Minato's final actions didn't yield any positive results.
Regrettably, the battle to retrieve the Byakugan ended in Konoha's defeat.
Therefore, the Hidden Leaf Village was currently engulfed in grief.
The entire Hyuga clan was crying a river, experiencing heart-wrenching pain, and wailing miserably, just like a young girl who had encountered some horrific incident... like losing her jawbone during a plastic surgery procedure...
During the mission, Konoha lost another six ninjas. Although it was deeply regrettable, this was an unavoidable reality for ninjas executing missions.
In terms of encounter frequency, Kamishiro Hagoromo and Kakashi's squad ranked at the very top. But in terms of actual spoils, they had managed to grab basically nothing.
After the mission concluded, the squad immediately returned to Konoha, resulting in them not having a second face-to-face meeting with the world's greatest scientist, Orochimaru.
This was a rather regrettable thing.
But in a certain sense, it was also something to celebrate. After all, Kamishiro had successfully avoided the crisis of being sliced into specimens... Though practically speaking, the current Orochimaru could still be considered somewhat bound by the rules, far from the level of utter madness he would reach later on.
After the ninjas from both sides evacuated, the long-destroyed Land of Whirlpools once again returned to its usual tranquility.
Regardless of how Konoha internally evaluated the mission, upon returning to the village, every squad had to provide a detailed report of their encounters.
Kamishiro and Kakashi naturally had to do the same. There was nothing to hide; they just had to tell the truth.
Even though the mission failed, when a medium-scale mobilization of ninjas couldn't get the job done, the blame for the failure obviously couldn't be pinned on the individual grunts executing the orders. If blame had to fall somewhere, it should land squarely on the decision-making and command tiers.
Therefore, the ninjas who participated likely wouldn't face any punishment.
However, for Kamishiro, giving a mission report wasn't a one-and-done deal. Afterward, he still had to give a full deposition to Kushina.
Unfortunately, the one who ended up getting a jump scare this time wasn't Kushina, but Kamishiro himself.
...
As the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki, Kushina was a weapon of mass destruction, and was strictly kept safe within Konoha. In reality, apart from that one joint mission with her student, she hadn't taken a single step outside of Konoha since.
After all, nobody could risk letting her run into a dangerous incident like that again.
Amidst the ongoing war, she definitely belonged to the category of ninjas with way too much free time.
She could even occasionally spend an entire day just acting like a shut-in at home. Whenever he went directly to her place to look for her, there was a fifty percent chance of catching her there.
This time was no exception.
"What? Marriage?!"
This piece of news caught him so incredibly off guard that he instantly sank into stunned silence.
Although he wasn't overly familiar with the precise timeline of the plot, he wasn't completely clueless either. He still knew about the major turning points—like the Nine-Tails incident that took place around the time of Naruto's birth... an event he absolutely had to prevent no matter what.
With Kushina talking about marriage now, did that mean the event was fast approaching?
Then his preparations needed to speed up.
If any unexpected variables popped up, he wouldn't just need to speed up; he'd need to hit the gas pedal hard.
As his mind raced, his gaze unconsciously drifted toward Kushina's lower abdomen.
Naruto couldn't possibly be in there already, right?
unlikely.
Overall, Kushina still had the slender waist of a young girl. And considering Minato was the strictly proper and principled type, this probably wasn't a hurried wedding cause he got her pregnant...
Noticing his gaze, Kushina instantly realized exactly what he was thinking.
The moment she mentioned marriage, his mind immediately went there?! Her face instantly flushed with a deep layer of red.
Was she shy? Nope. This was Kushina, the Red Hot-Blooded Habanero. Ninety-nine percent of the time her face turned red, it was out of pure rage.
Okay, maybe she was a little bit shy about this specific topic.
She pressed her left hand flat against her stomach, as if that could physically block his line of sight.
Kamishiro's Lightning Style was an incredibly fast technique. The only thing faster than his Lightning Style was his thought process, and the only thing faster than his thought process was Kushina's fist.
He could swear on his life that before the phrase wedding even finished crossing his mind, Kushina had already punched him squarely in the head.
Instantly, two distinct lumps caused by blunt force trauma sprouted on his head.
The strike was super effective, yielding immediate results. His impure thoughts vanished without a trace.
Why did one punch result in two lumps? Because Kushina hit him so hard in the back of the head that the sheer energy caused him to smash his forehead directly into the low table in front of him.
Symmetry achieved.
"Hagoromo, didn't I warn you to stay as far away from Jiraiya-sensei as possible?"
With the blush still fresh on her face, Kushina sat down across from him and began her ideological re-education session.
As she sat, she tucked her stomach safely beneath the table.
Uh, covering it up? Could she actually be feeling guilty about something?
Regardless, to avoid eating another fist, he made the decision to drop the subject entirely.
He immediately raised three fingers to the sky and swore an oath. "Any inappropriate thoughts that manifested in my mind were undoubtedly the result of excessive exposure to Uncle Jiraiya. I will absolutely maintain a safe distance from that man from now on."
"To think one of the Sannin is actually that kind of person, subtly corrupting others like that."
If there was a scapegoat to be found, naturally Jiraiya had to take the fall. This was an ingrained belief for Kushina. She felt that if the child she watched grow up developed any twisted thoughts, it was definitely because he had been interacting with a dangerous element like Jiraiya.
As master and student, Kamishiro had naturally inherited this exact trait, so he felt absolutely zero pressure shifting the blame. If Kushina still didn't believe him, he was fully prepared to shave his head to prove his resolve.
Thankfully, after hearing his solemn vow, Kushina nodded in satisfaction.
He let out a sigh of relief and steered the conversation back to business. "But still, getting married during this period? The atmosphere in the village right now..."
What he really meant was, with the war being this intense, this really wasn't the right time for a wedding, was it?
If he had studied the history of this world, he would know the timing for this event was indeed a bit off.
"I said we're planning to get married. It's just a plan. We're obviously not doing it right now. Minato has too much on his plate, and his missions never seem to end, so we'll have to wait at least until the Great War settles down."
"Speaking of which, Hagoromo, why are you getting so worked up? Are you the one marrying Minato, or am I?"
Minato's mission intensity was undoubtedly the highest in the village. Compared to him, he practically had it easy.
"But still, the Great Ninja War, huh? It should be approaching its final stages soon, right?"
That's what he thought inwardly, but outwardly he said, "Since there's still quite a bit of time left..."
"Sensei, first of all, I highly recommend you spend some time polishing your cooking skills."
"Secondly, maybe work on fixing your temper while you're at it..."
It was clearly his teacher getting married, yet for some inexplicable reason, he was experiencing the strange delusion of a father giving his daughter away.
Kushina narrowed her eyes slightly. Using a deceptively casual tone, she asked, "Oh? Do you have some kind of problem with my cooking and my temper?"
"..."
"Absolutely not."
He understood that specific expression perfectly. Therefore, he completely threw his integrity out the window, flat-out denying his own advice while picking up his water cup to mask his panic.
Can we just pretend I didn't say anything?
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