Chapter 235 - The Yellow Flash Has a Target on His Back
Tatsuhata looked composed for approximately one second before he doubled over against the trunk of an ancient tree outside Konoha and began retching violently.
Beside him, the replica Senju Tobirama stood with no expression whatsoever.
Madara watched the dry heaving with his arms folded, then shook his head. "Tatsuhata. You clearly have no talent for space-time techniques."
Tatsuhata didn't argue. He was still retching.
About three minutes passed before he straightened up, the dizziness in his head gradually receding. He leaned against the tree and breathed in long, deep pulls of forest air.
"Next time. Next time I'm never using this damned Flying Thunder God myself."
His Flying Thunder God had come from the reanimated Senju Tobirama. He had copied all of Tobirama's techniques through his Toyoakitsushihime - but clearly, mastering a technique did not mean your body was built to handle it.
The Flying Thunder God had existed for over fifty years since Tobirama developed it, and in all that time only Namikaze Minato had ever been able to use it with true fluency. That wasn't without reason. The technique's demands were extreme. Even with his Mangekyō's shortcut, Tatsuhata's constitution simply wasn't compatible with the physical consequences of tearing through spatial distance - and uncontrollable nausea was the proof.
In this state, using the technique in actual combat was completely out of the question. At best it could serve as long-distance travel under conditions of absolute safety.
"Tatsuhata. Are you recovered?"
Madara's voice was cold.
Tatsuhata drew a long breath. "I'm fine. Nothing serious. Let's move." He shifted his gaze toward Konoha in the near distance.
His target tonight was not the Rinnegan.
As far as he was concerned, the Rinnegan was safe. It hadn't suffered any real damage, and White Zetsu had confirmed the five villages' research guidelines - as long as nothing went wrong, the Rinnegan would remain intact. There was no urgency in taking it back right now. Even if he recovered the Rinnegan tonight, it wouldn't accomplish much. Nagato, the vessel who could actually use it, was dead. He certainly wasn't going to gouge out his own Mangekyō and socket the Rinnegan in its place.
That was technically an option. But he wasn't ready to give up his own ocular technique yet.
So he had persuaded Madara and Black Zetsu to set the Rinnegan aside for now, and sent Orochimaru to test the situation in Iwagakure - pin down Hyuga Ritsu, keep him occupied there.
His real target was something else entirely.
"Black Zetsu. The location of the Nine-Tails jinchuriki's delivery room - you've confirmed it?"
"Of course."
Black Zetsu answered immediately.
"Good. Then tonight, we eliminate the Yellow Flash at any cost."
Tatsuhata said it through gritted teeth. The killing intent in his eyes when he thought about the Fourth Hokage Namikaze Minato was absolute.
Tonight, with Kushina in labor, he had no plan to recover the Rinnegan. He had come back to Konoha with one objective: the Fourth Hokage himself.
The reason was simple.
After deep reflection on every setback he had suffered, he had identified the source of all of them. It wasn't bad luck. It wasn't insufficient preparation. The real culprit was the Fourth Hokage's Flying Thunder God.
That technique was obscene.
Konoha used it to concentrate its maximum fighting strength and deliver it precisely, every single time. Every engagement Tatsuhata had fought, he had been fighting Konoha at its absolute peak. That was why he kept losing.
If the Fourth Hokage wasn't removed, recovering the Rinnegan would accomplish nothing. Every subsequent step of the Moon's Eye Plan would face the same interference. He would keep colliding with Konoha and the five great villages' top fighters over and over.
A full confrontation with all five villages was inevitable eventually. But the Moon's Eye Plan was still entirely on paper. There was no reason to fight to the death with the five villages now, before any of the foundation was in place.
And if he was being honest - if the five villages weren't significantly weakened first, he simply couldn't win. His recent defeats made that plain.
"I'll lead the way."
Black Zetsu spoke, then sank directly into the earth beneath his feet.
Tatsuhata followed, activating the Mayfly Technique and slipping underground behind Black Zetsu.
Madara spread his arms. A White Zetsu rose from behind him, stretched itself wide, and wrapped around him like a garment - leaving only that pair of crimson eyes exposed.
