Minato only had two or three seconds to decide.
Countless thoughts flashed through his mind at high speed.
At this life-and-death moment, he had to make the best possible choice between the two options in front of him.
In the end, Minato still chose to follow his heart—
and rush to save his three little students.
There was only one reason:
As someone who aspired to become Hokage,
he'd long since secretly sworn to himself
that he would do everything in his power
to protect every single person in the village.
Flying Thunder God Technique!
Like a streak of yellow lightning,
his figure tore through space.
Under the roar of the raging water torrent,
even chuunin-level Kakashi could barely guarantee his own safety.
He had no strength left to look after his teammates at the same time.
But if he abandoned Obito and Rin…
Kakashi's conscience wouldn't allow it.
The moment the three were about to be swallowed by the Water Release maelstrom,
a bright yellow flash suddenly burst before their eyes.
An all too familiar figure appeared,
planting himself firmly in front of them.
"Sensei… Minato-sensei?!"
Kakashi's heart jumped.
With his level of intelligence,
he instantly understood what Minato intended.
Time was desperately short.
Minato held his special kunai horizontally in front of him
and activated a different application of the Flying Thunder God Technique:
"Flying Thunder God: Guiding Thunder — Space Transfer!"
The instant the gigantic water dragon smashed into the kunai,
the space in front of them rippled.
Centered on the kunai,
countless sealing formulas spread outward like tadpoles,
dense and interwoven.
The space in front of them turned into a vortex,
relentlessly devouring the incoming Water Dragon Bullet.
In the blink of an eye, the jutsu was completely transferred—
but because everything had been too rushed,
the transfer distance wasn't very far.
Dozens of meters away,
A and B were just about to retreat.
The Water Dragon Bullet suddenly materialized in front of their faces.
They had no time to react.
The raging torrent slammed into them head-on,
the crushing weight of the water
brutally halting their steps.
"Damn you, Namikaze Minato, you bastard!"
A's face flushed red with fury, veins bulging as he cursed inwardly.
A mere Water Dragon Bullet, of course, wasn't enough to truly injure them;
Cloud shinobi bodies were no joke.
But the real problem was…
The main course was still on its way.
"Big bro!"
Ignoring A's attempt to stop him,
B stepped forward, taking on more of his tailed-beast form.
Eight thick, octopus-like tentacles unfurled from his back,
wrapping around the two of them and forming a solid, living shield,
ready to tank the shock of what was coming.
Minato, on the other hand, had no tailed beast—
and too little time.
He didn't have enough seconds left to perform a second space transfer.
All he could do was throw one more kunai as far as possible,
then pull his three students into his arms
and use Flying Thunder God again,
trying to get them as far away as possible
from the center of the Tailed Beast Bomb's blast.
The instant the yellow flash flickered—
The Tailed Beast Bomb exploded.
BOOOOOOM——!!!
The earth-shattering roar
kicked up a visible shockwave
that ripped the clouds in the sky apart.
The destructive power of that ultra-high-density
yin-yang chakra sphere
far exceeded human limits.
A massive pillar of crimson energy
tore upward with unmatched wind pressure,
sweeping across everything with world-ending momentum.
The howling shockwave shredded everything in sight,
obliterating both the visible and the invisible.
The sea nearby erupted into towering tsunamis.
The coastline and forest were annihilated.
The heat vitrified the ground around them;
the scorching blast turned all the trees
within three to four kilometers
directly to ash,
leaving nothing but charred earth behind.
Endless clouds rolled and boiled,
as if a huge hole had been punched through the sky by this single blast.
Beneath the torn clouds,
smoke and dust swirled without dispersing.
Having gone nearly half-tailed-beast form to shield A,
B had taken the vast majority of the post-explosion damage.
He now lay on the ground, body covered in massive burns,
barely clinging to life.
"B! B!"
A, who'd been protected almost perfectly,
stared at his gravely injured brother,
his heart twisting in pain, eyes blood-red.
"Konoha… Yellow Flash!"
Yes, he locked onto the source of this conflict and hatred:
The Yellow Flash.
Especially after seeing Minato suddenly transfer the Water Dragon Bullet
right onto their heads,
A was even more certain of his conclusion.
No one but Minato could have done that.
Meanwhile, the one designated as "the mastermind"
wasn't doing much better.
His jonin vest had been blown to shreds,
his back almost completely exposed.
More importantly,
he'd used a matching amount of chakra earlier
to unleash his newly developed jutsu
and cancel out part of the Tailed Beast Bomb's shockwave—
only then managing to protect the three behind him.
"Sensei! Minato-sensei!"
Rin's tears streamed down uncontrollably.
She covered her mouth,
heart aching at the sight of Minato.
"I'm fine, Rin."
Minato forced himself to straighten,
dragged a breath into his lungs and strained to show a smile.
