Naruto: Cthulhu: Ch. 276

Sāra had already gone far away, leaving Minato with no choice but to refocus his mind on the messy battlefield before him. But when Minato turned his head, he saw Naruto staring straight at his face.

He instinctively reached for his cheek and only felt relieved when his fingers brushed against the hard surface of his mask.

"That…"

"That…"

Both of them spoke the same word at the same time, and their synchronized voices startled them into silence.

After a brief two-second pause, it was Naruto who broke the quiet first.

"You go ahead."

Minato nodded. "To defeat Mukade, it's all up to us now."

"But with the Ryūmyaku's power flowing endlessly, unless we can pinpoint his exact location and land a decisive strike, we'll never be able to beat him."

"In that case," Naruto grinned, "let's just hit him with our strongest jutsu together!"

He was naturally optimistic, but when he fought side by side with this blond ninja, for some reason, his confidence grew even stronger.

It was a trust that defied logic, something deeper than memory or experience, a bond that couldn't be explained away.

And that firm conviction passed on to Minato as well.

Although hehad never once thought of abandoning the mission, Sāra's departure had left him with a faint sense of frustration and shock.

But now, even that slight negativity was swept clean away by Naruto's determination.

Seeing the firmness in Naruto's eyes, he couldn't help but wonder.

A boy from twenty years in the future… though he didn't know his name for sure, Naruto, was it? Not a bad name at all.

"Alright!"

"Let's first work out a strategy."

---

Meanwhile, on the plaza, the giant puppet collapsed again and again under the attacks of Chōza and Shibi, only to rise each time, empowered by the Ryūmyaku.

Not only that, the puppet absorbed smaller puppet soldiers flying in from all directions of the Land of Rōran, fusing their bodies into its own and growing even larger.

On the other side, Chōza and Shibi's chakra was dwindling, their strikes growing weaker and weaker.

The more one side weakened while the other strengthened, the more inevitable the outcome became: finally, Chōza and Shibi exhausted all their chakra and collapsed to the ground.

"Who else?!"

"Who else?!"

Triumphant over Chōza and Shibi, Mukade's giant puppet didn't immediately finish them off. Instead, it bellowed arrogantly across the square.

This colossal puppet was Mukade's ultimate creation, designed to be controlled with the Ryūmyaku's immense power. Yet, this was the first time it had been tested in actual combat.

The overwhelming victory in its first battle thrilled Mukade. To him, it felt like the grand conquest of the Five Great Nations had just begun, with the defeat of Konoha's elite shinobi.

At the same time, Mukade knew there was still one more ninja who had infiltrated Rōran with the others. His taunting was also meant to lure this last opponent out.

"Still hiding?"

"If you don't come out soon, I'll crush your comrades to death."

When no one answered for a long while, he manipulated the puppet to step toward Chōza, raising a sharp clawed leg to stomp him.

Though Chōza was large and sturdy, even he would be flattened into a meat patty under that strike.

But just as the claw was about to fall, countless small noises rang out from behind Mukade.

The giant puppet twisted its head backward and saw a swarm of yellow-clad ninjas rushing toward it.

Huh? Unknown Konoha ninjas? Reinforcements?

No matter, he decided to wipe them all out together.

Confident in his overwhelming power, he didn't care where Naruto had come from. He extended the puppet's arm to dozens of meters, its clawed fingers spreading wide and spinning like a fan. He then swung the arm like a massive flail into the army of Narutos. The rotating "fan" smashed into them instantly.

In the blink of an eye, the attack shredded Naruto's shadow clones like a meat grinder, leaving thick white smoke to billow across the plaza.

"Hahahaha!"

"You think this level can challenge me?!"

But just as he reveled in his puppet's unmatched might, a calm voice rang out from within the smoke.

"Shuriken Shadow Clone Jutsu!"

In an instant, countless green streaks shot out from the smoke toward the giant puppet.

They weren't really beams of light but thousands upon thousands of shadow clone shuriken, thrown by Minato. The plaza's lighting reflected off their steel, making them gleam green as they flew.

By the time the countless shuriken burst out of the smoke, they were already dangerously close to the puppet, giving Mukade no time to react.

"Argh!"

The rain of shuriken slammed into the puppet's unguarded body, blasting its fragments across the square. Up until now, he hadn't been able to expose Mukade's real body because the puppet's arms had shielded most attacks from hitting the core. Its armored shell had never been broken through.

But under the cover of Naruto's exploding shadow clones, the shuriken finally struck the puppet's true body directly.

Under Minato's powerful jutsu, large chunks of its outer shell shattered.

At last, on the right side of the puppet's core, a small reptilian puppet, Mukade's true body, was revealed.

"There! That's the real one!"

"It's up to you now!"

Minato turned to Naruto, who, after draining the chakra from his last two clones, had finally formed an unusual Rasengan.

It was the new technique Naruto had been training: unlike the normal Rasengan's compact sphere, this one took on the shape of a shuriken. Thus, Naruto had named it...

"Rasenshuriken!"

Minato blinked in surprise at the name of the jutsu Naruto shouted. But by then, Naruto had already leapt into the air, the Rasenshuriken in his hand roaring with explosive energy as he charged straight toward Mukade's core.

Panic set in for Mukade. Though he didn't fully understand the power of this technique, his instincts as a ninja screamed of the extreme danger radiating from it.

If it pierced through the puppet armor shielding his true body and cut him apart, not even the Ryūmyaku could save him.

"Repair me now!"

He roared, and the fragments of the giant puppet began to reassemble at incredible speed.

But just then, a thick wooden stake shot out from the corner of the plaza, jamming into the puppet's body and halting its regeneration.

