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JST Chapter 358: Blame It on the Second Hokage
🕑 Added 2025-06-29 03:29:30 +0000 UTC“My bond with young Naruto stems from this.” With a casual wave of his hand, Kazuki summoned forth a faint, flickering mass of chakra from a
“My bond with young Naruto stems from this.”
With a casual wave of his hand, Kazuki summoned forth a faint, flickering mass of chakra from a corner of Naruto’s mental space, gently floating until it came to rest before Namikaze Minato and Uzumaki Kushina.
It was none other than Asura’s chakra.
“My descent into this world… began when I noticed this peculiar chakra strand within young Naruto. That’s why I chose to linger here for a while.”
Kazuki’s gaze fell upon the Asura chakra. With a simple twitch of his finger, the dimmed chakra once again radiated with its original brilliance, a soft milky glow spreading out from it, casting scattered rays over Naruto, Minato, and Kushina.
Under Kazuki’s urging, the consciousness embedded within Asura’s chakra suddenly burst forth in full.
And then—
All three members of the family felt their expressions shift.
It became startlingly clear: as soon as that soft glow touched their bodies, the negative emotions that had surged from their hearts—resentment, grief, confusion, and fury toward Konohagakure due to Naruto’s circumstances—
Began dissipating rapidly, illogically, and without explanation.
They didn’t know why, but suddenly, all those infuriating injustices didn’t seem quite so unbearable. Perhaps there had been hidden reasons behind Naruto’s unfair treatment… perhaps the village had its own burdens to bear…
After all, the village had its own difficulties too!
And those very difficulties required everyone to understand one another, to make compromises in order to weather the storm together...
“What is this thing?!”
Even under the influence of Asura’s chakra, after a brief moment of calm, Kushina forcibly resisted the foreign sensation. Instead of extinguishing her anger, it burned even fiercer within her.
“Mutual understanding? Mutual understanding, my ass! I don’t care who you are or what technique this is—don’t even think about messing with my mind!”
Compared to her, both Namikaze Minato and Naruto displayed much more subdued reactions.
Naruto slowly lowered his head, and Minato fell into deep thought.
One had once been the Fourth Hokage of Konohagakure, long accustomed to dedicating himself to the village in the name of the Will of Fire. The other was still just a child—his worldview undeveloped, easily swayed by outside influence...
Only Kushina stood firm.
As a former Jinchūriki and one of the last survivors of the Uzumaki clan, she had glimpsed the village’s darker side from a young age. And now, as a mother, no matter how strong the influence of Asura’s chakra might be, she simply could not accept what Naruto had gone through!
“Feel the difference now?”
Kazuki flicked his wrist, and the soft, milky glow of Asura’s chakra seemed to freeze in place. Then it contracted into a dim mass and floated silently into the corner.
“Kazuki-nii… just now, when I remembered all the times I was bullied, it… didn’t feel so sad anymore.”
Naruto’s expression was complex as he spoke slowly.
“I even felt like I could understand them. After all, there really was a demon fox inside me. Maybe… maybe those people weren’t being cruel for no reason.”
Kazuki nodded with a knowing look.
“So, Naruto, do you understand them now?”
Naruto hesitated for a moment—then shook his head.
“No… Kazuki-nii, I don’t think I should have been bullied. And I don’t want to understand them!”
“I really hate that light that shines on me… It always feels like it’s changing the way I think, like it’s making me become someone I’m not…”
Naruto said quietly, glancing toward the corner where the Asura chakra floated.
Beside him, Kushina pulled Naruto into a heartfelt embrace, her voice warm and proud as she praised him from the bottom of her heart: “That’s it, Naruto! That’s exactly right. The only thing you ever need to be—is yourself.”
Namikaze Minato, meanwhile, furrowed his brow deeply in silence.
Truth be told, the thoughts of 'mutual understanding' and 'peace' stirred by Asura’s chakra weren’t out of line with how Minato typically viewed the world.
But after seeing his son’s tragic childhood through his wife’s eyes, even someone as composed as Namikaze Minato… could no longer keep his heart calm.
But Asura’s chakra forcefully amplified the so-called positive emotions within Namikaze Minato’s heart...
“Kazuki-sama, may I ask… what exactly is that chakra?”
Minato’s expression turned unusually solemn, and his tone gained a rare sense of openness and candor: “From that chakra, I sensed a power capable of manipulating human thought… Its influence over the mind far surpasses any genjutsu I’ve ever known—even the Uchiha’s dōjutsu doesn’t compare.”
His voice grew heavier as he continued: “Considering Naruto’s childhood and his identity as the Nine-Tails’ Jinchūriki… Having a chakra of this magnitude inside him—it’s hard not to draw some grim conclusions.”
“It’s trying to destroy Naruto’s independent will…”
Kushina clenched her fists, murmuring with mounting fury: “What is the meaning of this? Is it because they know they’ve wronged Naruto? So now they want to prevent him, as the Nine-Tails’ vessel, from going berserk—by controlling his thoughts?”
