Your Apology Means Nothing

The last time he had seen Naruto, he had still been a wailing newborn. In the blink of an eye, he had grown up.

He was now refined and gentle, quite reminiscent of himself in his younger days.

Minato gazed intently at Naruto, tears welling in his eyes.

Before his death, there had been so many things he had wanted to say to Naruto.

He had once thought that perhaps they would meet someday in the future. Naruto would be the son of Konoha's hero, and by then, he might have grown into a handsome adult just like himself—perhaps even married with children of his own.

But no matter what, he would definitely be as handsome as his father.

Now, the fantasy he had always held had finally come true.

Looking at Naruto, who wore the same gentle smile as himself, he felt immensely gratified.

With the identity of a hero's son, Naruto's life must have been quite comfortable.

Naruto was now neatly dressed, with a refined and gentle demeanor. He was handsome and dashing, and the azure eyes hidden behind his glasses brimmed with intelligence. He had clearly inherited all of his father's best qualities.

Though those ordinary glasses concealed the beautiful eyes he had inherited from him.

Still, for a man, hiding a bit of one's edge was a good thing.

It seemed the Third had kept his promise and taken good care of Naruto.

Thinking this, Minato smiled. He affectionately grabbed Naruto's hand and said with a smile, "Naruto, this should be the first time you've met me, right?"

But to his surprise, Naruto pulled his hand back and took a step away. His expression remained gentle, but his tone was distant. "Fourth Hokage, you're the one who sealed the Nine-Tails, aren't you?"

The touching father-son reunion he had imagined did not come. Minato was at a loss. "Naruto, I'm your father—Minato Namikaze."

As though remembering something, he turned to the Nine-Tails, his gaze sharpening. "Nine-Tails, could it be that you—"

Before he could finish, the Nine-Tails sneered, "Fourth, you adorable Yondaime, do you know how much Naruto suffered all these years? The villagers saw him as a monster. Everyone despised and attacked him. If it hadn't been for me, he might already be dead."

Minato:?

"That's impossible." Minato immediately lost his voice, his eyes full of disbelief. "I clearly asked the Third—" Before he could finish, his expression froze. Then a flicker of realization passed through his eyes.

After becoming the Fourth Hokage, he had naturally come into contact with Konoha's darker side.

Beyond the Anbu organization under the Hokage's command, there was also Root, an organization specifically tasked with "cleaning up."

Root was controlled by Shimura Danzō and had committed many filthy deeds in secret.

Shimura Danzō was an extremely suspicious and cautious man who craved the position of Hokage.

He truly loved Konoha, even to the point of madness.

For Konoha's sake, he could do anything that violated morality and ethics.

But he was an extremist to the very core.

He could even be described as insane.

How could Danzō possibly allow the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki to live as the son of a hero?

After briefly running through it in his mind, Minato roughly guessed why Naruto's identity had been concealed.

After Kushina and he had died, Konoha's Kage-level combat strength had dropped drastically. If the Nine-Tails went berserk again, the price Konoha would have to pay would be unimaginable.

Under such circumstances, Konoha's higher-ups had wanted to bring Naruto completely under their control.

So they spread rumors and plunged Naruto's childhood into darkness, allowing them to "save" him.

Minato looked at Naruto. The latter's expression remained gentle, but the distance in his bearing was painfully obvious.

Bitterness filled his heart.

Sure enough, he had been negligent.

His mistake had been placing too much faith in human nature, too much faith in the "kindness" of those schemers.

His face twisted in pain. His lips trembled as he said, "I'm sorry, Naruto."

Though he had a heart full of things he wished to say, at this moment, they could only become a belated apology.

"Does apologizing now have any meaning?" Naruto showed no blame on his face, merely smiling warmly.

At that moment, he was exceptionally calm.

"I gave you the chance to appear not so I could hear your apology."

"Apologizing for the past is meaningless."

"That's right, Yondaime. This time, you really were wrong." The Nine-Tails smugly chimed in from the side.

The Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze, had always seemed like a man who had it all: a commoner with outstanding talent, who successfully married a beautiful and wealthy woman, became the Fourth Hokage, and reached the pinnacle of life.

The Nine-Tails, trapped within Kushina, had witnessed all of this. Naturally, it had not been pleased.

