Chapter 474: Naruto's Tactics Defeat Minato Namikaze
"Naruto!"
"Is this... your strategy?"
Minato Namikaze stood motionless in the dead center of the ruined battlefield. Dust swirled around his reanimated form, catching the dull light. Even under the absolute control of the Edo Tensei, the lethal battle instincts etched deep into his very bones kept his mind terrifyingly calm.
"Mere numbers are meaningless in the face of absolute speed," Minato murmured softly, his voice devoid of inflection.
The very next second, the air cracked.
Minato Namikaze's figure flickered, vanishing entirely from his original spot.
"Let's go!!"
Thousands of Naruto Shadow Clones roared in perfect unison, their battle cries shaking the earth as they lunged toward the center of the crater.
"Rasengan!!"
Hundreds of spheres of highly compressed chakra ignited at once. The deafening, grinding hum of the spiraling energy filled the air, causing the very atmosphere to tremble and warp under the pressure.
Without a single warning ripple in the air, a blinding golden flash materialized directly behind a charging Naruto Clone.
A specialized three-pronged kunai slashed outward in a merciless arc. That clone instantly burst into a thick cloud of white smoke.
Immediately after.
Swish. Swish. Swish. Swish. Swish.
The golden flash began to tear frantically across the battlefield, a jagged streak of lethal light cutting through the sea of orange.
Each microscopic flicker was accompanied by the sharp hiss of displaced air and the simultaneous disappearance of one, or even several, Shadow Clones.
Naruto's vast clone army, despite its overwhelming, suffocating presence, looked like nothing more than a field of clumsy, slow-moving targets before the Fourth Hokage.
Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.
Explosions of white smoke echoed one after another, chaining together like firecrackers.
In mere moments, hundreds of Shadow Clones were utterly decimated.
Thick white smoke rolled across the cracked earth, almost entirely obscuring the battlefield, yet the golden flash showed absolutely no sign of slowing down.
"Damn it!!"
Naruto's true body, crouched low and hidden deep within the surging crowd, ground his teeth together so hard his jaw ached. Sweat beaded on his brow, instantly vaporizing against the blazing golden aura surrounding him.
Too fast.
Even with the Nine-Tails Chakra Mode fully activated, flooding his veins with raw, scorching power and pushing his sensory perception to its absolute physical limit, his muscles simply could not keep up with the processing speed of his mind.
Time and time again, the exact instant he detected the subtle, spatial distortion of his father's chakra, the lethal strike had already landed.
'Naruto! Don't panic!'The deep, rumbling voice of the Nine-Tails echoed heavily within his mindscape, vibrating through his skull.'Observe calmly! The Flying Thunder God Technique is fast, but it possesses a fatal weakness!''I know!' Naruto fired back mentally, his slitted blue eyes tracking the elusive, deadly streaks of light tearing through his clones.'The Flying Thunder God requires coordinates!''As long as it relies on a marked destination, his movements are not entirely untraceable!'
Naruto's brain worked furiously, calculating angles, distances, and the diminishing number of marked kunai scattered across the dirt.
Since he could not possibly compete in raw speed, he would crush him with sheer, inescapable coverage.
"Everyone!!"
Naruto's true body suddenly threw his right hand high into the air, letting out a deafening, throat-tearing roar that pierced through the grinding noise of the Rasengan.
"Don't charge blindly!!"
"Form groups of three! Don't scatter! Stand back-to-back in formation!"
With the command ripped from the true body, the chaotic battlefield shifted.
Operating with a shared mind, the surging, disorganized ocean of Shadow Clones instantly changed their entire tactical approach.
The blind, desperate charges ceased.
Instead, they rapidly dispersed, sliding across the dirt to form tight-knit groups of three to five, pressing their backs together to eliminate any blind spots.
A golden spark flared. Minato's figure reappeared from the void.
However, this time, the reality waiting for him was vastly different.
What greeted his arrival was no longer an undefended, exposed back.
Instead, three glowing, grinding Rasengan were already thrusting forward, poised to obliterate the exact space he had just occupied.
"Right here!!"
Three Naruto Clones, their eyes wide with fierce determination, slammed their Rasengan downward the absolute microsecond Minato materialized.
Minato's dark, reanimated eyes shifted slightly.
He merely tapped the tip of his boot against the dirt, and his figure vanished into the void once more.
A massive crater was violently blasted into the earth where he had just stood, the combined force of the three Rasengan shredding the ground into dust.
A split second later, Minato appeared on the far side of the battlefield, materializing directly over a Flying Thunder God coordinate point he had marked earlier.
"Wind Release: Rasenshuriken!!"
The two clones stationed at this specific mark were even more ruthless. Without a moment of hesitation, they hurled the high-speed, screeching blades of spinning wind chakra directly at his chest.
Minato was forced to transfer yet again.
Swish. Swish. Swish.
The entire rhythm of the battlefield shifted dramatically.
Minato, who had just been calmly and methodically harvesting clones like wheat, now appeared visibly pressured. His movements, while still blindingly fast, lost their casual elegance.
No matter where he teleported, no matter which marked kunai he chose, the very instant his boots touched the earth, there were always several Naruto Clones waiting in ambush, their lethal jutsu already in motion.
This was Naruto's true strategy.
Absolute saturation strike.
I won't chase your speed.
As long as you dare to land, you will step into a storm of destruction.
"It's not over yet!!"
A sharp, dangerous glint flashed through Naruto's glowing blue eyes. He slammed his hands together, his fingers locking into a familiar cross-shaped seal.
"Multiple Shadow Clone Technique!!"
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Hundreds of fresh clones erupted into existence, filling the air with thick smoke and blazing golden light.
"Great Ball Rasengan Barrage!!"
