Hidden Leaf, Hidden Talents 118 (Patreon)

The waves crashing against the cliffs below the mansion looked less like nature and more like a giant, angry washing machine trying to swallow the coastline. I was sitting there on the roof tiles, casually spinning that silver dagger I’d swiped off that enemy nin a while back. The clack-clack of the metal kept my hands busy, but it wasn't doing a damn thing to stop the anxiety bouncing around inside my chest. Every minute I wasted sitting here was another minute Kushina and the others were in deep crap.

If I actually had the Animal Path unlocked, we wouldn't even be having this conversation. I’d just summon a bird the size of a suburban house and be halfway to Uzushio by now. But no, my Rinnegan was apparently the budget trial version. Aside from the Deva Path, every single useful feature was completely grayed out.

The logic behind this nonsense felt busted. Nagato wasn't the original owner of his eyes either. Madara literally planted them in him as a kid, which is exactly what happened to me. We were both dealing with stolen property here, neither of us actually unlocked the eyes naturally. So how come he unlocked the whole damn skill tree while I was still trapped in the tutorial area? What was he doing that I wasn't?

When you really look at how eye powers work in this world, the whole system is kind of screwed up. Take the Sharingan, for example. It doesn't care if you hit the gym or eat your vegetables. It only wakes up when you hit a massive wall of emotional trauma or lose someone you love. The brain basically panics, pumps a very specific flavor of chakra straight into the optic nerves, and just like that, congratulations, your eyes mutated.

Maybe the Rinnegan runs on the exact same blueprint. Nagato spent his entire childhood dragging himself through a war zone, watching everyone around him die, and collecting psychological trauma like trading cards. The sheer amount of constant, brutal loss probably flooded his system with the exact chemical cocktail needed to force those paths open.

It was a solid theory. But knowing the science behind it didn't do anything to fix my immediate problem. How the hell am I supposed to replicate that level of extreme mental breakdown on command?

A few ideas popped into my head, but genjutsu seemed like the most practical route. Every single example I could think of in this world pointed to the same exact conclusion. The human brain is incredibly gullible if the illusion is sharp enough.

Look at Sasuke. He technically woke up his basic Sharingan during the Uchiha massacre out of pure shock, but his mind immediately blocked the memory out. Years later, Itachi cornered him in that hotel hallway and forced him to watch his parents get murdered hundreds of thousands of times inside a Tsukuyomi loop. The sheer, manufactured psychological weight of that nightmare was exactly what forced Sasuke’s dormant Sharingan to wake back up and aggressively mature later on.

Then you have Izumi Uchiha. Itachi hit her with a Tsukuyomi that forced her to live out an entire hypothetical, eighty-year life with him in a fraction of a second. It was so hyper-realistic and convincing that her brain completely accepted the illusion as biological fact. When she died of old age inside the genjutsu, her physical body in the real world just gave up and died right along with it.

And right there is the loophole. The Sharingan and the Rinnegan aren't magical mutations waiting for some outside sorcery. They are just biological reactions to a psychological state. The brain can't actually tell the difference between a real tragedy and a perfectly executed illusion. If you genuinely believe you are watching the person you love die, your brain is going to fire the exact same neurological signals. It releases the exact same chakra. The eyes change because the body thinks it doesn't have a choice.

In theory, I could use a high-tier genjutsu to trick my own brain into dumping that specific chakra, which would forcefully unlock the rest of my Rinnegan paths.

But every beautiful theory eventually slams headfirst into reality. To trick a mind like mine, the illusion would have to be flawless. Plus, ever since I got the Rinnegan, I’ve inherited this ridiculous level of passive sensory perception. I’m basically a walking radar now, which means my sensitivity to outside chakra tampering is cranked up to a stupid degree. If I notice even a tiny, unnatural ripple in my own system, the whole magic trick falls apart and my brain resets. I doubt anything short of a Tsukuyomi-level genjutsu could even touch me at this point, assuming it would work at all. I’d need a high-tier specialist on the level of Itachi Uchiha to actually pull it off.

