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JST Chapter 356: You Call This the Will of Fire?
🕑 Added 2025-06-27 17:08:51 +0000 UTC“How… how did it come to this…”
Namikaze Minato let out a long sigh, pressing a hand to his forehead, thoughts racing.
“This shouldn’t have happened… It just shouldn’t have!”
This treatment might be acceptable for a regular jinchūriki…
But Naruto wasn’t just any jinchūriki!
More important than Naruto being a jinchūriki—was the fact that he was the son of the Fourth Hokage!
Beside him, Uzumaki Kushina was already losing control. Her vivid red hair flared violently in the air, her face twisted in barely contained fury.
“Perhaps… Konoha had its reasons for not letting Naruto know his true identity,” Namikaze Minato said slowly. “If word had gotten out that he was the Fourth Hokage’s son, it might’ve only drawn even more danger his way—complicating things even further…”
“No need to explain it!”
Kushina’s eyes burned red. Though no longer the Nine-Tails’ jinchūriki, the sheer force of her anger seemed to swirl with the intensity of Tailed Beast chakra.
“I know exactly what you’re thinking, Minato! But this village no longer deserves to make my child suffer!”
“A jinchūriki is already the center of every enemy’s attention. So what if you add ‘son of the Fourth Hokage’ to that title? The dangers he faces wouldn’t change—not one bit!”
She shouted, her voice trembling with rage. “Spreading rumors that my son is the reincarnation of the demon fox—that alone reveals he’s the Nine-Tails’ jinchūriki! What, did they think since you and I are both gone, it’s fine to treat Naruto like some orphan—like a container to be kicked around?!”
“Minato and I gave our lives for this village! And Naruto—he became the Nine-Tails’ vessel for the village, too!”
“Have those damn higher-ups forgotten?!”
Minato shrank back slightly, sensing the oncoming storm, and wisely closed his mouth.
If it were only Naruto here…
For the sake of the bigger picture, Minato might still have tried to offer a few words in defense of Konoha. To keep Naruto from straying too far, to shield him from bitterness.
But Kushina?
Minato knew her better than anyone.
And she had every right to be furious. As the former jinchūriki of the Nine-Tails—once kidnapped by enemy ninja and later placed under surveillance by her own village—Kushina knew what she was talking about.
Back when Uzumaki Mito was still alive…
Kushina still had some room to breathe.
But now that both Minato and Kushina were gone, Naruto had been treated even worse than she had been. And that… was something no interpretation of the Will of Fire could ever justify.
“So because Minato and I died… everything we gave was just erased?” Kushina roared. “And now my son is nothing but a vessel—a political tool, a pawn of the Hokage’s office?!”
The Adamantine Sealing Chains behind her whipped violently through the air, while her gaze bore into Minato, fueled by the memories of Naruto’s lonely, neglected childhood.
“Where was Jiraiya? Where did Kakashi go?”
“Did they all die too?”
This Naruto wasn’t like the one from the original timeline—sixteen years old and already past the worst of it…
Naruto was still a child, still in the midst of his hardships. The raw pain and helplessness he showed in those memories pierced Kushina’s overflowing maternal heart like countless sharp blades.
To hell with the Will of Fire. To hell with the so-called greater good!
Her sweet little boy—her precious son—would not endure a childhood like this in the village. She would not allow it.
No matter who it was—no one had the right to allow this.
In that moment, even if Senju Hashirama or Uzumaki Mito had been resurrected, Kushina would have pointed her finger straight at them and demanded answers.
Namikaze Minato stood frozen, stunned into silence.
She had a point. Forget Kakashi for a second—where had Jiraiya-sensei gone?
Could he have died in battle? That didn’t seem right…
Just then, little Naruto widened his eyes, his gaze trembling.
He was still so young, still innocent, but even he could pick up on fragments of what was being said—
He… was the son of the Fourth Hokage?
He… was the Hokage’s son?
“Why… why did I have to become the Nine-Tails’ demon fox?”
Naruto turned toward Minato, his voice trembling. “Father… why did you seal the demon fox inside me…? The adults all look at me like I don’t belong. It’s so hard to make friends. I’m just… so tired…”
Minato felt his heart twist violently at the sadness that radiated from Naruto’s small body—from the inside out.
Kazuki sat quietly nearby, running his fingers through the Nine-Tails’ soft fur, letting a tuft curl loosely around his fingertips.
How interesting…
So the Will of Fire wasn’t enough to convince a mother like Kushina, after all…
Little Naruto’s sorrow seeped deep into the hearts of Minato and Kushina.
Every soft, grieving word was like a branding iron, searing itself into the hearts of his father and mother...
“I... I...”
