Chapter 592: The Scheming Namikaze Minato
"Where's Naruto?"
After capturing Namikaze Minato, Neji looked around, only to realize the most important person, Naruto, had disappeared.
"Those just now were probably all Naruto's Shadow Clones. If you want to catch the real one, you'll have to search for him slowly."
Having already given up resisting, Namikaze Minato helpfully explained.
After all, Neji's goal was to capture Naruto too. He might as well let Neji do the work instead of exhausting himself.
"That damn Naruto."
Neji finished the closing stance of Gentle Fist, then left with Minato.
All that remained on the ground was an Eight Trigrams diagram made entirely out of shit. It looked strangely impressive.
Neji dragged Minato back to the Hyuga Clan and tossed him in front of Hyuga Hiashi.
"Keep an eye on him. Once I capture Naruto, I'll hand both of them over to Hokage-sama for judgment."
"Yes. Understood."
Hyuga Hiashi obediently agreed.
His attitude left the spectators outside, Hinata and Hanabi, completely dumbfounded.
Was this really their clan head father?
Why was he acting so humble before Neji-nii?
What was going on?
Could it be that in this world, Neji-nii belonged to the Main Family, while his father was the clan head?
"Dad got captured? Now Neji's the one hunting me?"
A Naruto Shadow Clone was also hiding in the Hyuga compound. After seeing everything, it immediately dispelled itself and sent the information back to the original.
The real Naruto was stunned.
The intelligence sent back by several Shadow Clones forced him to sneak back into the archives and investigate Neji's records.
This time, Naruto couldn't rely on Hokage authority to intimidate anyone.
Because Kushina had just learned that Naruto had secretly viewed classified files not long ago and had already warned the archivist.
If soft methods wouldn't work, then he'd use force.
Naruto charged straight in. Using the sheer number of Shadow Clones, he quickly found Neji's file.
Outside, Hinata and Hanabi widened their eyes, eager to understand why Neji-nii was so arrogant in the Engraved Tsukuyomi world, and why their father was so cowardly.
It turned out that in this world, Neji's early life was exactly the same as in reality.
His father, Hyuga Hizashi, had become the sacrificial substitute.
Neji believed fate couldn't be changed and began giving up on himself.
Until one event completely changed his outlook.
That's right.
The night of the Uchiha Clan Massacre.
On that night, Neji used the Byakugan's penetrating vision and secretly witnessed the truth.
It was as if the clouds had parted.
Neji instantly understood what he needed to do.
So he trained diligently and voluntarily pledged absolute loyalty to Hokage Kushina.
Watching all of this, Hyuga Hiashi became terrified.
Neji wasn't the only one who learned the truth about the Uchiha Clan Massacre.
Hiashi had the Byakugan too.
He had been watching as well.
The story about the unfilial son Uchiha Itachi betraying and exterminating his own clan...
That was only the surface.
A lie.
The real truth was that the overbearing Hokage couldn't tolerate the naturally kind-hearted Uchiha constantly resisting her will, so she used Itachi as an excuse and personally helped wipe out the Uchiha Clan.
Now Neji had become the Hokage's loyal lackey, just like Itachi back then.
How could Hiashi not be afraid?
Although the Hyuga Clan wasn't like the Uchiha Clan, constantly talking about justice and openly opposing the Hokage's policies...
They were still Konoha's largest surviving clan.
Sometimes, simply existing was already a crime.
Hiashi understood this better than anyone.
He had to avoid giving Hokage Kushina even the slightest excuse to exterminate the Hyuga Clan.
The most important thing was never to disobey Neji, who now represented the Hokage's will.
Even though Hiashi still possessed the authority to activate Neji's Caged Bird Seal...
He absolutely dared not use it.
Because the moment he used it, it would mean Hyuga Hiashi was attempting to seize command authority over one of the Hokage's subordinates.
What kind of intention would that imply?
Was he trying to use the Caged Bird Seal to force Neji to disobey the Hokage's orders?
Was he trying to use it to make Neji assassinate the Hokage?
Those accusations would come flying one after another like hats being thrown around at a clearance sale.
So although Neji had never removed the Caged Bird Seal from his forehead...
It no longer had any influence over him.
Hiashi, despite being a Main Family member without a Caged Bird Seal on his forehead...
Already had one planted inside his heart.
---
On a beach in the Land of Water.
Neji, who had been dragged over by Konohamaru to watch, had initially been rather impatient and wanted to continue training.
But after seeing this scene, he was completely shocked.
"So that's another way to solve it?"
Neji was stunned.
Was this the legendary...
'Only the village and the Hokage have the right to test me or command me'?
If he went to pledge loyalty to Tsunade now, would it still be in time?
The Clan Head Hiashi wouldn't beat him to it, would he?
Neji hesitated for a moment before deciding to forget it.
In the real ninja world, his relationship with the Main Family had improved considerably.
And Tsunade wasn't the tyrannical Kushina from the Engraved Tsukuyomi world.
Most importantly...
He couldn't bring himself to throw away his dignity like that.
---
"There's something wrong with this Engraved Tsukuyomi world."
Lying in a deck chair behind the beach vacation cabin while sipping a drink, Kushina frowned after noticing something.
Neji changing his fate by becoming a civil servant looked inspiring on the surface.
But that wasn't the point.
What Kushina wanted to see was the bullying theme.
She wanted to know whether the bullying-related events could actually influence Naruto.
But Neji becoming a civil servant had exposed some other information.
It turned out that Namikaze Minato wasn't the Fourth Hokage in this world.
However, he had once competed for the position.
Back during the war, Minato had claimed he wanted to protect every villager.
Using that excuse, he secretly left Flying Thunder God marks on everyone so he could rescue them at any time.
Then, once peace arrived and it was time to compete for the Hokage position...
Minato immediately reported everyone for having tattoos, making them ineligible to become civil servants.
One of those people happened to be Orochimaru, the strongest candidate for Fourth Hokage.
Orochimaru had never imagined that the seemingly innocent and kind-hearted Minato could harbor such sinister intentions.
His heart died in utter despair.
In order to qualify as a civil servant, Orochimaru even developed the Living Corpse Reincarnation technique, hoping to obtain a new body without any tattoos.
Unfortunately...
Living Corpse Reincarnation required Curse Marks.
And Curse Marks themselves were tattoos.
He ended up trapped in an endless loop.
If even Orochimaru couldn't solve the problem, no one else stood a chance.
Some people even discovered that Minato had secretly engraved Flying Thunder God marks onto their wives' stomachs.
Flying Thunder God marks could only be removed by someone at Six Paths level.
Otherwise...
They were permanent.
What Kushina wanted to complain about wasn't the incident itself.
It was the fact that the Engraved Tsukuyomi had generated this kind of backstory on its own.
If that was the case...
Then wasn't Minato completely deserving of being bullied?
After doing something that inhuman, wasn't it only natural for people to bully him?
Bullying should mean the victim is relatively innocent yet still gets mistreated.
That's what bullying is.
If you've done something this outrageous and people bully you...
That's called justice being served.
How was a story like this supposed to have any positive effect on changing Naruto?
(End of this chapter)