A Greater Conspiracy

"We've detected chakra up ahead. Stay hidden," Minato Namikaze said quietly as they continued on.

At his command, Ye Yuexin and the others stopped at once.

Minato's sensory abilities were indeed terrifying. Even Ye Yuexin had only gradually sensed the fluctuations in the wind after Minato pointed them out.

Ye Yuexin had developed this method of sensing through the wind's movement after returning from a mission with Itachi Uchiha.

It wasn't a particularly advanced ninjutsu, just an application of his understanding of how wind worked. Still, ordinary ninja would never be able to master it.

Through this method, Ye Yuexin sensed what seemed to be five people up ahead.

It was already night.

They had been running at full speed all day, taking only two breaks along the way, and they were still starting to feel the strain.

During the journey, Minato had been familiar with the others, but he knew very little about Ye Yuexin.

So Minato had asked Ye Yuexin in detail about his abilities and the ninjutsu he knew.

When he heard that Ye Yuexin had already mastered the nature transformation of Wind Style, Minato praised him with obvious surprise.

Minato was still carrying Ebisu on his back. Ye Yuexin had gained a whole new appreciation for a jonin's stamina.

Meanwhile, Ye Yuexin was carrying Might Guy.

Even a tough guy like Guy had been unable to keep going by dusk.

There was no helping it. Might Guy hadn't fully grown into the man he would become yet.

Even Ye Yuexin would have been near his limit without the two breaks. His chakra was almost depleted now.

The sudden encounter with the enemy felt far too coincidental to Ye Yuexin. The border was vast, after all.

They hadn't seen anyone yet, so he still faintly hoped they might be allies.

At Minato's hand signal, Ye Yuexin slowly set Guy down.

Then Minato gestured for him to wait there.

Ye Yuexin carefully made his way over to Minato. The two of them began advancing slowly toward the sensed presence.

Soon, through layer upon layer of tree trunks, they spotted a fire glowing in the distance.

Ye Yuexin felt much more at ease when he saw it. Ninja who could casually set up a campfire at night were probably not enemy ninja.

After all, they were deep in enemy territory. He couldn't believe the other side would dare light a fire at night. That would be unbelievably brazen.

But Minato showed no sign of relaxing. Instead, he frowned. His experience was far beyond anything Ye Yuexin could match.

In a situation like this, Minato controlled their pace and crept forward cautiously with Ye Yuexin, growing even more vigilant.

To Ye Yuexin, it felt as though they really were approaching an enemy.

As they drew closer, Ye Yuexin suddenly sensed that something was off.

It was as if a light had finally switched on in his head.

He realized he had once again oversimplified things.

Why was he always so slow to catch on? Ye Yuexin was starting to wonder whether he was really getting dumber.

If Konoha had received word about the Rock Ninja strike team, there was no reason they wouldn't have notified the border guards. So how could the people here not know?

Konoha's ninja weren't stupid. If they knew an enemy strike team was lurking nearby, lighting a bonfire in the middle of the night was basically the same as telling the enemy to come and finish them off.

Once he had thought of that, Ye Yuexin began to consider the matter more deeply. Like Minato, he furrowed his brow.

But if they were enemy ninja, this still didn't make sense.

A strike team was supposed to stay hidden, then deliver a fatal blow.

Even the Ninja Academy taught that. Surely the Rock Ninja knew it too.

So why were they acting so carelessly?

Once they were deep in enemy territory, the slightest mistake could wipe out the entire team.

The way they were acting now... Yes. They seemed to want someone to find them. If so, things could be more complicated than they appeared. There might be an even more insidious plan in motion.

That was what Ye Yuexin thought.

While he was thinking it over, they had already neared the bonfire. It was burning fiercely.

Its light fell on five ninja seated around it.

A small wild boar was roasting over the fire.

If he hadn't known what was going on, Ye Yuexin would have thought they were people from the Land of Fire enjoying a picnic.

At that moment, Minato turned and silently signaled the plan to Ye Yuexin.

Then Minato concealed himself in the opposite direction.

Ye Yuexin looked at the five people around the fire. Only one of them wore a Rock Ninja Forehead Protector. The others seemed to be rogue ninja.

Following Minato's plan, Ye Yuexin looked toward the thicket opposite him. He spotted a faint patch of yellow and began counting down in his mind.

Ten seconds.

Ten. Nine... Four. Three.

At three, Ye Yuexin began slowly molding chakra and closed his eyes.

Two. The Wind Style nature transformation had taken shape.

One. Ye Yuexin shot forward in an instant, then turned and swung a back kick.

The enemy had only just noticed him when he fired a half-meter-long blade of wind.

At the same time, Minato hurled five special kunai.

It all happened too fast. As the enemies rose to their feet, Ye Yuexin's wind blade was already upon them.

But it wasn't aimed at the people. It was aimed at the bonfire.

The tree-shaded space, which had been brightly lit by the flames, plunged into darkness.

In a situation like this, any human would be momentarily blinded.

And that was exactly the moment they needed. Since Ye Yuexin had just closed his eyes, he could make out a figure dropping through the darkness, along with the sound of a kunai cutting through someone's throat.

"That's enough, Yuexin," Minato said.

Ye Yuexin hurriedly took a miniature torch from the pouch at his waist and lit it.

The light returned once more.

The scene before him left Ye Yuexin stunned. His pupils widened involuntarily.

Of the five people in front of him, four had a line of blood across their throats, and blood was still flowing from their wounds.

Minato had apparently slit their throats.

That was what stunned Ye Yuexin.

During the brief fight, he had clearly heard only one throat being cut.

Yet now four people lay on the ground with their throats cut.

What did that mean?

It meant Minato's speed was now fast enough to fool even Ye Yuexin's ears.

At that speed, Ye Yuexin couldn't imagine who could possibly stand against him.

Ye Yuexin couldn't help thinking that if not for Konoha, Minato's speed alone would have been enough to carry him all the way to the end.

It was simply an invincible speed.

In truth, Ye Yuexin was so shocked that he was exaggerating Minato's strength.

Minato's speed really was peerless, but it came with an unavoidable limitation: the Flying Thunder God required marked coordinates.

Still, if everything had been set up in advance, Minato could indeed be called invincible at this point in time.

And there was something else.

At the very instant of the battle, perhaps because Minato had used the Flying Thunder God in quick succession, Ye Yuexin's perception of spatial fluctuations had been amplified without limit.

For that brief moment, he had felt as though he could almost touch space itself.

Now he finally understood why space had seemed so strangely familiar the first time he practiced the Space Transfer technique.