Faced with the question of why the terrifying Nine-Tails had been sealed inside him, Minato faltered, unable to speak.
In the original timeline...
Minato would have said this to Naruto:
“The reason I sealed the Nine-Tails' chakra inside you... is because you're my son. I believed you could use its power for good...”
“The real reason I insisted on doing it was because I discovered that someone powerful was manipulating everything behind the scenes during the Nine-Tails’ rampage. Without extraordinary strength, there would be no way to resist him.”
To put it plainly, Naruto was made into a weapon—meant to protect the future of Konohagakure.
As the Fourth Hokage, that decision could even be seen as noble: sacrificing his own son to safeguard the villagers yet to come.
But as a father...
Especially considering that Konohagakure had failed to care for Naruto properly, those words now felt hollow and powerless.
Minato couldn’t bring himself to say it—
He had believed that Konoha would treat Naruto as the orphaned child of the Fourth Hokage, a war hero’s legacy. That they would care for him with tenderness, support him with the village’s finest resources, and help him master the Nine-Tails’ power—so that he could one day become the next Hokage.
But the life Naruto actually lived… was nothing like what he had imagined!
Where had it all gone wrong?
Minato abruptly shut his eyes. His mind quickly searched through the memories he had accessed when their chakra had intertwined—fragments of Naruto’s life flashing before him.
“Naruto... have you ever heard the name Jiraiya?”
Minato took a deep breath. His voice trembled slightly.
“What about Hatake Kakashi? Shiranui Genma? Namiashi Raido? Yamashiro Aoba? Gekkō Hayate?”
As Naruto kept shaking his head, Minato’s face grew darker and darker.
“Aburame Shibi? Akimichi Chōza...?”
One name after another was brought up, and Naruto’s head shook back and forth like a rattle drum.
“Daddy... I don’t know any of the people you mentioned. I’ve never even seen them. I don’t really know many adults at all...”
Naruto looked up at Minato with shame, as if he had done something wrong.
“The only adults I know are the teachers at the Academy... and Grandpa Third Hokage. But none of them have the names you said...”
Naruto’s eyes lit up, as if something had just occurred to him.
“But I do have a few kids my age! Maybe we’ll be friends someday!”
“One of them is Nara Shikamaru, and the other is Akimichi Chōji! Sometimes we talk during class, and then we get punished by the teacher and have to stand outside together!”
As she listened to Naruto’s cheerful voice, the fury in Kushina’s eyes only deepened.
The people Minato had named earlier were all comrades he had been close with—some had fought alongside him on the battlefield, others had served as elite guards during his time as the Fourth Hokage…
And then, of course, there was his old sensei, Jiraiya.
How could Naruto not have met even a single one of them?
Sure, people forget the dead—but not this completely!
'So only the children of the Nara and Akimichi clans have shown even a hint of kindness to Naruto...'
Minato thought bitterly, wanting to ask more—but beside him, Kushina could no longer hold back her rage.
“What else is there to say? Minato, you were once this village’s Hokage! And I was the previous Nine-Tails jinchūriki!”
Kushina fixed her gaze on her husband's flustered face, her voice low and furious.
“Konoha has completely forgotten everything we did for it!”
“To them, Naruto is nothing more than the Nine-Tails’ jinchūriki! They didn’t even tell him he’s the son of the Fourth Hokage! Why? Because they were afraid it would give him ideas?”
“Afraid that if people in the village knew how the son of the Fourth Hokage was being treated, they’d start to question the Will of Fire itself?”
Kushina’s red hair flared behind her like blades drawn in fury, slashing at the air, desperate to tear something apart.
“I’ve been fed up with this village for a long time...”
She muttered to herself. Faint wisps of the Nine-Tails’ chakra began to rise from her skin, as if she were about to don the beast’s cloak once more.
But Kushina didn’t even notice. She went on, whispering to herself:
“The Uzumaki Clan… Why didn’t Konoha come to help when Uzushio was invaded?”
“Mito-sama was right... They talk about filling the vessel with love. They say love is everything. But in the end, to them, every jinchūriki is just that—a vessel.”
Kushina recalled how the ANBU had once addressed her—not by her name, but by a cold, clinical codename, like she was nothing more than a specimen in a lab: The Nine-Tails’ jinchūriki.
And no matter what, Kushina could never accept that her son’s childhood had been reduced to this—that from the very start, he had been treated purely as a container for a tailed beast.
In her vision of the future, Naruto was meant to carry the legacy of both her and Minato—rising above the Nine-Tails through strength, praise, and support from those around him...
He was supposed to become an exceptional shinobi.
He was never meant to end up like this—like a doll dressed up and posed at the whim of others...
Kushina absolutely could not accept that!
