Jiraiya let Naruto lean slightly against him, then turned an inquiring gaze toward Ueno Kei. Tsunade beside him looked at Ueno Kei with the same expression.
Ueno Kei steadied himself and told the two of them about what had happened inside Naruto.
When he heard that Minato had left behind a chakra imprint within Naruto, a rare look of complexity appeared on Jiraiya's face—nostalgia, guilt, and sorrow all seemed to mingle within it.
To be honest, Jiraiya felt deeply guilty toward both Minato and Naruto. After Minato died in battle, Naruto's miserable childhood was something for which Jiraiya and the Third Hokage seemed unable to escape responsibility.
Back when Minato sacrificed himself for the village, he could never have imagined that his child would be hated and rejected by the entire village, spending his whole childhood in loneliness. It could be said that, during the years before he met Ueno Kei—
Naruto's circumstances had been utterly miserable.
After learning the truth, Ueno Kei could not help but feel some resentment toward the Third Hokage, Jiraiya, and Kakashi. As the village's Hokage, the Third Hokage had allowed the orphaned son of a hero to be ostracized by the villagers like that.
Jiraiya, whom the Fourth Hokage had regarded as a father figure, had shown no intention of returning to care for Naruto throughout Naruto's childhood. Hatake Kakashi, as the Fourth Hokage's disciple, had likewise never truly taken proper care of Naruto.
From that perspective, it seemed that all of them had failed the Fourth Hokage's expectations. Ueno Kei had once questioned the Third Hokage about it, and even now, he had not forgotten the old man's pained, clouded, and guilt-ridden expression.
That old man had not had it easy.
Only after Ueno Kei truly entered Konoha's upper ranks did he come