“Dead Demon Consuming Seal!” The moment Minato Namikaze completed the hand signs, he brought his palms together.
A ghostly figure slowly emerged behind him—a towering Shinigami with prayer beads hanging from its body and a ritual blade clenched between its teeth.
Directly ahead of him, Kushina Uzumaki remained on her knees.
Several Adamantine Sealing Chains erupted from her back, wrapping tightly around the Nine-Tails and restraining its enormous body.
“Believe in him,” Minato said, his voice heavy but unwavering.
“He is our son, after all.” His gaze settled upon the raging Nine-Tails.
“Seal!” The Shinigami extended one spectral arm.
Its hand passed straight through Minato’s body before reaching toward the bound beast.
Then Minato saw something that nearly caused his chakra control to collapse.
A white-haired young man dressed in torn, bloodstained clothing had somehow appeared behind Kushina—and was clinging to her with both arms.
For one dangerous instant, Minato’s chakra wavered.
Had his concentration broken completely, the sealing technique might have failed.
Kushina, who was already horrified that her husband had resorted to a technique that would claim his life, also sensed that something was wrong.
A strange chill pressed against her back.
Before she could understand what was happening, a pair of arms slipped beneath hers and wrapped firmly around her body.
Shock, anger, and humiliation flashed through her.
Under any other circumstances, Kushina would have sent the intruder flying across the village.
But the Nine-Tails had only recently been extracted from her body.
She was already standing at death’s door, forcing out the last remnants of her life force to maintain the Adamantine Sealing Chains and help Minato restrain the beast.
She did not have even the slightest bit of strength left to struggle.
Worse still, the person behind her only held on more tightly.
Kushina had only just given birth to Naruto, and her body had not yet recovered.
In the confusion, the white-haired stranger had ended up pressed against her in a position far more intimate than either of them had intended.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered awkwardly beside her ear.
“I swear I didn’t do this on purpose.” To Kushina, however, those words sounded like nothing more than an shameless excuse.
He had appeared precisely when she was incapable of moving.
He claimed it was an accident, yet his grip continued to tighten—and the situation behind her was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore.
Kushina was no innocent young girl.
She knew perfectly well what she was feeling.
What confused her was the temperature.
Why was it so cold?
Shouldn’t a living person’s body have felt warm?
The white-haired young man, Roy, had never intended for any of this to happen.
Before his first death, he had been an ordinary young man from Earth.
Other than his good looks, he had possessed no particularly remarkable qualities.
Then he had been struck by a truck whose driver seemed determined to meet some absurd year-end quota.
When Roy opened his eyes again, he found himself in the world of Bleach.
There, he became a Substitute Shinigami capable of travelling between the World of the Living and the Soul Society.
With his knowledge of the story and a small amount of assistance from his system—Roy had somehow survived Aizen’s betrayal and the Arrancar invasion of the World of the Living.
He had even survived long enough to witness Yhwach lead the Wandenreich’s Quincy forces in their invasion of the Soul Society.
Unfortunately, his luck had finally run out during that battle.
Meninas McAllon had kicked him directly in the face and sent him crashing to the ground with severe injuries.
Before Roy could even process the taste of her boot, Bambietta Basterbine, who had been standing nearby, used her ability on him.
He was only moments away from being reduced to a bloody cloud by the resulting explosion.
At the last possible instant, Roy’s system exhausted all of its remaining energy and forcibly teleported him away from the battlefield.
However, Bambietta’s explosion had disrupted the surrounding space.
The teleportation went off course.
When Roy regained consciousness, he could no longer sense the dense reishi of the Soul Society.
There was no familiar presence of Hueco Mundo, either, nor did the surroundings resemble the World of the Living he knew.
All he had left was half of a shattered Asauchi.
Then he heard explosions in the distance, followed by the roar of an enormous beast.
Roy followed the noise and arrived just in time to see Kushina restraining the Nine-Tails with her Adamantine Sealing Chains.
At first glance, it looked almost as though she were binding the beast in some absurdly elaborate form of bondage.
That was when Roy realised the truth.
He had escaped the world of Bleach only to land in the shinobi world.
Once he understood where he was and what night this was—his first thought was to save Minato Namikaze and Kushina Uzumaki.
There were two reasons for that decision.
First, when Roy had watched Naruto in his previous life, he had always thought Naruto’s childhood was unbearably lonely.
Second, Roy desperately needed somewhere safe to recover.
He had arrived with severe injuries and no intact Zanpakutō.
In his current condition, even an ordinary chūnin might have been able to kill him.
If he saved the Fourth Hokage and his wife, however, he would at least have powerful allies and a secure place to recuperate inside Konoha.
As for how to save them, Roy already had an idea.
Early explanations about jinchūriki made it seem as though death was inevitable once a tailed beast had been extracted.
However, anyone who knew the later events of the story understood that this was not always absolute.
If the Nine-Tails were sealed back inside Kushina quickly enough, her extraordinary vitality as a member of the Uzumaki clan might allow her to survive.
