Naruto : Minato back to the past

"What!?"

Hearing this, Minato stood up suddenly, his blue eyes stern.

"Please explain the specific situation," he asked.

The Chunin immediately replied, "The night before yesterday, we drank a little together after finishing the day's reconstruction work, and then we separated."

"Yesterday morning, they didn't come to work. I thought they had drunk too much, so I went to their houses to look for them at noon."

"But the neighbors said that no one returned home the night before yesterday. I informed the responsible Jonin about this matter. Until now, some of my companions are still searching everywhere in the village, but there is still no news."

The Chunin looked extremely anxious, as the missing Konoha ninjas were all his good friends.

"Is there more than one missing person?"

Minato's face darkened even more. When the village was attacked before, not only the houses, but most importantly, the barrier covering the entire Konoha was also partially damaged.

The barrier was originally repaired by Minato, but after he became Hokage, he no longer had the time.

Therefore, the last repair was done by Kushina, and now her skills in sealing techniques were not much worse than Minato's.

The first phase of the village's reconstruction had just been completed, so he hadn't yet involved Kushina in the barrier repair work.

Because the control hub of the barrier team had also been destroyed, it had not yet been completely rebuilt.

However, Minato had already found the vulnerabilities in the barrier through his perception and dispatched ANBU ninjas to take turns on duty, so it was almost impossible for anyone to use these gaps to sneak into the village.

"Yes, there are three in total, one Chunin and two Genin," the Chunin replied.

Minato nodded, then glanced to the side and whispered softly, "Tell your captain to come to my office for a minute."

"Yes!"

At this time, someone seemed to respond. It was a ninja from the ANBU.

Not long after, Uchiha Yoruki arrived at the Hokage's office.

"Minato, what's the emergency?"

Uchiha Fugaku also frowned, because since Root was disbanded that day, many former members of Root had joined the ANBU.

These personnel could not directly participate in the work of the ANBU, although Root was originally a training institution for cultivating ANBU operatives.

However, these Root members were all selected by Danzo himself, and their thinking had been influenced by him.

So these days, in addition to dealing with the affairs of the ANBU, Uchiha Fugaku also had to conduct some special training and observation of these personnel.

If it wasn't something serious, Minato wouldn't have disturbed him.

"More ninjas have gone missing," Minato said with a serious look.

Uchiha Fugaku's eyes twitched.

Because after the masked man attacked Konoha, upon investigation, it was found that several ninjas in the village had disappeared.

After all, that confrontation affected the entire Konoha, so perhaps some ninjas were buried in the ruins, or there were other accidents. This was also a possibility, so Minato didn't investigate further at the time.

But now it seemed that things were not as simple as he thought.

"Did the ANBU ninjas who were guarding the vulnerabilities in the barrier protecting the village find any suspicious traces?" Minato asked.

"No, everything is normal," Uchiha Fugaku replied.

Minato frowned. If this was true, then there were two possibilities for the mysterious disappearance of ninjas in the village.

One was that the masked man who possessed a special space-time eye technique had sneaked back into Konoha.

With his abilities, not even Minato could track him down at all times.

But if that person really wanted to find out information about Konoha, there was no value in targeting ninjas at the Chunin and Genin levels.

Also, since that man was able to find out such top-secret information as Kushina's childbirth, why would he need to use such low-level means?

If it wasn't him, then there was only one possibility left—that these missing ninjas might still be somewhere in the village.

For some unknown reason, they were captured by someone within Konoha.

Of course, these were just Minato's assumptions.

Sigh

Minato took a deep breath. The disappearance of ninja was by no means a trivial matter. Then he looked at Uchiha Fugaku and the Chunin in front of him.

"Dispatch the ANBU ninjas to participate in the search for the missing ninjas."

When it came to this kind of work, the ANBU ninjas were even more effective than some of the Jonin.

"You will tell him the detailed information of the missing ninjas. Don't stop your search, even if it delays the reconstruction process."

Minato said in a deep voice.

"Yes, Hokage-sama!"

The two people in front of him both responded firmly.

After the two left the Hokage's office, Minato's solemn expression remained unchanged.

Because he had a vague feeling that this matter might be more complicated than he imagined.

Somewhere in Konoha, there was an underground laboratory.

The dim light illuminated the various instruments in the laboratory, which looked extremely eerie.

In this gloomy room, there was a faint smell of blood and decay.

It was the smell of rotting corpses.

However, the figure in front of the experimental table at the deepest part didn't seem to care about these odors.

He stared intently at what was in front of him.

There was a fiery madness in those enchanting, serpentine yellow eyes.

This person was actually Orochimaru.

At this moment, he was dissecting a corpse.

On the ground beside him, there was a blood-stained Konoha forehead protector that he had casually thrown on the ground.

"Whoosh!"

Just as he was concentrating on his work, the space behind him began to produce swirling, twisted ripples.

A figure wearing a loose black robe suddenly appeared.

Orochimaru was one of the Legendary Sannin after all, so he sensed something and turned his eyes to the side, and saw the masked man through the gaps in his long black hair.

His snake-like pupils shrank slightly, and then he said: "You should be the one who led Sasori of the Red Sand and Kakuzu to attack Konoha some time ago?"

Although he had not seen it with his own eyes, given Orochimaru's position in Konoha, how could he not have obtained the specific information about that day?

"You were lucky enough to escape from Minato Namikaze that day, and now you dare to come to Konoha again?" Orochimaru said calmly, looking at the man in front of him with a wary expression.

Orochimaru had no idea why this person had come.

In response to his vigilance, the masked man shrugged and said, "Come to think of it, shouldn't you thank me?"

"If my companions and I hadn't attacked Konoha that night, you probably wouldn't have had the chance to capture Konoha ninjas as test subjects for your experiments, right?"

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