Minato appeared once more inside his safehouse.
"Kushina—!"
She forced a weak smile, eyes unfocused but still searching for him. "Minato… the baby… he's safe?"
"Yes," he whispered, kneeling beside her and brushing her hair back. "Naruto is safe. I swear it."
He lifted her gently and placed her beside the small crib he'd prepared earlier. Naruto lay curled inside, wrapped tightly in warm blankets, tiny chest rising and falling with soft, fragile breaths.
"See?" Minato murmured, voice trembling. "He's right here."
Kushina's entire body loosened, her exhaustion momentarily forgotten as she reached for him. "Naruto… my sweet Naruto…"
She cradled him, pressing her forehead to his tiny one. Her chakra flickered wildly, dim and unstable — the mark of a jinchūriki who had lost her tailed beast. Every second she remained conscious was one stolen from death.
Minato swallowed hard.
"Kushina… that man—"
"I know," she whispered, cutting him off. "You're the Hokage. You can't stay. You have to protect the village."
Minato's throat tightened.
He wanted to deny it.
He wanted to stay.
He wanted to protect them both with everything he had.
But she was right.
"Just… be careful," she added, voice breaking. "For me… and for Naruto."
Minato leaned forward and kissed her forehead. "I promise. I'll come back. Both of us will."
He stood, shoulders straightening as he forced himself back into the mantle of Hokage.
"I'll be back…"
A soft golden flash filled the room—
"…in a flash."
And he was gone.
-----
Meanwhile, Obito's plan hadn't been ideal, but it was enough; he had unleashed the Nine-Tailed Fox right in the middle of Konoha and was now delighting in the destruction.
The Nine-Tails' bellow shook the world.
Roofs trembled.
Tiles shattered.
Birds scattered into the night sky like fleeing embers.
The Kyūbi stood taller than the tallest buildings, tails whipping through the air like crimson storms. Chakra — raw, corrosive, oppressive — rolled from its body in suffocating waves.
It unleashed another roar—
BOOOOOOOOM.
Windows exploded.
Walls cracked.
Dozens were thrown to the ground from sheer force alone.
The fact that it had been seen in the distance hadn't given people much time to prepare. Though, how could someone even prepare for something like this?
The Kyūbi was a force of nature; it didn't even need to try. Just lazily swaying its massive tails around would be enough to bring all of Konoha to ruin. And the demon fox wasn't just sitting around.
No — forced by Obito, it unleashed its wrath on the village below. Its huge paws crushed buildings with ease, sharp shrapnel of shattered stone and splintered wood shooting out and cutting down those too slow to escape.
It was chaos, pure and simple.
Yet, in these moments — these chaotic times — there were also brave heroes who stood up to fight, to face down death itself, just to buy others a few seconds to get out of harm's way.
Kakashi and Gai both wanted to join the direct fight, but a more experienced and older shinobi told them to focus on saving as many lives as they could. And so they flashed from person to person, carrying them to safety, slowly moving dozens of people out of harm's way.
One shinobi after another threw themselves at the mad tailed beast, trading their lives for mere seconds of time. They showed no hesitation in their actions.
This was their home. They couldn't pull back; there was nothing they could do but fight, fight, and hope for a miracle.
One by one, shinobi joined the battle, and one by one they fell. Only a few of the most elite could put up any resistance at all — and those mostly belonged to the great clans.
Already the Ino–Shika–Chō were fighting, a legendary formation, but against the Kyūbi they might as well have been Genin. No tactics would work on something that strong, and that big.
Other clans also lacked the means to deal with something of this size. Only the Uchiha clan could truly affect this.
But as Fugaku gathered his clan, ready to aid in the defence, he was stopped.
Dozens of masked operatives stepped out of the darkness, forming a wall of steel and blank emotion between the Uchiha and the burning village.
Their leader stepped forward.
Even without seeing his face, everyone knew who it was.
Danzō Shimura.
"Uchiha Fugaku," Danzō said, voice cold and flat. "You and your clan will remain here."
Fugaku's Sharingan flared instantly. "We are the police force of this village. The Kyūbi is loose — our duty is to fight."
Danzō didn't blink.
"And right now," he said, "your duty is to stand down."
Behind him, Root operatives shifted, hands resting lightly on weapons — the silent promise of violence.
A chill went through the assembled Uchiha.
Fugaku took one step forward. "You would bar us from defending our own home? You would accuse us by inaction?"
Danzō tilted his head slightly, as though studying an insect.
"This is the Hokage's order," he finally said.
Fugaku wanted to laugh. The Hokage's order? Did Danzō think he was stupid? He knew Minato well, and there was no way he would give this order, and never through Danzō. Fugaku knew that both he and Minato shared their dislike for the man.
"Do you have any proof of that?"
His Sharingan spun slowly — not in threat, but in warning.
