"Are you done making a scene? I'm not dead, so what are you going crazy for?"
The cold words cut sharply through the chakra-roaring ruins.
The air reeked of sulfur, burned flesh, and ozone left by high-frequency lightning. Hundreds of ANBU elites stood ready, every nerve taut, along with the Third Hokage and Danzo. Everyone knew what happened to anyone who provoked a Jinchuriki in the Four-Tails state at this distance: they were torn to shreds.
Then something happened that defied everything they knew.
Kushina's huge, violent, dark-red body went rigid. The bone-white fox skull encasing her head crackled, its hollow sockets fixed on Baishi's half-bloodied mask.
"Bai...shi?"
The hoarse, distorted voice, thick with a nasal rasp, squeezed through the gaps in the bone.
The next instant, the raging Nine-Tails Chakra receded like the tide, shrinking visibly with a piercing hiss. Bone-white fragments crumbled away, and the dense Tailed Beast Cloak dissipated, revealing Kushina's battered, bloodstained shoulders.
She stumbled forward, tripped over a length of rebar, and scrambled on hands and knees toward Baishi.
"You're alive... You're really alive!"
Kushina crashed into Baishi's arms and locked hers around his neck. Tears poured down her face, mingling with mud and soaking his torn ANBU vest.
The remaining Nine-Tails Chakra was searing hot. An ordinary ninja's chest would have been burned black by that embrace. But Baishi had just fused with the complete Uzumaki Sage Body. Heat at this level could not even breach the defenses of his skin cells.
But he was a consummate actor.
Baishi gave a muffled groan. Beneath his mask, his brows drew tight, large beads of cold sweat sprang across his forehead, and he stifled a pained gasp. His right hand, still trembling slightly from cutting through the Tailed Beast Bomb, came to rest with exquisite gentleness on Kushina's dust-covered red hair.
"Cough... I promised the Hokage I'd finish the border mission. How could I die so easily?" Baishi sounded desperately weak, but to Kushina, it was plainly a lie he was forcing out to comfort her.
She cried even harder, clutching the hem of his clothes like a lifeline. "Liar... You liar! I saw you burned to ashes..."
A short distance away, Namikaze Minato stood frozen.
The night wind swept through his tattered Hokage Haori, stirring ashes across the ground. He watched the Red-Haired Witch who had nearly destroyed Konoha moments ago sob in the arms of a low-ranking ANBU ninja, like a fragile girl who had lost her only support.
An invisible hand seemed to squeeze Minato's heart. Even breathing left the taste of blood in his mouth.
He took a heavy step across the shattered Stone Slab.
"Kushina..." Minato reached out, trying to pull her from the dangerous man's arms. "He's all right now. Let him go. Your body can't withstand going berserk so many times..."
"Don't touch me!"
Kushina whipped around. The eyes that had once been so clear turned icy the moment they met Minato's. Faint vertical pupils still lingered in them.
"Stay away from him!" She put herself squarely between Minato and Baishi like a mother wolf guarding her cub. Her gaze swept over Minato, then Sarutobi Hiruzen and Danzo in the distance. "You leaders do nothing but scheme against him. If any of you come closer, I'll kill you!"
Minato's hand froze in midair.
The words "you leaders" struck him like a hammer to the spine. In Kushina's eyes, Namikaze Minato belonged in the same category as Danzo and the Third Hokage: one of the people who had forced Baishi to his death.
In that moment, the Yellow Flash he had taken such pride in became a complete joke.
In the shadows, Sarutobi Hiruzen kept puffing at his extinguished pipe, his old eyes grave.
"You saw that, Hiruzen." Danzo stepped forward, leaning on his cane. His one eye fixed on Baishi's lowered right hand. "That Lightning Release's change in form surpassed even Hatake Sakumo's. A low-ranking pawn hid that much power... Worse, a single sentence from him calmed a rampaging Jinchuriki."
Danzo's killing intent was nearly palpable. "This variable is beyond our control. Root cannot allow such an uncontrollable piece to exist. We must eliminate him now."
"Shut up!" Sarutobi Hiruzen snapped under his breath. "Touch him now, and the Nine-Tails will break free at once! Do you want all of Konoha reduced to ruins tonight?"
"Are we supposed to let him hold the Jinchuriki over our heads?" Danzo scoffed.
"Seal off all news immediately. Everything that happened today is S-Rank classified." Sarutobi Hiruzen exhaled heavily and regarded Baishi with a complicated expression. "If he's willing to play the loyal ANBU ninja, give him the status he wants. As long as he remains within Konoha's system, he'll be the best restraint on the Nine-Tails."
At the center of the ruins, Baishi leaned against a broken wall and took in the malice, shock, and despair around him.
This was exactly the opening he had wanted.
The moment he pushed Kushina out of the Barrier, tonight's confrontation became inevitable. He meant not only to steal Minato's good fortune, but also to use Kushina's influence to escape his fate as a disposable low-ranking pawn.
Now every leader in the village had seen that he alone could calm the Jinchuriki.
To keep the Nine-Tails contained, the Third Hokage could not kill him. He would have to treat Baishi like royalty. Baishi had taken the noose of being wanted by the whole village and slipped it around Konoha's leaders' necks instead.
The moment was right.
Baishi eased Kushina back by the shoulders, struggled to his feet, then dropped to one knee facing Sarutobi Hiruzen.
"Lord Hokage..." He broke into violent coughing. Blood spilled from beneath his mask, staining the concrete before him red. "I... failed to stop the Nine-Tails from going berserk. Please punish me..."
Before he finished speaking, his eyes closed and he pitched forward, promptly "passing out."
"Baishi!" Kushina screamed and lunged to catch him.
Namikaze Minato finally had a reason to intervene. He bit his tongue, using the pain to suppress his jealousy and bitterness, then appeared beside Baishi with a Body Flicker.
"Kushina, move! I'm a medical ninja. I'll check his injuries!" Minato's tone brooked no argument as he pressed a hand to Baishi's chest.
Kushina was deeply reluctant, but at the sight of Baishi's bloodless face, she could only grit her teeth and step half a pace back, watching Minato's every move.
Minato closed his eyes and sent his chakra into Baishi's body.
He had expected to find a ruined body, its chakra exhausted and its meridians torn apart. That Lightning Release strike had cut through a Tailed Beast Bomb; it should have drained an ANBU ninja of everything he had.
But the instant his chakra entered, Minato's blue pupils contracted to pinpoints.
No exhaustion.
No serious injuries.
What he felt was a terrifying vitality, deeper than an ocean, purer and fiercer even than Kushina's. It surged through Baishi's meridians with a familiarity that made Minato shudder: a Sage Body Constitution on the level of Senju Hashirama's!
And that was not all. Deep within Baishi's heart, Minato detected an exceedingly faint fluctuation of spacetime laws.
Minato jerked his head up and stared at the unconscious Baishi.
This man had just played dead in front of him to win Kushina's sympathy... What kind of monster was he?