บท 159: Chapter 159 - Getting to Know Nagato.
[Chapter Size: 2500 Words.]
Third Person POV
Land of Fire, Year 39.
...
...
Months had passed since Minato was declared a hero by everyone on the Western Frontier, and things had calmed down a bit while he remained in the northern camp, even keeping a low profile.
But certainly, his actions had a greater impact in the south. It was something that brought changes, as Suna now, without the poison, began to lose against Konoha, while the Leaf Village initiated devastating attacks against Suna. They began losing much more personnel than before, as they couldn't even incapacitate their enemies, which had been their previous strategy, and Konoha grew much more confident in an open attack.
The situation was far from pleasant for the Kazekage, who was having a massive headache at the moment and wanted to seek help from the north, with Iwa.
As for Minato, as much as he liked the Phantom Squad, he wanted to remain in the north, so he chose to stay under his sensei's command, as he could choose and be close to his original team again. He also requested not to take command of a camp while he still wanted to focus on the battlefield. Jiraiya didn't deny his request and certainly began assigning missions, as Minato wanted to spend time with his companions. It had been over a year since they were separated, and they began doing independent missions, even without their sensei, as Jiraiya was the leader of the northern camp. Meanwhile, Minato, the jonin of the team, took the lead in front of his companions.
It was now year 39 since the founding of Konoha, and Minato was 13 years old.
'Naruto, at this age, was still learning the Rasengan...' He thought about his current strength. He wasn't sure how strong the original Minato would be at this point, but he certainly knew that the Minato now was much stronger than the one from his other world.
'I don't have time to think about that now...' Minato shook his head, pushing those thoughts away. After all, he didn't have time for that as he looked ahead, with the rain touching his cloak and people running around to take cover from the rain in the middle of a city, with the depressive atmosphere typical of any place in the Land of Rain.
Beside him were Mikoto and Hanabi, also wearing their cloaks, hiding their faces and eyes while waiting for Minato's orders. They were on an infiltration mission assigned by Jiraiya, heading towards a city in the northern part of the country in search of a meeting involving a scroll with special information about a proposal from the Village Hidden in the Stone to Ame. A proposal from the Tsuchikage directly to Hanzo, the Salamander.
The A-rank mission was to intercept this contact and obtain the scroll. They were hiding after Minato had guided them into the country to this point, and they had entered the city easily despite the area being heavily guarded by Ame ninjas.
"Hanabi, pay attention to all the information I'm going to give you," Minato said to Hanabi, who quickly activated her Byakugan.
"See the two men in the distance, standing in front of an alley, sitting while smoking. They are ninjas and are preparing for the meeting with the Iwa ninjas," Minato said, sensing their auras.
"Yes..." Hanabi confirmed.
"Great, pay attention to every point I describe on this street. On the roof, there are three camouflaged ninjas, two others are passing through the streets as civilians, but the main group is with six of them in that larger house on the street. Do you see the warehouse at the end of it? There are at least sixteen ninjas there," Minato said, while Hanabi searched for each one of them, seeing through the walls.
"Yes, I can see all of them, and they are all armed," Hanabi said, recognizing all the ninja tools they possessed.
"They are waiting for the Iwa ninjas to arrive. I want you to take them down without alerting anyone in the city," Minato said.
"Wait, what do you plan to do?" Mikoto looked at him suspiciously, noticing that he wasn't including himself.
"I saw something interesting and need to check it out. Don't get me wrong, I will sense everything you're doing. The moment you're in danger, I'll be there the next moment, you know that." Minato spoke, while the two girls looked at each other before nodding, seeing that they couldn't argue further.
"Besides, these ninjas might even have some Jonin level among them. But you can handle it easily." Minato said confidently.
Quickly, he began to distance himself from the girls. The two just exchanged glances before vanishing from sight, as their leader had told them to continue the task without him. They obeyed.
Meanwhile, Minato walked through the streets of that city under a heavy downpour. His earlier thoughts were interrupted, not by the mission, but when he noticed a certain redhead passing through one of the streets ahead. It was a boy around 13 years old, dirty and soaked—a character of some importance in this world's story.
