"Flying Thunder God? That truly is a troublesome Ninjutsu."
There were no hand signs, nor any omen of Chakra fluctuations.
One second Minato Namikaze was atop the tower, and the next, like a bolt of golden lightning, he crossed the spatial distance and appeared out of thin air right in front of the falling Uchiha Yue!
Konoha's yellow flash never let his prey easily escape his sight.
Mid-air, Minato's young and handsome face remained expressionless, his azure eyes reflecting a cold killing intent that belied his age.
A Konoha Rogue Ninja, no matter who they were or what their reason was, must be subdued first.
He caught the falling three-pronged Kunai with one hand, while in the palm of his other, high-density Chakra spun and compressed frantically, instantly forming a high-density Chakra sphere radiating a dazzling blue light!
"Rasengan!"
Too fast! From teleporting to forming the Rasengan, it hadn't even been half a second!
This was simply not a speed an ordinary Jonin could react to!
This was the absolute strength that prompted the high-level officials of the Four Great Nations to issue the order: 'If you encounter this person, you may abandon the mission and flee immediately!'
The Three-Tomoed in Yue's pupils showed faint signs of merging, but they quickly stabilized back into Three-Tomoed.
Wasting ocular power here wouldn't be worth it.
In mid-air with nothing to leverage against, he forcibly twisted his spine, slamming the short sword on his back—scabbard and all—horizontally across his chest, while frantically pouring his entire body's Chakra into it!
"BOOM—!!"
The violent Rasengan smashed heavily against the short sword's scabbard.
The terrifying tearing force brought by the high-density spinning Chakra instantly ground the steel-forged scabbard into dust!
The massive impact, like a meteorite strike, sent Uchiha Yue flying straight out of the air!
"Bang!"
Yue's body, like a fired cannonball, smashed through a thick metal exhaust pipe nearby and became deeply embedded in a derelict wall.
Yue coughed softly.
"Truly impressive! Minato, but have you forgotten? In current Roulan, it's not just the few of us."
Just as Minato was about to throw another Kunai, the massive metal pipe beneath his feet suddenly emitted a piercing alarm.
"Rumble!"
The exhaust pipe Yue had smashed through earlier was actually one of the main gas lines for Roulan's underground arsenal!
High-pressure purple Ryumyaku Chakra gushed out from the break like a blowout, instantly forming a high-energy Chakra wall tens of meters high between the two, impossible to cross!
Furthermore, attracted by this violent Chakra leak, hundreds upon thousands of spider-like security puppets were densely crawling up the surrounding walls, tightly surrounding the area where Minato was.
"The direction he was sent flying... was it intentional?!" Minato's pupils shrank suddenly.
Through the surging purple Chakra light screen, Uchiha Yue's figure began to blur.
He put away the cracked short sword and made a hand gesture to Minato that only those from their time in the Anbu would understand.
'Until we meet again.'
By the time Minato used Flying Thunder God to penetrate the Chakra screen and deal with the self-destructing puppets lunging at him, the black-robed Uchiha youth had completely vanished into Roulan's dark and deep underground labyrinth, leaving not even a trace of Chakra behind.
Minato looked at the Puppet wreckage scattered across the ground, his brow furrowed.
"I must find him as soon as possible. I feel that with him around, our mission will be difficult to complete," Minato muttered to himself, his figure flickering as he pursued the direction Yue had vanished.
...
Meanwhile, among the intricate metal pipes above the ancient city of Roulan, the previously steady flow of purple Ryumyaku Chakra suddenly began to riot violently.
"Hum~"
Accompanied by a piercing sound of spatial distortion, a dazzling vortex of light beams abruptly tore open in mid-air.
"Waaaaaaah—!"
A shrill scream echoed from the vortex, followed by a youth in an orange tracksuit, with dazzling blond hair and azure eyes, falling from the sky while flailing his limbs.
"Thud!"
The youth slammed heavily onto a wide metal street in a most ungraceful posture, kicking up a cloud of dust.
"Ow, ow, ow... Dammit, Captain Yamato? Sakura? Sai?"
Uzumaki Naruto rubbed his sore backside and climbed up from the ground, feeling dizzy.
He looked around; the Roulan ruins, which should have been covered in sand, had transformed into a futuristic megacity filled with towering spires.
"Where on earth is this? Wasn't I just hunting down that bastard Mukade?" Naruto was completely bewildered.
Before he could make sense of the situation, a bone-chilling sound of mechanical grinding came from the shadows on both sides of the street.
"Clack, clack, clack..."
Over a dozen mechanical Puppets, shaped like giant spiders and made entirely of metal, crawled out from the darkness.
Their single eyes, radiating an eerie purple light, instantly locked onto the intruder.
"What the hell are these things?!"
Naruto was startled and instinctively reached for his Ninja tool pouch, only to find he hadn't fully recovered from the dizziness of time-space travel, and his Chakra flow was somewhat sluggish.
"Shoo! Shoo! Shoo!"
Without any hesitation, several Puppets opened their mouths, and several high-density purple-red Chakra lasers shot towards Naruto.
"Whoa! Dangerous!" Naruto rolled clumsily on the ground, narrowly avoiding the lasers.
The beams slammed into the ground where he had just been standing, instantly blasting a large crater.
"Dammit, don't underestimate me! Shadow Clone—"
Just as Naruto was about to form a hand sign, a massive Puppet leapt silently from the pipes above his head, its sharp metal forelimbs like a Shinigami's scythe, slashing fiercely toward his neck!
The speed was too great; Naruto's hand sign was cut short halfway, his pupils shrinking.
At that critical moment—
"Clang!"
A black afterimage flickered past Naruto's side like a ghost.
Accompanied by the ear-piercing sound of clashing metal, the giant Puppet lunging through the air was instantly split in two!
The cut surface was smooth as a mirror; purple Chakra circuits crackled before violently exploding.
Amidst the firelight of the explosion, a figure in a black high-collared robe stood before Naruto.
He slowly sheathed a short sword covered in fine cracks at his waist, his movements fluid and natural.
"Saved..." Naruto sat on the ground, still shaken, looking at the back before him. "Thanks, Mister!"
Hearing the word "Mister," the black-robed youth turned his head slightly, his eye twitching as he glanced at Naruto.
"Are you from Konoha?"
Naruto looked up, and catching a glimpse of the Konoha forehead protector peeking from beneath the youth's clothes, he instantly became excited: "So you're a Konoha Ninja too! Great, I'm Uzumaki Naruto! I was tracking someone named Mukade... and somehow ended up here..."
Uchiha Yue looked at the noisy, defenseless blond blockhead before him, a faint smirk playing on his lips.
He naturally knew who this was.
This was the absolute "Child of Destiny" of this world, the Reincarnation of Ashura who would one day overturn the chessboard—Uzumaki Naruto.
"Do you know where that damn Mukade is?"
Yue didn't answer directly, simply withdrawing his gaze indifferently.
"It's dangerous here, kid. Follow me closely."
"Oh! Okay!" Seeing the other's Konoha attire and such kindness, Naruto's wariness instantly dropped to zero, and he even felt an inexplicable sense of familiarity.
However, just as Naruto was about to follow in Yue's footsteps, an extremely sharp whistling sound suddenly attacked from above!
"Swish!"
A uniquely shaped three-pronged Kunai slammed into the ground between Yue and Naruto like a bolt of lightning.