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Chapter 172: To the Past

"So fast," Tenten marveled.

They had fought Mukade before. Although he wasn\'t an elite, he was still at the jōnin level—experienced and extremely cunning. In familiar surroundings, he was hard to capture. If Naruto had been the one to act, it would have made sense. But it seemed Karin had fought alone. Their speed might have been slower, but the difference couldn\'t have been more than a few minutes.

"You only grow stronger when you\'re with the strong," Neji said in a low voice.

He remembered Karin from three years ago during the "Joint Chūnin Exams" in Konoha. At that time, she was just an ordinary genin who couldn\'t even pass the second stage of the exam. She was weak and talentless—that was the assessment back then. But now... even he wasn\'t confident he could defeat her.

Karin stood on tiptoe, completely ignoring Team 3 as they arrived, and waved in a particular direction. "Naruto, how did I do?"

"Very well done." Naruto was standing nearby, smiling and clapping for her.

Tenten wanted to speak up, but after glancing at Neji and remembering his earlier attitude, she swallowed her words.

"Uzumaki... Naruto-sama." Mukade, now hanging in the air, finally noticed the blonde-haired boy standing nearby, watching the battle. His voice trembled even more.

Naruto turned his head to look at Neji and the others. "Why did this guy defect?"

"According to Sand Village, he was discovered after harming his comrades in the village and then fled," Neji quickly answered.

Naruto shifted his gaze back to Mukade. "Is that true?"

"I just wanted to become stronger," Mukade stammered. "Uzumaki-sama, you\'ve met Sasori, right? His human puppets are what we puppet masters..."

Mind\'s Eye of the Kagura indicated that he was telling the truth, which meant that the part about harming his comrades was also true.

Naruto raised his hand and pointed at Mukade\'s face. Spiritual energy locked around his throat. Naruto drew Nine-Tails and struck Mukade\'s chest with the hilt of the sword. Although his body remained bound by chains, his soul was drawn out of his body. In the form where chakra and soul were fused, the "Sage of Six Paths" followed the trail. Unlike its hesitation when dealing with Sasuke, who had some "Shinigami power," this time it was decisive, pulling Mukade\'s soul away.

Naruto stared at the ground, lost in thought. He had encountered the "Sage of Six Paths" several times now. It didn\'t feel "alive" to him, more like a kind of... "program." When a soul appeared, it triggered a reaction. It would then make a "judgment" to determine whether the soul had left the body due to death or because of a "technique." If it was the latter, it wouldn\'t pull the soul away. If it was the former, it would take the soul.

The fleeting glimpse of the soul left Karin momentarily stunned. Though she had also trained in "Mind\'s Eye of the Kagura," her level was far below Naruto\'s, and she couldn\'t sense the presence of the "Six Paths."

"Was it taken away?" But she could easily deduce the process from what had happened.

Naruto nodded. "So it was wise not to experiment recklessly on you."

Karin looked down, mumbling to herself.

"What was that?" Team 3 was astonished. What had come out of the body was presumably a soul, right? And it had been taken away? Controlling the souls of the dead... This sounded like an evil act, but when it happened with Naruto, it didn\'t seem so hard to accept.

"Naruto, do you need this body?" Neji asked.

Naruto thought for a moment, then took out a scroll and extracted Mukade\'s chakra, leaving behind a slightly shriveled corpse. With a wave of his hand, he handed it over.

"Thank you." Neji nodded and looked at Tenten. The girl with the twin buns understood immediately and used the Body Flicker Technique to seal the corpse.

Naruto then walked to the center of the tower\'s formation. "Karin, do you want to give it a try?" He tilted his head.

Karin looked over. "A sealing technique of the Uzumaki clan. But Uncle Minato made some modifications. His sealing skills are quite impressive too. Let me give it a try."

Naruto stepped aside. Karin took out a scroll and carefully studied the formation. Forcing a seal open was certainly an option, but for a "sealing master," that would be a shameful act. One would only choose this last resort if they admitted that their abilities were far inferior to those of the person who set the seal.

After sealing the body, Team 3 didn\'t leave. Neji was the captain, and he hadn\'t given the order to leave yet. Hinata also didn\'t want to go.

More than an hour later, Karin clapped her hands together. "I\'ve figured out how to break the seal, Naruto. Shall we start?"

Naruto nodded. Karin put away the scroll and placed her hand on the center of the formation. From her palm, a dense array of characters spread out, covering the original formation and almost perfectly aligning with it. The chakra-driven seal began to turn in two directions, up and down. There was a creaking sound, like a door being opened. Flames ignited on the three-pronged kunai, burning away the anchor points of the seal.