And there wasn't a single genius of that caliber anywhere near this house.

Right then, the soft pitter-patter of small footsteps drifted up from the balcony below me.

Through the open door and the fluttering white curtains, a small, familiar figure stepped out onto the stone floor. She looked around the empty room with a confused tilt of her head.

"The door is open..." she murmured, hugging her elbows while the cool sea breeze nipped at her skin. "Shinji-san? Are you in here?"

I dropped down from the roof and landed perfectly on the wooden railing right behind her. Still in a crouch, I leaned in and gave her shoulder a light poke.

"Yo."

"Kyaaa!"

She let out this tiny, high-pitched yelp and nearly jumped out of her skin before spinning around to face me. The second her big eyes registered it was me, her face melted into a massive, exaggerated pout. She crossed her arms and huffed out a breath just to make sure I knew exactly how unhappy she was with the jump scare.

"Shinji-san! That is so mean!" she huffed, glaring at me. "You can’t just... just drop out of the sky like a ghost! It’s not good for my heart!"

"My bad, my bad," I laughed, getting comfortable on the railing. "The view was just better from up there. Besides, isn't it way past your bedtime? You’ve had a huge day, and tomorrow is going to be just as long. The other Uzumaki already went to bed. Go get some sleep, and we can talk in the morning."

"I can't," she whispered. "If I don't say it right now, I'm just going to stay awake all night thinking about it anyway."

She took a small step toward me, her voice shaking a little bit but sounding determined.

"The adults... we didn't just run away because we were scared to fight. There’s a reason for everything. I just... I really want you to understand that, Shinji-san."

She looked incredibly serious, her tiny hands clenched into tight fists. If my time around Kushina had taught me anything, it was that once a red-haired Uzumaki gets that look on their face, logic officially leaves the building. It’s a terrifying, stubborn genetic trait, and I knew better than to test my luck.

I let out a soft sigh and waved my hand to tell her to keep going. "Alright, alright. You win. Let's hear it. What’s bothering you badly enough that you can’t even sleep?"

Honoka stepped a little closer, dropping her voice to a whisper while she tried her absolute best to make her childish face look incredibly serious. It was adorable, like a tiny puppy standing on a chair because it wanted to participate in the serious adult conversation.

"There's a traitor in the village," she declared solemnly. "That’s why the village fell so fast. It's why everyone had to run away from the island in such a panic... at least, that’s what I overheard the adults talking about earlier. And I think they're right! There is absolutely no way our village could lose like that. We were way too strong for those Kiri barbarians to beat. I know we were."

I didn't laugh. Looking at her, it would have been easy to just write it off as a kid grasping at straws to make sense of a tragedy, but her conclusion wasn't completely crazy. In fact, it actually bridged a few logical gaps.

If you looked at the records, Uzushio was supposed to have the strongest sealing barriers out of all the hidden villages. It was literally their entire brand. For a fortress like that to crumble so fast didn't make sense unless the defensive line was compromised from the inside.

"A traitor, huh?" I murmured, tapping my chin.

It certainly explained the sheer volume of Uzumaki refugees scattered across the continent. They didn't run because they were cowards. They ran because the sudden collapse happened so fast, so utterly out of nowhere, that they never even had the chance to form a proper defense. They were compromised before the first kunai was even thrown.

"See? You believe me, right?" Honoka said, looking up at me with a mix of relief and lingering anxiety.

"That's actually a really good theory," I replied, softening my voice and giving her a small, reassuring smile to take the edge off the heavy topic. I reached out and gently patted her red hair. "You've got a good head on your shoulders, Honoka. Trust me, I believe you. But even a master detective needs to recharge her batteries. The mystery isn't going anywhere tonight, and neither am I. Go to sleep."

It took a little more gentle nudging, but I finally managed to usher her back inside, watching until her small figure disappeared safely into the mansion's lower halls.

The door clicked shut. I stopped smiling.

"So, has the guy started talking yet?" I asked the empty air.

A figure shifted in the deep shadows clinging to the corner of the roof. Shinku Yuhi stepped into the dim light looking pretty grim.

