A moment later, Minato entered the tent where Kimu and the other five Uchiha were being held. The Hyuga had confirmed that Yuji was not in the immediate vicinity.
They surmised that Yuji had most likely followed the Sand Village army to the main battlefield.
The moment Minato stepped inside, he noticed something was wrong.
Kimu and the other five all had their Sharingan activated. They were standing completely upright, like wooden stakes driven into the ground. Their limbs were rigid and their expressions were locked in extreme tension.
Most importantly, judging from the conditions inside the tent, the Uchiha clan members showed absolutely no signs of having been punished or physically restrained by the Sand Village.
On the contrary, they appeared entirely free to move. And yet their gazes were completely devoid of emotion. There was no awareness, no recognition, no spirit behind their eyes whatsoever.
"Kimu. I am Namikaze Minato."
Minato frowned slightly but immediately kept his voice low and cautious.
"I am going to take you away now."
As he finished speaking and moved to step forward and place a Flying Thunder God mark on the nearest Uchiha, Kimu suddenly drew his sword and thrust it directly at him.
At that range, fortunately Minato's reflexes were fast enough to dodge. Anyone else standing in that position would most likely have been hit.
Before Minato could even speak again, the other four Uchiha clan members immediately rushed at him simultaneously and launched a coordinated attack.
Outside the headquarters at the same moment, the Konoha Chunin and the Hyuga clan member were both sitting with a growing sense of unease.
The Hyuga, despite being a Jonin himself, found his thoughts drifting to a genuine sense of admiration for Minato.
This junior was truly outstanding. During the initial clash with the Sand Village, amid the chaos of the battlefield, he had forced Yuji to redirect his attention and prevented him from killing more clan members.
Later, he had single-handedly located the Sand Village's hidden pharmaceutical storage stronghold and taken their medical resources, directly hindering the Sand Village's battlefield medical capabilities.
And now he was leading this infiltration to rescue Kimu and the others. Without Minato, rescuing the Uchiha would have been a pipe dream for Konoha. Every action he had taken carried extreme personal risk, and yet his composure throughout had been remarkable.
Furthermore, before entering the Sand Village headquarters, Minato had already secretly placed Flying Thunder God markers at several points along the approach route. That level of methodical precaution demonstrated the depth of his planning.
Judging from the overall battlefield situation between the two villages, the only person in the Konoha army currently capable of holding their own against Yuji in a direct one-on-one engagement was Minato.
While the Hyuga was thinking through all of this, his expression suddenly changed.
Through his Byakugan, he saw that the Uchiha clan members inside the tent were attacking Minato.
"What is happening?"
He was instantly stunned.
A second later, a chill ran through his entire body as though he had been plunged into ice water.
He reacted immediately, grabbing the person beside him and leaping more than ten meters in a single motion, landing on the forest floor below. He channeled his chakra and entered a combat stance in the same motion.
Looking back at the tree where they had just been sitting, he saw a small sharp throwing blade embedded in the branch. And the tree trunk itself had been cut completely in two by a swaying silver-glowing thread, the upper half crashing to the ground.
"I had almost forgotten. The Hyuga clan's Byakugan achieves nearly three hundred and sixty degrees of vision with almost no blind spots. A conventional surprise attack would not be particularly effective."
A burst of easy laughter came from above.
Standing on another withered tree and looking down at them was a figure carrying himself with complete composure despite the situation below.
Long flowing black hair. Green Jonin-level chainmail armor. A ninja helmet with a forehead protector that barely covered part of his forehead.
Yuji.
He had anticipated Minato's arrival from the beginning. He had known they would be desperate to rescue the Uchiha and would come as quickly as possible.
Therefore he had deliberately used the Uchiha clan members as bait, turning them into a trap to draw Minato in. He had already detected their movements long before they reached the headquarters perimeter.
He had not expected, however, that the Hyuga clan would arrive alongside Minato quite this quickly.
Blood Doctor Yuji.
The Hyuga looked up at the young man and assumed a classic taijutsu stance, his expression carrying a mixture of genuine surprise and something approaching shock. At the same time, a realization landed clearly in his mind.
