After Minato explained the group and contact information, Obito didn't rush to interrupt anymore.
The relaxation I felt before entering the city was suppressed by the empty streets and the roar of pipes.
Minato put one hand on Lin's shoulder, the other hand held the special Kunai, and looked in the direction of the Rōran palace.
"Obito, Lin, follow me closely. Go to the palace first and find someone who can take charge."
Obito nodded, and Lin tightened the strap of the medical bag again.
Chakra passed through the heat wave, Minato led the two of them to perform Body Flicker Technique, and the three figures crossed the shadow cast by the tower and quickly disappeared.
All that was left was the wind blowing sand and gravel, hitting the metal pipes with a thin and broken sound.
Ye looked at the direction they left and twitched the corner of his mouth.
Running so fast, it seems like Tailed Beasts is following behind and biting people.
Kushina turned around, his red hair was blown by the hot wind, and the relaxation on his face was gone.
"Minato They went to the palace, where should we go next?"
Her hand was still pressed near her lower abdomen.
Kurama's reminder just now prevented her from treating it as an illusion.
Kushina can fight, Sealing Jutsu is also ruthless, but leading a team to investigate is not her specialty.
She didn't hold on and left the decision directly to Ye.
Kakashi closed the orange booklet, raised his head and waited for Ye to speak.
Ye didn't answer immediately.
Feelings spread out along the pipes under my feet, and the sounds of heat, gears and steam all hit my brain.
Rōran The underground pipelines are so densely intertwined that they are like an iron mesh covering the whole city. Normally when Sensor Ninja comes in, the brain will be muddled by these noises.
But in this chaos, a force of Chakra squeezed out.
That breath has the same origin as Kurama, but the texture is more noisy and complex. It is also entangled with the turbulence left by Ley Line, as if it was forcibly pushed around hundreds of times.
Ye raised his head.
"Go to the city center."
He raised his hand and pointed to the tallest tower group.
White steam continuously spurted out from between the towers, and all the surrounding pipes also converged there.
"First check along the perimeter, and then see what Rōran is hiding."
Kushina nodded.
"Let's go."
Kakashi stuffed the book back into the Ninja Tools bag, and placed his right hand on the handle of Kunai.
"There may be an ambush ahead, I'll be at the back of the team."
Ye glanced at him.
The white-haired man finally had no intention of continuing paddling.
"Okay, I'll leave the back to you."
Without any further delay, the three of them Chakra stuck to the soles of their shoes and swept along the towers and steam pipes towards the center of the city.
Rōran In the center of the city, Naruto is being obsessed with this young queen.
He stood on an empty street, with no vendors around and no pedestrians in sight.
The windows of the buildings on both sides were all closed, and not even a human figure was visible.
The thick iron pipe above the head kept spewing out white steam, and the heat mixed with the smell of engine oil entered my nose, making my chest feel tight after smelling it for a long time.
Sara is wearing a purple-red dress and a golden headdress swaying with her footsteps.
She had a sullen face and her tone was not polite at all.
"How long will you continue to follow? I have already said that Master Anrokuzan will not harm Rōran."
Naruto scratched his hair.
After falling into this hellish place, he has never seen anyone so difficult to persuade.
"Look at this street. There's not even a single person selling anything. The whole city is empty. Isn't this strange enough?"
Sara looked back at him, his lips pursed into a thin line.
"Rōran is undergoing renovation, and the residents have temporarily moved to the underground living area. Mr. Anrokuzan has been arranging a new life for everyone."
Naruto opened his mouth and was almost blocked by this rhetoric.
The underground living area sounds fine, but the entire city is so empty that there is not even a living patrolling person on the ground. Instead, there are pipes and iron lumps everywhere.
This kind of transformation doesn't look like a way for people to live.
"Have you seen those people?"
Naruto took half a step towards her and lowered his voice.
"Has anyone personally told you whether they are doing well or not?"
Sara opened his mouth and swallowed the words again.
It's not like she hasn't asked the citizens where they went.
But every time, Anrokuzan would bring food, cloth, repaired canals and renovated pipelines, and then tell her that the citizens of the city were busy with construction and could not enter the palace for the time being.
The more questions she asked, the more she suppressed her doubts.
"Anrokuzan once saved Rōran."
Sara gripped the corners of her skirt, her knuckles turned white from the pressure, but she did not move back.
"When my mother was seriously ill, it was he who supported the city's projects, and it was he who allowed Rōran to have water and food again."
Naruto looked at her for a while and did not refute immediately.
Sara is not beyond doubt.
She just wasn't willing to admit that the person she had always believed in might have changed a long time ago.
The quieter the street, the less at ease Naruto feels.
Just as he was about to speak, a muffled sound suddenly came from the pipe in the distance.
Boom.
Then, there was another sound.
Something is crawling along the inner wall of the pipe.
Sara also heard it, and his face paled a lot.
"What is that?"
Naruto stood in front of her, and touched the back of her waist with his right hand Kunai.
Nine-Tails Chakra inside the seal stirred up heat.
"Don't ask, just get out of here first."
At the same time, Rōran is in the deepest part of the palace.
Anrokuzan was sitting on a high-backed stone chair, with an already stiff corpse of an old man lying at his feet.
There were no lights in the main hall.
Ley Line's purple light seeped out from the cracks in the rocks underground, making Anrokuzan's fat face turn blue.
The old man was still wearing an old official robe, the blood on his chest had long dried, and he was holding a half-broken mailbox in his palm.
Anrokuzan stared at the mailbox and twitched his cheek twice.
It took him many years to clean up Rōran's old officials who refused to bow their heads.
I just missed this old dog.
He couldn't figure out where the letter for help was sent or who Konoha would send.
The enemy standing at the palace gate is not a problem, but the invisible hand is difficult to guard against.
Anrokuzan stood up from the stone chair, stepping on the blood on the ground with the soles of his shoes, dragging out half a blur of footprints.
"Since someone wants to disrupt the situation, don't blame me for closing the net in advance."
He raised ten fingers and pulled out dozens of slender Chakra Threads from his fingertips.
Under the purple light, those lines glowed coldly.
Behind the stone pillars on both sides of the hall, the sound of machine sounds sounded one after another.
A pale puppet crawled out of the shadows first, with no facial features on its wooden face, and faint blue light dots lit up in its eye sockets.
Then, the second one, and the third one.
More puppets emerged from the secret doors on the ground and from the mezzanine of the wall, and the sound of their joints rubbing together made one's teeth sore.
Anrokuzan raised his wrist and inserted dozens of Chakra Threads into the metal interface on the stone wall.
Rōran The sound of machines immediately came from the pipes extending in all directions.
"Find Sara and bring him back alive."
He paused for a moment, and his eyes fell on the broken mailbox next to the old man's body.
"Let's deal with those who are causing trouble together."
The group of puppets got into the pipes and alleyways, and faint blue light spots flashed one after another in the dark city.
On the street outside the palace, Naruto stopped.
Steam spreads ahead.
A pale puppet hung upside down from the mouth of the pipe, and the blue light in its eye sockets crossed Naruto and locked onto Sara.
Naruto gripped Kunai tightly and grinned.
"Looks like I don't need any more persuasion."
"Your Lord Anrokuzan has already sent someone to invite us back."