The hatred Naruto experienced growing up…
Was more than ten times what Kushina ever endured.
At least Kushina had Mito Uzumaki to care for her when she was a child.
Naruto?
He had no one.
When he was hungry, he had to figure it out on his own — no one cared if he ate or starved.
When he lay sleepless in a world full of hate, no one cared how late he stayed up.
When he cried quietly into his bedding in the dead of night, no one asked if he was okay.
When he fell, no one helped him up — no one asked if it hurt.
Even after training all day and crawling home exhausted, not a soul asked about his hard work.
No one.
Because Naruto had always been completely alone.
And in the end, even the only thing he had — the title "son of the Fourth Hokage" — was stripped from him.
For his own "protection," they said.
To keep him safe from enemies seeking revenge, they hid his identity.
All they cared about was whether Naruto behaved.
Whether the Nine-Tails was stable.
Whether the jinchūriki would turn on the village.
They treated him not like a child, but like a weapon.
It wasn't until he was older that someone — usually an old man — would show up once in a while to say a few fake words of kindness and take some of the only grilled fish he had to eat.
After all, it was just a kid.
He wouldn't remember.
He had no one else.
It's not like he mattered.
But Naruto remembered everything.
Every moment — from the very beginning until now.
Looking at the memories playing out in front of him, Minato fell silent.
His bright, sunny expression darkened with each passing second.
What he thought was a village worth saving — a future worth entrusting — twisted before his eyes into something rotten.
He and Kushina had given their lives for this.
They sealed the Nine-Tails in their newborn son to protect the village and him — thinking, naively, that the villagers would treat Naruto like a hero.
Instead, they branded him a curse.
They rejected him. Shunned him. Starved him.
And no one — no one — helped.
Minato couldn't believe what he saw.
The villagers' coldness.
The Third Hokage's complete inaction.
Not even his trusted bodyguards. Not even Kakashi.
They were all missing from Naruto's life.
> "Lord Third… why…?"
Minato's voice trembled as he whispered the question to himself.
He had trusted Hiruzen. Deeply.
Even as Hokage, Minato had left much of the village's power in the Third's hands.
When he and Kushina died, it was Hiruzen he trusted to raise their son.
But now, that trust felt like a mistake.
> "Why did everything I prepared turn out like this?"
If Naruto could read his mind, he'd have told him exactly why:
> "Because you died."
When you're gone, the warmth you leave behind cools. That's just life.
Minato might've been the perfect ninja — a genius, a leader, beloved by many.
But as a father?
He had failed.
Because he didn't understand people.
He didn't understand how hearts could change.
How people — even the kindest — could rot when power and politics got involved.
He didn't realize that when he died, the village would stop seeing Naruto as a boy — and only see a beast in a cage.
Naruto's next words shattered whatever hope Minato had left.
> "I'm the jinchūriki.
The strongest jinchūriki.
I carry the Nine-Tails."
The statement seemed out of nowhere.
But it wasn't.
It struck at the core of the problem.
Minato wasn't dumb.
He immediately saw it:
The village had never seen Naruto as his son.
They saw him as the host of the Nine-Tails — a living war machine.
Whoever controlled Naruto… controlled the beast.
And whoever controlled the beast, controlled Konoha's military strength.
That's why Danzo kept pushing to bring Naruto into Root.
It wasn't about raising a child — it was about harnessing power.
Minato himself had become Hokage partly because he was Kushina's husband — the former jinchūriki's partner.
If Naruto hadn't been the vessel for the Nine-Tails, the village might've actually kept its promise.
Maybe the Third would've raised him well.
Maybe Naruto would've been a hero.
Maybe his childhood would've been happy.
But…
The temptation of the Nine-Tails was too strong.
And when a village becomes obsessed with power — it's already halfway to collapse.
Just like Orochimaru once said.
> "Rotten to its roots.
This village doesn't need saving.
It needs to be burned to the ground."
That whole "Where leaves dance, the fire will burn" thing?
Sounds poetic — but it's complete garbage.
Fire doesn't nurture. Fire burns.
Fire's "shadow" won't nourish the village — it'll consume it.
To grow anew, the old tree must first fall.
Turn to ashes. Become soil for something better.
> "I'm sorry, Naruto," Minato choked.
"I… I didn't know…"
His eyes welled with guilt.
He couldn't even look into Naruto's matching blue eyes.
> "It's fine. I'm used to it,"
Naruto replied coldly, like he was talking about someone else's life.
That "I'm used to it" almost pushed Minato over the edge.
It hurt.
Because this was his son.
The only son he and Kushina had.
The child they gave everything for — trampled into the dirt.
If Kushina knew?
She'd probably burn the village down herself.
Minato's once warm and radiant chakra began to grow icy cold.
The "brightest" Hokage — the "sunshine" of the village — now cast a chilling shadow.
The villagers saw him as warmth incarnate.
But to his enemies?
He was a killer.
The title "Yellow Flash" wasn't given because of his manners.
It was carved in blood.
One flicker — and fifty Iwa jōnin were dead.
He could walk through enemy camps like a ghost.
Entire armies feared to even speak his name.
Minato had never been soft.
He was a ninja.
The only Hokage to rise from a civilian background.
A man forged in blood.
And that light of his?
It was always meant to shine on his own people.
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