The giant rocks, now pulverized, left fine dust particles swirling in the air, reflecting dappled light in the sunshine.
The potent scent, a mix of gunpowder and ozone, stubbornly permeated everyone's nostrils.
Jiraiya's and Hinata's expressions were frozen, stark horror etched onto their faces.
Karsten, standing still, suddenly began to flicker, like a poorly connected slide projection, his edges blurring and becoming transparent.
He looked down at his hand, which was fading, and for the first time, a look of confusion appeared on his weathered face.
He abruptly turned to Naruto, urgently calling out in his rough Imperial tongue, "Political Commissar, my coordinates are drifting... I..."
Naruto's icy blue pupils showed no ripple of emotion.
He replied in the same language, with an unshakeable, reassuring tone befitting a superior addressing a subordinate: "Do not worry, hold your post, soldier."
"Yes!"
Karsten's gaze instantly regained the unwavering resolve characteristic of a soldier, as if this command was the sole meaning of his existence.
He straightened his chest, intending to say more, but his entire figure had already transformed into a twisting wisp of black smoke, vanishing in an instant.
Only an empty patch of grass remained, and the lingering scent of rust in the air.
Naruto closed his eyes.
In his perception, the soul chain, established through the Summoning contract and connecting him to Karsten, had not broken.
It had been stretched immensely by an incomprehensible force, twisting and extending towards a distant end beyond spatiotemporal cognition.
He immediately understood.
This world's "Summoning Technique" had been thoroughly "polluted" by his otherworldly, Imperial Political Commissar soul trait.
It was no longer a mere Summoning Technique but had transformed into a "subspace beacon" capable of two-way positioning.
This was a top-level strategic secret.
"Naruto!"
A sharp shout exploded in his ear.
Jiraiya's figure appeared before Naruto, almost tearing through the air, all traces of his usual flippancy gone, replaced by unprecedented solemnity and scrutiny.
"What in the world was that thing?!" His voice was low but carried an undeniable accusatory force.
"He's not from this world! And what does 'Political Commissar' mean?! Explain yourself!"
In his tone, there was a hint of fear he himself hadn't noticed.
That weapon called a "Bolter," with its power to silently reduce giant rocks to dust, had completely overturned his understanding of the word "ninja tool."
Facing Jiraiya's thunderous rage, Naruto opened his eyes.
In his icy blue pupils, he perfectly simulated an expression blending "confusion" and "analysis."
He tilted his head slightly, feigning deep thought.
"I cannot answer either."
Naruto said softly in an analytical tone.
"My Chakra output followed the standard procedure you taught.
However, the contract itself seems to have generated some kind of underlying logical error, randomly linking to an... 'invalid data.'"
He defined this shocking incident as a minor, understandable accident.
"Nonsense!" Jiraiya didn't believe him at all.
"Technical malfunction? What about what he said! The look in his eyes when he looked at you! That look of absolute obedience wasn't fake!"
"White-haired uncle..."
A faint, trembling voice came from the side.
Though Hinata's face was pale with fright, she clenched her fists, gathering all her courage to defend Naruto: "Naruto-kun... he seemed very surprised himself..."
Naruto cast Hinata a subtle glance of "approval."
He immediately added: "According to assessment, the threat has been neutralized, and the unit has disappeared.
It is recommended to archive this incident as 'Unknown Summoning Anomaly' and classify it as top secret for subsequent analysis."
His well-reasoned, airtight "official report" left Jiraiya unable to find any loopholes to refute.
Jiraiya stared intently into Naruto's eyes, attempting to find the slightest flaw beneath that icy blue surface.
But he failed.
In those eyes, there was only an unfathomable calm and an absolute rationality that made even him feel a chill.
Jiraiya's heart was in turmoil.
He realized an extremely serious problem.
If he reported this matter truthfully to the Third Hokage, given Sarutobi-sensei's cautious, almost pedantic personality, Naruto, Minato's only bloodline, would likely be immediately treated as an extremely dangerous destabilizing factor.
The best outcome would be house arrest in the Village, under twenty-four-hour surveillance, completely losing his freedom.
The worst outcome... he dared not imagine.
That guy Danzo from Root had countless more nefarious ideas.
No! Absolutely not!
This was Minato's and Kushina's child!
At this moment, Jiraiya's sense of responsibility as a godfather, which he had forgotten for over a decade, was fully ignited.
He made a decision, a difficult one.
He would bear this secret alone.
Jiraiya gazed deeply at Naruto, forcibly suppressing all the shock and doubt in his heart, and said in a heavy tone he had never used before: "Alright, I'll believe you for now."
He paused, his gaze sweeping over the nervous Hinata.
"But this matter, only Heaven knows, Earth knows, you know, I know, and the Hyuga girl knows.
Absolutely no fourth person must know, understand?!"
His attitude, in that instant, transformed from a mentor trying to "enlighten" Naruto to a "keeper of secrets" jointly guarding a secret, and... a "supervisor" who had to constantly watch Naruto.
The relationship between him and Naruto entered a new, more complex and subtle stage.
"Understood." Naruto nodded in agreement.
To completely dispel Jiraiya's doubts and to verify his own conjecture about the "subspace beacon," he proactively offered a suggestion.
"To verify whether the previous incident was a 'random malfunction,' I need to establish a control group."
He looked at Jiraiya, calmly saying, "I will attempt the Summoning Technique one more time."
This proposal stunned Jiraiya.
He looked at Naruto's expressionless face, for a moment unable to tell if the child was truly open or if his calculations were so deep that even he couldn't see through them.
After much hesitation, Jiraiya agreed.
He also needed a "normal" comparison to definitively categorize that terrifying scene as an "accident."
Otherwise, he wouldn't be able to sleep that night.
"Come on." Jiraiya stepped back a few paces, adopting a cautious stance.
"Let's see if Mount Myōboku's toads still recognize you as their contractor."
Naruto once again walked onto the clearing.
This time, he bit his finger, and at the moment of forming the hand seals, he deliberately, with his powerful mental energy, actively shielded the fluctuations of the "beacon" deep within his soul that connected to the Imperial coordinates.
He purely, without any impurities, connected his Chakra to the contract for the "Mount Myōboku Toads" on the scroll.
"Summoning Technique!"
His palm, once again, slammed onto the ground.
"Bang!"
A crisp, normal thud.
A small, harmless puff of white smoke appeared in the center of the summoning circle.
The smoke was faint, only reaching Naruto's knees, and compared to the earth-shattering entrance from before, it was like a child's firework.
Jiraiya and Hinata both nervously stared at the white mist.
As the smoke gradually cleared, a small, palm-sized toad with a blade of grass in its mouth appeared before everyone.
The little toad looked around, then, seeing Jiraiya, it paused, and then spoke in a childish yet feigned mature tone:
"Yo, isn't that Jiraiya? What's the deal, you went through all that trouble just to summon me, Gamakichi the Great?"
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