With Roy’s assistance, her chances would become even greater.
There was no reason for Minato to sacrifice both himself and the Nine-Tails.
Unfortunately, before Roy could explain any of that, Minato had already activated the Dead Demon Consuming Seal.
Roy had to admit that Minato truly deserved his reputation as the fastest shinobi in the world.
He moved so quickly that no one else had time to react.
Roy had been transported directly from the Soul Society, which meant he was currently in his spiritual body rather than a physical human body.
The Shinigami summoned through Minato’s sealing technique was likewise a spiritual entity—one whose sole purpose was to seize and devour souls.
The instant it appeared, its attention shifted toward Roy.
The terror Roy felt beneath its gaze was even worse than standing before Captain-Commander Yamamoto while the old man was genuinely enraged.
Roy’s instincts screamed that the Shinigami had noticed him.
To protect himself, he had immediately moved as close to Kushina as possible, hoping the powerful presence of a living person would conceal the scent of his spiritual body.
That desperate decision had led directly to the scene Minato was now witnessing—and the uncomfortable situation Kushina was currently enduring.
“Who are you?” Kushina demanded weakly.
Her breathing had grown shallow and uneven.
“Get away from me!
Let go!” Had she possessed even a fraction of her usual strength, she would have wrapped Roy in her Adamantine Sealing Chains and torn him apart.
But she could not release the Nine-Tails.
If she lost control of the chains now, Minato’s sacrifice would be wasted.
The Shinigami would not spare the caster merely because it had failed to claim its intended target.
If they failed to complete the sealing, Minato would still die.
Kushina and her newborn son would not survive either.
Even the whole of Konoha could be destroyed by the Nine-Tails.
“I really am sorry,” Roy said, tightening his hold only enough to keep himself hidden behind her living presence.
“Please endure it a little longer.
I only need to wait until that thing disappears.” Roy was hardly comfortable himself.
Because Kushina was kneeling, he had stumbled forward while trying to hide behind her.
Their position had become dangerously intimate, and his body was beginning to react despite his injuries and the terrifying situation around them.
That only made everything more awkward.
Before being transported to the world of Bleach, Roy had devoted himself entirely to his studies.
He had hoped to enter a good university, build a successful life, and eventually marry a beautiful and wealthy woman.
After arriving in a world filled with Hollows, Shinigami, Arrancar, and other deadly beings, he had not dared to relax for even a moment.
That relentless training was the reason he had risen from an ordinary human to the level of a lieutenant-class Shinigami in less than two and a half years.
Roy did possess a system, but its name was the Self-Reliance System.
Its name described its nature perfectly.
Aside from the Zanpakutō provided through the beginner’s gift package, it had never handed him anything for free.
Zanjutsu, Hakuda, Hohō, and Kidō techniques all had to be purchased from the system’s shop.
Even then, purchasing a technique only gave Roy the knowledge necessary to perform it.
He still had to train and improve his proficiency step by step.
The system could not directly increase his Spiritual Pressure, either.
Had it not just exhausted all its energy to save his life, Roy would probably still have been cursing it for being useless.
Kushina felt tears gathering in the corners of her eyes.
How was this something she could simply endure?
More importantly, this strange young man could actually see the Shinigami summoned by the Dead Demon Consuming Seal.
Under normal circumstances, only the caster and the target of the technique should have been able to perceive it.
By this point, Minato had successfully sealed half of the Nine-Tails’ chakra within himself.
His remaining chakra and life force were fading rapidly.
He had no time to question the identity of the suspicious white-haired stranger clinging to his wife.
Minato shot Roy a dark, indignant glare before slamming one hand against the ground.
A ritual altar appeared in a cloud of smoke.
Their newborn son, Naruto, lay upon it.
Minato intended to seal the remaining half of the Nine-Tails into Naruto.
That way, even after he and Kushina died, the village would surely recognise Naruto as the hero who had protected Konoha and take care of him.
It would also prevent the masked man who had attacked them from immediately reclaiming the Nine-Tails.
“Wait!” Roy’s shout rang across the battlefield.
“I can save Kushina!” Minato’s movements stopped.
“As long as you seal the Nine-Tails back inside her, she doesn’t have to die!” Roy continued urgently.
“Kushina still has the Uzumaki clan’s vitality.
If you return the Nine-Tails to her now and allow me to help stabilise her condition, she can recover!” Kushina’s body jolted at his words.
The sudden movement caused her body to tense around Roy, making his already awkward position even worse.
Minato’s expression froze.
For a brief moment, hope appeared in his eyes.
Then it vanished beneath disbelief.
“That’s impossible,” Minato said.
“Once a tailed beast is extracted, its jinchūriki will inevitably die.” If Minato had believed there was even the slightest chance of saving Kushina, he would never have accepted her death so readily.
He would not have been consumed by guilt over failing to protect his wife and son.
And he certainly would not have chosen a suicidal sealing technique to stop the Nine-Tails.