Danzō did not shift. Did not blink. Did not show even the courtesy of pretending to respect the question.
"I do not need to provide proof to you," he said. "Your duty is to obey."
A ripple of anger moved through the Uchiha ranks — low growls, sharp breaths, hands tightening around weapons. More Sharingan ignited, red light reflecting off Root's blank masks.
The air between the two clans crackled with unspoken violence.
Fugaku's jaw clenched. "We have served this village since its founding. We have shed blood for it in every war. And tonight — while our home burns — you cage us?"
Danzō stepped forward by a single, deliberate pace.
"You will stay where you are," he said, voice more blade than breath, "until the Hokage returns and confirms the truth of tonight's events."
"The truth?" Fugaku repeated. The word tasted like iron. "You are accusing us of summoning the Kyūbi."
Danzō said nothing.
He didn't have to.
Fugaku could see the Kyūbi and the Sharingan in its eyes. He didn't know what was going on, but it wasn't good, that was for sure.
Behind him, whispers broke out among his clansmen, and he had to raise a hand to silence them.
He faced Danzō fully.
"You are wrong," Fugaku said. "And when the Hokage returns, he will tell you so."
Danzō's single visible eye didn't waver.
It didn't care.
"The Hokage," he said mildly, "is currently unaccounted for."
That hit harder than any blow.
Several Uchiha gasped.
Fugaku's Sharingan dimmed for half a heartbeat — fear sliding under his ribs.
Minato… where are you?
-----
Another great clan of Konoha that also watched the chaos was the Hyūga clan. The clan head, Hiashi Hyūga, stood on the top of the compound roof and watched the situation through his Byakugan. He was likely the person who knew the most about the current situation.
The overpowering chakra of the Kyūbi made it feel like he was staring into the sun, but he still carefully tracked the countless chakra signatures in the village.
In particular, he kept track of the elite — Hiruzen, Danzō, Minato. He knew that these people were the only ones who could hope to match the tailed beast.
"Brother, shouldn't we go help?" Hizashi asked.
"Take some people and head to the east district and help with the evacuation." Hiashi knew he couldn't stay out of this, but he didn't want to throw more of his clan at a fight they couldn't win.
He understood well that the Gentle Fist couldn't do anything to something like the Kyūbi.
"Yes, clan head," Hizashi said before he body-flickered away.
Hiashi couldn't help but look up at the moon. "Yuki, what would you have done?" he whispered.
Despite how long it had been since he lost her, he couldn't forget about her. Even after getting married and having his first child, little Hinata, he still couldn't let go.
He always felt guilty when he compared his wife to Yuki, but how couldn't he? Yuki had been the love of his life, something that belonged to a better time, before he became clan head.
Back then, things had been simple. Now he was buried in work and worries, the clan weaker than ever, poorer than ever, and now this?
He kept his Byakugan active as he had the clan evacuated while trying to help guide villagers as well, all while he watched for Minato. He was the one man who might be able to solve this — or at least, Hiashi hoped he could.
Because if not him, then Hiashi didn't know who could.
-----
Minato reappeared on top of his own head — the latest addition to the great Hokage mountain. He had been so proud when he saw it for the first time. As a child, he had always looked up at the three faces carved in stone and dreamed of being the next.
Every child in Konoha shared that dream. And he had done it. Yet now, as he stood there, his heart felt heavy.
The village — his home — was in ruins. Fires consumed buildings, and worse, the Kyūbi was destroying more every second. He saw brave shinobi throw themselves at the beast while others rushed to help people escape.
Almost as if sensing his gaze, the Kyūbi roared into the sky, the sound shaking the village to its core, before chakra started to gather in its mouth. A shocking amount of it compressed into a single point.
Minato knew what it was — the Tailed Beast Bomb, the very thing that had inspired his Rasengan.
So he knew that he couldn't allow that thing to hit his village.
As if knowing his thoughts, the Kyūbi shot the bomb right at Minato, right at the Hokage monument and the pride of Konoha.
"You won't get your way!" he said while weaving hand signs.
The Tailed Beast Bomb didn't hit. It didn't explode over the village. Instead, it began to slowly sink into the air as a large sealing formula — his Flying Raijin: Guiding Thunder — swallowed it up and sent it somewhere far away.
He stared down the fox demon as a massive explosion went off in the far-off mountains, visible from the entire village.
Everyone knew at that moment that their Hokage was there, that he was fighting with them.
Minato felt something behind him and instantly turned around, his kunai cutting right through the masked man like he wasn't there — despite the man gripping Minato's wrist a heartbeat later.
"I'm your opponent," the masked man said, as Minato disappeared once more, just before he could be swallowed up by the man's jutsu.
…"Next time, I will take you a lot quicker," he said to himself before he also disappeared.
(End of chapter)
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