He was half a step late. Akimichi Choza and Aburame Shibi, who had fallen behind, stood there with their mouths half open, staring in disbelief at Namikaze Minato, who was "pinned" in place out of thin air, unable to move. For a moment, their minds went blank.
'The Yellow Flash… got caught?'
'A genjutsu?'
'A kekkei genkai?'
Namikaze Minato was the first to react.
In that brief instant, he tried several different ways to break a genjutsu.
Only when he poured chakra into his eyes did he see, Star Platinum's tall, burly body, shining with starlight like a god descending to earth.
Namikaze Minato let go of the hand he had placed on Sara.
The next second, he flickered into the air.
Taking someone away and leaving alone were two completely different levels of difficulty. Even if it was Star Platinum, without activating Time Stop, it was impossible to keep Namikaze Minato from leaving.
Of course, if not for the fact that the other side was wearing a Leaf headband, then the moment Namikaze Minato rushed over, he would already be "unable to stand up again."
For Ryosuke, this kind of high-attack, high-speed, low-defense ninja could be wrapped up with a single Time Stop and a few symbolic "Ora!" punches from Star Platinum.
Nowadays, any enemy who could exchange even a few rounds with Ryosuke basically needed at least one of super-speed regeneration, bodily intangibility, or extreme defense to avoid being instantly killed during Time Stop.
Back to Minato's offensive.
He threw out a specially-made kunai engraved with the Flying Thunder God formula. Mid-flight, Minato formed a one-handed seal.
"Shuriken Shadow Clone Technique!"
The kunai split instantly, one into two, two into four, then into hundreds and thousands, all stabbing toward them in a dense swarm.
Minato's golden figure flickered continuously among the kunai, using it to avoid Star Platinum's terrifying dynamic vision. In his hand appeared a roaring, spinning Rasengan.
However, all of this was just a decoy.
Minato's true killing move was the Flying Thunder God formula he had silently placed on Ryosuke when Star Platinum grabbed his wrist.
Right now, that formula flowed across Ryosuke's body and arrived at his back.
The moment Ryosuke and Star Platinum placed all their attention on the flying kunai, Minato would instantly activate Flying Thunder God, appear behind Ryosuke, and deliver a "Flying Thunder God, Level Two."
Minato stared at Ryosuke's eyes.
'Now!'
Another burst of golden light, Minato appeared behind Ryosuke, Rasengan about to strike down.
Seeing someone come to save her, Sara's heart lit up with joy.
She didn't know who Ryosuke was. Those white bugs earlier were indeed disgusting, but Ryosuke said that thing was caused by the "Power of the Moon", so was it true?
Even living in Roran all her life, she'd heard plenty of similar con-artist tricks.
Although she didn't know why Namikaze Minato's group would appear in Roran's forbidden land, they were at least ninjas from the Leaf. That was definitely better than Ryosuke, an outsider with an unknown identity.
Sara wholeheartedly expected Ryosuke to be defeated.
Suddenly, a sapphire-blue butterfly, shining dazzlingly in the night, as if it only existed in dreams, flew past her eyes.
"So beautiful…"
Sara whispered in her heart.
She could only see the butterfly's beauty. But in Namikaze Minato's eyes, this butterfly that inexplicably flew out from behind Ryosuke was filled with an indescribable eerie terror.
Because he clearly saw that the Flying Thunder God formula originally attached to Ryosuke's body had appeared on the butterfly's wings.
The change in the teleportation target made Minato's teleportation position shift slightly.
He was now a little too far from Ryosuke, and far too close to the butterfly.
A sharp sense of danger flooded from the tiny butterfly. Acting purely on instinct, Minato tried to activate Flying Thunder God again to escape.
But it was too late.
No matter how fast Minato was, his technique, his thinking, his observation, all still required the smallest sliver of time.
And this butterfly detonated the moment he appeared.
It was equivalent to Minato throwing himself directly into the explosion range.
BOOM!
The butterfly exploded right in front of Minato.
A small, brilliant firework bloomed.
