Chapter 252 The Past Me Unlocks the Seal of the Future
Originally, Minato intended to entrust the less dangerous task of sealing the Dragon Vein with Naruto and Gaara, since their team, focused on buying time for the sealing, would face at least hundreds of combat puppets.
However, Naruto's complete ignorance of sealing techniques was entirely unexpected.
After all, he and Kushina were arguably the two most skilled in sealing techniques in the ninja world. Their son, regardless of his level of expertise, should at least have mastered the most basic sealing techniques, yet Naruto was completely clueless.
Therefore, Minato looked at Jiraiya with a questioning gaze. In his view, even if he and Kushina were dead, Naruto's sealing techniques, even with Jiraiya's instruction, shouldn't be at this level.
Jiraiya felt a little guilty under Minato's gaze. After Minato's death, he had been wandering the ninja world. When he first met Naruto, Naruto was already eight years old. Then Naruto became Uchiha Touko's apprentice, and Jiraiya couldn't really help with Naruto's teaching. After Naruto ran away from the village, Jiraiya finally had the chance to teach the boy something after accepting the mission issued by Uchiha Touko. But before they could even start, they arrived here. So, Jiraiya could only say dejectedly, "This child's teacher is not me..."
Minato glanced at Naruto, who was very excited about the opportunity to fight alongside his father, with a complicated expression. He sighed softly, then took Naruto and Gaara and set off for the Dragon Vein Sealing Land of the Ancient Kingdom of Roulan.
After infiltrating the sealed area of the Dragon Vein, the group made a new discovery: a puppet factory was hidden there. The workers in the factory were the Loulan civilians who had been replaced by puppets. Under the puppets' supervision, their faces were numb; they had endured torture for a long time.
"That guy named An Lushan deserves to die!" Naruto thought angrily at the sight.
"I have to save them." Naruto took a deep breath and turned to look at Minato Namikaze.
Minato and Naruto exchanged a glance. From a mission-oriented perspective, ignoring the civilians and infiltrating the Dragon Vein directly was the most logical approach. Rescuing them would inevitably alert the puppet army, and the battle would begin prematurely. However, if they ignored them, Minato couldn't guarantee that the civilians would survive the battle while they sealed the Dragon Vein.
However, Naruto didn't consider things as much as Minato. For him, these civilians were people he absolutely had to save.
Minato saw the determination in his future son's eyes with just one glance. He knew that regardless of his own agreement, his son would act.
[Kushina, our future son is a kind person. In that case, I can't let him down.]
Minato thought to himself, then looked at Sara, whose face was full of self-reproach, and asked, "Your Majesty, how far are we from the Dragon Vein's seal?"
"Not far," Sara replied.
"Alright, Naruto, you and your friends stay here. The task of rescuing them is yours." Minato looked at Naruto seriously, "However, can we wait fifteen minutes before we act?"
"Alright! Leave it to me!" Naruto confidently slapped his palm and said.
"Minato, this..." Shinobu Aburame hesitated, realizing that splitting up again at this point would add many more variables to their mission.
"Don't worry, I know what I'm doing." Minato nodded to Shinobu.
Seeing this, Shinobu didn't say anything more, after all, Minato was the leader of their team this time.
After Minato and the others left, Naruto and Gaara found a place to hide in a corner of the factory.
"I'll lure these puppets away in a bit, and you can untie their shackles, okay?" Naruto asked Gaara.
"That's fine, but why are you taking the risk? These people's lives and deaths don't seem to concern us." Gaara asked, somewhat puzzled.
"Because they need my help right now." Naruto said with a smile.
"Just because of that?" Gaara didn't quite understand.
"Isn't that enough?" Naruto nodded. "Gaara, your father has always treated you as a weapon, but now, no one sees you that way anymore. How you use your power is up to you. If you haven't decided where to use your power yet, then use it to protect others for now."
"Protect?" Gaara looked down at his hands after hearing Naruto's words. In the past, these hands were stained with the blood of both enemies and allies. Under Rasa's daily indoctrination that he was the village's weapon, Gaara himself believed so. But now, someone with a similar background was telling him that his power could also be used to protect others.
"You stinky fox, your Jinchuriki really knows how to talk big." Inside the Tailed Beast Stream Space, Shukaku, 24 hours after its last beating, became defiant again, speaking sarcastically to Kurama.
"Stupid tanuki, if you're itching for a beating, you can just tell me." Inside Naruto's sealing space, Kurama said without looking up.
"Kurama, you wouldn't really lend your power to this brat to do such a pointless thing, would you?" Shukaku, slightly intimidated after being warned, changed his form of address, but he still found it incredibly unbelievable that Kurama would lend its power to a Jinchuriki for such a purpose.
"Hmph, I just took a liking to this kid, so I lent him my power. As for what he wants to do with it, I don't care," Kurama said, lying in the sealed space.
"Hmph, I certainly won't give my power to a Jinchuriki to do such a pointless thing," Shukaku said.
...
Fifteen minutes later, Naruto, hidden in the shadows, nodded to Gaara, then transformed into a streak of light and burst from the shadows, smashing a puppet that was whipping a worker who had collapsed from exhaustion into pieces with a single punch.
The alarm instantly blared throughout the puppet factory, and the workers on the production line numbly raised their heads.
Gaara swiftly formed hand seals, and the sand on the ground instantly gathered, precisely binding the shackles between the legs of the factory workers. With
a powerful clench of his fists, the sand binding the chains tightened instantly, and a series of teeth-grinding sounds echoed through the factory as the chains on the workers' feet shattered in a flash.