Nagato had been trying to survive since his parents died, and as with any other day spent hungry, he went after food as soon as he arrived in the city, until he found something he could eat. He was waiting for an opportunity to steal a loaf of bread from a merchant selling some food on one of the streets. Nagato approached cautiously while the man seemed distracted, collecting payment from a woman who had bought some fruit. Nagato believed he had found the right moment and stretched out his hand.
Just as his raised hand was close to the bread to grab what he wanted, the man turned to the side and, noticing the movement, picked up a stick, striking Nagato's head mercilessly with a crack echoing through the rain.
"AHH!!" The boy groaned in pain as he fell to the ground, clutching his forehead.
"Filthy thief! Get out of here now, or I'll beat you!" The merchant threatened.
"But... I'm hungry..." Nagato said, through the sharp pain, with tears starting to well up in his eyes due to his situation.
"Do I care about that? Everyone is going through hard times; if you're fed, my children go hungry!" The man retorted. "I'm going to teach you a lesson now, boy, so you never come back here!" He said, approaching Nagato with the stick, raising it again to hit the boy on the ground.
"I think you shouldn't do that." A voice came from beside him, making the man stop for a moment. He looked to his side and saw a hooded stranger approaching.
"Do you know him? If not, you'd better stay out of this!" The merchant growled, still intending to beat Nagato to 'teach him not to steal.'
"I think you should think twice before continuing. After all, you might regret it for the rest of your life." The stranger spoke again.
The man looked confused and irritated by what he considered a threat. But as soon as he saw the stranger's eyes, he felt a certain shiver, realizing that those blue eyes were clearly of a killer accustomed to taking lives—hundreds of them. The merchant swallowed hard before lowering the stick, afraid to see if this stranger was bluffing or not.
"Fine... But you'd better not bring this kid here again. Otherwise, you won't always be around to protect him." He growled, still irritated, but Minato said nothing. He simply continued staring at him while the man lowered his head with a mix of frustration and fear.
Then, Minato turned his attention to the boy, who looked at him curiously, his eyes hidden by his red bangs. 'An Uzumaki here even before the fall of the Land of Whirlpools... Could Madara have captured his mother to give birth to a boy here?' Minato thought, observing the boy, as the boy's eyes were the legendary Rinnegan, belonging to none other than Madara Uchiha himself.
"Hey, kid, come with me. I'll give you something to eat." Minato said simply, walking away while Nagato continued to watch him for a while. The merchant was still nearby, glaring with clenched teeth, so it didn't take long for Nagato to wipe his tears and get up to follow him cautiously, as he hadn't sensed any malice in Minato's voice.
As soon as they entered an alley, Minato took out some fruits hidden inside his cloak and handed them to the boy. Nagato looked stunned for a moment before grabbing the fruits without a second thought, quickly beginning to eat them as if his life depended on it. He didn't even care if they might be poisoned or not.
Minato just stood there silently. After all, he understood the kind of suffering that boy had endured. He might have been in the same state, having the same reaction, after going many days without food.
Minato never forgot about Nagato's existence and knew that Jiraiya, sooner or later, would find him. Minato hadn't intervened in the boy's life because, at that moment, he didn't have the skills to deal with the Zetsus, and Madara might have been watching him all the time.
There was also the matter that if Nagato wasn't with his companions, he would never become who he needed to be. So, Minato made the choice not to interfere, knowing that this war would be a crucial moment for the future, and even though he was in constant danger, Zetsu would never let the boy die. Thus, Nagato would survive this chaos.
While Nagato finished eating the last piece of the first apple, he reached for the second apple that Minato had given him, but his gaze fell on the blond, analyzing him, even under the cloak. Nagato noticed the blond hair, blue eyes, and that they seemed to be the same age, but the look in their eyes was completely different, like water and wine. One was currently a hero of a nation, while the other was a lone boy, starving and trying to survive without any power to change his reality.
