While Minato Namikaze hesitated—unsure whether to fulfill his duty as a Konoha ninja and take Yugao back to the village, or follow his heart and let the boy go—a faint spatial fluctuation rippled through the air.
Instantly, Aoba's gaze turned skyward.
The next moment, with a puff of chakra smoke, Yugao, who had been unconscious and lying on the ground, vanished without a trace.
Aoba didn't need to think hard to know this was the work of Kirigakure.
It made sense—despite the seemingly relentless determination Kirigakure had displayed in this surprise attack, acting as if they wouldn't stop until achieving a significant result, they would undoubtedly have contingency plans in place for their remaining tailed beast.
And now, that contingency plan had been activated.
Given the circumstances, it could only be explained by a summoning technique or reverse summoning technique. The faint spatial fluctuation from earlier was proof of this.
However, Aoba's gaze turned to Minato.
Even from his vantage point in the sky, Aoba had been able to sense the spatial fluctuation in advance. There was no way that Minato, a master of the Flying Thunder God Technique, would not have noticed it as well.
Given his proximity to Yugao and his lightning-fast reflexes, Minato undoubtedly could have intervened before Yugao was reverse summoned.
After all, Minato's Flying Thunder God: Guiding Thunder had both space-locking and space-rending capabilities. With it, he could have easily stopped the summoning.
Even if he had reacted a little slower and couldn't directly prevent the summoning, he still could have marked Yugao with the Flying Thunder God seal, enabling him to track Yugao at any time.
Yet, Minato had done nothing. He simply stood there and allowed Yugao to be taken away.
This decision was undoubtedly uncharacteristic of a Konoha ninja. Even the relatively kind-hearted Hiruzen Sarutobi would likely have been displeased if he learned of it. As for the village's more radical factions, they would be furious—perhaps even baying for Minato's blood.
It wasn't unprecedented, after all. Hatake Sakumo, the famed White Fang of Konoha, had once been driven to suicide by public outcry after a controversial decision.
If the casualties in the ongoing battle with Kirigakure were to be blamed on Minato's choice, it wouldn't be hard to stir up public opinion and push Minato into infamy.
Under the right circumstances, even someone as mentally strong as Minato could be crushed by the weight of public condemnation.
But all of this hinged on someone revealing the incident to the village.
Fortunately for Minato, Aoba had no interest in such matters. Whether Yugao was captured or not, it made no difference to him.
Thus, unless Minato himself disclosed the incident, no one else would know.
After a brief stare-down with Minato, Aoba retracted his gaze, spread his wings, and flew off in the direction they had come from.
Watching Aoba's retreating figure, Minato let out a subtle sigh of relief.
Though no words were exchanged, Minato was certain Aoba would keep this a secret.
And that spared him a great deal of trouble.
It wasn't that Minato feared his reputation being tarnished. Rather, he couldn't afford to let this matter distract him from his goals.
To ensure his ability to ascend to the position of Fourth Hokage without interference, Minato needed to keep his record spotless.
His pursuit of the Hokage title wasn't born out of a thirst for power. Instead, he knew it was only by becoming Hokage that he could implement the changes he envisioned.
As Jiraiya's chosen "Child of Prophecy," Minato had his own ideals and aspirations.
He was far from a rigid, dogmatic individual. On the contrary, he was intelligent and pragmatic, fully aware of what he wanted and what sacrifices he needed to make to achieve it.
After watching Aoba vanish into the horizon, Minato remained standing in place for a while longer.
Eventually, he made up his mind. From now on, he would fully immerse himself in the conflict between Konoha and Kirigakure, doing everything in his power to mitigate the potential consequences of his decision.
This was Minato Namikaze—a man who might make choices contrary to the village's immediate interests but was always ready to bear the consequences of those choices and strive to make amends.
Minato's thoughts and decisions were unknown to Aoba, and even if Aoba were aware of them, he wouldn't care.
Some people are born to shoulder burdens, willingly sacrificing themselves for their ideals.
While Aoba didn't consider himself such a person, he couldn't help but respect those who were.
After all, history was often driven forward by individuals like them.
Perhaps, if their paths crossed again, Aoba might even lend Minato a hand.
For now, however, his focus was squarely on his own goals.
It didn't take long for Aoba to return to the previous battlefield.
By then, the fighting was still ongoing.
Just as Aoba debated whether or not to intervene, the Kirigakure forces appeared to receive new orders, and their shinobi began retreating toward their commanders.
Soon, the scattered Kirigakure shinobi regrouped into multiple teams and dispersed in different directions.
While the Konoha forces noticed this, they refrained from launching a full pursuit.
The earlier battle had left most of them exhausted. Even with reinforcements like Shisui Uchiha tipping the scales in Konoha's favor, their overall condition remained poor.
Thus, after some deliberation, the Konoha leadership decided to send out only small teams to monitor and harass the retreating Kirigakure forces.
The reasoning was twofold: first, to ensure that the Kirigakure shinobi didn't linger in the rear to cause further disruptions; and second, to delay their escape long enough for additional Konoha reinforcements to arrive and attempt an encirclement.
Indeed, Aoba's team had only been the vanguard. Several more Konoha units were en route to the Red Tree Outpost. While their primary mission was to rebuild and secure the outpost, they could divert temporarily to surround the fleeing Kirigakure forces.
As the only one in the group capable of flight, Aoba was naturally assigned to the surveillance task.
To save time, Aoba used the Shadow Clone Technique to create a clone for the mission while he himself focused on training.
He needed to digest the chakra he had absorbed as quickly as possible.
Only by doing so could he efficiently reintegrate the chakra and memories from the shadow clones he had sent off earlier.
While he could choose to let those clones exhaust their chakra before dispelling them, doing so would be wasteful.
Instead, by absorbing the clones' training experiences and converting them into proficiency via his skill panel, Aoba could maximize his growth.
Wasting chakra—even easily acquired chakra—simply wasn't Aoba's style.
Thus, he made haste to resume his training.
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