Starting as the mastermind behind Naruto

Chapter 768 Uehara Naraku, a storyteller and historian

Uehara Naraku was not lying.

Bucky Barnes was indeed Steve Rogers' good friend; they were practically like brothers, and would have given their lives for each other.

Moreover, Bucky Barnes is Steve Rogers' only surviving friend and connection, making Steve Rogers feel that he, a guy from seventy years ago, is not alone in this world.

The bond between the two is too complicated.

To put it bluntly, the bond between the Winter Soldier and Captain America could keep everyone's imaginations running wild. The last time Uehara Naraku saw such a complex relationship was with those two restless little devils, Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki Naruto...

Tony Stark is oblivious to this complex relationship, or rather, hatred is likely to overwhelm his mind; right now, he only remembers one thing…

His parents…

He was brutally murdered by Steve Rogers' friend!

Where is he?

After asking that question, Tony Stark added, "Uehara, where are they? That American soldier and his killer friend!"

"Unable to determine."

Uehara Naraku shook his head, turned on a switch in the archives, pulled up a virtual screen, and explained, "Ever since Fury faked his death, Steve Rogers has disappeared... no, or rather, he mysteriously vanished even earlier."

Virtual screens and black-and-white televisions seem somewhat incongruous.

Tony Stark finally turned his attention to the virtual screen that Uehara Naraku had opened, which displayed biographical information on two people, and the information was quite detailed.

Captain America, Steve Rogers.

Bucky Barnes, the Winter Soldier.

"Before World War II, before Steve Rogers was injected with the super-soldier serum and became Captain America, the two were already friends."

Uehara Naraku swiped his finger across the virtual screen, pulling up photos of the two men when they enlisted in the army: "After the war expanded, a large-scale conscription began in the country, and the two of them began to serve separately, entering different units."

Later, Steve Rogers was injected with the serum and became Captain America. During the war, he rescued a group of soldiers from a prisoner-of-war camp, including his friend Bucky Barnes. They formed the Howling Commandos with these captured soldiers.

This commando team targeted Red Skull of Hydra, eliminating many of Hydra's henchmen. In the final battle, Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes both crashed into the Arctic Ocean and remained frozen for decades.

At this point, Uehara Naraku's fingers paused, and he said softly, "However, there are some questions, because we cannot ascertain who they are truly loyal to..."

"What do you mean?"

Tony Stark looked puzzled.

Is there anything that can't be found out?

Shouldn't these two be loyal to the Allied forces in World War II?

and many more…

If they were loyal to the Allies, why did Bucky Barnes become a Hydra assassin and kill his parents? And... why did Steve Rogers suddenly disappear?

Tony Stark felt a bit of a headache.

However, Uehara Naraku will soon give him an answer.

Uehara Naraku swiped the screen again, pulling up a video file, and said softly, "Tony, do you remember Agent Coulson?"

The video shows surveillance footage from S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters.

The video shown above is of Agent Coulson and Agent Hill defecting from S.H.I.E.L.D. The two men fought their way out of S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters.

"This is…"

Tony Stark's expression turned somewhat surprised. He recalled that he had dealt with Coulson before he became Iron Man, and that Coulson had even helped him and Pepper during the final battle against Obadiah Stane.

"He defected."

Uehara Naraku swiped his finger again, opening the next video, and said in a deep voice, "The reason Agent Coulson defected is because some unsavory things were discovered within S.H.I.E.L.D."

During the search and rescue operation for Captain Steve Rogers in the Arctic Ocean, an agent concealed a secret German letter on his person. The letter contained a handwritten order from Adolf Hitler, the Führer of the Third Reich.

"..."

Tony Stark couldn't help but gasp.

Iron Man suddenly realized the gravity of the situation: if Captain America, Steve Rogers, was actually an undercover agent infiltrating Germany, it would shatter everyone's beliefs!

Tony Stark abruptly turned his head to look at the video of Coulson's defection on the virtual screen, and murmured, "That secret letter... So the reason Agent Coulson defected... was to take that German-language secret letter?"

"Yes, without a doubt."

Uehara Naraku nodded slowly and continued softly, "At first, we thought it was Agent Coulson's unauthorized action because he always admired Captain America..."

Later, when I was hunting down Agent Coulson and Agent Hill, I discovered that they always managed to escape from me, as if they already knew my location.

