Coaxing and Abducting, Even Baby Naruto Is Coming with Us!

Outside the special care ward of Leaf Village Hospital.

The corridor reeked of pungent disinfectant.

Two squads of Anbu ninja stood guard at the door like statues. Their eyes behind their masks vigilantly swept the surroundings; not even a fly could get in.

But that could keep out others, not Uchiha Yoru, who had the equivalent of a full-map cheat.

Like a ghost blending into the night, Yoru made his way up the hospital's outer wall.

He barely used any chakra at all. Relying purely on the monstrous physical strength tempered by senjutsu, he moved as lightly as a black cat and silently climbed onto a third-floor windowsill.

The window was not fully locked, leaving a narrow crack.

Yoru drifted inside like a feather, landing without a sound. Even the curtains did not stir.

By the hospital bed, the atmosphere was so oppressive it was hard to breathe.

Minato Namikaze wore an oversized hospital gown, his face pale as translucent paper.

Kushina Uzumaki leaned against his chest, tightly clutching a blond infant in her arms. Her eyes were swollen like walnuts.

Little Naruto slept soundly, completely unaware of the upheaval outside. Every now and then, he even blew a milk bubble.

"Who is it?!"

Minato was, after all, the Fourth Hokage. His nerves instinctively tensed.

Even at the brink of collapse, a specially made Flying Raijin kunai instantly appeared in his hand. He shielded his wife and child fiercely, his gaze sharp as a blade.

"Relax. I'm one of you."

Yoru stepped out from the curtain's shadow, casually pulled over a chair, sat down without ceremony, and crossed one leg over the other.

When Minato saw who it was, his rigid back suddenly relaxed, and the kunai fell onto the blanket.

"Yoru..."

Minato's voice was terribly hoarse, his eyes full of gratitude and lingering fear.

"If you hadn't saved us in the barrier just now, the three of us would probably have..."

"Stop."

Yoru raised a hand without any politeness, cutting off Minato's emotional words.

"I didn't come here to listen to you thank me. Your situation now isn't much better than before."

Kushina wiped away her tears and looked at the cold-faced Uchiha youth in confusion.

"Brother Yoru, what happened outside? Why do I hear explosions?"

"It's not that something happened outside. It's that something is about to happen to you."

Yoru propped his chin up with one hand, his gaze sweeping over the vulnerable family of three.

"To be precise, Leaf Village's higher-ups are preparing to use your family as sacrificial pawns."

Minato froze, his brows immediately knotting tightly.

"What do you mean? Lord Third, he..."

"Stop calling him Lord Third. He's figuring out how to feast on your blood right now."

Yoru sneered and dropped a bombshell.

"I just came from the Root base beneath the Hokage Building. I overheard a rather fascinating conspiracy."

Yoru spoke rapidly, spilling all of Hiruzen Sarutobi and Danzō's dirty schemes as though pouring out beans.

"The Nine-Tails' eyes reflected the Sharingan. That blame has already been firmly pinned on our Uchiha Clan."

Yoru looked coldly at Minato.

"Danzō has already surrounded our compound with his people. He's preparing to purge us."

"That's impossible!"

Minato abruptly straightened, only to suck in a sharp breath as the movement pulled at his abdominal wound.

"The Uchiha Clan had nothing to do with tonight's riot. It was the masked man! I need to see Lord Third. I need to explain the truth to him!"

"Explain? With what? Are you going to ram your half-dead body straight into the muzzle of a gun?"

Yoru showed Minato no mercy, driving each word into his heart like a blade.

"Do you really think Hiruzen Sarutobi doesn't know something is off? He just needs an excuse."

"A perfect excuse to take back your authority as the Fourth Hokage while suppressing the Uchiha Clan!"

Minato fell silent. His golden bangs drooped down, hiding the light in his eyes.

He was no fool.

How could someone who had risen from a commoner to Hokage possibly lack political instincts?

It was only that he had always been indoctrinated by the so-called Will of Fire and had refused to judge the mentor who promoted him with the worst possible suspicions.

"And that's not all."

Yoru extended a finger and pointed at little Naruto, sleeping peacefully in Kushina's arms.

"Do you know how they plan to deal with this little guy?"

Kushina instinctively hugged her child tighter, glaring like a lioness protecting her cub.

"What do they want to do?!"

"If Minato dies, this child will be the glorious son of a hero."

Yoru's voice was icy, devoid of even a trace of warmth.

"But since you're alive, this child becomes a 'Nine-Tails weapon' in the eyes of the higher-ups."