“To subconsciously interfere with his mind like this… I’ve never even heard of such a technique. It must be some kind of terrifying forbidden jutsu…”
Kushina turned to look at Minato, her face severe and unyielding.
“Minato, you were once the Hokage. You’ve read the Scroll of Seals… You should know what kind of jutsu this is, right?”
Minato remained silent, lost in thought. After a moment of contemplation, his expression suddenly shifted.
“The Scroll of Seals doesn’t mention anything like this…”
“But I once studied some of the Second Hokage’s research notes… If memory serves, Senju Tobirama experimented with a technique that worked in a very similar way. Its purpose was to brainwash rebellious members of the Uchiha clan.”
His face darkened completely.
Kushina, now on the verge of an outburst, nearly exploded with rage: “I knew it… A Hokage who spent all his time dissecting corpses and crafting forbidden techniques—how could someone like that possibly carry the true Will of Fire?”
“And all his disciples and their disciples after him—how could any of them be any better?!”
“Konoha… after Hashirama-sama and Mito-sama, it all went wrong. Everything started to rot with the Second Hokage, Senju Tobirama! That twisted old Senju demon turned the village into a flesh-eating monster!”
Kushina was shaking with anger.
“Even the orphaned son of the Fourth Hokage gets brainwashed with forbidden jutsu, treated like a container for a tailed beast… I don’t even want to imagine how other shinobi have been treated!”
“They’re probably already running human experiments—maybe even on their own comrades!”
At that, Kazuki allowed a barely noticeable smile to tug at the corner of his lips and gently shook his head.
Heh.
Kazuki hadn’t even said a word yet—they were originally supposed to be talking about the Sage of Six Paths and his sons. But somehow, the Minato couple had already dumped the entire blame right onto Senju Tobirama’s shoulders!
They even backed it up with quotes and logic… Tobirama really is the Scapegoat King of the whole Naruto world!
Still, this old man really did dabble in every kind of jutsu, didn’t he?
From Sarutobi Hiruzen’s early misunderstanding that Tobirama intended to possess Kazuki, to now, where Namikaze Minato believed Asura’s chakra to be a forbidden technique created by the Second Hokage to subdue the Uchiha...
Anything even slightly shady or morally ambiguous always seemed to trace back to some early prototype in Tobirama’s research logs.
You could say: if you can imagine it, you’ll find it in Tobirama’s archives.
But what was even more intriguing—
Even if the blame was wrongly placed, Kushina’s outrage toward Konoha’s current state… wasn’t without basis.
At this very point in time—
Konoha was already being quietly infiltrated by Shimura Danzō, who had begun extending his influence across nearly every aspect of the village’s power structure. He and Orochimaru had already initiated human experiments related to Wood Release. Not even children from the same village were safe from their hands…
“Your village’s internal affairs have nothing to do with me.”
Kazuki cleared his throat lightly, then spoke calmly: “My only concern is Naruto. He and I share a fated bond… As the one I’ve chosen, I will teach him the power he needs to protect himself.”
“To grow without interference—into whoever he wishes to become.”
“As Naruto’s parents, what are your thoughts? I won’t force this—fate cannot be coerced.”
Kushina immediately raised her hand and grabbed Naruto’s small hand in hers, shouting loudly: “Kazuki-sama! I’m more than willing for you to guide Naruto!”
“You can do whatever you need! If the boy gets out of line, don’t hold back—scold him, smack him if you must! Treat him just like your own son!”
Naruto’s face scrunched up immediately.
What the heck?!
Kazuki-nii and I are friends, okay? It’s not like we have some strict sensei-disciple thing going on…
And now Mom’s just—selling me off like that?!
Meanwhile, deep inside Kushina’s heart…
After believing Asura’s chakra to be a mind-control technique—and combining that with all the injustice Naruto had faced because of his origins—her last hopes for Konoha had crumbled completely.
This village was rotten to the core. It could never be the place where Naruto should build his future.
If Kazuki hadn’t appeared, even as a mere strand of chakra, Kushina would’ve found a way to preserve her consciousness and help Naruto grow—just to ensure he escaped Konoha as soon as possible.
But now that Kazuki was here—
A mighty figure who possessed the eyes of the Sage of Six Paths, who understood every kekkei genkai and the nature and transformation of all chakra in the shinobi world…
Kushina’s heart overflowed with joy.
Especially considering Kazuki’s otherworldly appearance—elegant, ethereal, and composed—he didn’t seem like someone from this world at all.
And combining that with what Naruto had said about Kazuki being a traveler…
Kushina couldn’t help but suspect: either Kazuki was the legendary Sage of Six Paths himself, or he was some transcendent being far beyond anything the shinobi world—or her own understanding—could grasp.
In any case, for someone like Kazuki to become Naruto’s sensei… was a blessing not even eight lifetimes of good karma could earn.
Someone of Kazuki’s caliber had no reason to deceive them. The mere fact that he was patient enough to explain anything at all already made Kushina feel flattered beyond belief. In her heart, she silently thanked the heavens for Naruto’s unbelievable stroke of luck.