The mound opened up. A burst of purple light shot out—it was an enormous chakra, accumulated over decades, erupting from the small opening, surging with an urgent, torrent-like force, stirring up a massive windstorm. This strange chakra also affected the surrounding space. It caused a slight distortion in the void.

"Naruto?" Karin, a bit flustered, turned her head.

Naruto carefully felt the disturbance and shook his head. "Don\'t worry, it\'s harmless. It\'s only distorting space-time."

Karin steadied herself.

"We might be in for a very interesting journey." Naruto could feel the power of space-time pulling at his body as if it wanted to transport him somewhere. He thought for a moment and looked at Karin. "Don\'t be afraid. I\'ll find you."

Karin was taken aback. She didn\'t quite understand what Naruto meant by that. But at that moment, the purple light engulfed her entirely. It then expanded, spreading outwards, swallowing the entire space within the tower, including Naruto and the slightly distant Team 3.

She used chakra to protect herself. But as Naruto had said, this purple energy didn\'t harm her. It only disrupted her senses. "Up and down," "east, west, north, south" all blurred together in the purple light. It felt as if she had been spun around in a washing machine for what felt like ages.

Several minutes later, the sensation faded. With a thud, she found herself in a desert. She looked up, scanning her surroundings. Her gaze was a bit dazed. Had the power of the Dragon Vein transported her? The vast yellow sands suggested that she was still within the Land of Wind.

Karin stood up and looked ahead. Tall towers loomed, grander and more intricate than those in the Land of Rain, rising from the desert sands. She frowned slightly. The Land of Wind was impoverished; it didn\'t have the resources to build such a city. Moreover, this country\'s architecture didn\'t match this style.

It seemed familiar, as if she had seen it before. It looked like the style of "Rōran." Upon closer inspection, Karin confirmed that it was indeed "Rōran." But how could a country that had already collapsed and been destroyed suddenly reappear?

Karin remembered that when Orochimaru had described the Dragon Vein, he had mentioned its ability to alter "space-time." So... had she been transported back in time by the Dragon Vein?

This thought filled her with a bit of panic. But soon, Naruto\'s earlier words, "I\'ll find you," resurfaced in her mind. His gentle, reassuring words calmed her down. He was here with her. And she wasn\'t the weak Grass Ninja from three years ago anymore.

Karin clapped her hands together.

"Mind\'s Eye of the Kagura" activated.

A moment later, she opened her eyes and looked in the direction leading away from Rōran, towards Konoha. In that direction, she sensed several chakras. Two of them... were familiar to her. Of course, neither belonged to Naruto.

In the desert, a Konoha ninja squad was traveling.

"Could this be false information from Sand Village?" Kakashi, with both eyes still intact and his face covered by a mask, said coldly. "How could the Byakugan appear in a small country like Rōran?"

The blonde man, Minato Namikaze, shook his head. "At first, we also thought it was false information. But the Anbu have confirmed it, and they even obtained photographs. Not just one. There are two Byakugan users. A man and a woman."

The Hyuga ninja in the team spoke in a grave tone: "The most alarming part isn\'t just the Byakugan being leaked. The photos were sent back to the Hyuga clan. We\'ve confirmed them. The male Byakugan user has a decoration covering his forehead, so we can\'t identify him. But the female Byakugan user\'s forehead is exposed, and there\'s no \'Caged Bird\' seal. This means... she\'s from the main family."

Kakashi said nothing.

The Hyuga ninja continued, "What\'s baffling is that after searching through the Hyuga clan\'s history, even before Konoha was established, there have only been a few incidents of the Byakugan being leaked, but no main family member has ever defected. There have been a few cases of branch family members. But once the \'Caged Bird\' seal is activated, those who try to defect from the branch family die. No successful defections have been recorded."

He frowned.

"So this mission is quite challenging," Minato said softly. "An enemy with the Byakugan is not to be underestimated."

As soon as he finished speaking, a ninja from the Aburame clan, wearing sunglasses, spoke up: "There\'s a large chakra signature ahead. It\'s not in our records, so we don\'t know if it\'s friend or foe. Should we avoid it?"

Minato frowned. "Avoid—"

"She\'s coming towards us, and she\'s moving quickly," the Aburame ninja said quietly.

As he spoke, a head of brilliant red hair came into view.

"Kushina?" A burly, fat man in the group widened his eyes, murmuring a name in disbelief.