At that moment, Naruto's Rasenshuriken struck home, smashing directly into Mukade's core.

"AAAAHHH!"

In an explosion of blinding white light, Mukade let out an earth-shaking scream.

Naruto's Rasenshuriken struck the puppet attached to Mukade's true body at close range. Only after the blinding white light faded did Naruto return to the ground.

Minato looked up at the massive wound on the giant puppet, inwardly shocked at the power of that jutsu.

The principle was basically the same as the Rasengan, except that adding wind nature to the chakra created a transformation similar to a shuriken.

As expected, Minato's eyes softened with a small smile toward Naruto, but the smile froze immediately. Because the hand Naruto had just used for the Rasenshuriken was trembling slightly, and his palm was covered with deep, tearing wounds.

Concerned, he stepped forward, took Naruto's hand, and said quietly, "This technique causes too much damage to your body."

"It's best not to use it again in the future."

His tone carried something like an order. Normally, Naruto would resist anyone giving him orders. But for some reason, when he heard this person's words, instead of annoyance, he felt a kind of warmth.

That warmth stunned him for a moment. He stood blankly before nodding slightly.

"Mm."

Just then, another person came running from the corner.

"Naruto!"

It was Yamato, who hadn't shown himself all day. It had been him who just used Wood Release to stop the giant puppet from regenerating.

"Captain Yamato, seriously, where have you been all day?"

Naruto's tone carried some complaint. From the start of this incident until now, Yamato hadn't appeared. He only showed up at the very end, helping just as Naruto was about to finish off the enemy, almost as if stealing credit.

"I couldn't help it. For some reason, only I was transported far away from here. It took everything I had to make it back."

Yamato wasn't lying. Even though he and Naruto had been connected through Wood Release, which should have placed them in the same location, fate played a cruel trick. He was sent to a far-off place. Passing through the ruins of Rōran, he realized he had traveled into the past.

Minato narrowed his eyes as he looked at this new ninja.

Oh? So that Wood Release technique just now was his? When did Konoha have another Wood Release user?

Could it be… Orochimaru's doing?

Yamato ran over and saw Minato behind Naruto, along with Shibi and Chōza, who had gotten back on their feet.

"You are—"

Before Naruto could introduce them, Minato slid his mask down slightly, revealing the Konoha symbol beneath it.

"Oh, I see."

Recognizing the Konoha insignia, Yamato, who was not as dense as Naruto, immediately understood he was facing ninjas from the past.

Still, he didn't recognize Minato beneath the mask. After all, twenty years ago, he had only been seven, still under Danzō's control, and rarely saw people outside.

"Um…"

Naruto suddenly turned, his expression unusually serious, staring directly at Minato's face, or rather, at the mask covering it.

"Are you my father?"

A direct question?

Everyone was stunned by Naruto's shocking words. Even Minato, usually calm, felt his brain buzz.

"Huh?"

Minato uttered in confusion, but Naruto pressed on.

"Although I've always had Hiruzen-jiji, Iruka-sensei, Kakashi-sensei, and many companions by my side, I've still longed for the warmth of a family."

"Every day after school, I would see my classmates run into their parents' arms, and I always felt envious."

"Sadly, the past is already gone. I don't expect to go back and reclaim what I missed."

"I just want to know who my father was, what he looked like, and what kind of person he was."

He spoke with heartfelt sincerity. Behind Minato's mask, his face revealed an expression no one else could see.

Minato had long suspected the truth from countless little details, but he never voiced it. Because once people of the past learned too much about the future, they would inevitably want to change it. But time could not be toyed with. The altered timeline might turn out far worse than the original.

So he held back his curiosity, letting events flow naturally.

But when Naruto spoke those words, he felt as though a dam within his heart was about to burst, words spilling to the tip of his tongue.

Fortunately, Chōza broke the tension by slapping Minato on the back and laughing. "What are you saying? He's still a bachelor. I bet he'll be single for life!"

"Yes." Shibi nodded, joining in. "His progress with the Red-Hot Habanero hasn't gone very well either. His future as a man looks pretty bleak."

"Aw, come on, how can you reveal things like that to outsiders?" Minato scratched his head in embarrassment, and the others laughed lightly in the relaxed atmosphere.

After a while, he composed himself and said, "It's about time. The reason you two were sent to the past was because Mukade devoured the sealing jutsu. Now that he's dead, you'll soon return to your own time."

"Sorry, but when you leave, I'll erase your memories of being here. Leave the aftermath here to us."

Minato and his teammates stepped back, putting some distance between themselves and Naruto and Yamato.

From slightly farther away, Shibi whispered softly beneath his mask, words only the three of them could hear:

"Is this really okay? It seems your future self has died. If you miss this chance, you'll never learn the reason why… and you'll never truly meet your son."

From Minato's reaction earlier, both Shibi and Chōza already knew what was in his heart.

Because of their bond with him, they chose to cover it up with jokes.

But in truth, both of them knew: at this point, Minato and Kushina were already recognized as a couple in the village. And the boy's hair color was strikingly similar to Minato's.

If he said he didn't know his parents, then wasn't it obvious?

But Minato only shook his head slightly, musing quietly, "The future is what it is. If you know of its existence, then it ceases to exist. So it's best to let things flow naturally. I believe that neither I nor Kushina would ever make choices we'd regret."

"We'll surely make the best decisions we can. Even if time were to start over, we would make the same choice again."

"And not everything in the future is bad. At the very least, knowing he's alive, that's enough."

At that moment, he lifted his gaze skyward at a 45-degree angle. His eyes shone with light.

That light seemed to pierce the future itself, illuminating the path ahead for Naruto.

But none of that light noticed the shadow behind Naruto, where the giant puppet's claw was quietly moving once again.