"Yes," Shinku said, his voice low. "And it’s exactly as we suspected. The Kaigan Trading Company is working hand-in-hand with Kirigakure. The Uzumaki prisoners we found here... they were scheduled to be loaded onto a transport ship bound for Kiri the day after tomorrow."

I leaned back against the stone railing, lazily flipping the silver dagger while pale moonlight danced across the blade. "Is this the first batch they've moved?"

Shinku hesitated. That silence stretched out for a second, heavy with the answer I already knew was coming.

"No," he admitted, looking down. "It's the second."

Before I could say anything, Shinku took a step toward me, his face tight with concern. "Shinji... Taichou, this isn't our mission. Digging into an international human trafficking ring is a massive political nightmare. Our orders were strictly to scope out the Land of Eddies. We should just document everything, report back to Konoha, and let the village handle a proper rescue operation."

I couldn't help it, I let out a soft, dry chuckle.

"Don't look so worried, Yuhi. You're giving me way too much credit," I said, catching the dagger and letting the flat of the blade rest against my palm. "I'm not nearly as heroic as you seem to think I am. In fact, I'm actually pretty selfish."

I narrowed my eyes as I looked out over the dark ocean.

"Even if I suddenly felt the urge to go play savior, the odds are garbage. That first batch is probably deep inside Kiri territory by now. Trying to sneak into the Hidden Mist for a prison break isn't a rescue mission. It’s just a really complicated way to commit suicide."

Don get me wrong, I’m not completely heartless. I wouldn't mind playing the hero if the situation actually called for it. If Kushina were anywhere in that first batch, I’d already be halfway across the ocean by now, rules and mission be damned. But logically, that just wasn't the case. I had to assume she was safe, mostly because I was pinning my hopes on the people currently looking after her.

Well, specifically, I was pinning my hopes on Jiraiya.

It wasn't an issue of trust with Minato. I had nothing against the guy. He was my neighbor and my closest friend, but the universe seemed to have a really twisted sense of humor when it came to his track record. Later down the line, once he fully masters that teleportation jutsu of his, everyone is going to celebrate him as the fastest shinobi to ever live. The Yellow Flash. A golden god of speed.

And yet, despite being the fastest, the man is historically always late to the things that actually matter. Late to save Obito. Late to save Rin. Late to save his own wife. It’s a tragic paradox. The fastest man alive, doomed to always arrive right after the curtain falls.

So yeah, as much as it pains me to admit it, I’d rather bet my money on the old pervert.

I hated relying on Jiraiya. The guy was the absolute poster child for deadbeat parenting, and to this very day, he still hasn't muttered a single word to me, or anyone else, about being my biological father. He was probably still operating under the hilarious delusion that I was in the dark about our little genetic connection. I didn't care to correct him, but it didn't mean I had to like him.

"For now," I continued, pocketing the dagger with a subtle click, "we just focus on what’s right in front of us. Let the higher-ups in Konoha lose sleep over the trafficking rings. We already have our hands full right here."

The thing about human garbage like the Kaigan Company is that they're incredibly resource-heavy. They have networks, shipping lanes, and official stamps. If you just lock them in a dark room, you're letting perfectly good infrastructure go to waste. I've always been a big fan of recycling. When the universe hands you a corrupt logistics manager, the only logical move is to squeeze every last drop of utility out of him until the gears finally strip. We had the tools, we had the prisoners, and it was time to put them to work.

"Since the Kaigan Trading Company and Kiri are currently sharing a bed, our friend downstairs just became incredibly useful," I said. "Go back down there and 'convince' him to do us a favor."

"A favor?"

"A little smuggling operation," I replied, a slow, pleasant smile creeping back onto my face. "Since the Kaigan Company has an established routine, our overseer is going to take us across the border himself. He’s already got the clearance, the ships, and the perfect cover. All he has to do is act like he’s making a sudden, unscheduled run to the Land of Eddies to secure more 'merchandise' before the market dries up. Kiri is definitely greedy enough to bite."

