Naruto: Uchiha Youngjo's Konoha Spring

Chapter 252 The Past Me Unlocks the Seal of the Future
Minato originally intended to entrust the less dangerous task of taking Sara to seal the Dragon Vein to Naruto and Gaara, since their team, which was buying time for the Dragon Vein to be sealed, would be facing at least hundreds of combat puppets.

However, Naruto's complete lack of knowledge about sealing techniques was something Minato had not anticipated.

After all, he and Kushina are currently the two most proficient in sealing techniques in the ninja world. Their son, regardless of how high his sealing technique skills are, should at least have mastered the most basic sealing techniques. But Naruto is completely clueless about them.

Minato looked at Jiraiya with a questioning gaze. In his opinion, even if he and Kushina were dead, Naruto's sealing techniques, taught by Jiraiya, 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. He first met Naruto when Naruto was eight years old, and Naruto then became Uchiha Touko's apprentice. Jiraiya couldn't really interfere in Naruto's teaching. After Naruto ran away from the village, Jiraiya finally had a chance to teach the boy something after accepting a mission from Uchiha Touko. But before he could even begin, they arrived here. So, Jiraiya could only say dejectedly, "This child's teacher isn't me..."

Minato Namikaze glanced at Naruto, who was visibly excited about the chance to fight alongside his father, with a complex expression. He sighed softly, then took Naruto and Gaara with him and set off for the Dragon Vein Sealing Land of the ancient kingdom of Loulan.

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 The workers in the factory were the Loulan commoners who had been replaced by puppets. At this moment, under the supervision of the puppets, their faces were filled with numbness. They had been suffering here for a long time.

"That guy named An Lushan deserves to die!" Naruto was instantly filled with rage upon seeing this scene.

"I have to go save them." Naruto took a deep breath and then turned to look at Minato Namikaze.

Minato Namikaze and Naruto exchanged a glance. From the perspective of completing the mission, it would be most reasonable for them to ignore the civilians and infiltrate the location of the Dragon Vein. After all, if they tried to rescue these people, they would inevitably alert the puppet army here, and the battle would begin sooner. However, if they ignored these people, Minato Namikaze could not guarantee that these civilians would survive the battle while they were sealing the Dragon Vein.

However, Naruto didn't consider so many things like Minato Namikaze. For him, these civilians were people he had to save no matter what.

Minato Namikaze saw the determination in his future son's eyes with just one glance. He knew that his son would take action regardless of whether he agreed or not.

Kushina, our future son, is a kind person. Since that's the case, I can't let him down.

Minato Namikaze thought to himself, then looked at Sara, whose face was full of self-reproach, and asked, "Your Majesty, how far is it from here to the sealing site of the Dragon Vein?"

“It’s not far anymore,” Sarah said.

"Alright, Naruto, you and your friends stay here. The mission to rescue them is yours." Minato Namikaze looked at Naruto and said seriously, "However, is it alright if we act in fifteen minutes?"

"Alright! Leave it to me!" Naruto said confidently, slapping his palm.

"Minato, this..." Aburame Shiki hesitated, knowing that if they were to split up their forces again at this point, their mission would become even more unpredictable.

"Don't worry, I know what I'm doing." Minato Namikaze nodded to Shiki Aburame.

Seeing this, Shiki Aburame stopped talking, after all, Minato Namikaze was the captain 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 remove their shackles, okay?" Naruto said to Gaara.

“That’s fine, but why are you taking the risk? These people’s lives and deaths don’t seem to concern us.” Gaara said, somewhat puzzled.

"Because they need my help 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 will see you that way anymore. How you use your power is up to you. If you haven’t figured out 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 comrades. 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 Jinchūriki really knows how to talk big." Inside the Tailstream Space, Shukaku, 24 hours after its last beating, once again became defiant and spoke sarcastically to Kurama.

"Stupid raccoon, if you're itching for a beating, you can just tell me," Kurama said without looking up from inside Naruto's sealed space.

"Kurama, you wouldn't really lend your power to this brat so he can do something so pointless, would you?" After being warned, Shukaku flinched slightly and changed his form of address. However, he still found it incredibly unbelievable that Kurama would lend its power to a Jinchuriki for such a thing.

"Hmph, I took a liking to this kid, so I lent him my power. As for what he wants to do with my power, I don't care," said the Nine-Tailed Fox, who was lying in the sealed space.

"Hmph, I'm not going to give my power to a Jinchūriki and make him do such a boring thing," Shukaku said.

……

Fifteen minutes later, Naruto, who was hiding in the shadows, nodded to Gaara, then transformed into a streak of light and burst out of the shadows, smashing a puppet that was whipping a laborer who had fallen to the ground due to exhaustion into pieces with a single punch.

An alarm instantly blared throughout the puppet factory, and the workers on the production line numbly raised their heads.

At that moment, Gaara rapidly formed hand seals, and all the sand on the ground gathered together, precisely binding the shackles between the legs of the factory workers.

Gaara clenched his fists tightly, and the sand binding the chains tightened instantly. A series of teeth-grinding sounds echoed through the factory as the chains on the workers' feet shattered in an instant.