Then Madara's shrouded form vanished into the deep forest.
The replica Tobirama received the same treatment, wrapped in a White Zetsu, and followed close behind as the group moved in silence toward the Nine-Tails jinchuriki's delivery room.
Kushina's delivery had been arranged outside the village walls. The reasoning was practical: if something went wrong during the birth - if the Nine-Tails lost containment and broke free - keeping it outside the village would limit the potential damage to the minimum.
Minato had also not forgotten to account for Uchiha Tatsuhata, who had gone completely silent in recent weeks.
In truth, his more immediate concern was the Rinnegan situation. He was ready at any moment for Kakashi's signal, prepared to fly to Iwagakure at the first call. On his own end, he genuinely wasn't too worried.
Well. That wasn't entirely accurate.
He was deeply worried about Kushina's delivery. It was just the one thing in the world he couldn't do anything to help with - otherwise he would have taken her pain onto himself without hesitation.
"It should be soon now, shouldn't it?"
Minato looked up at the stone chamber that had been set up as the delivery room. It was the sixth time he had said the same sentence.
Nohara Rin stood beside him and nodded in patient reassurance. "It should be any time now."
Master and student waited outside the door together.
Rin would have liked to go in and help, but Kushina had firmly refused her - Rin was still too young, she had said, this wasn't something she should be exposed to yet. The person handling the delivery was Yakushi Nono.
That was right - Yakushi Nono, who had once belonged to Root and been one of Danzo's most trusted operatives, had not been sidelined or put under suspicion because of her past. She had instead become one of Minato's most trusted people. She had participated in the Amegakure operation, and now she was here delivering his child.
And then -
"Waaaaah -"
A strong, clear cry pierced through the door and broke the silence of the deep night.
"The baby's here!"
Rin's eyes went wide with delighted shock.
Minato crossed the distance to the door in two large steps, nearly losing the battle against his own impulse to simply burst straight through it. He managed to hold himself back. He stood outside and waited.
Listening to the healthy, vigorous crying of his newborn child, the corner of his mouth lifted on its own.
He didn't have to wait long.
Half a minute later, Yakushi Nono opened the door. She was exhausted, her forehead damp. Delivering a baby on its own would have been no challenge for her - she had done it before during her spy work, used it as a way to get close to targets and extract information. But delivering a jinchuriki's child was something she had never done, and the weight of that responsibility had been unlike anything else. Not just the concern for her own safety - she had been terrified of failing the Fourth Hokage's trust.
She pulled her mask down from her face and smiled broadly.
"Hokage-sama. Mother and child are both well. You can come in now."
The words were barely out before Minato had moved past her at a speed she couldn't track, into the room, where he saw Kushina lying on the bed - and beside her, nestled against her pillow, a small infant with a thin covering of golden hair.
His expression went completely soft.
Looking at his wife and his child, he felt the happiness fill him all the way through.
Kushina was smiling too. Even now, barely past the pain of delivery, seeing the child she had worked so hard to bring into the world lying there beside her - and her husband standing at the bedside - made the pain feel like it had never existed.
Yakushi Nono and Nohara Rin stood in the doorway. They watched the family of three in silence, and found themselves smiling without meaning to.
But just then -
"Congratulations, Fourth Hokage."
A voice of congratulation came from somewhere deep in the room.
Minato's expression changed instantly. He turned toward the sound and saw Uchiha Tatsuhata emerging from the wall. At the same moment, a volley of kunai shot toward Kushina and the infant on the bed.
"You bastard!"
The three-pronged kunai slid from Minato's sleeve. He spun and deflected every incoming kunai with a single furious sweep.
Then he reached down and scooped up his wife and child, shouted - "Nono! Rin! Get out!" - and the next moment, all three of them were gone.
The shout was still echoing in the empty delivery room when Yakushi Nono and Nohara Rin turned and ran without a moment's hesitation.
"Tatsuhata. That girl is the Three-Tails jinchuriki. Should we not pursue?"
Black Zetsu asked.