Whether it was Minato, or Sara, or Akimichi and Aburame who were rushing over from behind, all of them froze on the spot, unable to understand what this meant.
"Alright, that should be enough."
Ryosuke took out a Leaf headband from the ghost room and waved it in front of Minato, "Same side."
"If I hadn't pulled back just now, you'd already be injured."
He had borrowed this headband from Naruto a few days ago in the Land of Demons.
During the fight with Moryo, afraid the battle's aftershocks would destroy it, he stored it away in the ghost room.
Later, with absorbing the demonic power, treating injuries, and all sorts of things keeping him busy, he forgot to return it to Naruto and it had just been sitting in the ghost room.
The three exchanged a glance, then each jumped down from their perches and walked toward Ryosuke.
Minato walked in front. Akimichi and Aburame were half a step behind, so if a sudden fight broke out, they'd have enough reaction time.
Seeing their caution, Ryosuke simply tossed the headband over.
Minato caught it and inspected it carefully.
"The anti-counterfeit pattern on the back is correct. The serial number… this high?"
Minato silently calculated.
"At the village's current pace of training ninjas, this serial number would take at least over ten years to reach."
He touched the raised texture representing the headband's owner, deciphered the corresponding code, and got the owner's name…
"Uzumaki Naruto."
Minato looked at Ryosuke. "Your name is Uzumaki Naruto?"
Ryosuke waved his hand. "Absolutely not. We'd mess up the seniority between us. Naruto is my friend… Anyway, you only need to know we're not enemies, we're allies."
Ryosuke had heard of the Yellow Flash's name.
Whether out of reason or to preserve the continuity of the timeline, Ryosuke couldn't really make a move on Minato.
After a short conversation, Minato's group finally sighed in relief.
They didn't want to arrive in Roran only to fight an enemy who could grab the Yellow Flash and command a powerful evil spirit.
Seeing both sides shaking hands and reconciling, Sara's heart sank instantly.
"It's over. They're together."
She opened her mouth, wanting to say something, but when she saw the wound on Ryosuke's back quietly healing, and remembered the squirming bugs from earlier, she obediently closed her mouth.
Both sides exchanged information.
Minato was the first to speak, "We received an order from the Third Hokage to come investigate the situation in Roran."
"Because of the 'Power of the Moon'?" Ryosuke asked.
Minato nodded. "According to legend, Roran citizens who consumed the 'Seed' and gained the Power of the Moon would possess immense strength, freely use ninjutsu, and not need to eat. As long as they drank water and absorbed moonlight, they could survive.
"This power is far too strange, and no one knows its side effects. So before it spreads, we came to uncover its true nature."
With Minato's face, anything he said sounded righteous and upright.
But Ryosuke, who understood the situation of the Five Great Nations, knew there was another layer, because it was a desert nation, the Land of Wind never had enough food. Every year, it imported huge quantities from the Lands of Fire and Earth.
If the Power of the Moon spread and the entire Land of Wind no longer needed food, only water, then the Land of Fire's grain wouldn't sell, and its finances would suffer.
Still…
Konoha during this era truly was the bully of the ninja world.
The Third Hokage was still in his late prime.
The three Sannin were all present, Orochimaru hadn't defected, and Tsunade was still in the village.
And there was the rising star, the Yellow Flash, Minato.
Minato's visit likely also carried the intention of retrieving and sealing the "dangerous" Power of the Moon to turn it into a Konoha forbidden technique.
Ryosuke scratched his face.
This was basically the ninja-world version of "when I say you have nuclear weapons, you'd better actually have some," wasn't it?
Minato interrupted Ryosuke's thoughts. "We've already revealed our mission. That's enough sincerity. Now it's your turn. Why are you in Roran?"
"Me?"
Ryosuke pointed at himself and said honestly, "I'm a terminator who traveled here from the future. You said just now that the Third Hokage gave you this mission…"
"You haven't become the Fourth Hokage yet?"
The three, including Sara, stared with half-open mouths for a long moment before finally squeezing out a single word, "Huh?"