line of blood across Minato's fair cheek.
Minato's outstretched hand froze in midair, a trace of incredulous shock flashing through his azure eyes.
Adamantine Sealing Chains?
For the sake of a bottom-level ANBU whose name she did not even know, she had actually used the Uzumaki Clan's secret technique for suppressing Tailed Beasts against him?!
Inside the ruins of the washroom, the atmosphere instantly dropped to freezing point.
Baishi's back was pressed tightly against the cold tiles. Through the "Owl" Mask, he could clearly smell the charred scent of the Nine-Tails clinging to Kushina. It was a violent Chakra capable of igniting an ordinary person's soul, yet at this moment, that power was merely shielding him stubbornly from behind, as if proclaiming ownership to the entire world.
Crazy woman.
Baishi cursed inwardly.
But his mind was racing at an extraordinary speed. He could feel Minato's seemingly calm gaze pass over Kushina's shoulder, scraping across his body inch by inch like a Scalpel.
Farther away, in the shadows, Sarutobi Hiruzen's dense Chakra and Danzo's sinister aura, like a parasite clinging to the bone, had already locked down the entire area.
The moment he revealed even the slightest flaw, he would be stripped naked tomorrow and laid out on Root's dissection table as one of Orochimaru's experimental subjects.
I have to keep acting.
Baishi drew a deep breath and forcibly suppressed the S-Rank Lightning Release Chakra that had just fused within his body. He deliberately relaxed his control over his muscles, making his legs convulse violently as though they had been cowed by the Nine-Tails' pressure.
"Lady Ku... Kushina..."
Baishi's voice came through the Mask, carrying just the right amount of stammering and panic. He slid down along the wall bit by bit, finally dropping to one knee with a heavy thud in the water pooled across the floor.
"My codename is 'Owl.' I'm only a Genin in the ANBU Third Squad... I've barely even left the village a few times, let alone saved you."
He lowered his head deeply, his posture humble enough to sink into the dust. His voice even carried a pleading, tearful note. "Lord Minato, I'm about to carry out a bait mission for the border purge operation. I truly don't know why Lady Kushina would... would treat me like this."
A flawless speech from a disposable bottom-level pawn.
No dignity, terrified of death, seeking only to protect himself when caught in a conflict between powerful figures.
Minato looked at the ANBU kneeling in the water, and his slightly furrowed brows relaxed somewhat.
Too weak.
The boy's Chakra was pitifully small, and his body was trembling nonstop from fear. Someone like this could forget about saving a damsel in distress; on the battlefield, he probably could not even dodge an enemy's C-Rank ninjutsu.
"Owl." Minato softened his voice, and a trace of concern appeared in his eyes. "Have you been hallucinating because the Nine-Tails' seal has become unstable recently? Come with me to see the Third Hokage. Don't make things difficult for a Genin."
Hallucinating?
Hearing those words, Kushina laughed in fury.
Hot tears rolled down her chin and fell with a drip onto Baishi's cold ANBU Protector.
The scene in her mind had been far too real. The boy's back wrapped in Lightning, the decisiveness with which he had pierced Cloud Hidden's heart, and the warmth of his blood-covered hand stroking her red hair as he lay in a pool of blood—
How could that bone-deep longing and despair possibly be a hallucination?!
"You say it was a hallucination?"
Kushina clenched her teeth and suddenly seized Baishi by the collar, hauling him bodily off the ground. Her crimson eyes stared fixedly at the lifeless Mask, her voice hoarse with extreme obsession.
"Baishi, do you think pretending to be this cowardly can fool me?"
"In that dream, you took a poisoned Kunai from Cloud Hidden meant for me, and it pierced straight through your side."
At those words, Baishi's pupils abruptly contracted as he knelt on the floor.
Damn it!
During the simulation, he had indeed taken a hit from a Cloud Hidden Jonin to buy time. Although the Sage Body Constitution and Lightning Release Chakra rewarded by the system had repaired the fatal wound after he returned to reality, cellular regeneration took time.
There was definitely a patch of newly healed, abnormal pink flesh on his side right now!
There was no way to explain that as the wound of a Genin who had never left the village!
"You said you didn't know me, that you were useless..." Kushina's breathing grew rapid. One hand clamped down on Baishi's shoulder while the other suddenly gripped the hem of his ANBU uniform.
