It took Kakashi a while to finally realize what Guy meant.
His mouth opened as if he wanted to argue, but in the end, he gave up.
Kakashi knew Guy's personality too well. In a certain sense, Guy was surprisingly similar to Naruto.
Trying to argue with either of them would only make Kakashi suffer more.
Better to let it go.
So, carrying the long shopping list everyone had prepared, Kakashi left with a thoroughly speechless expression.
He planned to handle the important business first, then buy everything on the way back.
If he wanted to change Naruto, they would need several people helping them.
First, they needed a genjutsu specialist.
Without Tsukuyomi, if Itachi ended up needing to give Naruto the same kind of full-course experience he had once given Sasuke, then they absolutely needed someone strong in genjutsu.
Kakashi's first thought was Kurenai Yūhi.
But after thinking about it, Kurenai's genjutsu was far too weak compared with Itachi's Tsukuyomi.
Honestly, even her student Kurama Yakumo was probably more suitable.
As for Yakumo?
Kakashi had already witnessed the core of her ability.
She could turn illusion into reality, to the point that even injuries or physical damage created inside her genjutsu could manifest in the real world.
Kakashi had personally experienced that terrifying aspect before.
The problem was that Naruto did not need anything as excessive as turning illusion into reality.
What mattered most was duration and realism.
Tsukuyomi would have been perfect.
Unfortunately, Itachi no longer had it.
Then Kakashi thought of another person who possessed Tsukuyomi—
Uchiha Hikari.
But even without asking, he knew she had neither the reason nor the time to personally help them change Naruto.
If anything, Hikari actively disliked Naruto.
She hated the Senju and Uchiha conflict, hated Asura and Indra, and Naruto—as Asura's reincarnation—naturally fell into that category as well.
But once Kakashi thought of Hikari, another idea suddenly occurred to him.
Hikari herself might not come to help.
But something she created could still be used.
That's right.
Kakashi thought of Obito, whom he had been monitoring all these days.
Obito had been thrown into the Engraved Tsukuyomi world as a beta tester.
Kakashi had personally watched that world through the monitor, and as far as he could tell, it was virtually indistinguishable from reality.
He fully acknowledged its realism.
Compared with ordinary Tsukuyomi, Engraved Tsukuyomi could last much longer and did not require the caster to continuously maintain it with ocular power.
In fact, rather than comparing it with normal Tsukuyomi, it was more appropriate to compare it with Limited Tsukuyomi or Infinite Tsukuyomi.
Engraved Tsukuyomi could absorb the victim's own chakra to maintain the illusion.
And if there was one thing Naruto had in ridiculous abundance—
It was chakra.
…
"Wait."
Kakashi suddenly frowned.
"What about the Nine-Tails?"
He had already been preparing to return to Amegakure and ask for another set of equipment when he remembered the crucial problem he had overlooked.
Killer B had once explained this to everyone.
A perfect jinchūriki was highly resistant to genjutsu.
The fundamental principle of genjutsu was to interfere with the target's chakra flow.
And the basic way to break genjutsu was for someone else to correct that disrupted chakra—or disturb it even further until the illusion could no longer remain stable.
That was why once a genjutsu specialist successfully trapped someone, they usually needed to isolate the target from their teammates.
Otherwise, a companion could simply make physical contact, inject chakra, and break the illusion.
Unless, of course, the caster had used a large-scale genjutsu on everyone from the beginning.
A Tailed Beast inside its jinchūriki's sealed space was even more troublesome.
Under normal circumstances, nobody could casually trap the Tailed Beast itself in the same genjutsu from outside.
So the likely situation would be:
Naruto gets trapped.
Kurama does not.
Which meant Naruto effectively carried around a permanent teammate inside him who could break the genjutsu whenever he wanted.
"Looks like I'll have to find some way to talk to the Nine-Tails."
In Kakashi's eyes, Uchiha Hikari—as an absurdly powerful ancestor-level Uchiha—probably had a way to trap both Naruto and Kurama at the same time.
But again, Hikari was not going to personally help them.
Rather than beg Hikari, it would be easier to persuade Kurama.