The enemy had anticipated their infiltration entirely.
Minato was in serious trouble inside that tent.
The other member of their squad, the Konoha Chunin who had just scrambled back to his feet, regained his composure despite his pale face.
His movements were somewhat flustered as he reached into his equipment and produced the tools of his particular specialty: a brush and a scroll of drawing cloth.
Yuji's eyebrow raised slightly.
He recognized immediately what kind of combat ability this Leaf Village Chunin possessed.
A Super Beast Imitator. A summoning technique that brought ink drawings to life as combat animals.
"No wonder they brought a Chunin along," Yuji said, the pieces clicking into place. "After rescuing Kimu and the others, they planned to use the Super Beast Imitator to cover their escape."
"Interesting," Yuji thought to himself.
At the same time, the Hyuga was also observing Yuji carefully. He noticed the young man's red eyes with their golden gleam and frowned despite himself.
Although the enemy was extraordinarily young, he did not dare underestimate him. Because the aura emanating from this youth produced an immediate and genuine sense of pressure.
In an instant, his pupils narrowed slightly.
The Hyuga's consciousness trembled. In his vision, the youth's figure suddenly became blurry, overlapping with itself. His body felt incredibly heavy in that same moment, as though it had been filled with lead.
But a second later, the Hyuga let out a soft controlled shout, and his consciousness snapped back to clarity.
"Remarkable."
Yuji was genuinely surprised. His Immobilization Technique, which even an Uchiha Jonin had been unable to quickly dispel, had been thrown off by this Hyuga clan member.
"His eyesight is just the foundation. It is purely observational in nature. The Byakugan is undoubtedly more comprehensive in its coverage than the Sharingan.
He must have noticed the chakra movement within my body the moment before the technique activated, been vigilant enough to register the warning, and then immediately controlled his own internal chakra to counter it."
Yuji continued processing the analysis even as he moved.
It was worth noting that he could similarly observe the chakra fluctuations within the Hyuga's body in real time.
Acting on this understanding, he swung his hand instantly. Countless blades intertwined in the air and descended on the position where the two Konoha ninja were standing at extraordinary speed, sealing off their space from multiple angles simultaneously.
The throwing blades came too fast. The Leaf Village Chunin could not react in time. He did not even manage to raise his brush.
Eight Trigrams: Heavenly Spin!
The Hyuga stomped his foot and released an enormous surge of Gentle Fist chakra from his body's internal energy channels. He spun like a top, generating an unbreakable rotating chakra shield that expanded outward.
Not only did it protect himself, it deflected every single throwing blade away from his Chunin companion as well.
"Absolute defense," Yuji observed, watching for a moment.
He concluded that even his Blood Release might not be able to break through the full power of this man's Heavenly Spin. In terms of pure defensive capability, it was genuinely astonishing.
Bang.
The moment his body completed its rotation and the spin ended, Yuji immediately launched a palm strike toward the Hyuga's position, sending a chakra shockwave erupting outward. Given the Hyuga's speed and reflexes, he could have easily chosen to dodge it.
Instead, having just moved to a new position, the Hyuga changed direction and actively closed in on Yuji.
The Hyuga clan's Gentle Fist relied primarily on taijutsu. Only at close range, combining with the Byakugan's precision targeting, could it be brought to its maximum effectiveness.
"Close combat," Yuji confirmed, seeing this.
He activated Red Scale Leap and Winged King simultaneously, pushing both Blood Release techniques to full output. His concern was that this Hyuga Jonin would prioritize defensive stalling and buy time until Minato returned.
Once the Flying Thunder God came back into the equation, his window for capturing the Hyuga alive would essentially close. Close-range combat was actually more to his preference anyway.
Eight Trigrams: Empty Palm!
After closing the distance to a precise point, the Hyuga thrust both hands forward simultaneously in the palm technique. The shockwave that erupted from the strike, encompassing the surrounding space with immense force, was extraordinary in its scale.
The ground beneath the Hyuga's feet churned and split. The large trees across a wide surrounding area were shattered and lifted into the air.