Her eyes glittered with reckless madness.
"Then do you dare let me look at your waist?!"
Minato's expression changed dramatically, and he finally could not maintain his perfect smile. "Kushina! Have you gone mad? He's ANBU! You can't humiliate a comrade from the village here!"
His figure flashed, golden light crossing the five-meter distance in an instant as his right hand reached straight for Kushina's wrist.
However, Kushina was faster—and more decisive.
"I'm tearing off that Mask today, no matter what!"
Riiip—!!!
Under the immense force of the Nine-Tails Chakra, the tough ANBU uniform was torn apart like fragile paper.
The crisp sound of ripping cloth was magnified endlessly in the deathly silent ruins.
Minato's hand stopped in midair.
Several obscure presences hidden in the darkness also abruptly froze.
At that instant, everyone's gaze was nailed to Baishi's exposed side.
In the dim ruins of the washroom, only the drip of water from the ruptured pipe could be heard.
The air was filled with limestone dust and the charred smell of flesh.
On Baishi's exposed side, a patch of pink newly grown flesh the size of a baby's palm stood out sharply against the surrounding pallid skin. The scar had an irregular, radiating shape. Anyone familiar with wounds could tell at a glance that it had been left when a poisoned weapon pierced through him and the surrounding necrotic flesh had been forcibly carved away to prevent the poison from spreading.
Kushina stared fixedly at the scar, and her tears instantly burst forth.
"Look..." She tremblingly extended a hand, her fingertip stopping less than an inch above the pink flesh. Scorching Chakra seared Baishi's skin. "This is the proof! You forcibly carved out this piece of flesh to take the poisoned Kunai from that Cloud Hidden Jonin for me! You still dare say you've never been there?!"
Standing to one side, Namikaze Minato's gaze darkened. He could tell at a glance how dangerous the wound had been. It was absolutely not something an ordinary Genin could have inflicted.
In the darkness, the Chakra belonging to Sarutobi Hiruzen and Danzo subtly fluctuated.
Countless eyes were fixed on Baishi.
I absolutely cannot admit it. Beneath his Mask, Baishi's eyes were cold as ice, and his Adam's apple rolled with difficulty.
He suddenly shrank back like a frightened quail and scrambled backward until his back slammed heavily into the cold tiles. The water soaked through his kneepads, and an icy chill spread up his calves.
"L-Lady Kushina! Please don't kill me!" Baishi clutched his side tightly with both hands, his voice thick with tears and terror. "This wound... this wound wasn't caused by a Cloud Hidden Jonin! Three days ago, I was ambushed by three wandering shinobi while carrying out a C-Rank reconnaissance mission on the outskirts of Tanzaku Town!"
He raised his head, his eyes behind the Mask filled with humble pleading. "Captain 'Wildcat,' who led the team, can testify! The ANBU archives also have my mission report and medical records! I truly have never seen any Cloud Hidden shinobi!"
Flawless bottom-level logic. An airtight alibi.
Kushina froze for a moment, then erupted into an even angrier roar. "You're lying! On that rainy night, you collapsed into my arms covered in blood. Your blood was warm! You touched my hair and said..."
"But..." Baishi shook violently, cutting her off in a trembling voice that sounded close to collapse. "A rainy night? You were kidnapped by Cloud Hidden... wasn't that five years ago?"
The ruins instantly fell silent.
Baishi knelt in the pooled water and looked up at the emotionally unhinged red-haired girl. His voice was filled with confusion and fear of those in power. "Besides... everyone in the village knows that Lord Minato was the one who rescued you that night."
A killing blow.
The words were like an exquisitely precise scalpel, slicing open the tangled mass of memories in Kushina's mind.
Five years ago. Minato.
The timeline and logic of reality poured back into her mind like an icy tide.
Yes, five years ago, Minato had followed the red hair she had shed to find her and made that promise to her beneath the moonlight.
But...
If Minato had rescued her in reality, then who was the ANBU boy codenamed "Owl" in her mind? Why was the grief that pierced her soul, and the despairing cry of "Live on, including my share," a hundred times clearer than her memories of reality?!