Yoru repeated Danzō's utterly disgusting rhetoric word for word.

"They'll hide the fact that he is the Fourth Hokage's son and tell everyone he is the incarnation of the demon fox."

"They'll make the whole village isolate him and curse him, letting him grow up amid scornful eyes, thrown stones, and insults."

The temperature in the ward instantly plunged below freezing.

Kushina's body began trembling uncontrollably. It was a sign of extreme fury.

"When he completely breaks down in despair, that old monkey will appear as a 'kindly grandfather' and offer him a tiny scrap of warmth."

Yoru sneered repeatedly, his face full of mockery.

"By then, your precious son will become Leaf Village's most obedient, most emotionless killing machine!"

"That's fucking bullshit!"

Kushina completely exploded.

Somewhere within her frail body, terrifying strength erupted. Her fiery red hair instantly stood on end like a blazing inferno.

"I risked my life to give birth to my son! What gives them the right to plot against him like he's a dog?!"

Kushina cursed furiously, even revealing the delinquent side she usually kept hidden.

"That old bastard Hiruzen Sarutobi has a heart blacker than a sewer stone!"

Minato still said nothing.

He gripped the pure white bedsheet so hard that veins bulged on the back of his hand, his nails nearly gouging holes through it.

After walking the line between life and death, all the dark details once obscured by glory surged into his mind like a tide.

Why had Anbu reinforcements crawled along as slowly as turtles when the Nine-Tails went berserk?

Why had the Third Hokage, clearly within the village, delayed so long before coming to the main battlefield to help hold the line?

Why had his wife's top-secret barrier been understood and breached so easily?

One thing after another.

The more he thought about them, the more terrifying they became.

Minato's heart turned completely cold.

So in the eyes of those higher-ups, he had never truly been a Hokage. He was only a useful tool that could be discarded at any time.

"Yoru."

Minato slowly raised his head.

Those blue eyes, once as gentle as water, now held only bottomless coldness and resolve.

"What is the situation on the Uchiha side?"

"Fugaku has already ordered the entire clan to pack up their valuables."

Yoru rose to his feet and brushed nonexistent dust from his clothes, his tone as casual as if he were discussing where to eat.

"We're done serving this rotten Leaf Village. I'm taking the whole clan and breaking out immediately."

Yoru walked to the bedside and looked down at the former Yellow Flash of the ninja world.

"I came by on the way to offer you a ladder."

"Will you stay here and keep being a stepping stone for the higher-ups, watching your son turn into a monster?"

"Or will you come with me, flip this board over, and live another way?"

Yoru did not urge him. He simply folded his arms and waited quietly.

The path had been pointed out. The choice was Minato's.

The ward fell silent once more.

Only baby Naruto's steady breathing echoed quietly through the room.

Kushina looked at Minato, her eyes incomparably firm, without the slightest hesitation.

Wherever Minato went, she would go too, even if a mountain of blades and a sea of fire lay ahead.

Minato lowered his head and looked tenderly at his delicate little son in his arms.

Little Naruto seemed to be dreaming of something delicious. His tiny mouth smacked twice, and he broke into a sweet, toothless smile.

Minato's heart clenched sharply.

He could never allow his son to suffer such a miserable fate—worse than death, treated as a monster by everyone!

Absolutely not!

"Leaf Village..."

Minato murmured, the corner of his mouth pulling into a self-mocking curve uglier than a cry.

"So it stopped being the home I imagined, one that could shelter us from wind and rain, a long time ago."

Without hesitation, he raised his right hand and bit his thumb open.

Blood welled out.

Minato formed hand seals with one hand, moving so quickly that only an afterimage remained. The aura of a Kage-level powerhouse instantly returned.

"Release!"

With a low shout.

Several concealed chakra sealing runes in the corners of the ward instantly lit up red, then shattered inch by inch like glass!

These were the all-around surveillance seals left in the ward by Leaf Village's Anbu, and he had forcibly dismantled them in an instant.

Minato threw back the blanket and rose from the hospital bed despite the tearing pain in his abdominal wound.

He tore down the white ceremonial cloak hanging on the nearby rack, the one bearing the symbol of supreme authority: "Fourth Hokage."

Then, as if discarding trash, he casually threw it into the wastebasket in the corner.

After that, he pulled Kushina and Naruto tightly behind him.

Those blue eyes no longer held their former mildness or restraint toward the higher-ups.

What replaced them was the peerless edge of one of the ninja world's strongest.

"Yoru, take us with you."

Minato met Yoru's eyes, speaking each word with firm force.

"I'm done being Hokage!"