Now that it saw the culprit who had sealed it being humiliated, the Nine-Tails felt indescribably delighted, and its favorable impression of Naruto immediately soared.

"First, let me show you what I went through."

Naruto extended a finger and tapped the air.

A curtain of light appeared before Minato, and it began playing fragments of Naruto's childhood.

From the nanny's cruelty to the vicious curses of the Konoha Villagers.

"You monster, why don't you just die!"

"Disgusting. Hurry up and die."

"I really want to kill him."

On the screen, Naruto walked helplessly down the streets, small and alone, enduring curses that would have driven even adults mad. His frail body was even pelted with rotten vegetables and fruit.

All Naruto could do was keep bowing to the people around him, repeating, "I'm sorry. I understand the harm the Nine-Tails Fox Demon caused you, but now I'm Naruto Uzumaki. I'm not the Nine-Tails Fox Demon. I'm sorry."

He had done nothing wrong, yet he kept apologizing.

After returning home, Naruto scrubbed his body hard.

The stench lingering on him could be washed away with water, but the pain brought by that malice could never be washed away.

No matter how strong Naruto acted, tears inevitably fell at night.

But he would immediately wipe them away and tell himself to be strong. A real man could not cry.

Minato's lips trembled, and his eyes turned bloodshot.

He had never imagined that his child had been living such a life.

If he had known all this, he never would have allowed Naruto to become the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki!

The scene shifted, showing Naruto being bullied by a group of bratty children.

Those little leaves whom Minato had regarded as Konoha's future were kicking Naruto with all their strength, spouting the vicious words they had absorbed from their parents.

Even if Naruto's injuries healed completely after a night, bruises were always present on his body.

Minato's pupils shook, his eyes filled with disbelief and fury.

He could not believe that the villagers who had always treated him with such respect possessed such a terrifying side.

He could not believe that the villagers he had protected all along were harming his own flesh and blood.

Most of all, he could not believe that the Third Hokage, whom he had trusted, could truly be so heartless!

His grandmaster, the Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi, had betrayed a junior's request and failed the expectations of a young Hokage.

At that moment, Minato's world collapsed.

He even began to doubt the so-called Will of Fire.

The Will of Fire that had guided his entire ninja career now seemed so absurd and laughable.

What had once symbolized something beautiful had become a tool for politicians to manipulate people's hearts.

Compared to them, he, the Fourth Hokage, had been as naive as an idiot.

The scenes that followed showed the Third Hokage's various visits, each with its own ulterior purpose.

In order to survive, Naruto pretended to be optimistic, became refined and gentle, and even began studying the "Will of Fire," molding himself into someone who loved Konoha.

The more Minato watched, the more his heart ached, while killing intent boiled within him.

He was a man who had fought his way out of the Ninja World's battlefields, his hands long stained with blood.

Perhaps he had been gentle for too long, making others forget the decisiveness with which he killed.

Those who had been on the battlefield had no such thing as gentleness!

Minato took a deep breath, suppressing his killing intent toward the Third Hokage as he looked at Naruto.

"I know that nothing I say now has any meaning, but I'll find a way to make it up to you."

"Make it up to me? What can you possibly use to compensate me?" A trace of disdain appeared on Naruto's gentle smiling face.

"Exactly. What the hell can you compensate him with? You're nothing but a useless fool," the Nine-Tails said smugly from the side.

"Yeah, I'm already dead. What can I still do?" The Fourth Hokage lowered his head in despair. The Yellow Flash, who had once struck terror into enemies on the battlefield, now looked like a defeated soldier, revealing an incomparably fragile side.

"What do you want to do next?" The Fourth Hokage's tone was somewhat humble. He no longer resembled the mighty Fourth Hokage, but rather a father begging for forgiveness.

Deep down, he did not want Naruto to become enemies with Konoha.

After all, Konoha was still the number one ninja village in the Ninja World.

For Naruto to oppose it would undoubtedly be like an egg striking a stone.

"Don't worry. I'm not one of those short-sighted frogs at the bottom of a well." Naruto shook his head.

"Those standing on different levels naturally see different things. I want to obtain supreme power and transcend everything."

"I want to stand in the heavens."

"But if Konoha blocks my path in the future, I'll destroy it along the way."

"That's all."