"Minato? Minato?"
His companion's call rang beside Minato Namikaze's distracted ears, pulling his thoughts, which had drifted off somewhere unknown, back to reality.
After shaking his head, Minato looked at Haruto Yamanaka, who was staring at him with a deep frown, and asked somewhat awkwardly,
"Wh-what is it, Haruto? Why did you suddenly…"
"You're the one who suddenly sat there spacing out, Minato."
Haruto Yamanaka reached out to touch Minato's forehead while speaking earnestly.
"I can understand your worry and caution toward that Rei Kaguya. Honestly, knowing that there is a foreign shinobi as strong as a monster running around inside the Land of Fire, even I, who have never seen him or fought him, instinctively feel pressure.
"But Minato, Rei Kaguya has already run off to the Land of Rice Fields. Can't you treat your body a little better and return to the village to rest properly for a while? Don't forget, you do not have the Uzumaki clan's physique. If you do not recuperate properly after being injured, you will leave behind very troublesome permanent hidden wounds."
"Don't I have you by my side, Haruto?"
Minato scratched his head and gave Haruto Yamanaka a trusting look.
"As long as I receive treatment every day according to your arrangements, the recovery effect should not be much worse than lying in bed to recuperate, right?"
"Go say that to Kushina!"
Haruto Yamanaka punched Minato on the head, neither too lightly nor too heavily.
Then he bent down and began changing Minato's medicine.
While forcefully securing the bandages and making Minato continuously hiss from the pain, Haruto spoke irritably.
"And because I have to accompany you while you run around on the front line, I have already fallen behind on treating several patients. If you have even a little awareness as a Hokage candidate, hurry up and hand the surveillance mission over to someone else, then come back with me and recuperate properly!"
"Ahahaha, about that…"
Just as Minato was thinking about how to play dumb and muddle through Haruto Yamanaka's questioning, a Konoha shinobi who was also responsible for surveillance and sensory duties rushed into the room and shouted at Minato, who was receiving treatment.
"Lord Minato, bad news…"
"What happened?"
Minato immediately switched back to the reliable demeanor he usually had during missions and calmly soothed the Konoha shinobi's emotions.
The other party was not some rookie who had just entered the battlefield either. After taking a few quick breaths, he spoke rapidly and clearly.
"Just now, a member of our squad received an urgent message from Lord Orochimaru. He requested that we must transfer the intelligence carried by this summoned snake to you at once. Since Lord Orochimaru is not carrying out the same mission as us, we judged that this is most likely an urgent request for aid…"
After speaking, he handed over a small snake wrapped around his arm to Minato.
After taking the scroll from the snake's mouth and sweeping his eyes over it, Minato immediately stood up, grabbed his uniform and ninja tool pouch, and prepared to rush to the battlefield.
"Minato, wait!"
Haruto Yamanaka grabbed Minato's arm and asked worriedly,
"What happened? Why are you suddenly…"
"The Root capture squad sent after Rei Kaguya failed. They are now being hunted down by Rei Kaguya in return. Lord Shimura Danzo is among them as well."
Hiss—
Haruto Yamanaka sucked in a breath of cold air.
Then he tightened his grip on Minato's clothes even more, refusing to let him leave.
"If even that Danzo failed, what can you change by rushing over while covered in injuries?"
"I can try to bring Lord Danzo back."
Minato's gaze was firm and sharp.
"The current village cannot do without Lord Danzo's Root. If he is killed by Rei Kaguya, the village will fall into great turmoil because of that news!"
"Prepare yourself, Haruto. I will be back right away!"
The moment his voice fell, Minato Namikaze's figure vanished from the room.
…
Relying on his perception of the Flying Thunder God mark on Rei Kaguya's body, Minato Namikaze instantly arrived at Rei's battlefield.
However, in the next second after appearing, he immediately used the Body Flicker Technique to adjust his position again, escaping Rei Kaguya's regular attack range.
At the same time, he threw a large number of Flying Thunder God kunai around him, making thorough preparations to maneuver around Rei.
Only after finishing all this did Minato finally have time to check the situation around him.
Then he heard Rei Kaguya teasing him in an extremely relaxed tone.
"You came late this time, Minato Namikaze."
At the same time, a figure whose lower half had already been severed, lying on the ground with more breath leaving than entering as he waited for death, entered Minato's sight.
That figure was naturally Shimura Danzo, who had failed to escape alive.
