Chapter 60: Did the Fourth Hokage Really Think That?
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Sakura's words stunned Naruto on the spot.
Now that he thought about it, yeah—he did have a lot of friends.
Maybe he really wasn't that miserable after all.
Maybe he'd just been too hung up on it.
The villagers rejected him, sure, but as long as his friends didn't reject him, wasn't that enough?
Seeing Naruto calm down, Yoruha said, "Actually, is it possible that the main reason the villagers dislike you isn't because you're the Nine-Tails jinchūriki, but because you're always pulling pranks and constantly throwing the whole village into chaos, so they got fed up with you and started rejecting you?"
Naruto froze.
And Yoruha's guess wasn't baseless.
It was true that people in the village feared Naruto because he was the Nine-Tails jinchūriki.
So they kept some distance from him.
But if they disliked him, that was mostly Naruto's own problem.
Naruto thought his pranks drew the villagers' attention.
But all that actually did was reinforce their preconceived image of him.
It made the villagers believe even more firmly that Naruto was the Nine-Tails jinchūriki, and therefore something very evil.
That much was proven during the Chunin Exams.
As long as Naruto showed his ability, and as long as he didn't pull pranks, the villagers were fully capable of accepting him—and acknowledging him.
Other hidden villages might truly loathe their jinchūriki, and might even try to assassinate them.
But Konohagakure clearly wouldn't go that far.
In fact, Konohagakure's past generations of jinchūriki had rarely been attacked by ninja from their own village.
After all, the first jinchūriki was the First Hokage's wife, and she didn't go out often anyway.
The second jinchūriki, Kushina, actually had it worse than her son Naruto.
Before marrying Minato, she had constantly been monitored by Anbu.
There had even been defensive barriers set up around her.
But even then, she had never encountered assassination attempts from ninja of her own village.
Compared to Kushina, Naruto's circumstances were much better. He'd never faced restrictions like only being allowed to move around inside a barrier.
From childhood to adulthood, Naruto had always been able to move freely through the village. Even when he vandalized the Hokage Rock, his punishment had just been to clean it off.
That kind of punishment was clearly the Third Hokage covering for him.
The Hokage Rock represented the memorial stone faces of Konohagakure's successive Hokage.
What Naruto did was basically the equivalent of dancing on someone's grave—and not just any grave, but one with extremely important symbolic meaning.
Yet the punishment Naruto received was extremely light.
If it had been anyone else, even if they weren't executed on the spot, they'd have rotted in prison.
So in Yoruha's view, the reason Naruto was rejected by the villagers was mainly because the way he sought attention was too extreme.
Or rather, it completely intensified the villagers' preconceived image of him.
For a moment, Naruto didn't know what to say.
"Think about it yourself. Because you're the Nine-Tails jinchūriki, the villagers are afraid you might Rampage. Isn't it perfectly normal for them to keep their distance?"
"But if you weren't so hyper and always causing trouble with pranks, wouldn't the villagers also start to feel that maybe you weren't actually so bad?"
"Think about it—did Shikamaru and the others, Iruka-sensei, and Sakura and Sasuke not know your identity as the Nine-Tails jinchūriki?"
"But why are they able to accept you?"
"Because they've spent enough time with you to know that you won't hurt people."
"But the villagers haven't spent much time with you, so the impression they get in a single moment becomes their entire impression of you."
"And what you happened to do in those moments only deepened the image of you that already existed in their minds."
"It's completely normal for them to distance themselves from you. Honestly, I think the fact that they didn't beat or curse you already shows how simple and kind the villagers are."
Listening to Yoruha, Naruto fell silent.
Yoruha continued, "So as long as you master the Kurama inside you, and turn the Kurama within you into a power that protects Konohagakure, then who would still reject you?"
Naruto stared. "Master the Kurama inside me?"
"But that's the Nine-Tails Fox. How could a human possibly control it?"
"That kind of evil monster is something I don't want anything to do with."
Yoruha was a little speechless. That was Kurama.
The strongest of the nine Tailed Beast.
And Naruto was actually this disgusted by it.
"Do you even know how powerful the Nine-Tails Fox inside you is?"
Naruto nodded. "I know."
After saying that, Naruto's expression turned complicated.
"When I was little, I remember the Nine-Tails Fox's power erupting once."
"I still remember that evil and powerful force."
Yoruha hadn't expected Naruto to still remember the feeling from when he Rampage.
"A Tailed Beast is every hidden village's strategic weapon, and a jinchūriki is also one of every village's most important ninja."
"But a jinchūriki can have their consciousness taken over by a Tailed Beast at any time, so villagers in every hidden village generally worry that a jinchūriki might Rampage, and naturally they keep their distance."
"Jinchūriki in other hidden villages don't have it easy either."
"The fact that you can move around freely already means you have it far better than most jinchūriki."
"All you've faced is villagers distancing themselves from you out of fear. In other hidden villages, some jinchūriki are even targeted for assassination by ninja from their own village."
"Because once a jinchūriki Rampage and loses consciousness, it can lead to a great many deaths and injuries."
"And people end up blaming the destruction caused by the Tailed Beast on the jinchūriki, so naturally jinchūriki aren't welcomed."
"You should know that the Fourth Hokage sacrificed himself to seal Kurama and save Konohagakure."
Naruto nodded, his face full of reverence. "The Fourth Hokage has always been the hero I admire most. Someday I want to become a hero like him too."
Yoruha said, "The Fourth Hokage gave up his life to seal Kurama inside you. Why do you admire him?"
Naruto froze.
He had never thought about that question before.
But soon, he still said, "But he did it for the village."
Yoruha smiled. "Actually, when the Fourth Hokage sealed Kurama inside you, he probably also had expectations for you."
"He may have hoped that in the future you would master the Kurama inside you. Because once you grasp Kurama's power, you'll become unbelievably strong. Then you'll possess power like the Fourth Hokage's, and you'll be able to protect the village and become its hero."
Naruto looked at Yoruha in confusion. "Really? Did the Fourth Hokage really think that?"
This was the first time Naruto had ever heard of a connection between himself and the Fourth Hokage.
So he was delighted.
After all, he had always admired the Fourth Hokage.
Yoruha nodded. "If that weren't what he intended, then do you think the Fūinjutsu he placed on you would convert the Chakra leaking out of Kurama into your own?"
"Have you never wondered why you have so much more Chakra than other people?"
"Compared to others your age, your Chakra is enormous—even far greater than Sasuke's."
Sasuke, who had been listening intently from the side, froze when he heard Yoruha mention him.
He looked at Naruto with some confusion.
He hadn't known Naruto had more Chakra than he did.
Naruto himself didn't know either. "Really? My Chakra is really greater than Sasuke's?"
Naruto was very happy. After all, he had always regarded Sasuke as his rival.
Hearing that his Chakra reserves were actually greater than Sasuke's naturally made Naruto very happy.