At this moment, the combat puppets inside the puppet factory 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 radiating golden light, blocking the army of combat puppets.

After Gaara crushed a puppet of an overseer with his Sand Coffin Binding, a peculiar feeling welled up inside him. Is this what it feels like to protect others with one's own power? Not bad at all.

After a brief moment of surprise, Gaara roused himself and shouted to the crowd behind him, "Everyone, follow me!"

Upon seeing this, the Loulan commoners, now freed from their restraints, quickly followed Gaara's footsteps.

After seeing Gaara lead the civilians a distance away, Naruto's lips curled into a smile. Previously, he and his clones had only been entangled with these combat puppets to avoid making too much noise and injuring the civilians who had come here. Now that there was no one else to interfere, 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 bigger than the puppet's head and smashed it on the puppet's head.

Before long, the underground puppet factory began to shake violently.

“Naruto’s side has started to move, so we need to hurry up.” Minato Namikaze said calmly, looking at the army of combat puppets surging toward 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 ninjas!" At this moment, from the direction of the Dragon Vein, An Lushan, dressed in battle attire and surrounded by puppets, arrived in front of the group. Upon seeing Minato Namikaze, An Lushan's face contorted into a ferocious expression.

"Fourth Hokage? Why are you here?" An Lushan roared.

"The Fourth Hokage?" Shiki Aburame and Choza Akimichi were both stunned upon hearing this, and turned to look at Minato Namikaze in disbelief. There were only three heads on the Hokage Rock in Konoha, so where did the Fourth Hokage come from?

"Are you also from the future?" Minato Namikaze narrowed his eyes, almost instantly deducing the other party's origin.

An Lushan realized he had spoken out of turn, but soon a fierce look appeared on his face. "Since you know things you shouldn't know, then you can stay here forever."

After saying that, a combat puppet disintegrated and wrapped itself around Hyakuzuki's body. Then, Hyakuzuki personally controlled the puppet and attacked Minato Namikaze.

"Jiraiya-sensei, Your Majesty, hurry up!" Minato Namikaze took a deep breath, took out a series of swords of love from his ninja tool pouch at his waist, and threw them in all directions.

"Shiki! Choza! Let's go!" Minato Namikaze shouted, his figure disappearing from the spot. The next second, his figure instantly appeared behind the puppet controlled by An Lushan. Minato Namikaze caught the flying sword of ninja love, and in the blink of an eye, he condensed a Rasengan in his other hand and slammed it heavily on the back of the puppet.

However, compared to Naruto's powerful Rasengan that could send bricks flying, Minato's Rasengan only left a few scratches on the surface of the puppet.

Once he realized what was happening, An Lushan manipulated the puppet to turn around and launch a fierce attack on Minato Namikaze behind him.

Seeing this, Minato used the Flying Thunder God Technique to teleport behind the opponent again. However, this time, Minato's attack target was the chakra threads behind the puppet.

The chakra threads connecting the puppet snapped instantly, but An Lushan inside the puppet burst into maniacal laughter.

"It's useless! If we were outside, this trick of yours might work, but here we are so close to the dragon vein, I can reconnect it with a new chakra thread at any time."

Minato, who was temporarily forced back by the puppet's attack, frowned slightly. This kind of enemy, who was good at defense, had always been his nemesis.

Meanwhile, Jiraiya, who was leading Sara toward the location of the dragon vein, was also having a terrible headache as he faced more than ten puppets surrounding him. If this were in his own timeline, he wouldn't have taken these ten puppets seriously at all.

But now, fearing that summoning the Myoboku toads from this timeline would increase the number of people who know about the time travel, Jiraiya has no choice but to use his ninjutsu to forcibly carve out a bloody path.

"Ninja Art! Lion's Roar Technique!" Jiraiya shouted, his white hair growing wildly as he slashed at the puppets' backs. This move wasn't intended to directly disable the puppets; if it could pause their movements for a moment, he would have a chance to break through the encirclement with Sara.

"Super Multiplication Technique!" At this moment, Akimichi Choza also used his family'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 at 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 Shiki said as she guided the parasitic insects with chakra to evolve in a way that targeted this metal.

"Uncle Dingza! I'm here to help you!" At this moment, a powerful voice rang out, and a golden streak of light flew over at a speed that was difficult to detect with the naked eye. It kicked the puppet controlled by An Lushan, and then a Rasengan with a diameter of more than ten meters slammed heavily into the opponent's face.

"Naruto?" Minato Namikaze was taken aback when he saw Naruto, then asked, "How are things going on your end?"

"I dismantled all those tin turtles!" Naruto laughed, his body wreathed in golden chakra.

"Damn brat!" Centipede roared after taking a Super Giant Rasengan, and activated the power of the Dragon Vein once again. At this moment, metal fragments throughout the base rapidly converged in his direction.

In no time, a battle puppet dozens of times larger than the original one materialized, its massive body piercing through the ground.

"This is huge!" Naruto exclaimed, looking at Minato Namikaze and pulling up his shirt. "Dad, please help me break this seal, and then I'll deal with him."

(End of this chapter)