"The north? I thought that was just—"
Before the words could leave Ren's mouth, a primal chill suddenly shot up his spine, making every hair on his body stand on end.
He snapped his head up. In the next instant, he saw it.
Massive plumes of white smoke billowed into the air. In that direction, the terrifying silhouettes of two colossal beasts abruptly tore through the mist, towering over the landscape. The geothermal steam that drifted over the northern Valley of Hell day and night was shredded in a heartbeat.
Two pitch-black spheres, radiating an aura of absolute destruction and oblivion, tore through the steam, the earth, and the air. They obliterated every ancient tree in their path, carving a straight, three-hundred-meter-long trench through the forest in a single breath.
They were screaming toward the camp, aimed directly at his face!
Ren's pupils shrank violently. The blood vessels around his eyes bulged as his emotions surged to a fever pitch.
Despite the suddenness of the disaster, the battle-hardened Aburame Ryoma was the first to react. He looked up, his gaze momentarily glazed with shock as he stared at the incoming Tailed Beast Bombs. Then he snapped awake. He swung his arms, releasing every parasitic insect in his body to form a Secret Technique: Insect Wall, hoping to buy even a fraction of a second.
Simultaneously, he grabbed Ren's arm, trying to yank him aside.
"Ren, move! Now!" Ryoma shouted, his voice thick with desperation.
The enemy didn't know their exact position yet; the bombs were aimed at the camp. Ryoma knew Ren possessed the power of a Tailed Beast—he had seen that world-shaking 'False Dog Cannon.' But the raw power of true Tailed Beasts currently flying toward them was on an entirely different level.
They were only on the edge of the blast zone. With their speed, there was still time to escape!
However, when Ryoma pulled, it felt like trying to move a pillar of solid steel. The young man stood rooted to the spot, unmoving.
"You're telling me—"
Ren's eyes were wide, fixed on the two Tailed Beast Bombs screaming toward them in tandem. His eyes grew bloodshot, the whites of his eyes mapping a web of broken vessels.
"—To leave now?!"
If Kakuzu were the only one in that camp, Ren would have turned and vanished without a second thought. But Setsuna was in there. A group of innocent Konoha ninjas and Uchiha kin were in there. Old Chen, who had guided him, was in there.
Ren's body began to tremble.
"If I leave, what happens to them?!"
The thought ignited a cold fury.
"Get off me!"
His face twisted into a snarl as the jagged patterns of the Heaven Cursed Seal spread across every inch of his skin. He threw off Ryoma's grip with a shove that carried the force of a runaway juggernaut. With a sudden turn, he grabbed Ryoma by the collar of his black robe and hurled him backward out of the impact path.
Ren held nothing back. He began to stack every 'buff' in his arsenal.
Cursed Seal Level Two. Snake-eye Sharingan. The ignition of his Heart's Fire. Releasing the seal on the Zero-Tails to drape himself in the artificial Tailed Beast Cloak. The full-power activation of the Forbidden Jutsu: Body Revival...
He was intimately familiar with this process. Faced with the two spheres of destruction that threatened to erase everyone he had finally realized he wanted to protect, Ren Uchiha chose to seek life within death.
He looked up, his expression terrifying. He gripped his right wrist with his left hand, fingers splayed wide.
A sphere of brilliant blue chakra materialized in his palm. In an instant, it began to expand, change color, and rotate with violent intensity. The sky-blue hue deepened, swelling into a pitch-black abyss.
He used Sage Chakra to amplify the berserk Dark Chakra of the Expansion Rasengan, then poured in a staggering, 'Ton'-level amount of chakra to push the power beyond its limits.
The 'False Dog Cannon' couldn't match a true Tailed Beast Bomb.
But this...
Sage Art: Super Big Ball Dark Tailed Beast Bomb Expansion Rasengan!
It had to be enough!
Struggling to hold the terrifying power that was already spiraling out of control and expanding madly, Ren gritted his teeth. He stared at the Tailed Beast Bombs about to reduce everything to ash.
He stepped forward. One step, two steps—then a sprint!
He left a trail of sand and dust in the twilight, a black line of death charging toward hell. The gale generated in his palm blew his hair back, his eyes filled with a killing intent born of peak fury.
"You want to take everything from me?!"
"Come on then—"
"Kill me first!!!"
With a burst of god-like speed, he tore through the forest and crossed the camp like a heavy artillery shell. Finally, before the Tailed Beast Bombs could grind the camp into dust, he thrust his hand forward.
In just five seconds, the sphere in his palm had expanded from ten centimeters to nearly thirty meters in diameter, and it was still growing.
He pushed forward, twisted his wrist, and slammed the abyss downward!
Meanwhile, in Konoha.
The evening breeze stirred the clouds, pulling the last rays of sunlight through the narrow gaps to fall upon the Konoha Hospital. The light filtered into a hospital room, making Minato Namikaze's blonde hair shine even brighter.
For some reason, Minato felt the twilight looked unusually sad today.
Squeak—
The door to the room opened with a soft groan. Minato didn't need to look to know who it was.
"Minato, I'm here to see you!"
Just as he expected, Kushina walked in wearing a dress and the new sandals she had bought for the coming summer. She set a bag of fruit on the nightstand.
"What are you looking at?" she asked, leaning in curiously.
Minato was staring at a small blade of grass growing in a crack on the windowsill, swaying precariously in the night wind.
"Nothing..." Minato snapped out of it, scratching his head with a smile. "I just realized it's been a long time since Ren went to the Valley of Hell for his mission. I wonder how he's doing."
"Tell me about it!" Kushina pouted. "He's been gone for a month and a half. We wanted to thank him properly together—I wanted him to try my cooking—but he left the village the very next day."
Kushina said seriously, "I really want to officially take him in as my little brother!"
Minato coughed into his hand, his eyes darting away. Was that really a 'thanks'? Considering Kushina's current culinary skills, the dishes she produced were...
"Hey! Minato, what's with that look?!" Kushina snapped, seeing his expression. "I've been practicing seriously! It won't be like last time..."
Before she could finish, a sharp thud-thud-thud erupted from the drawer next to the bed.
Minato turned his head, his expression shifting as a memory clicked into place. He leaned over and yanked the drawer open.
Inside lay a specially designed Flying Raijin Kunai.
At that moment, the four characters for 'Sword of Shinobi Love' on the handle were pulsing with a brilliant, golden light!
Minato's pupils shrank as he cried out, "No! Ren is in danger!"
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