Tatsuhata stayed where he was. "Pursue her for what? What would capturing the Three-Tails jinchuriki accomplish right now? She's just one of the Fourth Hokage's students. You think she can be used to threaten him?"
"I meant we could recover the Three-Tails while we're here..."
"There's no need."
Tatsuhata shook his head. "Recovering Tailed Beasts is a secondary concern. Once the troublesome pieces like the Yellow Flash are removed, a group of animals with a bit of power will be easy enough to recapture."
"Tatsuhata has a point. A handful of Tailed Beasts. Not worth mentioning."
Madara agreed.
Black Zetsu's expression twitched very slightly. It had been dealing with the Uchiha clan for the better part of a thousand years - closer to eight hundred - and the mental state of these people still resisted complete adaptation.
It steadied itself. "So we're not pursuing? The Fourth Hokage has already escaped?"
"He hasn't escaped."
The corner of Tatsuhata's mouth curved with absolute certainty.
Behind him, the replica Senju Tobirama stepped silently forward and, under Tatsuhata's direction, reached out and grabbed both his and Madara's shoulders. The Flying Thunder God activated.
Twenty seconds earlier.
Minato had grabbed Kushina and their newborn child and used the Flying Thunder God to get them out of the delivery room. The stone chamber's perimeter had been ringed with elite ANBU guards, but Tatsuhata's appearance inside the room suggested those guards were likely already dead or incapacitated.
And with Kushina still recovering from delivery and the baby just born, he couldn't fight. He was completely hamstrung. He needed to get them somewhere safe first, then deal with Tatsuhata.
He didn't go home. Home might not be safe. He brought them directly to the Hokage Building.
Then, without a moment's pause, he pressed the emergency button on his desk and put the entire village on first-level combat alert.
The sharp blare of alarms spread through Konoha, cutting through the busy nightlife of the village's main streets. A few people who had been drinking heavily looked around in bleary confusion, their fogged minds not yet registering what that sound meant.
Most people, however, startled and immediately began the emergency evacuation procedures they had been trained for.
"Minato?"
Kushina looked up from the sofa with open fear and distress on her face.
Minato glanced down at his right hand. On the back of it was a mark - dark characters, the inscription of a Flying Thunder God coordinate seal. He recognized it immediately. He had left marks like this on enemies himself, more times than he could count.
He hadn't expected to receive one.
It had been planted when he deflected those kunai flying toward Kushina and the baby. And in the brief moment of chaos, he had caught a glimpse of who had thrown them.
It had looked like the Second Hokage.
Minato turned his hand over casually, not letting Kushina see the mark, and said nothing about what he had seen. His voice was gentle.
"Kushina. It's all right. You and Naruto stay here. I'll go handle this."
"Minato..."
"Naruto and I will be waiting for you."
Kushina looked at him without looking away.
Minato nodded and smiled. "Okay."
And then he was gone.
He couldn't stay. The coordinate seal on his hand meant the enemy could appear at his location at any moment. He couldn't bring that danger back to Kushina and Naruto.
He hadn't had time to say everything he wanted to say. But the Hokage Building had more than enough armed strength within it. Tonight, with Kushina's delivery, no one in the village had gone to sleep. Every capable fighter had been on quiet alert, guarding against exactly the kind of situation nobody wanted to happen.
A few seconds later, Hiruko came rushing in.
"Hokage-sama, what's happ - Kushina?"
Hiruko had found no sign of Minato. But his eyes swept the room and landed on Kushina on the sofa, and the newborn beside her.
"Hiruko-senpai. We've been attacked."
"Minato left alone."
Kushina's voice came out hoarse. Tears were running down her face.
It wasn't that she was weak. She had just given birth. She hadn't even had a moment to hold the happiness of her child's arrival before this happened, and the tears simply wouldn't stop.
"I understand."
Hiruko's expression went grave. But he looked at Kushina and the small infant beside her, and pushed a smile onto his face for them.
"Kushina. Don't worry. When Minato decides to go somewhere, nobody can stop him. You don't need to be afraid for him. And this is Konoha - I'll organize reinforcements to reach his side as fast as humanly possible."
Tears still running, Kushina nodded again and again.