"Who are you?" Nagato asked curiously.
"I am Minato Namikaze," he replied, with a slight smile, having no reason to hide it.
"Why are you helping me? Do you know me?" Nagato asked cautiously, still wary of the possibility that the stranger might demand something in return.
"I'm not from here; I'm just passing through. Soon I'll be leaving, and when I saw you, I didn't want to see a child starving, so I stepped in." Minato said.
"Well... thank you." Nagato murmured, still finding it strange that, in the midst of a war, he was being helped by this stranger. Either way, he was filling his stomach, and that was great for him.
Minato simply nodded as Nagato moved on to his second apple, while his attention shifted to his surroundings. He knew that the Zetsus would be watching him very closely, ready to interfere at any moment, and he tried to sense their locations in the vicinity, but his Haki wasn't strong enough for that yet. He couldn't sense anything beyond the people around him.
His focus then turned to his teammates, who were moving silently among the groups of enemy ninjas. The Ame ninjas weren't very skilled in taijutsu, focusing their efforts on infiltration and traps. They hadn't expected an attack from Konoha with two such powerful close-combat fighters, and they began to fall one by one.
And Minato also played his part in the girls' taijutsu training over the past few years, but seeing that they were starting to draw attention from other ninjas, he knew the conflict could spread and eventually draw the city's attention. Minato sighed as he began to stand up, taking out a piece of paper with fuinjutsu symbols.
"I'll teach you something," Minato suddenly said as Nagato stopped eating, looking at him confused. "Take this." He handed the paper to Nagato.
"What is this, sir...?" Nagato murmured, confused.
"This will keep you from going hungry for a while." Minato said as he showed a finger, its tip covered in chakra, before touching the center of the paper in front of Nagato.
BOOM
A small puff of smoke revealed a piece of bread much better than those from Ame, as it was cultivated in the Land of Fire.
"What is this?!" Nagato murmured, a bit startled.
"This paper just contains food, it's something simple I made while studying fuinjutsu... it works even for those who have no knowledge of Fuinjutsu, where they can activate it by releasing a bit of chakra. I'm sure you saw how I did it..." Minato said, knowing that those Rinnegan eyes could see chakra flow. "You'll need to learn this now, no great mastery is needed, just manifest the chakra on the paper, and that'll be enough to get food from inside, understood?" Minato spoke with a smile.
"But..." Nagato was lost; he had clearly seen Minato releasing his chakra, with the blue filling the dark world he sometimes saw with lines.
"Unfortunately, you'll have to practice it alone. It won't be hard, especially when the reward is you not going hungry. Now take it, kid, and keep surviving, understood?" Minato said, while Nagato looked at him curiously, not understanding why he was being helped like this.
Before Nagato could say anything, Minato simply disappeared, making the boy open his Rinnegan eyes in surprise, wondering what had just happened and where Minato had gone.
He was alone in that alley, left only with the scroll—one that could keep him alive for some time, but he'd have to learn to draw on his chakra energy. He had only seen Minato do it, so he'd have to learn on his own, but Minato believed he could learn it easily.
'But what was that... was he human...?' Nagato murmured internally. After all, in his dark vision, the blue chakra had shone at Minato's fingertip, but the rest of his body was a glowing golden, almost bothering him, and he could have sworn he'd seen two eyes of that light on the stranger's body, like a demon...
As for Minato, he reappeared among the enemy ninjas inside the warehouse, using a Raijin seal attached to the girls. He emerged and knocked out two Ame ninjas, surprising everyone, while they had no time to react, startled by this. He threw his kunai in all directions. Before the other ninjas could figure out what was happening or attempt to create real chaos, Minato began reappearing among them, moving through the air and teleporting around, knocking them out one by one, before landing on the ground.
In the next moment, as Minato reappeared in front of the girls, all the enemy bodies began to fall unconscious a second later, while Hanabi and Mikoto looked at him with a sigh, already used to this kind of sight.
Raccoon Here: As they say, devil's fruit.
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