Chapter 367: Giving Off Some Vibes
The first thing that came to Minato's mind, once he'd gathered himself, was a particular presence within Konoha — and it went without saying exactly who that was: Ryū, the man who spent his days quietly lazing about the village like a salted fish.
Minato's impression of him ran deep. If he wasn't mistaken, Ryū was, without question, the single strongest and most enigmatic figure in all of Konoha.
Given that, the idea of Ryū somehow restoring the entire village wasn't actually all that far-fetched.
It sounded a little absurd, sure — a little hard to swallow. But maybe that was simply the truth of it.
Resting a hand against the icy wall of a nearby house, feeling the biting cold seep into his palm, Minato took a deep breath and forced himself to steady his nerves.
Setting aside the tangle of stray thoughts crowding his mind, he made his way toward Ryū's house.
He had no idea whether Ryū would even be home, but he figured it was worth checking. If Ryū was there, he could at least ask what in the world had actually happened.
Whether or not he got an answer, at the very least he could confirm this wasn't some illusion, some strange dream.
Walking down Konoha's eerily silent streets, Minato couldn't shake the unsettling feeling hanging over everything.
Not that he sensed any actual danger — just something inexplicably creepy about it all.
Like walking into a haunted house, fully aware there was nothing genuinely threatening inside, and yet feeling the hair on the back of your neck stand up regardless.
Minato kept an unhurried pace for roughly ten minutes or so.
Then he stopped, looking up at the familiar building in front of him.
He remembered clearly — this was Ryū's house. Whether the man was actually inside, though, he had no way of knowing.
Steadying his nerves, Minato stepped forward and knocked.
He didn't hold out much hope, honestly. Konoha was completely empty right now — there was no real reason to expect Ryū would be home.
Maybe I'm just overthinking all of this.
The thought had barely crossed his mind when the faint sound of footsteps drifted out from inside the house.
Minato's hearing was sharp, and Ryū's house clearly wasn't soundproofed in any particular way, so the footsteps carried easily.
There really was someone inside!
Minato could hardly believe it. Was Ryū actually home?
The door swung open from the inside, and a face he knew all too well came into view — a face just a touch too handsome for its own good, one that had left a lasting impression on Minato from the very first time they'd met.
"Something up?" Ryū asked, glancing at the man standing on his doorstep.
"Ryū-kun... this isn't some kind of illusion, is it?"
Minato had no idea why he'd led with something so blunt. He'd meant to ease into it with a proper greeting first, but the words had come out of their own accord.
Ryū blinked in mild surprise, taken aback that the Fourth Hokage had made it back so quickly.
Minato returning to Konoha wasn't strange in itself — but returning this fast? That was genuinely impressive. It had been less than half an hour since the village had been restored.
No wonder they called this man the Yellow Flash. His travel speed lived up to the name, apparently.
To the Hokage's blunt question, Ryū answered with a short laugh. "Of course not an illusion. There's no genjutsu out there capable of pulling me in, as far as I know."
Hearing that, Minato seemed to let out a breath of relief — he'd apparently taken Ryū's word for it, just like that.
Even Minato himself couldn't say exactly why he'd trusted the answer so readily. Maybe it was simply that, at this point, he didn't know who else he could possibly trust.
Everything that had happened over the past few days had been strange beyond belief — strange enough that he still had trouble wrapping his head around the fact that all of it had actually unfolded right here, in his own village.
"You came back here alone?" Ryū asked, a note of surprise in his voice. "You didn't go update everyone else first?"
Minato let out a breath and managed a faint smile. "Everyone's settled in the nearest city for now — there's no urgent need to notify them yet. It's a fair distance to travel back, and it'll take some preparation before anyone can make the trip."
"Ryū-kun... may I ask what actually happened these past few days? Konoha suddenly hit by what looked like an earthquake, then suddenly turned into a massive crater—"
"—and then out of nowhere, an incredibly powerful black-haired girl shows up, along with a dog that somehow understands human speech. All of it's had me completely baffled for days now."
Ryū looked at Minato and let out a dry laugh. "And you're so sure I'd know anything about all that?"
Minato answered earnestly. "I believe you do. There's no one in this whole village more mysterious than you. Add in the fact that you vanished without explanation right around when all this started, and I can't help but think you know something about it."
Ryū listened to the Hokage's reasoning and gave a thoughtful nod.
Fair enough. Connect his own unexplained disappearance with everything that had happened to the village, and the dots weren't exactly hard to draw together.
And now, with his own sudden reappearance lining up neatly with Konoha's equally sudden restoration, that connection only got harder to deny.
Anyone with a functioning brain could piece it together with a little thought.
Minato might come off as a bit of a dramatic showman most of the time, but his head was screwed on straight — he wouldn't have made Hokage otherwise.
Ryū didn't see much point in dodging the question or being coy about it — there was nothing to gain from either.
"If you actually trust what I tell you, I'm happy to walk you through what's happened these past few days."
"I trust you."
"..."
The corner of Ryū's mouth twitched slightly. Something about the whole exchange felt a little... intense, honestly — he genuinely couldn't figure out why Minato was placing that much blind faith in him.
Did some past life of mine — no, wait, some past-past life — have some kind of complicated history with this guy's past-past life or something?
Though, thinking about it that way just made the whole vibe even more intense.
Since Minato had already said he trusted him, Ryū gave him the short version of events — though obviously not the entire truth. He left out anything about the Dimensional Chat Group and its members entirely.
He wasn't out of his mind, after all — no way something like that was making it into this conversation.
It took a solid five or six minutes for Ryū to walk Minato through the whole account.
Then, after a brief pause, he added, "That's more or less the gist of it. If you're curious about the Void Beast corpses, head north — that's where they all ended up, out on the plains."
Minato listened to all of it, thoroughly stunned. He felt like he'd just sat through the plot of a movie that hadn't even been released yet.
But — Ryū clearly wasn't lying. Which meant all of this had actually, genuinely happened.
That was almost too much to take in.
Minato just stood there, utterly dumbstruck.
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