"How dare that old man treat my son like this!!!"
Inside the sealed space, a woman's voice rang out in a violent rage.
Kushina, who had been gentle just a moment ago, was now in a state of complete fury. Her hands flailed, she cursed incessantly, and she stomped her feet... even her long red hair seemed to dance wildly along with her anger.
And the reason she was like this was because she had learned about Naruto's past.
After a period of storytelling, both Kushina and Minato Namikaze understood their son's former situation and treatment.
Alone since childhood... isolated and neglected by the village, treated with cold indifference and loathing...
Only Sarutobi Hiruzen would occasionally visit Naruto and provide for his basic survival.
But neither Kushina nor Minato Namikaze were fools.
Both of them knew in their hearts that Sarutobi Hiruzen's purpose was nothing more than to better control the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki.
As the orphan of the Fourth Hokage, the son of the hero who saved Konoha, he had received none of the treatment he deserved.
His biological parents' identities were hidden.
The inheritance that should have belonged to the Uzumaki Clan and the Fourth Hokage had vanished...
Not a single bit was passed on to their son...
Otherwise, he wouldn't have lived such a poverty-stricken life...
These facts made even Minato Namikaze, who once respected the Third Hokage, secretly suspect that the Third must have had something to do with it...
This was why Kushina was so furious and acting this way.
While Lexon was telling Naruto's story, Naruto would occasionally interject with "Grandpa Third was actually quite good to me"... but the more he heard, the less he said it.
Although Naruto wasn't very sharp right now, his emotional intelligence wasn't low, so he could understand certain things.
Grandpa Third had designs on him.
Because of Lexon's words, such a thought inevitably sprouted in Naruto's heart.
"Did the Lord Third Hokage really do that?" Minato Namikaze asked again, somewhat unable to believe it.
In his memory, the Lord Third Hokage was a competent leader. Given the contributions he and his wife made to the village and his own final requests before death, the Lord Third Hokage shouldn't have treated their son this way...
"It is a fact," Lexon responded with certainty.
Minato Namikaze fell silent.
The image of Sarutobi Hiruzen in his mind suddenly began to crumble.
Because he had also been the Hokage, he could somewhat understand the high-level decisions made to better manage a Jinchuriki. However, Sarutobi Hiruzen's actions were less about village management... and more about keeping the Jinchuriki firmly under his own control!
These two concepts had completely different meanings.
Furthermore, on a personal level, the Jinchuriki was his own son—the child of two people who gave their lives for the village, the child of the Fourth Hokage...
This was something Minato Namikaze found even more unacceptable.
"Naruto... I'm sorry... if only one of us, your father or mother, had survived back then... we wouldn't have let you endure such pain..." Kushina pulled Naruto into her arms again, speaking with profound heartache.
"It's okay, Mom, it's okay," Naruto comforted her, seeing his mother's distress.
Minato Namikaze watched from the side, his heart filled with self-reproach.
At that time, it was entirely because he trusted the Lord Third Hokage and the people of the village... that he was at peace with his wife's sacrifice for the village and entrusted Naruto to them.
He never expected this would be the result.
"I'm definitely going to smash that old man's head!!" Kushina was indeed Kushina; her temperament was fiery and her emotions shifted rapidly.
Now she was aggressively raising her fist and cursing Sarutobi Hiruzen again.
"No need to smash it; he's already dead," Lexon said flatly.
"Eh?"
Hearing this, Kushina's movements froze as she looked at Lexon.
Minato Namikaze also looked at Lexon in surprise.
"Dead?" Kushina repeated Lexon's last word.
"Dead," Lexon replied.
After receiving a definitive answer, Kushina fell silent. Minato Namikaze, however, frowned slightly and asked, "Can you tell me how the Third died? Did something happen to the village?"
Although Sarutobi Hiruzen had treated his son this way, and although the villagers had neglected his son all these years... Minato Namikaze was still someone who grew up in Konoha and was a former leader of the village. Naturally, he couldn't help but care about Sarutobi Hiruzen and the state of the village.
He had just heard Lexon's account that the Third was quite active not long ago, so how did he suddenly die?
For a Kage to die so abruptly, it was obvious that something must have occurred within the village.
"Konoha was invaded by enemies yesterday. Now, almost everyone in the village is dead, with only a few survivors remaining elsewhere." Lexon spoke of Konoha's current state without any hesitation.
His expression didn't fluctuate at all, as if he were discussing something utterly trivial.
"The people of Konoha are all..." Hearing this, a look of horror appeared on Minato Namikaze's face, and his body swayed.
He had considered that Konoha might have faced some trouble, but he never imagined the change would be so catastrophic.
The greatest hidden village in the ninja world had been wiped out just like that?
An absurd sense of unreality flooded Minato's heart.
"Minato..." Kushina looked at her husband after hearing the news.
She didn't prioritize Konoha as much as Minato did; she cared more about her family.
Thus, she worried about Minato's emotional state.
"It's okay, we're already dead... there's nothing we can do about the world of the living..." Minato forced a smile as he spoke to Kushina and Naruto, "It's enough that Naruto is safe."
"Mm," Kushina nodded slightly in agreement.
She could see Minato's sorrow, but she also understood that he was right.
They were already dead.
No matter what happened in the living world, the dead who entered the afterlife had no power to change anything.
"By the way, I happened to deal with the enemies who invaded Konoha just now," Lexon suddenly added.
"You dealt with them just now?" Kushina and Minato were startled once more.
An enemy capable of destroying Konoha in a single day had to be powerful to the extreme... shouldn't it have required the entire ninja world, multiple villages and nations, to unite and endure countless hardships to finally achieve victory?
Why did it sound as easy as slicing vegetables when it came from his mouth?
Was Naruto's friend really this powerful?
While struggling to comprehend it, Kushina and Minato also felt strange that their son had such a terrifyingly strong friend.
They didn't think Lexon was playing a joke on them.
After all, what fun would there be in mocking the lingering chakra-wills of two dead people?
Regarding this friend who had led their son out of loneliness, both Kushina and Minato trusted him implicitly.
"Thank you, Naruto's friend," the former Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze, expressed his sincere gratitude to Lexon.
"There's no need to thank me for that. I didn't do it for the sake of Konoha's revenge or anything like that..." Lexon responded calmly.
He simply didn't want these lingering chakra-wills to harbor regrets...
After all, Lexon was the one who had ordered Minato Namikaze's grave to be robbed.
It was all for his masterful Flying Thunder God technique.
Giving this explanation was a way to make up for ordering Orochimaru's grave-robbing and his own freeloading of the man's skills.
"Regardless, I still must thank you," Minato nodded slightly in gratitude.
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