The massive army of clones launched themselves into the sky simultaneously. Above their heads, hundreds of Rasengan rapidly expanded, swelling to over a meter in diameter. They hung in the air like a dense, terrifying meteor shower, casting a blinding glow over the ruined landscape.
With a collective roar, they plummeted downward, launching an indiscriminate, merciless carpet bombing upon the entire center of the battlefield.
Rumble. Rumble. Rumble. Rumble.
The earth screamed under the sheer weight of the assault.
The entire battlefield was violently ploughed open by the terrifying, raging chakra storm. Massive chunks of rock were hurled into the air, and a suffocating cloud of dust swallowed the sky.
The scattered Flying Thunder God kunai and the complex coordinate seals painted on the ground were entirely obliterated, blasted away, and buried deep beneath the rubble by Naruto's overwhelming saturation attack.
Minato's available movement space was instantly and drastically compressed.
"Now is the time!!"
Hidden deep within the choking dust and chaos.
Naruto's true body, perfectly camouflaged among the surviving clones, moved with silent, lethal precision toward Minato's last viable foothold.
There, half-buried in the cracked earth, the final intact Flying Thunder God kunai remained.
A flash of gold. Minato's figure materialized precisely on the mark.
His hand snapped up, a freshly marked, specially made kunai already gripped tightly between his fingers.
He prepared to hurl the new coordinate far into the distance, intending to escape the suffocating encirclement. He knew that as long as he could create enough distance, this overwhelming human wave tactic would inevitably crumble under its own weight.
Just as his arm pulled back to throw.
A hand violently breached the thick wall of smoke, fingers curling like iron claws.
"Got you! Dad!!"
The smoke violently dispersed.
A Naruto Shadow Clone lunged forward, wrapping his arms tightly around Minato's torso in a desperate, unbreakable grapple.
But the Fourth Hokage's reflexes were monstrous. Without even looking, Minato drove a swirling Rasengan from his free hand directly into the clone's gut.
"A clone?"
Minato's dark pupils contracted sharply.
It was not just this single attacker.
Seven or eight more Narutos instantly burst out from the surrounding curtain of smoke, their faces twisted in fierce battle cries.
They charged forward recklessly, throwing themselves at the reanimated Hokage like brawlers in a desperate street fight, abandoning all tactical finesse to simply pin him down.
But even this chaotic rush was merely a diversion.
The true Naruto suddenly materialized from the very kunai held by the first Shadow Clone, using the exact moment the clone was destroyed to mask his approach.
"It's not over yet!!!"
In the depths of Naruto's mind, a fleeting image surfaced.
Uzumaki Kushina's gentle, warm smile flashed before his eyes, her red hair catching the light.
'Naruto, you must always remember.''Some powers are not meant for destruction, but for protection.''This is Mom's... last gift to you.'
"Hraaaaaaaah!!!"
Naruto threw his head back and roared to the heavens, his voice cracking with raw emotion and surging power.
The next second, the air behind him shattered.
Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh.
Five thick, blazing golden chains violently erupted from Naruto's back, tearing through the fabric of his chakra cloak.
Uzumaki Clan Secret Technique: Adamantine Sealing Chains.
"This is..."
Minato's pupils dilated. The very instant his eyes locked onto the glowing, ethereal links of the golden chains, his usually dead, gray Edo Tensei eyes fluctuated violently with suppressed emotion.
"Kushina..."
Snap! Snap!
The golden chains lashed forward like striking vipers, precisely and brutally wrapping around Minato's wrists, ankles, and torso.
A terrifying, overwhelming sealing force instantly injected itself directly into Minato's reanimated body. The ancient Uzumaki chakra flared, forcibly and violently severing his connection with the Edo Tensei sacrifice.
The golden aura surrounding Naruto flickered and died. He dropped heavily to his knees, gasping desperately for breath, his forehead slick with cold sweat.
"It seems this time... I was faster."
Minato stood perfectly still, bound tightly by the glowing chains. He looked down at the grown-up Naruto kneeling before him.
Slowly, upon his normally indifferent, cracked Edo Tensei face, an expression of deep relief formed. It was a look that should have been impossible for a reanimated corpse to make.
"Well done... Naruto..."
His voice was soft, carrying the weight of years of unspoken pride.
"You have really... grown up..."
"Sealing Squad!! Hurry!!"
In the far distance, the Konoha Sealing Squad, who had been anxiously waiting on standby, finally snapped out of their shock. They surged forward, rushing across the broken terrain like madmen.
This was the Fourth Hokage.
The legendary Yellow Flash of the Leaf.
He had actually been captured, completely immobilized by Naruto.
Several Sealing Squad shinobi skidded to a halt around the bound Hokage. They quickly unrolled massive, ink-covered sealing scrolls, their fingers blurring as they rapidly formed the necessary hand signs.
In the final, fleeting moments before the sealing formula completely swallowed him.
Minato's gaze never once left his son.
His dark eyes were filled with absolutely nothing but overwhelming pride.
Clap.
The massive scroll snapped shut, the sealing tags glowing brightly before locking into place.
The Yellow Flash, the man who had carved a terrifying, formidable reputation across the entire Ninja World, once again fell silent.
Back on the ruined battlefield.
The glowing golden chains extending from Naruto's back slowly dissolved into motes of light, fading into the wind.
He collapsed backward, sitting heavily on the scorched earth. His chest heaved as he gasped for air, his lungs burning. The brilliant Nine-Tails Chakra Mode had completely deactivated, his reserves utterly depleted from the sheer strain of the assault.
"Hoo... hoo..."
He was so tired.
Truly, bone-deep exhausted.
Even with the colossal reserves of the Nine-Tails supporting him, maintaining this level of high-intensity, split-second combat against a legend was incredibly grueling for Naruto.
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