The Perfect Disguise Beneath a Cold Mask and the Deviation of Memory

In the gloomy underground passage, leather boots splashed into puddles, creating dull echoes.

"Move! Don't drag your feet!"

The dog-masked ANBU shoved him hard. Baishi stumbled and fell forward, his knees slamming into the rough stone floor and splashing up muddy water.

"My Lords... please, go easy on me..." Baishi lay on the ground, his hands locked tightly in heavy chakra-suppressing shackles. The raw iron edges chafed the skin of his wrists, drawing beads of blood. His voice trembled, thick with a sob, "I really am just a genin. That scar was truly from a rogue ninja..."

"Shut up." The dog-masked ANBU spat the words out coldly, hauling him up like a chick and dragging him deeper into the passage.

Baishi kept his head bowed, his messy bangs obscuring his half-shattered mask.

To outsiders, he appeared on the verge of a mental breakdown from terror. But beneath the mask, his eyes were like a stagnant pool, devoid of a single ripple.

Minato's probe has been barely fended off, Baishi calmly reviewed in his mind.

When that Flying Thunder God kunai grazed his cheek earlier, he had forcibly suppressed the muscle instincts honed by his max-level Lightning Release. The bitter-meat tactic of taking the blade with his face, combined with that airtight "bottom-layer logic" excuse, was enough to plant a seed of doubt in Minato's heart—a doubt that Kushina was truly insane.

But he knew well that the crisis had only just begun. Konoha's interrogation protocols were extremely rigorous; what awaited him next was certainly not simple questioning, but an examination that would pierce his very soul.

I must be more pathetic than a piece of trash. Baishi licked the metallic taste of blood from the corner of his mouth, controlling the tremors in his body to the frequency most consistent with a physiological reaction.

At the same time, in the top-floor special care ward of the Konoha Hospital.

The pungent smell of Lysol permeated the air. Outside the window, the sunset over the Konoha training grounds was as crimson as blood, casting a stifling orange hue over the ward.

"Beep—beep—"

The heart monitor emitted a monotonous sound. Namikaze Minato sat before the hospital bed, clutching a broken piece of a blood-stained ANBU mask, his knuckles trembling slightly from the force of his grip.

He replayed the image of Baishi dodging the kunai over and over in his mind.

It was too stiff. That stiffness didn't look like he couldn't dodge; it looked more like... he had forced his movement to a dead stop.

"Minato..."

A hoarse murmur from the bed interrupted Minato's thoughts.

Kushina snapped her eyes open, her crimson pupils bloodshot. She gasped for air, like someone who had just surfaced from drowning.

"Kushina, you're awake." Minato immediately tucked the mask away, replacing it with his signature gentle smile, and reached out to touch her forehead. "How do you feel? The Nine-Tails' chakra has already..."

"Slap!"

Kushina swatted Minato's hand away. She bolted upright, ignoring the stinging pain as the IV needle was forcibly ripped from the back of her hand, blood dripping from her fair skin onto the pristine white sheets.

"Where is Baishi?!" She stared fixedly at Minato, her voice terrifyingly raspy. "Where is that ANBU with the code name 'Owl'?!"

The smile on Minato's lips froze. He took a deep breath, his tone remaining soft: "He was taken by the ANBU for routine questioning. Kushina, calm down. You were just affected by the Nine-Tails' violent emotions and suffered hallucinations. That rainy night five years ago, it was I who followed your red hair..."

"Shut up!"

Kushina clutched her head in agony, her fingers digging deep into her red hair.

Hallucinations?

She closed her eyes, and two completely different images flooded her mind.

One was Minato holding her hand under the moonlight, praising her beautiful red hair.

The other was that young ANBU, covered in blood, lightning tearing through a Cloud Hidden jonin's chest, finally collapsing into her arms and whispering in a weak voice: "To die for you, I am willing."

The timeline was a mess!

Five years ago, she was clearly just a genin; how could she have possibly come into contact with the ANBU?

But if it were truly a hallucination, why did the smell of charred flesh from toxic corrosion and the warmth of blood splattering on her face feel so real?!

"That scar..." Kushina muttered to herself, her hollow gaze gradually focusing, her body beginning to tremble violently.

"What?" Minato's brows furrowed tightly.

"That scar!" Kushina suddenly looked up, grabbing Minato by the collar, tears streaming down her face. "That penetrating wound on his flank! Even the shape of the incision used to gouge out the necrotic flesh is exactly the same as in my dream! If it were cut by a rogue ninja, how could the position be so precise?!"

Minato's breath hitched.

Yes, he had seen that wound too. It was an incredibly ruthless method of self-preservation, certainly not something a genin who had never left the village could have performed.