At this moment, the combat puppets within the puppet factory also began to converge on the crowd.
"Everyone, follow him and escape from here!" Naruto shouted to the crowd, then used Multiple Shadow Clone Technique to summon hundreds of clones glowing with golden light, blocking the army of battle puppets.
Gaara crushed a supervisor puppet with his Sand Coffin Binding, feeling a strange sense of emotion. Was this what it felt like to protect others with one's own power? Not bad at all.
After a brief moment of stunned silence, Gaara rallied his spirits and shouted to the crowd behind him, "Everyone, follow me!"
The civilians of Loulan, now freed from their restraints, quickly followed Gaara.
Seeing Gaara lead the civilians a short distance, a smile appeared on Naruto's lips. Previously, fearing that too much noise would injure the civilians, he and his clones had only been engaged with the battle puppets. Now, without interference, Naruto could act freely.
"My turn!" Naruto looked up at a large battle puppet in front of him, shouted, and in a few breaths, he created a Rasengan larger than the puppet's head, smashing it onto its head.
Soon after, the underground puppet factory shook violently.
"Naruto's started moving, we need to hurry too." Minato Namikaze calmly said, watching the army of battle puppets surging towards the factory. "Jiraiya-sensei, Shiki, Choza, and I will deal with these big guys. You take the Queen to shut down the Dragon Vein."
"Damn Konoha ninja!" At that moment, from the direction of the Dragon Vein, An Lushan, dressed in battle attire and surrounded by puppets, appeared before the group. Upon seeing Minato Namikaze, a ferocious expression appeared on An Lushan's face.
"Fourth Hokage? Why are you here?" An Lushan roared.
"The Fourth Hokage?" Shizuka Aburame and Choza Akimichi were both stunned upon hearing this, turning to look at Minato Namikaze in disbelief. There were only three Hokage portraits on the Hokage Rock in Konoha; where did this Fourth Hokage
come from? "Are you also from the future?" Minato Namikaze narrowed his eyes, almost instantly deducing the other's origin.
An Lushan realized he had made a slip of the tongue, but quickly, a fierce look appeared on his face. "Since you know things you shouldn't know, then you'll stay here forever."
With that, a battle puppet disintegrated and wrapped itself around Hyakuzuki's body. Hyakuzuki then personally controlled the puppet, attacking Minato Namikaze.
"Jiraiya-sensei, Queen, hurry up!" Minato Namikaze took a deep breath, pulling a series of swords of ninja love from his ninja tool pouch and throwing them in all directions.
"Shiki! Choza! Let's go!" Minato Namikaze shouted, his figure vanishing from his spot. The next second, he instantly appeared behind the puppet controlled by An Lushan, catching the flying Sword of Love. In a flash, Minato's other hand condensed a Rasengan and slammed it heavily onto the puppet's back.
However, compared to Naruto's powerful, brick-like Rasengan, Minato's Rasengan only left a few scratches on the puppet's surface.
An Lushan, realizing what was happening, manipulated the puppet to turn around and fiercely attack Minato behind it.
Seeing this, Minato used the Flying Thunder God Technique to instantly teleport behind his opponent again. However, this time, Minato's attack target was the chakra threads connecting the puppet's back.
The chakra threads connecting the puppet snapped instantly, but An Lushan inside the puppet let out a maniacal laugh.
"It's useless! If we were outside, this trick might work, but we're so close to the Dragon Vein. I can reconnect with new chakra threads at any time."
Minato, temporarily forced back by the puppets' attacks, frowned slightly. Enemies known for their defense were always his Achilles' heel.
Meanwhile, Jiraiya, who was heading towards the Dragon Vein with Sara, was also having a headache facing the dozen or so puppets surrounding him. If this were in his own timeline, he wouldn't have cared about these ten puppets.
But now, fearing that summoning the Myoboku toads of this timeline would increase the number of people who knew about the transmigration, Jiraiya had no choice but to use his ninjutsu to force a bloody path through.
"Ninjutsu! Wild Lion Hair Technique!" Jiraiya shouted, his white hair growing wildly as he slashed at the puppets' backs. This move wasn't meant to completely disable the puppets; just stopping their movements for a moment would give him a chance to break through the encirclement with Sara.
"Super Multiplication Technique!" At this moment, Akimichi Choza also used his clan's secret technique, his body suddenly growing several times larger, helping Minato withstand the puppet personally controlled by An Lushan.
"Shiwei! Hurry up!" Akimichi Choza shouted to Aburame Shiwei as he slammed the puppet heavily to the ground with an over-the-shoulder throw.
"I know, but the evolution of insects takes time." Aburame Shiwei said while guiding the parasitic insects with chakra to evolve in the direction of targeting this metal.
"Uncle Choza! I'm here to help you!" At this moment, a powerful voice rang out, and a golden streak of light rushed over, kicking the puppet controlled by An Lushan at a speed that was difficult to see with the naked eye. Then, a Rasengan with a diameter of more than ten meters slammed heavily into the opponent's face.
"Naruto?" Namikaze Minato was stunned when he saw Naruto, and then asked, "How did things go on your end?"
"I dismantled all those tin turtles!" Naruto laughed, his body wrapped in golden chakra flames.
"Damn brat!" The centipede, having taken a massive Rasengan, roared, activating the power of its dragon veins once more. Metal fragments throughout the base rapidly converged towards it.
In moments, a battle puppet dozens of times larger than before materialized, its massive body piercing the ground.
"This is huge!" Naruto exclaimed, looking at Minato Namikaze and pulling up his shirt. "Dad, help me! Help me break this seal, and then I'll deal with him."
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(End of Chapter)