"Understood," Shinku nodded. "I'll make sure he sees the wisdom in cooperating."

With a faint rustle of wind, his presence vanished from the roof as he dropped back into the lower levels of the estate, leaving me alone with that gray washing machine of an ocean.

Suddenly, I froze.

A sharp, violent spike of feedback slammed into my head as a shadow clone's memory abruptly shoved its way into my brain. I gripped the edge of the stone railing, hard.

The clone died? How the hell did that happen?

I didn't waste another second standing around on the roof. Moving fast through the estate, I tracked down Dan. My senses flagged him in the dining room, and when I slid the door open, I found him just polishing off the last of his meal.

"Sorry to ruin your dinner," I said, stepping inside. "But we have a sudden change of plans. Yuhi and I are moving out for the Land of Eddies tonight, and we’re using the overseer as our ticket in. We’re splitting the team. You and Rei are going to take the Uzumaki refugees and escort them straight back to Konoha."

Dan stopped eating, setting his fork down with a click. He frowned, clearly scrambling for a flaw in my logic, desperate to put together an argument that would convince me this was a terrible idea.

"Wait a minute," he said, looking up with a hard stare. "Let's think about this before we do anything rash. Splitting our forces in enemy territory is too dangerous. We should stay together. We can find a quiet fishing village or a hidden port along the coast to shelter the Uzumaki temporarily. Once they're secure, we send word to Konoha, let the village dispatch an escort team, and keep our core squad intact."

"And you think leaving them behind isn't a massive gamble?" I said. "Kiri, Kumo, and the Kaigan company are actively hunting these people. Leaving them like sitting ducks in some random beach town is basically wrapping them up with a bow."

"There is always a risk, Taichou, but you are forgetting who we are dealing with," Dan said, keeping his voice calm even though he was obviously getting frustrated. "They aren't ordinary civilians. They're Uzumaki. Sure, half of them are kids who probably haven't even seen an academy graduation, but that bloodline counts for something. They're future shinobi. If we find a proper hiding spot, they have the capability to lay low and defend themselves until reinforcements arrive."

I took a slow breath. "It's a good point, Dan. Under normal circumstances, it’s exactly what we’d do. But right now, it’s off the table."

"Why?" Dan asked, tensing up as he caught the change in my tone.

"Because one of my shadow clones just got taken out by that enemy nin who escaped."

Dan actually flinched, his eyes going wide. He knew exactly how strong my clones were. Even if they didn't have the full power of the original body, they didn't just pop from some random nin. For someone to put one down meant we were dealing with a seriously dangerous wild card.

"How?" he muttered, his face falling into an immediate look of worry. "If a guy that dangerous is running around loose, won't it be a disaster if he brings back reinforcements or manages to notify Kiri's main vanguard?"

"Exactly. Which is why we are on the clock," I said, walking over and slapping a hand on his shoulder. "Shinku and I have to sail tonight. We don't have the luxury of spending hours scouting out the perfect, cozy hiding spot for these kids. We are out of time."

I gave his shoulder a quick, firm squeeze, looking him right in the eye. "I am counting on you, Dan. Get them back to Konoha safely."

Dan looked torn, the gears in his head grinding against the reality that our clock had basically run down to zero. He stared at the table for a long second, cornered by the facts, before he finally let out a heavy, defeated sigh.

"Fine," he muttered, rubbing his face. "We will move out under the cover of night. I will send word ahead to Konoha so the village can send a proper team to back you up in Uzu. Just... make sure you and Shinku don't get yourselves killed out there."

"Thanks, Dan. I appreciate it," I said, already turning on my heel toward the door. "We will see you back at the village."

Since we were officially racing against the clock, I didn’t waste any time. I headed straight down to the basement cells to check on Shinku’s progress with the captured overseer. Usually, interrogation is a delicate art, a slow dance of psychological pressure and breaking down walls.

Unfortunately, we didn’t have time for a dance. We needed a sprint.

The overseer was strapped to a heavy wooden chair, looking miserable and sweating right through his expensive silk robes while Shinku leaned over him like a disapproving shadow. The guy was holding out, but his trembling lower lip told me he was right on the edge of cracking.