Kushina released Minato, collapsing limply back onto the bed.

An absurd, yet logically perfect, theory began to take root and sprout wildly in her mind.

"He lied to me..." Kushina covered her mouth, large tears splashing onto the back of her hand. "The person who really saved me five years ago wasn't you—it was him!"

"Kushina, what nonsense are you spouting?" A crack finally appeared in Minato's voice. "I was the one who brought you back myself!"

"Then how do you explain the wounds on his body?!" Kushina shrieked hysterically, like a mother lion protecting her cub. "He's a low-level ANBU with no background, no support! If he had revealed the truth about saving me back then, what would the higher-ups think? Would Danzo let an anomaly who could single-handedly kill a Cloud Hidden jonin live?!"

The more Kushina spoke, the more she felt this was the truth. Her heart felt as if it were being squeezed by an invisible hand, making it impossible to breathe.

"So he tampered with my memories... He used some kind of forbidden technique to erase my memory and gave all the credit to you! Meanwhile, he carried those fatal wounds, hiding in a dark, sunless corner, acting as cannon fodder who could die at any moment!"

"If I hadn't forcibly torn his clothes open today, was he planning to take this secret to his grave?!"

A deathly silence filled the ward.

Minato stood by the bed, his golden bangs hanging down to cover his eyes.

He listened as his fiancée, for the sake of another man, hallucinated a tragic and moving love story, and listened as she wept bitterly for that genin named Baishi.

"Snap."

Minato's right hand, hanging at his side, tightened abruptly, crushing the half-fragment of the ANBU mask in his palm into fine powder. That face, usually perfect and warm as the sun, finally stiffened completely, a chilling gloom churning in the depths of his eyes.

Beneath the Hokage Building, in the first interrogation room.

"Clang!"

The heavy steel door slammed shut, sealing off all sound from the outside world.

The high-intensity searchlight overhead flickered to life, its pale beam stinging Baishi's eyes. He was pinned firmly to the interrogation chair, his hands and feet secured by chakra chains.

The air was thick with the stench of stale blood and the acrid bitterness of burning tobacco.

Baishi squinted, peering through his half-shattered mask to make out the three figures standing in the shadows.

In the center, smoking a pipe, was the Third Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen.

To the left, leaning on a cane with one eye, was the leader of Root, Shimura Danzo.

And standing directly in front of Baishi was a man with long blonde hair and a stern expression—the head of the Konoha Intelligence Division, Yamanaka Inoichi.

"Don't be afraid, Owl." The Third exhaled a ring of smoke, his voice sounding benevolent yet bone-chilling. "It is merely a routine mental examination. If it is confirmed that you have not been manipulated by enemy spies using genjutsu, the village will compensate you."

Baishi did not struggle; instead, he widened his eyes in terror, tears and snot streaming down his face along with the mud. "Lord Hokage! I really don't know anything! Please, I beg you, don't kill me!"

Deep within, however, Baishi's soul was coiled to the breaking point.

The Yamanaka Clan's mind-reading technique!

These old foxes didn't believe a word of his nonsense and had gone straight to the highest level of soul-searching! If they discovered the existence of the "Life Script Simulator," he would undoubtedly be sliced into pieces on the spot.

"Forgive me."

Yamanaka Inoichi didn't waste words. He quickly formed hand seals, a ghostly blue glow of chakra shimmering in his palms as he slammed them onto the top of Baishi's head.

"Ninja Art: Mind Body Switch Technique!"

A massive surge of mental energy, sharp as a dagger, pierced violently into Baishi's brain, attempting to forcibly rifle through his memories.

However, the moment Inoichi's mental energy touched the depths of Baishi's soul—

"Hum!"

A cold, vast, mechanical prompt, carrying an authority that transcended the laws of the entire ninja world, exploded in Inoichi's mind.

[Warning: Low-dimensional mental entity intrusion detected.]

[Backlash mechanism, activated.]

"Ah—!!!"

Yamanaka Inoichi let out a piercing, wretched scream, his hands recoiling from Baishi's head as if struck by lightning. He looked as though he had been hit by a heavy hammer; blood sprayed from his seven orifices, and he stumbled back several steps before collapsing onto the floor.

"Inoichi!" The Third's expression shifted drastically as he surged to his feet.

Danzo's single eye erupted with frigid killing intent, his right hand already gripping the hilt of the blade hidden within his cane.

Yamanaka Inoichi convulsed, pointing a trembling finger at Baishi—who remained strapped to the chair with a look of "bewildered terror"—his voice raspy and inhuman:

"He... inside his brain... hides a god!"