When Uehara Naraku finished speaking, his fingers stopped, and his voice became somewhat low: "And at that time, the only person who knew my location... was our then-director, Nick Fury."

"..."

Tony Stark patted Uehara Naraku on the shoulder.

Tony Stark understands Uehara Naraku's despondency. The superior whom Uehara Naraku has always admired has actually been a hostile spy all along, using Uehara as a pawn...

This feeling is definitely not pleasant.

"I only started to suspect the problems that arose during the manhunt yesterday."

Uehara Naraku lowered his head, closed his eyes, and sighed: "We've all always known that Director Fury trusts Agent Coulson and Agent Hill a lot, or rather, they're the two he trusts most in S.H.I.E.L.D..."

Uehara Naraku shook his head vigorously, took a deep breath to calm himself down, and said, "Let's not talk about that anymore. We need to continue talking about the problems with Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes. The trouble they've caused in this world is greater than we imagined..."

A photo appeared on the screen.

This photo is of Dr. Erskine, the inventor of the Super Soldier Serum and the creator of Captain America.

To Uehara Naraku, Dr. Erskine was just a dead man, and he could make up whatever he wanted with Dr. Erskine's photo.

even…

Uehara Naraku felt that he could write it in a very organized way.

"Abraham Erskine, the inventor of the Super Soldier Serum."

Uehara Naraku then pulled out two more photos, one of Adolf Hitler and the other of Johann Schmidt of the Red Skull, and began to tell his story: "Eskin once served the Red Skull and Nazi Germany, or rather, he was more loyal to that war madman Adolf Hitler."

To be honest, it's hard to understand why most of these scientists from Germany held such unimaginable loyalty to Hitler.

For example, Mr. Howard Stark once recruited a German scientist, Dr. Arnim Zola, for S.H.I.E.L.D., who we discovered was also a parasite hidden by Hydra and the Third Reich. That guy also caused quite a bit of trouble.

"Hmm...did he misjudge it too?"

Tony Stark made a subtle dig at his father.

This was Tony Stark's subconscious behavior; he always wanted to surpass his father, so he would secretly look for his father's shortcomings.

Uehara Naraku nodded and continued softly, "That's understandable, because no one can understand what those scientific madmen are thinking... Anyway, Dr. Erskine was the same; he received a top-secret mission from Hitler."

At the start of World War II, Hitler and Red Skull cooperated quite well. Hitler even authorized Red Skull to establish an army, making Red Skull, who was just one of the Hydra cadres at the time, completely superior to other Hydra faction bases.

but…

Red Skull, however, chose not to be loyal to Hydra's so-called mission.

Not long ago, when Dr. Banner and I destroyed Pierce, we found some information about Hydra in Pierce's base.

From the day Hydra was founded, their mission was to rescue their creator, Hela, the goddess of death in Asgard and Thor's elder sister.

However, not everyone thinks this way…

After all, no one had ever seen Hela, the goddess of death, and even Thor seemed to have never heard of her, not to mention that Hydra was just a group of ordinary people gathered together.

"so…"

Tony Stark instantly understood Uehara Naraku's meaning and pondered, "Didn't that Red Skull consider rescuing that unknown goddess named Hela?"

"That should be it."

Uehara Naraku nodded and continued softly, "Because there are some historical documents about Hydra in Pierce Base, which once mentioned that Red Skull was a traitor."

After obtaining the Tesseract, Red Skull became obsessed with its power, choosing to betray Hydra's mission and also betraying Adolf Hitler.

When Uehara Naraku got to this point, he continued to explain: "We learned from Pierce that Hydra's purpose was probably to obtain the Tesseract, conduct experiments with it, and thus rescue their founder, the Goddess of Death, Hela."

Fury may have thought the same thing, but his experiment went wrong. Instead of rescuing Hela, the energy of the Tesseract attracted Loki and the Chitauri.

Fortunately, Mr. Howard Stark became friends with the Akatsuki organization back then…

"His taste... is indeed quite good."

Tony Stark couldn't help but mutter again, urging softly, "Uehara, stop talking about this, just tell me what happened!"

"Um…"

Uehara Naraku nodded before returning to the previous topic: "Red Skull betrayed Hydra and Hitler for the power of the Tesseract, and thus completely offended them, because they all needed the power of the Tesseract."

