At the rusty ventilation shaft of the shelter, Minato Namikaze gave the two boys smearing coal dust over their faces a deep look, a meaningful smile curling at his lips. Then, with Sara, he silently melted into the shadows leading toward the Throne District.
It was a stealth operation before dawn, and also an unspoken understanding between father and son.
"Time to get to work, Iron Pillar."
Naruto grabbed a handful of black ash mixed with used engine oil and unceremoniously smeared it across Sasuke's handsome face—the face that made countless female shinobi scream. Then he brutally yanked his collar crooked, exposing half a shoulder and making him look exactly like a miserable laborer who had just crawled out of a coal mine.
The veins on Sasuke's forehead twitched merrily twice. He took a deep breath and forcibly suppressed the urge to blast this idiot with a Chidori Stream, then bent down and picked up a thumb-thick length of threaded solid rebar from the scrap heap.
He weighed it in his hand. It was heavy, rough, and cold with the chill of industrial metal, nowhere near as handy as the Kusanagi Sword. But for puncturing a few steam pipes or cracking open some unlucky puppet's head, it would do more than enough.
"This is an S-rank infiltration mission. I'm doing this for Konoha, for peace in the Shinobi World..."
Sasuke silently recited the Ninja Character Formula three times, his eyes as dead and gray as ash, before dragging the rebar along behind Naruto.
"I'm not hauling bricks. I'm carrying out Konoha's highest-level classified tactical demolition."
The two swaggered into the Seventh Fuel Refinery.
This place was Rōran's pacemaker and Anrokuzan's pride. Massive pistons surged up and down amid thunderous roars, like tireless steel behemoths. The air was thick with the