How I Drove the Third Hokage Crazy with Political Commissar Logic

The air in the forest seemed to freeze.

Iruka's heart hammered wildly in his chest. He could hear the roar of his own blood rushing against his eardrums.

"Naruto! Stop!"

He shouted hoarsely, his voice warped by fear.

"He was once our comrade! You can't kill him! Those are the village's rules!"

Naruto did not turn around. He did not even spare Iruka a glance.

In his world, there remained only the "target" sprawled on the ground, trembling violently in terror.

"Desertion from the village is heresy."

Naruto's voice was calm, as though he were stating a formula.

"Heretics must be purged."

The instant the words fell, he moved.

There were no hand seals, no violent surge of chakra.

He merely stepped forward, formed his right hand into a blade with two fingers, and thrust it precisely into Mizuki's chest with a motion so simple it was absolute, yet so fast no one could react.

"Pfft."

A faint, teeth-grinding sound of flesh tearing.

The terror on Mizuki's face froze forever. The light in his eyes rapidly dimmed, and his body collapsed completely like a heap of mud.

He was dead.

There was no scream, no struggle.

It was clean, decisive, and horrifyingly efficient.

Naruto slowly withdrew his hand and flicked the blood from it.

His expression did not change in the slightest throughout the entire process, as if he had merely crushed an annoying insect.

A deathly silence filled the forest.

Iruka stood there in a daze, his entire body ice-cold.

He looked at Naruto's indifferent profile, then at Mizuki's corpse, still warm. A chill rising from the depths of his soul made him tremble uncontrollably.

He could not understand.

He could not accept it.

How could that child, who would grin foolishly for half a day over a single compliment from him—the idiot who used pranks to draw everyone's attention—how could he... how could he take a life so coldly, without the slightest hesitation?

"Why..." Iruka's voice trembled with tears, full of confusion and pain. "Why did you do this...?"

Naruto finally turned around to face him.

Those blue eyes were like two polar glaciers that would never melt.

"Iruka-sensei, I was carrying out my duty."

There was no emotion in his tone. He was merely making a statement.

"Purging internal threats and ensuring collective security are the highest priorities."

Duty? Purging?

Those cold words struck like heavy hammers, shattering everything Iruka thought he knew.

Just then, several black figures flashed out from the shadows among the trees, landing soundlessly on the surrounding trunks.

They wore animal masks, radiating the stench of death and blood.

ANBU.

Immediately after, an elderly figure leaning on a cane slowly emerged from the passage the ANBU had opened.

The Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi.

His gaze swept across Mizuki's body on the ground before finally settling on Naruto. His usually kind face was now clouded over.

The pressure in the air suddenly intensified, and even the wind seemed to stop moving.

"Naruto."

The Third Hokage's voice was low and hoarse, carrying an unquestionable authority.

"Did you kill him?"

Naruto calmly met the Hokage's scrutiny. He stood ramrod straight, like a spear.

"Yes, Lord Hokage."

"Do you know what you've done? You killed a Konoha Chunin!" The Third Hokage's voice rose slightly, and the pipe in his hand creaked beneath his grip.

"I purged a traitor," Naruto corrected.

"He betrayed the village, stole confidential information, and incited the jinchuriki. Any one of those crimes warranted the highest level of execution. There was nothing improper about my handling of him."

The Third Hokage was choked speechless by those words.

He found that he could not refute them immediately.

Because logically speaking, every word Naruto said was true.

But he could not accept it.

"Konoha is not a cold machine of laws! We have the Will of Fire!" The Third Hokage stepped forward, trying to overwhelm the boy before him with his presence.

"We believe in our comrades and cherish our bonds! Even if someone has made a mistake, the village should judge him—not you carrying out a private execution!"

Naruto's mind calmly analyzed the other man's words.

[Will of Fire: A collectivist ideology based on emotional connections and idealism. Loosely structured, lacking coercive power, easily swayed by individual emotions, and poorly stable.]

[Comrade bonds: Emotional ties within small groups. Their reliability is questionable when faced with greater interests or threats of life and death.]

Conclusion: an inefficient instrument of governance.

"Lord Hokage, emotions are noise in decision-making, and comrades are potential variables."

Naruto's response stunned everyone present.

"Mizuki's betrayal exposed multiple loopholes in the village's ideological oversight, internal review, and confidential information security."

"Every second he remained alive could have placed Konoha at enormous risk. A single potential intelligence leak could lead to war and the deaths of tens of thousands of 'comrades.'"

"Under such circumstances, the most rational choice was to eliminate the source of risk completely, as quickly as possible and at the lowest cost."

Naruto paused, his icy blue eyes staring directly at Hiruzen Sarutobi.

"My actions were carried out under the supreme principle of 'protecting Konoha.' Does that not align with the ultimate purpose of the Will of Fire?"

Hiruzen Sarutobi opened his mouth, and his pipe slipped from his trembling hand, falling to the ground.

He realized that he had been led in circles.

This child's logic formed a perfect closed loop.

He interpreted and carried out the concept of "protecting the village" in an extreme, utilitarian, and ruthless manner, treating human sentiment, morality, and procedure as costs that Quan could discard.

This Naruto... he did not care about the definition of "comrades" at all. He cared only about the survival of the "collective."

"You... you..." Iruka pointed at Naruto, trembling even harder. "The way you are now... is terrifying..."

His former student had become a monster who frightened him.

At the sound of Iruka's voice, a faint change finally appeared on Naruto's face, which had been as cold as ancient ice.

He turned toward Iruka, his tone one ten-thousandth gentler than before, though no emotion could still be heard in it.

"Iruka-sensei, the threat has been eliminated. You, and everything you cherish, are safe for now."

"My actions were meant to protect you."

Those clumsy words of "comfort," devoid of any warmth, rendered Iruka speechless in an instant.

Deep within those cold eyes, he seemed to see a familiar shadow.

It was a kind of... lonely protection that no one understood.

Naruto no longer paid attention to the others. He bent down, picked up the massive Scroll of Seals, walked over to an ANBU member, and handed the scroll to him.

The ANBU member instinctively reached out to take it, his body somewhat stiff.

Having done all that, Naruto acted as though he had finished an insignificant task.

He turned around and walked with steps as precise as though measured by a ruler, passing directly by the Third Hokage and Iruka as he headed toward the village.

He did not ask for instructions, nor did he wait for orders.

To him, the mission was over, and he could return to his post.

Behind him remained the stunned ANBU, the trembling Iruka, and the Third Hokage lost in deep thought.

Watching Naruto's silhouette vanish into the darkness, Hiruzen Sarutobi felt for the first time that things had completely slipped beyond his control.

The Nine-Tails jinchuriki he had always believed he could manipulate at will had become a... being he could neither understand nor predict.