"How is the negotiation going?" I asked, casually strolling into the cell.

"He is stubborn," Shinku muttered, never breaking eye contact with the prisoner. "He knows what Kiri does to traitors. He is more afraid of them than he is of us."

"An understandable business perspective," I sighed, stopping right in front of the chair and calmly rolling up my sleeves. "But it’s highly inconvenient for our current situation. Let me offer a quick medical consultation."

I walked up to the chair and let a low hum of green chakra buzz into my fingertips. I’ve always taken a certain pride in getting creative with my iryoninjutsu, and the human nervous system has a lot of fascinating little loopholes if you know where to press.

Let's just say that after about forty-five seconds of some highly unconventional biological encouragement, the overseer cracked.

Shipping routes. Naval patrol schedules. Harbor checkpoints. The man started spilling everything at machine-gun speed, begging to personally sail us past Kirigakure’s blockade and straight into the Land of Eddies.

By the time I stepped back, he was volunteering information we hadn't even asked for yet, rambling through company secrets and smuggling procedures like a man desperately trying to earn employee-of-the-month.

Talk about a model employee.

I turned around to find Shinku staring at me like he'd just discovered I belonged on several international watchlists.

"What?" I asked, wiping my hands on a cloth. "Why the face? Don't look at me like that, Yuhi. You are a genjutsu specialist. You literally trap people inside their own minds and torture them with vivid nightmares just to get them to talk. Frankly, we are two peas in a highly questionable pod, so let's keep the commentary on my medical ethics to a minimum."

Shinku opened his mouth to reply, but wisely decided to just shake his head.

His attitude shifted to being extra helpful, though, the moment I filled him in on the whole dead clone situation I had just dropped on Dan. Realizing our head start was officially burning away, he immediately stopped dragging his feet.

We ended up rounding up the Kaigan merchants and throwing them into a cage, while the rest of the mansion's staff got corralled into the large bedrooms. We weren't completely heartless, of course. We left them enough rations to last a few weeks if they were being very mindful about their portions. Though, honestly, I was pretty sure they were going to get rescued way sooner than that.

After all, my clone had botched his one job and let that enemy nin get away.

I couldn’t bring myself to completely blame the poor guy, though. The fleeing nin clearly wasn't some ordinary Jonin. The man had managed to stubbornly push back the combined trio of Dan, Yuhi, and Rei before finally making a break for it the moment I joined the fray. Still, it was definitely my clone's fault for underestimating him even after knowing all that, getting himself popped like a cheap balloon before he could even flex the Rinnegan.

Though, if I really thought about it, I wondered if that was actually a blessing in disguise. It certainly wasn't the worst outcome. If my clone had pulled out the Rinnegan and still somehow failed to kill the guy? Now that would have been an absolute disaster. At least this way, our biggest secrets stayed in the dark.

…

-Minato-

Minato twisted sideways in midair just as three shuriken sliced past his face. His sandals touched a tree branch for barely half a heartbeat before he kicked off again. A blur rose behind him from the mist, silent and fast. Minato didn't even look.

His heel slammed right into a man's ribs, hurling him deep into the mist below.

A splash echoed somewhere beneath the fog.

Minato's eyes immediately flicked right again.

Kushina.

She was still beside him.

Thank God.

She was holding her own, too, but he could already tell she was getting seriously annoyed. A Kiri ninja lunged at her from the side with a kunai, but Kushina just ducked under the blade, smashed an elbow into his jaw, and sent the guy spinning through the branches.

"Minato!" she yelled, wiping a streak of mud off her face.

"I'm keeping an eye out!"

"You're checking on me every three seconds, you dork! Focus!"

"I'm checking because you're reckless!"

Kushina stared at him like she couldn't believe he just said that. But before she could fire a comeback, another volley came screaming through the mist.

Minato hammered out some hand signs.

Futon: Daitoppa

The gust shredded half the incoming projectiles out of the air while Kushina batted the rest aside with a kunai.

