"Purple pull?!"
Naruto's eyes widened. The selectable treasure chest in front of him was exactly like the pick-your-own reward boxes from games, and the options inside were just as the name suggested—all special items from the Naruto movies.
His gaze locked onto the second option.
[Uzumaki Menma (Template Trial Card ×3)]
[Usage: Upon activation, grants all the power and abilities of the boss Uzumaki Menma from Naruto the Movie: Road to Ninja for 1 hour. Usable three times.]
Uzumaki Menma…!
Naruto was very familiar with this character—the "dark version" of himself from the Limited Tsukuyomi world. In both personality and life experience, Menma was the complete opposite of him. But what truly made this option tempting was his terrifying strength.
Nine Masked Beasts… Massive Rasengan…
From memory, Menma's summoning technique, Nine Masked Beasts, could call forth nine different summon creatures. His ultimate move, the Massive Rasengan, possessed enough destructive power to wipe out the entire Hidden Leaf Village. On top of that, he also housed the Nine-Tails and could perfectly control full Tailed Beast transformation.
His strength was absolutely beyond ordinary Kage level.
Judging from the anime, Menma was at least on par with Naruto in Nine-Tails Chakra Mode, or Sasuke with the Mangekyō Sharingan—perhaps even stronger.
Rather than a simple trial card, this was more like the ultimate trump card for his still-growing self. Most importantly, using it carried none of the risks of losing control like with leaking Nine-Tails chakra. There were no side effects at all.
As for the other two options?
Naruto frowned, trying to recall them. That so-called Zero-Tails Dark Chakra seemed to come from the Bonds movie—an artificial Tailed Beast created by that guy named Shinno. It sounded powerful, but for him, it wasn't a boost at all. It was just unnecessary excess.
Dark chakra… if he remembered correctly, it triggered negative emotions?
…Give me a break! There was already the strongest Tailed Beast living inside his body!
Ignoring the proud, tsundere big fox at home and instead messing with some artificial Tailed Beast's dark chakra? That was like owning a top-tier gaming PC but choosing to play on some cheap, clunky machine from a secondhand shop.
And the last option made him even more speechless.
A jackal? Wasn't that some cannon-fodder summon from The Will of Fire movie?
Naruto even suspected the system was padding the rewards. That thing wasn't even the final boss Hiruko's main summon—just some synthetic creature belonging to one of his underlings.
Besides… if he chose the Uzumaki Menma trial card, he might be able to do things that were originally impossible. For someone whose previous life had been completely ordinary, this was undoubtedly a chance to change certain tragedies.
Hiashi's death.
The thought flashed through his mind. It would probably happen very soon—definitely within this year. Hyuga Neji's father, Hyuga Hizashi, one of the most tragic fathers among the Konoha Twelve, was about to meet his fate.
Not long after the Third Great Ninja War ended, the Hidden Cloud Village had sent envoys to Konoha under the pretense of signing a peace treaty, while secretly plotting to steal the Byakugan of the Hyuga clan.
They even attempted to kidnap three-year-old Hyuga Hinata. The clan head, Hyuga Hiashi, discovered them in time and killed the kidnapper.
But what happened afterward was the most infuriating part. The Hidden Cloud shamelessly turned the tables, accusing Konoha of killing their envoy and threatening to start a war. They demanded that Konoha hand over Hiashi, the one who had killed the kidnapper. At the time, Konoha had just suffered the Nine-Tails incident and the Third Great Ninja War, and its strength was badly depleted. The higher-ups ultimately chose to compromise.
To prevent the Byakugan's secrets from leaking out, the Hyuga main family proposed that Hiashi's twin brother, Hizashi, take his place as the scapegoat.
And Hizashi… actually accepted that fate. He even said, "I'm dying to protect my brother," dressing up his sacrifice as a noble act of "breaking free from destiny's shackles."
…There was no justice, no fairness. A living person was simply swallowed whole by this world. And young Neji lost his father forever.
As for those grand-sounding excuses—"for the greater good," "to avoid war"—and the calculations of the higher-ups?
Naruto didn't want to understand them. He only knew one thing: he didn't want to watch a living person get devoured by this world right in front of his eyes. That was all.
Especially considering Neji's tragic fate later on…
Thinking about it, would the Hidden Cloud really start a war? And if they dared to suspect Konoha of staging the whole thing after Hizashi was saved…
Naruto wouldn't mind using a trial card to have a little "chat" with the Raikage.
"System, I choose the Uzumaki Menma trial card."
[Congratulations, host! You have obtained: Uzumaki Menma (Template Trial Card ×3)!]
This was a precious item that could temporarily place someone at the peak of Kage-level power! Naruto couldn't wait to see it for himself. With a thought, a card glowing with purple light slowly materialized before his eyes.
He reached out and caught it, studying the image printed on it.
…Wasn't this just the character art from that head-pat village game?!
With another thought, the card dissolved into a streak of light and vanished from his palm, returning to the system space.