"No... That's not right..." Kushina covered her head in agony, plunging her fingers deeply into her brilliant red hair. Two completely different memories collided and tore at each other violently inside her mind.
Minato's warm smile in reality overlapped again and again with Baishi's resolute back wrapped in Lightning in the dream.
"Ah—!!"
Kushina let out a shrill scream. The Nine-Tails Chakra within her completely lost control under the violent upheaval of its host's spirit. A crimson Chakra cloak instantly boiled, and its raging heat evaporated the water on the floor into great clouds of white mist.
"Kushina!" Minato's expression changed drastically. He no longer bothered probing Baishi. His body transformed into a streak of golden light, and he appeared behind Kushina in an instant.
He formed a complex sealing hand sign and struck it heavily against the back of Kushina's neck.
Evil Sealing Method!
Black runes spread from Minato's palm, forcibly suppressing the rampaging Nine-Tails Chakra. Kushina rolled her eyes back and collapsed limply into Minato's arms.
Minato held his unconscious fiancée tightly, a trace of barely concealed pain and gloom flashing through his azure eyes. He raised his head, his gaze scraping toward Baishi, who was huddled in the corner like a blade.
This Genin had performed too perfectly.
Fear, stammering, trembling—every action matched the reaction of a bottom-level pawn facing a crisis of life and death.
But Minato was an elite expert who had experienced countless battles to the death. He keenly noticed that when the boy codenamed "Owl" brought up the crucial point that "Minato rescued her five years ago," the trembling in his voice stopped for an instant.
That was not fear. It was precise calculation under extreme calm.
Whoosh—
Without warning, a Flying Thunder God Kunai held between Minato's fingertips flew from his hand, transforming into a black bolt of lightning that shot straight toward Baishi's face!
It was an exceptionally sinister feint.
No Chakra clung to the Kunai, but it was extremely fast. If Baishi truly were an ordinary Genin, he would never be able to dodge it. If he had been hiding his strength, his body's combat instincts would certainly compel him to evade.
Baishi caught that dark blur in the corner of his eye.
The Simulator panel on his retina flickered faintly. The neural reaction speed granted by Max-Level Lightning Release gave him enough time to turn his head and dodge.
But he bit through the tip of his tongue, using the pain to suppress his muscles' conditioned reflex.
Don't dodge! Absolutely do not dodge!
Thud!
The sharp Kunai grazed Baishi's cheek, cutting away half of the "Owl" Mask and leaving a bloody line across his face. Finally, with a clack, it embedded itself in the wall behind him.
Baishi looked as though he had been scared witless. He froze for a full two seconds before letting out a pig-like scream, clutching his bleeding cheek and frantically retreating through the muddy water until he could go no farther, curling into a ball.
"L-Lord Minato! Spare me! I truly don't know anything!"
Minato looked at Baishi's miserable state, his brows drawing tighter and tighter.
Could I really have been overthinking it? He could not even dodge a harmless feint like that. How could he possibly have provoked Kushina?
"Sorry, Owl." Minato withdrew his gaze, his tone returning to its usual gentleness, though his eyes were terrifyingly cold. "Kushina hasn't been in a good mental state recently. I don't want anyone outside the ANBU to know about what happened today."
With that, he picked up Kushina and prepared to activate Flying Thunder God and leave.
At that moment, a formation of perfectly synchronized footsteps suddenly came from the shadows outside the ruins.
Four ANBU shinobi wearing animal Masks and black cloaks appeared like ghosts, completely sealing off every exit from the washroom. The Chakra fluctuations around them were far colder and more bloodstained than those of an ordinary ANBU squad.
Minato stopped, his expression changing slightly.
The dog-faced ANBU ignored Minato and walked straight to Baishi, who was huddled in the corner. Looking down at him, he produced a scroll bearing the Hokage's seal.
"ANBU Third Squad Genin, codename 'Owl.'"
The dog-faced ANBU's voice held no emotion as it echoed through the empty corridor.
"By order of the Third Hokage, your border bait mission is canceled. Surrender your ninja tools immediately and come with us to the Hokage Building Underground Interrogation Room 1."
Baishi covered his bleeding cheek and looked through the half-shattered Mask at the crimson Hokage seal on the scroll.
He knew that the true struggle between life and death had only just begun.