Hearing Yahiko's 'offer,' I wondered whether to laugh or just go with it. Instead, I slammed the brakes on my thoughts before my face could betray me, and there was not much time to do anything else either. We were in the middle of a warzone after all.
"What exactly do you want from us?" Minato asked, getting to the point at once, before I could.
"First..." Yahiko said with a sudden sigh as his fingers hooked beneath the edge of his half-mask. "Trust requires something from both sides, as it isn't a one-way street; I understand that."
When his face came into view, he was way younger than the man I remembered, but it was him, alright. Konan beside him hesitated for perhaps half a second before doing the same, and lastly, Nagato followed suit, letting his red hair show and making Minato immediately raise an eyebrow, thinking about his possible connection to the Uzumakis.
"My name is Yahiko," he continued, doing a quick introduction. "This is Konan, and he is Nagato, my siblings."
"Minato Namikaze." He answered, while I just chuckled, nodding at the trio.
"Renjiro Uchiha, but I guess you know that."
"Yes," Yahiko said with a weak smile, scanning us once again. "We lead the resistance operating inside the Land of Rain."
"Huh?" Minato's expression betrayed his surprise when hearing that. "Resistance?"
"Against Hanzo and his dictatorship." He nodded, becoming serious. "We are the Akatsuki, the coming daybreak for the Land of Rain."
Too bad it would turn into the opposite, turned inside out by Madara and become even worse than Hanzo by gathering tailed beasts and trying to enslave the entire world. But maybe, just maybe not in this timeline... Although I don't know how I will or could deal with Madara and his plans. Okay, stop. It's one bad thing for now, I guess. I can worry about that later.
"How large is your group?" Minato asked, but of course, Yahiko didn't answer.
"Enough of that." Nagato said instead, "We need to move soon, so listen to him carefully, or we can't help you."
"..." Minato glanced toward me, but I just nodded, showing I was trusting them.
"This summit was never meant to succeed," Yahiko said, explaining in the most serious tone he could muster. "Hanzo made an agreement with the other Great Nations before any invitations were sent out. He reached agreements with every Kage separately at first, then he brought them together for a final meeting in secret. We have people close to him, but we only learned about it when the four arrived to finalize everything."
"..." Minato's face went very still when hearing that. "What agreement?"
"Naturally, Amegakure would host the summit, and Hanzo agreed to let our city become the battlefield one last time. In exchange," Yahiko continued, speaking very fast, wanting the facts to get out of the way, "the other nations promised that once the next war begins, the Land of Rain will be protected from it."
"Stone, Cloud, Mist, and Sand, all of them agreed that none of their military campaigns would cross Rain Country." Konan added, taking over the explanation, "They would pressure their allies and smaller nations to do the same, in exchange for setting up the perfect opportunity to kill the Hokage."
"Your Hokage is their primary target." Nagato said in a somewhat cold voice, "But your names were mentioned too."
"And Ashina Uzumaki." Yahiko reminded him, looking back and forth between Minato and me.
Well... It was nice to know where I ranked. Huh. I'm already so high on the Bingo Book that I am not even in it, but went straight to: just kill that man. Kill it with fire! I would be proud of it, but first, I should get home in one piece.
"Also, we need to move now," Nagato spoke up again. "Hanzo made a vow that if their subordinates fail to kill you two, he would come after you both personally."
"What?" I stared at him, not even blinking. "The glue sniffer wants us to go toe-to-toe with him? Is he that bored?"
"Yeah, because with your space-time technique, you might even escape the city; he had to have a guarantee put on the table," Yahiko said in a sympathetic tone. "And we now see you can do a lot with it... So I guess the Kages were right to make him swear on it."
"We could still get away," Minato began, but Yahiko shook his head.
"No. You don't know the country as well as he does, so... Even if you use your miraculous jutsus to blink away from here, he will catch up. We all can see it," he added, his eyes drilling into Minato. "It will drain you, will it not? You don't have the chakra to move back and forth between villages, and they don't want to grow up to be able to do exactly that."
"We are wasting time!" Nagato spoke again, raising his voice and sounding impatient. "We must move! They will soon realize their dogs failed to bite, and Hanzo will step in."
"If you knew all of this before today..." Minato said suddenly, looking with much more suspicion at the trio, "Why didn't you warn us? You knew our Hokage was walking into an assassination attempt, and only now do you say anything? Or pop up?"
"We didn't have a choice," Yahiko said, waving a hand because clearly, Nagato was ready to say something a bit more vicious.
"You had enough time to prepare an ambush for Hanzo." Minato countered, looking at them. "Otherwise, why would you need us if not for bait?"
"We couldn't contact you, even if we wanted to! Hanzo controls every official route into and out of the village, and we only learned about it by the time the meeting was set to happen." Yahiko said in a hurry, with a tinge of genuine sorrow in his voice, "We made a choice to not try and prevent it, but to use it. Yes, I know how it sounds and feels, but try to see it from our side! This was the best solution of them all, and yes, we took it. I am not going to lie about it or act like I feel bad about it, because I don't."
"Plus, how should we have intercepted you when you were welcomed by Hanzo and led away anyway?" Nagato asked, snorting before speaking. Well... He had a point there. "We've tried to remove him before, but he is too cautious, and all our attempts failed before we even got to try them."