Below them, the ocean crashed violently against the cliffs surrounding the island. Everywhere Minato looked, there was movement. Shadows jumping through the trees. Chakra signatures converging from every different angle.

There were too many of them. Way too many.

His eyes snapped farther ahead.

Jiraiya was still holding down the rear behind them. Or more accurately, Jiraiya-sensei was somehow keeping track of attacks coming from every possible direction simultaneously. Twelve Kiri nin had completely surrounded him. Six different kill angles. Blades, water bullets, ninja wire. One Mist guy even popped up from underground with a silent assassination strike aimed straight for Sensei's spine.

Jiraiya dodged all of it while moving through hand seals at an absurd speed.

Even for him, this was getting really bad.

And then Minato sensed even more chakra signatures approaching from deeper inside the island.

Nine more.

His stomach dropped. At this rate, he wondered if they were even going to get off this island alive. A rare drop of cold sweat rolled down his neck. The sheer, unending weight of Kirigakure’s vanguard was starting to feel suffocating. They were basically trying to fight a tidal wave with a handful of kunai.

Suddenly, a massive cloud of thick gray smoke exploded all around Jiraiya-sensei.

Minato blinked. ‘A smokescreen? No way, that isn't going to work...’ Sure enough, three of the Kiri nin immediately retaliated, weaving signs together to unleash a roaring gust that blew the smoke away.

But as the last layers of smoke got blown aside, Minato’s eyes widened.

Two small toads were sitting right on sensei's shoulders. One old male, one old female.

And suddenly—

Sensei blurred.

The branch beneath one Kiri jonin exploded apart.

A fist buried itself in the man's stomach before Minato's brain fully processed the acceleration.

Another enemy twisted aside to dodge a kick.

The kick still hit him anyway.

The Kiri shinobi folded sideways and crashed through three trees.

Minato just stared. What the hell? No, he definitely dodged that. He absolutely dodged that.

Another Kiri nin slipped right under one of Jiraiya's punches cleanly, but then blood suddenly sprayed from his face anyway, like he'd just been leveled by an invisible hammer. The guy went flying backward, screaming.

Minato's heart rate spiked. What is this?

Jiraiya-sensei was moving through the battlefield at a completely different level of speed now. He was faster, more agile, and every single movement felt impossible to predict.

One Kiri nin tried to attack from Jiraiya's blind spot, but Sensei didn't even bother turning around. His white hair suddenly hardened and shot backward like a twisting spear drill.

CLANG!

The guy's kunai just bounced off the hair uselessly right before the extending mass punched straight through the attacker's chest. The white strands burst out of the guy's back in a spray of blood. Then Jiraiya whipped the impaled ninja sideways like a giant flail, smashing him directly into another Kiri nin and sending both bodies crashing through the trees.

He'd never seen his sensei use anything like this before. The air itself felt different around him now. He wasn't just stronger, it felt like the entire battlefield was tilting in his favor.

Then Jiraiya slammed his palms together.

“Katon: Gamayu Endan!”

A massive, roaring torrent of thick oil erupted from his mouth.

The male toad inhaled deeply beside him.

"Futon!"

Compressed wind pressure smashed into the oil stream and atomized it across a horrifying radius.

The female toad followed immediately.

"Katon!"

The world turned orange.

A roaring tidal wave of burning oil swallowed half the forest.

Trees ignited instantly.

Several Kiri shinobi disappeared inside the expanding inferno before panicked voices immediately shouted through the flames.

"Suiton!"

Massive torrents of seawater slammed into the firestorm from multiple directions. The collision detonated across the battlefield with violent hissing explosions as boiling steam erupted in dense white clouds hot enough to peel skin.

The entire coastline vanished behind scalding vapor.

Branches burst apart from the pressure.

One Kiri shinobi stumbled screaming out of the steam with half his uniform fused to his arm before another explosion of superheated mist swallowed him again.

The heat wave slammed into Minato's face even from a distance, wet and blistering enough to make his skin sting. But his eyes lit up anyway. Recognizing the opening, he slipped closer, his hands moving in a blur of signs as he unleashed a gale. His wind current smashed into the expanding inferno, spreading it even wider across the paths where the enemies were coming from.

