After saying goodbye to the three girls from Sunagakure, Kushina and Rin quickly found out which direction Naruto went.
One reason they let Naruto run off just now was because Amegakure had surveillance facilities everywhere, so tracking his loud ass down wouldn't be difficult.
After asking around, they learned Naruto actually went back to Konoha!
And not by physically running there either.
He found the Sound Four and used the Flying Thunder Formation to teleport back!
Kushina looked highly suspiciously at the Sound Four.
"You four were really that agreeable? You just helped Naruto return to Konoha that easily?"
She wasn't especially close to the Sound Four, but since all four of them learned the Flying Thunder Formation, she still remembered them.
If she recalled correctly, each of them had a pretty fiery temper.
Of course, that temper only came out toward people of the same level or lower.
Toward Orochimaru and the Akatsuki members, they neither dared nor wanted to act that way.
So had they caved because they understood how important Naruto was as the Nine-Tails jinchūriki? That didn't quite seem right either.
"These three idiots acted like they've never seen a damn woman in their entire lives! That little blond brat used a Transformation Jutsu to turn into some shameless woman, said a few sweet words in a delicate voice, and the three of them immediately agreed like dogs! They've completely disgraced the Sound Four!"
"Sakon, Ukon—Orochimaru-sama's human experimentation has apparently made progress lately, right? Why don't you go beg him to surgically separate the two of you, you conjoined morons?! You can split apart in Cursed Seal Level Two anyway, can't you?
Actually, no, bad idea. With both your heads being this stupid, if you got separated, you'd probably end up dumber than summoned animals! Maybe you should ask Orochimaru-sama if he has some medicine to raise your intelligence to the level of an average dog! That way, the Sound Four can just be the four of you fuckers, and I can quit!"
With a face full of sheer resentment, Tayuya fired off a whole stream of venomous abuse.
What was remarkable was that normally, the other three would definitely snap back if she insulted them.
But today, they were completely quiet.
Kushina could easily tell something was off.
Those three-and-a-half male Sound ninja clearly all suffered at Naruto's hands.
Which, honestly, wasn't surprising.
Who was Naruto, after all? He was the guy whose technique could even one-shot battle-hardened veterans like Hiruzen Sarutobi and Jiraiya!
One spent his days peeping with a crystal ball, and the other was a world-famous author of highly questionable smut novels.
If even those two could be taken down by Naruto's technique—and Naruto did it through pure visual impact alone, without any physical contact—then when Naruto proudly said he practiced it longer than the Rasengan, that was obviously not an empty boast.
A high-level technique like that, used against three-and-a-half isolated underlings of Orochimaru? That was child's play.
The academic atmosphere in the old Sound Village basically wasn't much different from Danzō's Root.
Everyone there had long since reached the point where even a pig would look like a beauty.
Just think about how pitiful Sai was in the original timeline.
In his eyes, both Sakura and Ino were ugly, and yet he still had to force himself to praise them.
In the end, he was pressured into marrying "plain-looking but kind-hearted" Ino.
How tragic.
As for these three from Sound, the only difference between them and Sai was that their aesthetic sense was normal.
But inside, they were just as deeply empty.
What? You mean Tayuya? With that rough voice and explosive temper, the other three never thought of her as a woman in the first place.
There was even less chance of any fantasy there.
After all, perverted as those three might be, they hadn't reached that desperate level.
"So how exactly did Naruto convince you?" Kushina asked Tayuya curiously.
The Flying Thunder Formation required four people to activate.
Naruto could use his sexy technique to deal with the male idiots, but what about Tayuya?
Kushina suddenly remembered the cursed technique Naruto once used on her: Reverse Sexy Transformation: Makoto.
Had that technique not been banned already?!
"Don't even bring it up! When that little blond brat saw I wasn't agreeing, he immediately got ready to pull out some solidified toad oil and throw it at me! It grossed me out so badly that I hurried up and sent his ass to Konoha so he could go ruin someone else's day! That kid's got something seriously wrong with his head! He's worse than Jūgo during one of his murder episodes!" Tayuya answered with a deeply miserable, traumatized expression.
"…"
Kushina comforted herself inwardly.
'Naruto is only acting like a psycho because he thinks he's in a genjutsu world. Once we tell him the truth, everything will go back to normal!'
"Rin, are you coming back to Konoha with me, or staying here?" Kushina asked once she decided to leave.
"I'll come with you. I need to explain my current situation to Kakashi anyway, and I also want to ask him about a few things," Rin nodded.
The Sound Four didn't say anything further.
They activated the Flying Thunder Formation and teleported the two of them away.
Kushina bore all the obvious signs of Edo Tensei, and as Orochimaru's subordinates, the Sound Four knew exactly what Edo Tensei meant.
There was absolutely no need to ask stupid questions.
Once they arrived at the teleportation point above the Hokage Monument—the Konoha-exclusive destination—Kushina said a few words to Rin and then split up with her.
Kushina felt that what was about to happen might get a little too violent, and it was probably not something kind-hearted Rin needed to watch.
Rin should go handle her own business instead.
As for Naruto, Kushina simply asked one of the Konoha ninja standing guard by the teleportation point.
After getting a rough location, she leaped down.
She didn't stop to ask random pedestrians for directions. In her view, since Naruto believed he was still in the genjutsu world, he was totally bound to cause a massive disturbance.
All she had to do was head in the general direction and keep an eye out for commotion nearby.
And sure enough, when she passed an inn, she spotted a massive crowd gathered around something.
But when she rushed over, she discovered it wasn't Naruto.
It was someone who felt oddly familiar despite being someone she never actually met in person.
—Killer B.
Killer B had come out to find Naruto to hang out with, and he was apparently also carrying out some mission at the same time.
At that very moment, he was performing his rap energetically in broad daylight.
The reason he felt familiar was because Minato once fought both Killer B and the Fourth Raikage.
That battle should originally have been Kushina's to fight—jinchūriki versus jinchūriki was the normal kind of match in war.
But Minato single-handedly prevented her from ever going to that dangerous battlefield.
Afterward, though, Minato still told her all about the muscle-bound brothers.
So although Kushina never met Killer B while she was alive, based on Minato's descriptions, the giant rapping man in front of her had to be him.
And on top of that, he was one of the major contributors to helping Naruto learn to control the Nine-Tails!
"Naruto's a real good dude, me and Naruto just bonded a lot too~ Yeah! Fool, ya fool!" Killer B made some totally strange gestures while rapping.
Kushina, who had been about to leave, froze dead in her tracks on the rooftop.
'Killer B mentioned Naruto?! So Naruto must have run into Killer B just now…'
Wait.
What exactly had Killer B said in that rap?!
Kushina's expression suddenly morphed into pure horror.
'Could it be… Could it be that after being defeated by Minato all those years ago, Killer B already developed some complicated feelings toward him—and now that Minato was dead, he shifted his twisted attention straight to his son, Naruto?!'
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