At least in Kakashi's opinion, the Nine-Tails was slightly easier to talk to.
Perhaps because Kurama had spent too much time being controlled by Sharingan users, Kakashi had always felt there was something vaguely Uchiha-like about his personality.
Proud.
Sharp-tongued.
A little tsundere.
Once Kakashi worked through that problem, he became even more certain about one person they absolutely needed to recruit.
Kushina.
That's right.
If they were going to change Naruto, then as Naruto's mother, Kushina had more right than almost anyone to be involved.
And if they intended to do something like this to Naruto, it was probably best to inform his parent first and obtain family approval.
After all, some parts of the process might genuinely hurt Naruto.
Better to tell Kushina in advance than have her discover it afterward and come beat Kakashi half to death.
With his target decided, Kakashi used the Flying Raijin transportation network and traveled directly to Amegakure.
His first stop was Orochimaru.
Kakashi asked him for another Engraved Tsukuyomi device and explained what they intended to do.
Orochimaru immediately became interested when he heard they wanted to change Naruto.
From Orochimaru's perspective, trying to fundamentally alter Naruto was probably about as difficult as asking him to fundamentally change Jiraiya.
So Orochimaru proactively adjusted the device's parameters for Kakashi, saving him a great deal of trouble.
After all, the beginner-village settings in the current beta version had been specifically customized for Obito.
If Kakashi simply copied those settings onto Naruto, he might end up monitoring Naruto from outside only to discover that Naruto remained perfectly fine while Kakashi himself suffered another psychological breakdown.
What kind of cursed design would repeatedly force Kakashi to watch Rin die over and over again?
Orochimaru not only adjusted the parameters, but also gave Kakashi a small tool that could modify them further, along with an instruction manual.
If they needed to make additional changes later, Kakashi could study the manual and do it himself.
The only drawback was that changing the parameters consumed quite a lot of chakra.
But that hardly mattered these days.
Edo Tensei shinobi were practically everywhere.
If Kakashi needed chakra, he could just find one and ask for help.
No need to worry about that.
With the first step completed, Kakashi finally went to find Kushina.
And this second step, in Kakashi's opinion, was the hardest one.
Persuading Kushina and persuading Kurama felt almost equally terrifying.
Before he actually spoke to her, Kakashi mentally rehearsed the conversation countless times.
He knew Kushina's personality.
Trying to convince her with lofty arguments about "the future of Konoha" or "changing the culture of the village" would be useless.
It might even backfire.
Kushina could easily interpret the whole plan as everyone trying to sacrifice Naruto for some greater cause and immediately turn hostile.
So Kakashi needed to show her that this was not only about some abstract greater good.
There had to be something personally meaningful to her.
Something positive.
Then—
Kakashi's eye lit up.
He had it.
Once again, he had to thank Makoto.
Without the information Makoto had brought from the future, Kakashi never would have thought of this approach.
Because…
"Aunt Kushina, you've heard about the future too, right?"
Kakashi spoke seriously.
"In the era Makoto called Boruto, Naruto's son and daughter were bullied by villagers too.
"When you look at it that way, maybe we really can't blame the Third Hokage for hiding the fact that Naruto was Minato-sensei's son.
"Even children of a living Hokage still get bullied.
"So imagine what would've happened to the son of a Hokage who was already dead."
Kushina's expression gradually changed.
"And it wasn't just Naruto's children.
"Sasuke's daughter was bullied too.
"It's a widespread problem."
Kakashi took a breath.
"If we want to stop things like that from happening in the future, then the bullying problem has to be solved in our generation.
"This is the mission the Second Hokage gave me.
"And now I consider it my responsibility too."
Kakashi looked directly at her.
"Aunt Kushina, I'm formally asking you to join us.
"Please help us change Naruto.
"And through Naruto—
"Help us change the world."
Kakashi deliberately used Aunt Kushina rather than calling her his master's wife.
There were two reasons for that.
First, that exact form of address didn't really exist naturally anyway; it was mostly something created through translation.
Second—
At this point, the teacher-student relationships between Naruto, Jiraiya, Minato, and Kakashi had become so tangled that it was better not to start calculating seniority at all.
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