The firestorm ballooned outward violently.

Several newly arriving Kiri signatures disappeared almost immediately.

Jiraiya glanced back at him with a sharp grin, ignoring the heat and smoke.

"That's my student!"

Then his expression hardened again.

"Minato! Operation Make-Out Point is a go! Grab Kushina and MOVE!”

Minato froze.

"What about you, sensei?!"

"I'll manage!"

Minato bit his lip, his eyes flicking toward Kushina again. The answer was pretty obvious. Jiraiya-sensei didn't need backup, but Kushina definitely needed an escort. Forcing down the urge to stay and fight, he gave a sharp, resolute nod. "Understood! Don't you dare die here, sensei!"

Right then, sixteen new chakra signatures suddenly exploded from their left flank.

Everyone's heads snapped sideways.

Another Kiri squad.

Minato's heart dropped.

No—! His knuckles turned white as he prepared to push his body past its absolute limits to force a breach through sixteen nin.

Then, it felt like the universe just stopped.

Without a single sound, an invisible, crushing weight dropped over the battlefield. Something yanked all sixteen kiri shinobi sideways so violently it looked unreal.

Like invisible hooks had suddenly caught their bodies.

The entire formation got ripped screaming across the battlefield at high speed.

Some reacted fast enough to fight it.

One slammed a tanto into the ground to anchor himself.

Another spat a water bullet at the stone spikes erupting ahead.

A jonin near the rear flashed through hand seals and blasted the earth apart with a desperate earth-shattering jutsu that exploded half the incoming spikes into rubble.

For one second, it almost looked like they might survive it.

But then more spikes came.

The ground around them erupted again.

And again.

And again.

Stone pillars burst upward while the invisible force dragging them around violently changed direction midair like giant unseen hands were batting them across the battlefield.

One Kiri shinobi got yanked downward hard enough for both legs to snap backward before a spike punched up through his mouth and exploded out the top of his skull.

Another managed to leap free for half a heartbeat before the force suddenly reversed and slammed him sideways into three smaller spikes that tore through his ribs and stomach at the same time.

A woman screamed while trying to weave hand seals with one arm already pinned through the elbow. The earth beneath her exploded upward an instant later and split her torso open from hip to shoulder in a wet spray of blood and organs.

One man actually reached the trees.

Then the bark behind him bulged outward.

A stone spike burst horizontally through the trunk and skewered him through the spine before lifting him clean off the ground.

Bodies slammed into stone.

Blood sprayed across shattered rock and burning branches.

The screaming just wouldn't stop.

Some of them were still alive, twitching and coughing up blood, impaled several meters above the ground while more spikes slowly forced their way through flesh from the sheer pressure.

One Kiri nin was still desperately trying to pull himself off a spike through his stomach when another spear of stone erupted beneath his jaw and punched right out the top of his head.

Everything went still for a second.

Even the remaining Kiri nin froze.

Minato slowly lifted his head.

A figure was floating right above the battlefield, his black cloak fluttering lightly in the wind.

Cold dark eyes stared down over the burning forest.

It was Shinji's shadow clone.

Minato knew that expression wasn't directed at them.

It was aimed at the enemy.

Still—

A chill crawled up his spine anyway.

Somewhere deeper in the fog, more enemies suddenly appeared and started closing the distance.

Another squad.

But weirdly enough, Minato suddenly felt like they might actually make it out of this alive. Because Shinji was here. His heart leaped with a sudden, desperate surge of hope.

But then, the floating figure turned his head and looked right at him.

The terrifying, god-like aura instantly vanished, replaced by a tired, distinctly human look. The clone gave Minato a helpless little smile.

"Sorry, Minato. This is it for me."

Its voice sounded tired.

"I can't help more than this."

Then his eyes shifted briefly toward Kushina before returning to Minato.

"The rest is on you."

