Chapter 6: Rescuing the Kidnapped Hinata

With a thunderous roar, two towering steel automatons suddenly emerged, completely sealing off the Cloud ninjas’ path of retreat. At the same time, a suffocating pressure descended upon the Cloud shinobi, as though something had locked them in place. Strange spiritual light began to coil around the walls and rooftops. Though uncertain of the nature of these lights, they instinctively understood that it would be unwise to touch any place touched by their glow, lest they meet a miserable end.

“In the name of a diplomatic mission, you enter the village in broad daylight, only to slink into the shadows to commit your petty intrigues. Your methods remind me of certain people I find particularly loathsome.”

As these words echoed out, a figure stepped forth from the darkness. He was a tall, lean young man with golden hair, clad in a uniform of unfamiliar design, his chest bedecked with medals. It was Naruto.

He had concealed himself using optical camouflage generated by his power core. The guise he wore was that of himself at thirty, just before his retirement from the battlefield. Of course, the steel automatons and the uncanny spiritual light were also illusions, conjured by Naruto manipulating minute particles with his spiritual machinery. Weakening and bewildering the enemy before a fight was a tactic he had perfected.

“What? The Yellow Flash of the Leaf?”

The leader of the Cloud shinobi, upon recognizing Naruto’s form, spoke with a trembling voice, “How can you be here? Weren’t you dead?”

The other ninjas were visibly shaken. This was the Yellow Flash, after all!

Naruto raised an eyebrow. He knew of the Yellow Flash—Minato Namikaze, the eternal pride of the Hidden Leaf, the Fourth Hokage, and the man who had sealed the Nine-Tails within him. Yet the appearance he now wore was clearly his own, aged thirty—why, then, did outsiders mistake him for Minato Namikaze?

A question unexpectedly surfaced in Naruto’s mind: why had Minato sealed the Nine-Tails within his own child, and not some other infant?

As he pondered this, a wild possibility struck him, one that seemed almost absurd—could he be Minato Namikaze’s son?

Naruto did not dwell on how likely this guess was, but he trusted his instincts, which had saved him countless times from the brink of death. He suspected his intuition was right.

“That fool,” Naruto thought, passing a merciless judgment on the man who was likely his father. Aloud, he said, “Release the hostage. This is an order, not a negotiation.”

“How arrogant!”

The Cloud ninjas, known for their martial tempers, were quick to anger. With a furious roar, their leader summoned his chakra, lightning crackling around him as he prepared to attack at any moment.

“Even if you are the Yellow Flash—even if you’re not dead—you’ll never make us abandon our mission!” the leader spat, his voice venomous. “Your era is over! The Leaf’s era is over! This is the era of the Cloud!”

He hurled the small figure slung over his shoulder into the air, then charged straight at Naruto with a kunai.

“Foolish.”

A ripple shimmered before Naruto, and the incoming kunai was caught, suspended midair. Upon closer inspection, countless motes of dust and metal fragments had immobilized the weapon.

But far from disappointment, the Cloud leader’s face split into a triumphant grin. Behind him, the small figure he had tossed was now plummeting from the sky. A Cloud ninja leapt upward, ready to catch the falling child, while others scattered in multiple directions. Some charged the illusory automatons, hoping to distract them, while others tried to skirt around and escape the scene.

Who are the real fools now?

Naruto read this question in the Cloud leader’s self-satisfied expression. Watching the Cloud ninjas struggle against mirages and empty air, Naruto simply shook his head. His earlier remark of “foolish” had never been about the leader’s desperate attack. It was about their stubborn refusal to heed his command.

A scream tore through the air, drawing everyone’s attention. The ninja who had leapt for the falling child had his throat pierced from below by a flying spiritual spindle. The instant the spindle passed through his neck, a golden-haired figure flashed into existence beside it—Naruto himself.

The Naruto standing before the Cloud leader shimmered and vanished, exposed as an illusion.

Lightly springing from the Cloud ninja’s shoulder, Naruto lunged to catch the falling child.

“When did he—?!”

The Cloud leader’s voice trembled with terror. This was the Yellow Flash! There was no mistaking it.

In that instant, the Cloud shinobi felt as though ice, not blood, coursed through their veins. They swallowed hard. They had long heard of the unwritten rule among the nations’ ninjas during the Third Great Ninja War: when confronted with the Yellow Flash on the battlefield, one was permitted to abandon the mission and retreat. It was neither failure nor shame, for the Yellow Flash’s strength defied all reason.

A moment ago, they had clung to the hope that perhaps the Leaf had sent an impostor to intimidate them. Now those hopes were dashed—they knew they might not survive, but even so, they braced for battle. For the martial pride of the Cloud, they would die with dignity if nothing else.

“Yellow Flash! Watch closely—today you’ll witness the true strength of the Cloud!”

The lead ninja roared and charged at Naruto. Yet, it was over in an instant.

Spiritual spindles danced through the air like butterflies among flowers, and in the blink of an eye, every Cloud ninja present had their throat pierced. In his final moments, the Cloud leader’s eyes widened as he looked at Naruto.

“You’re not... Sand...”

He had witnessed Naruto’s technique and realized this man could not be the Yellow Flash. Minato Namikaze was a commoner with no bloodline limit—he could not possibly use the Sand’s Magnet Release. The leader had mistaken Naruto’s spiritual machinery for the Magnet Release, but he would never have the chance to voice his judgment.

The Leaf responded swiftly. Naruto had dispatched the Cloud ninjas in less than five minutes. Within moments, the Leaf’s pursuit force and the Uchiha clan’s police unit arrived on the scene. By the time they reached the battleground, the conflict was already over. All that remained were the Cloud ninja corpses strewn across the ground and the two small figures lying nearby.

Their mysterious savior was long gone.

“Hinata!”

From among the Leaf pursuers, a ninja with long, straight black hair broke from the ranks and rushed toward one of the small figures.

Indeed, the hostage—slung over the Cloud leader’s shoulder at the start—was Hinata Hyuga. The man now racing toward her was her father, Hiashi Hyuga, current head of the renowned Hyuga clan of the Hidden Leaf.