His right hand hung uselessly,
skin scorched black.
It was obvious it wouldn't be usable for a while.
But he still felt relieved.
"To only lose my right hand and keep you three safe…
Honestly, that's already a pretty good result."
A Tailed Beast Bomb was not a joke.
If they'd been even a bit closer,
it wouldn't have been just an arm.
"But… but Minato-sensei, your hand…"
Obito was moved to the point of ugly crying,
wiping at his tears while silently swearing in his heart
that he would repay this life-saving kindness someday.
"Sensei, I've learned some medical ninjutsu!"
Rin roughly wiped away her tears,
stepping forward with new determination to treat him.
But Minato's face changed slightly.
He raised his left arm to block her,
pulled himself together,
gripped the kunai tighter with his left hand,
and said in a low voice:
"Fall back. Kakashi, Rin, Obito!"
"YELLOW FLASH——!!!"
From within the dense fog of dust and steam,
a huge silhouette wreathed in lightning
charged toward them,
killing intent practically tangible.
"No way—that guy's still alive?!"
Seeing who it was—
the Third Raikage's son, A—
Kakashi's expression finally broke into outright horror.
That had been a Tailed Beast Bomb.
No matter how strong Lightning Armor was,
no one should be able to tank that head-on and just walk away.
Who knew how this guy had survived the blast center?
"The other one's gone…
Did you use the tailed beast to take the brunt of the explosion for you?"
With just one glance,
Minato guessed the rough sequence of events—
and even understood why A was so furious.
He hurried to explain:
"Wait, A, this wasn't our doing—
Someone's stirring things up behind the scenes!"
Unfortunately,
with his rage burning,
A had no intention of listening.
"Lightning Plunging Bomb!!"
A flickered forward with a burst of speed,
Lightning Armor flaring to its limit,
his body twisting as he slammed a sideways elbow at Minato's torso.
"No helping it, then…"
Minato's eyes sank.
Knowing explanations were useless now,
he rapidly gathered chakra into his left hand—
a small storm forcibly bound into a sphere—
and thrust it forward to meet the attack.
"Rasengan!"
BOOOOM!!!
The powerful Lightning Armor collided face-to-face with the Rasengan.
Two masses of chakra clashed within inches,
exploding into a massive blast of wind
that forcibly flung the three kids far away.
After that brief exchange,
the two combatants each staggered back several steps.
But A had no intention of stopping.
He leapt high into the air again,
right leg swinging down like a sharpened axe.
With the Lightning Armor amplifying it,
his leg came crashing down like a meteor,
dragging explosion-like shockwaves with it.
"Nukite: Hell Stab — Lightning Axe (Double Lariat variant)!"
Lightning chakra concentrated in his leg
like a razor-sharp axe splitting the earth.
Though Minato had lost one arm,
Flying Thunder God wasn't affected.
He teleported away with a flash,
and this time,
he stopped holding back.
"Cool your head a little, A."
Rasengan swirled in his palm again
as Minato vanished like a streak of light.
Shu-shu-shu-shu——!
Within a radius of several dozen meters centered on A,
special kunai streaked back and forth,
yellow flashes flickering between them.
In everyone's eyes,
those flashes gradually wove into a tight net of light.
A was the fish caught in the net.
"Rasengan: Flash Super Wheel Whirling Dance, Third Form!"
Within just a few seconds,
A felt as if he'd been hit hundreds, thousands of times.
No matter how tough Lightning Armor was,
it couldn't withstand that insane density of attacks.
The blades of force, like a storm of knives,
finally tore through his Lightning Armor.
Then a Rasengan slammed into his chest.
BANG!!!
The spiraling sphere twisted his flesh brutally,
launching him like a cannonball.
He crashed through more than a dozen trees
before finally slamming into the ground and skidding to a stop.
His chest was a grotesque spiral of torn flesh,
and he vomited mouthfuls of blood,
feeling like every bone in his body was shattered.
At last,
the enemy in front of them was down.
Minato panted hard,
face pale.
"Now," he asked,
"can you calm down?"
"Yellow… Flash…"
A glared at him,
choked on a mouthful of blood from sheer rage,
and passed out on the spot.
Minato, who'd been planning to explain things properly afterward,
could only frown helplessly,
his face darkening.
"Just who… suddenly transferred that Tailed Beast Bomb?"
Before he could think further,
his heart suddenly lurched.
He saw space itself begin to warp beside A,
crackling with intense lightning.
"This is…"
Minato's expression shifted sharply.
The next moment, space was forcibly torn open,
erupting with an explosive thunderclap.
BOOM!
A figure even more massive and imposing than A,
his whole body wrapped in roaring lightning,
stepped out of the rift.
Minato's pupils shrank.
"Third… Raikage!"
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