"How could…"
"How could it not?"
Rei Kaguya turned his head and looked at Minato Namikaze's face full of disbelief, then chuckled.
"You did not actually think someone like Shimura Danzo, who cannot play many tricks, could fight me evenly like you did, going back and forth in a stalemate, did you?"
It could only be said that before obtaining Sharingan resurrection coins, Shimura Danzo's combat system was still a little too simple in Kage-level battles.
Taijutsu, Wind Release, sealing techniques, and a three-tomoe Sharingan obtained from somewhere.
Those were all the methods Shimura Danzo could currently use against an enemy.
Taijutsu obviously could not compare to Rei Kaguya, who specialized in that path and had the cheating Kekkei Genkai of Dead Bone Pulse strengthening him.
Wind Release was not so weak that it could not even break his defense, but wanting to rely on continuous Wind Release ninjutsu to deal fatal damage to Rei Kaguya was still far too much of a pipe dream.
Sealing techniques were indeed troublesome against most fragile shinobi, especially the Self-Cursing Seal that could activate upon contact and lock down the enemy's movements.
But relying on something like that to bind Rei Kaguya, whose strength had already surpassed some Tailed Beasts?
Impossible.
Not even a one-in-a-hundred-million chance existed.
As for that three-tomoe Sharingan whose original owner was unknown…
It was better not to make things too difficult for it.
Thus, Shimura Danzo, who could not surpass Rei Kaguya in any aspect, fell into an overwhelming disadvantage with no chance of reversal in a single exchange.
Danzo had originally hoped that Orochimaru, who had also been targeted, could help share some pressure.
But when he saw Orochimaru get dismantled by Rei Kaguya in a few moves into an unbelievably disgusting snake shed, then never appear again, he finally realized the fact that he had been abandoned.
And then he completely despaired.
No matter how much ambition he had, no matter how much unwillingness he carried, no matter how much regret remained…
None of it could change the fate of being killed on the spot by Rei Kaguya and becoming a stepping stone for the other party's rising fame.
"Damn it. At least I have to bring Lord Danzo's body back—"
Minato Namikaze gritted his teeth and threw several Flying Thunder God kunai toward Shimura Danzo's remains.
But almost the instant the kunai left his hand, Rei Kaguya's Ten-Finger Drilling Bullets shot toward him.
"Do not even think about it."
Although Minato avoided all the hidden weapons by a hair's breadth, he lost the best chance to retrieve Shimura Danzo because of it.
He could only watch as Rei Kaguya swung the bone blade in his hand, severed Danzo's head, then spread open a blank scroll and sealed the head and body together.
"Rei… Kaguya!"
"Don't call me in such a scary tone. I am clearing obstacles for your path after you rise to become the Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze."
While tossing the sealing scroll up and down, thinking about how much bounty Shimura Danzo's body could be exchanged for on the black market, Rei casually asked Minato, whose face was filled with grief and anger,
"If I told you that, in the beginning, I only wanted to drag away a little of Konoha's and your attention to reduce pressure on the front line, and that I truly never thought about doing anything to your Konoha higher-ups… would you believe me, Minato Namikaze?"
"…I believe you."
Minato did not think the other party needed to play mind games with him over something like this.
Nor did he think Rei's journey north had been an act.
But precisely because he could sense that the other party was not lying, the sacrifices of several dozen Root elites and Shimura Danzo himself felt even more like an absurd farce no one could laugh at.
Rei Kaguya looked at Minato with some surprise, then shrugged and spoke indifferently.
"If you believe me, then take the news back to Konoha. Why are you still staring at me? Wasting time?"
Seeing Rei Kaguya put the sealing scroll into the ninja tool pouch at his waist, looking as if he truly intended to leave just like that, Minato fell silent for a moment.
Then he shouted at Rei's back,
"What exactly is your goal in leaving the frontal battlefield!? You should know very well that after being severely wounded by you, I cannot recklessly use the Flying Thunder God Technique to cut into your side and massacre the Kirigakure shinobi around you anymore…"
Rei Kaguya stopped walking.
After thinking for a moment, he replied slowly.
"Very sharp. But even if you ask, I will not answer that question."
"Rather than caring about what my true goal is, you should pay more attention to Konoha, which is about to become turbulent because of Danzo's death, Minato Namikaze."
"Do not forget. The ninja village watching your Konoha is not only our Kirigakure."