Before Minato could even shout ‘wait!’, the clone's form flickered violently and popped, dispersing into a harmless cloud of white smoke as its remaining chakra reserves completely bottomed out.

The sudden drop from absolute salvation back to cold reality made Minato's heart sink like a stone.

His face tightened.

"Kushina," he said sharply.

She already understood.

The two of them launched themselves through the burning forest at full speed.

Behind them, Jiraiya let out a loud laugh.

"Guess the brat still knows how to make an exit!"

Minato didn't look back again after that.

Because right now, nothing else mattered.

Not the island.

Not the Kiri squads flooding the coastline.

Not whatever insane battle Shinji was fighting somewhere out there badly enough that even his clone finally ran dry.

The only thing Minato cared about was the red-haired girl keeping pace beside him through the trees.

No matter what happened behind them—

He was getting Kushina off this island alive.

The two of them leapt across another stretch of burning forest while distant explosions echoed behind them.

Then, out of nowhere, Kushina suddenly said, "I've never seen Shinji use a jutsu like that before."

Minato blinked, completely thrown off. "...What?"

"The stone thing!" she said, her eyes weirdly bright despite the fact that everything was on fire. "The way he made all those Kiri ninja go whoosh through the air and then just... bam! Impaled everywhere. That was insane! Do you think he learned how to do that during the war?"

Minato stared at her for a second.

They were currently running for their lives from an island crawling with bloodthirsty Mist ninja, and Kushina was trying to gossip mid-escape.

"...I really don't think that’s the most important thing to focus on right now," he managed to say.

"It is important!" she shot back, her red hair fluttering like a flame behind her. "That was super cool, dattebane!"

A distant explosion lit the sky orange behind them.

She glanced over at him then, probably noticing the deeply complicated look on his face.

"...Though," she added in a much more comforting tone, "you’re not that far behind in the coolness department either, Minato."

He let out a helpless little laugh.

"Wow. What a generous consolation prize."

"I'm serious!"

"Mm-hm. Sure."

"I am!"

Minato shook his head lightly while vaulting over a collapsing tree trunk.

"Compared to Shinji?" he admitted. "Yeah, alright. I'll take the loss there."

Kushina flashed him an incredibly supportive, toothy grin. "Hey, don't be like that! You’re still easily in the top three coolest people on this island."

Minato sighed. "Kushina... there are currently only three of us left on this part of the island."

…

I opened my eyes as my clone's final memories flooded my brain, and a sudden knot tightened in my stomach. The timing couldn't have been worse. Minato was currently running for his life with Kushina, and my clone had just picked the most catastrophic moment possible to run out of juice and pop.

Pushing the sudden wave of worry to the back of my mind, I looked up at the crew of the Kaigan merchant ship. We were already on board with the sails unfurled, but the sailors who were currently operating the vessel against their will were just standing around, looking paralyzed by the midnight chill.

"Alright, boys," I said, clapping my hands together to break the ice. "Let's get this show on the road. Get us moving."

The captain hesitated, his eyes darting nervously toward the corner of the deck. Our captured overseer was sitting right there, silent and curled up like a terrified puppy, still deeply traumatized by my forty-five-second motivational speech. He definitely wasn't in any condition to give orders.

The captain swallowed hard, looking back at me with a shaky, hesitant expression. "Sir... it's midnight. The tide is against us right now. Trying to force a ship through these waters right now is incredibly dangerous. We'll crash before we even clear the bay."

"Oh, don't worry about that," I said, flashing him a massive, cheerful smile before clapping a hand onto the shoulder of the guy standing next to me. "My buddy Yuhi here is a top-tier ninja, and Suiton just happens to be his absolute favorite thing in the world. He is going to give us all the horsepower we need."

Yuhi slowly turned his head to look at me, his face a perfect picture of absolute betrayal.

"Huh?" he said.

"What do you mean, 'huh'?" I said back. "Come on, Shinku, think of it as a team-building exercise. Go push the boat."

And that was how we set sail for the Land of Eddies, propelled entirely by the raw majesty of water release, and the even rawer power of my friend’s pure, unadulterated resentment for me.