At the very instant the newborn's first cry shattered the silence of the valley...
At the edge of the barrier, the spatial ripple marked long ago suddenly surged violently!
A figure wearing the Orange Spiral Mask, with only a single crimson Sharingan exposed, appeared out of thin air like a phantom!
He had not passed through it, but forced his way straight out from the other side of space!
It was Obito Uchiha!
His mastery of Kamui was superb, his speed exceeding what most people's eyes could track!
"Who's there?!" The Anbu on the perimeter snapped to attention, but against the speed of Minato and Obito, their reactions were far too slow.
Obito's target was unmistakable.
Ignoring every Anbu who tried to stop him, he became a blurred streak of distorted light and lunged straight into the barrier at the newborn infant wrapped in swaddling clothes-Naruto Uzumaki!
"Naruto!" Minato's pupils contracted sharply. His wife was utterly exhausted after giving birth, and his child was under attack right before his eyes!
At that moment, even he, the man hailed as the "Yellow Flash," suffered an unavoidable, infinitesimal flicker of shock and hesitation.
Obito, who had planned this for a long time and was far stronger than his counterpart at this point in the original story, seized that opening of a fraction of a second with perfect precision!
Obito moved faster, his approach more devious!
After years of "sparring practice" with Uchiha Makoto and brutal training under Madara Uchiha, his combat awareness, Taijutsu fundamentals, and use of the Sharingan and Wood Release had all reached terrifying heights far beyond those of his peers.
He formed hand seals with one hand, and several wooden spikes erupted from the ground-not to attack Minato, but to obstruct his Body Flicker Technique routes and angles of