"He rarely leaves protected positions without overwhelming forces, and his security rotates constantly," Konan added. "He changes routes all the time, so we just couldn't prepare a trap that could deal with him. And in a one-on-one confrontation, we would be unable to defeat him."
"If we have a chance to kill him, it is now," Yahiko said, now sounding pleading, "With your help, it will succeed... And it will not only help you escape this trap, but also make sure that, in the war, you have one less enemy."
"Okay," I said before Minato could speak up, throwing me a look but remaining silent, "What's next?"
"We have an escape route prepared. We've spent years building the tunnel as it goes underground. It has been one of our projects, even before we knew about this, in case of an emergency. Originally it was meant for us, letting us leave the city if we had to... But since learning about this trap, we turned it into a kill zone for this one moment."
"And you want us to lead Hanzo into it," I muttered, rubbing my face, thinking about the scene when Yahiko got to kill himself. Haaah... I hope this is not that kind of trap.
Was history trying to correct itself? Better not think about it that way, because I will go mad with worry if that's something I need to be careful about. I had already proven it could be changed by just saving Uzushio, so it shouldn't be the case. I hope... However, as I got lost in my sudden fearful thoughts, Minato spoke up, surprising me with what he said.
"No."
"..." Yahiko stiffened the moment he heard his answer.
"We aren't leading Hanzo anywhere until I understand what you're actually asking us to do."
"We don't have time!" Nagato yelled at Yahiko, instead of us, but it was clear who he aimed it at.
"He is right. So, lead the way then!" I chortled, turning to Minato as well. "Come on... I believe them."
"Why?" He asked back sternly, yet in the meantime, we indeed left as they began hurrying, Yahiko at the front, Nagato and Konan flanking us.
"They could have let us die, but didn't; that's good enough for me." I shrugged. "We are already in shit creek up to our necks, so I'm willing to grab any branch that pulls us out of it. And if it means I can grab onto Hanzo's hand and drag the bastard in while we climb out, count me in. The man deserves it for this whole mess. And honestly?" I added, smiling and making sure they heard me, "I don't think Jiraiya-sensei would blame them."
Good thing I was paying attention, because all three of them flinched at that, something that Minato missed, as he kept looking at me.
"What does Sensei have to do with—" Minato began.
"Our Sensei," I emphasized it gently. "Jiraiya."
By then, Yahiko stared at me while I stared back, giving him a small smile that said I knew something; as for how or why, I let his imagination run wild about it.
"The trap won't hurt you, not with your abilities," Yahiko said suddenly as we stopped and he removed a manhole cover, jumping down while we followed.
"Into a sewer? Really?" I shrugged as we kept running into a dark pipe, the rushing rainwater splashing around our feet.
"As I said," Yahiko continued, sounding a bit embarrassed, "The trap shouldn't hurt you. You can teleport, yes?"
"Hiraishin," Minato said, his voice still unfriendly, but he was no longer protesting. "Yes, we can."
"Wonderful," Yahiko said in a genuinely excited voice. "The trap will be operated by us and our allies who are already waiting. Just get Hanzo in, you jump out, and we will do the rest. You don't even need to help; run away if you can. Just make sure Hanzo enters the trap."
"Okay, but what is the trap about?" I asked, getting curious, and it wouldn't hurt to know more.
"It's a collection of—"
"Yahiko!" Nagato yelled at him, but then his tone turned serious, shooting Nagato down.
"Enough! They are willing to help and become bait for us! They deserve to know it; that is the minimum!"
"I agree," Minato said coldly, while I felt like I was in a bad romcom.
"So, what is it? Paper bombs?"
"Actually... partially, yes," Yahiko answered, sounding a bit incredulous.
"Guessed as much after seeing it work so well." I said nonchalantly, "How many are we talking about?"
"Since preparations began," Konan answered me, "I managed to place 2,411 explosive tags."
"Fuck!" I exclaimed, almost laughing, but thinking about it, that was nowhere near what she got Tobi with. If not for the cheat known as the Sharingan, he would have been dead.
"There's more." Yahiko said proudly, "Nagato put down a seal that will disable Hanzo's ability to use summoning jutsus."
"Are you an Uzumaki?" Minato asked, looking back at Nagato, who was now bringing up the rear.
"Just because I have red hair? No, I'm not. I was born here and lived here all my life."
"That doesn't mean much," I interjected. "Hair, immense feeling of chakra, making seals? You should check in with them after all is done. Just a tip, that's all... Maybe you could learn more from them to help your siblings."
"..." He said nothing to that, but Yahiko clearly liked the idea, being the optimistic one of the trio.
"After our country is freed, and there are no more wars, that does sound like a nice holiday."
"Okay, what else?" I asked, "Because if that seal disables summoning jutsus, it may disable our space-time jump, too."
"It... should not," Yahiko said, but sounded super unsure, while Minato and I exchanged glances.
"Let's hope so," I added, muttering to myself.
"The rest is straightforward," He continued, as we exited the underground pipe into a quarry-like hole, almost reminding me of the scene where he died. "We and all of our members will use our strongest jutsu in turn with Konan's explosions. Not even Hanzo can survive that..."