Hitler needed to use the Cosmic Cube, a power existing outside of Earth's science, to win the war, while Hydra needed to use the Cosmic Cube to rescue Hela, the goddess of death.

However, Red Skull had many subordinates who possessed the Tesseract, and with the Allied forces advancing all the way in the European theater, they were completely helpless against him. Hitler's Super Soldier program was also discovered and exploited by Red Skull.

At this time...

Dr. Erskine, the head of the Super Soldier program, received a top-secret order from Adolf Hitler to eliminate Johann Schmidt, the Red Skull.

Dr. Erskine received orders and secretly escaped Red Skull's control. With the Allies besieging Germany, he chose to defect to the Allies, becoming a spy scientist and joining them under the guise of a super-soldier creation project.

At this point, Uehara Naraku rubbed his forehead, swiped the virtual screen, and pulled up two before-and-after photos of Steve Rogers before and after he was injected with the Super Soldier Serum.

In one of the photos, Steve Rogers looks extremely thin.

In another photo, Steve Rogers looks very muscular.

then…

He continued writing.

"We can't determine exactly what the problem is inside..."

Looking at the two photos on the virtual screen that were almost unrecognizable in terms of physique, Uehara Naraku continued, "During the Super Soldier program, Erskine turned Steve Rogers to become Captain America, and also a spy for Nazi Germany."

Uehara Naraku swiped the screen, revealing a detailed timeline, and continued, "From then on, Steve Rogers began to act as Captain America. His only goal was to completely destroy Red Skull and obtain the Tesseract."

At that time, Red Skull was considered an enemy of the entire world.

Hydra, Hitler, the Allies—almost everyone was trying to eliminate him.

In this story, Captain Steve Rogers is at the center of the world, with Allied forces providing him with weapons support, and even Mr. Howard Stark was ordered to forge a vibranium shield for him.

With the military support of the Allied forces and the intelligence assistance of Hitler and Hydra spies, the whole world was helping him at that time. In the end, he lived up to expectations and successfully eliminated the Red Skull, which was already a powerful force at the time.

Unfortunately, Steve Rogers successfully defeated Red Skull, but failed to bring back the Tesseract. Instead, his plane went out of control and crashed into the Arctic Ocean with the Tesseract.

Hitler did not live to see the Cosmic Cube he brought back; he committed suicide amidst the gunfire of Berlin.

The other factions of Hydra also didn't get their hands on the Cosmic Cube. They used the opportunity to infiltrate various allied nations, going into hiding after the war to continue their plans.

"..."

Tony Stark ran his fingers through his hair, rubbing his head. "Is this... the sealed truth?"

Tony Stark felt that his understanding of the world had been completely overturned.

These things…

This is just too shocking!

No one could have imagined that, right?

If Uehara Naraku hadn't meticulously and painstakingly recounted history here, no one would ever know these sealed truths, and these truths will likely remain sealed away forever…

Because Steve Rogers's identity is quite complicated...

It is highly unlikely that the United States would allow Captain America to have a dirty identity.

"I was even more shocked than you when I first found out."

Uehara Naraku sighed and said softly, "If it weren't for the higher-ups' request for an investigation, and if that German-language secret letter hadn't been discovered, these things would still have been kept under wraps by Fury... Moreover, Steve Rogers and Hydra are still connected to this day."

At this point, Uehara Naraku seized the opportunity to shift the blame onto Nick Fury, pulling out a video of Coulson's struggle with the censors and pressing the pause button.

"When the German-language secret letter incident was first exposed, Nick Fury made two phone calls from the censors, asking them to hand the secret letter over to Coulson."

However, some of these investigators were tough-minded; most of them were retired military personnel, not spies planted by Nick Fury and Pierce in Hydra. They demanded that the case be handed over to the World Security Council for review.

Ultimately, Coulson eliminated the witness and fled.

The only evidence remaining in the archives today is the interrogation video, which proves that a secret letter from Adolf Hitler to Steve Rogers did indeed appear during the Arctic Ocean salvage operation.

After Uehara Naraku finished speaking, he turned to Tony Stark, who was still scratching his head, and said softly, "Tony, these are all top secrets. They absolutely cannot be leaked before the World Security Council and the White House decide to make them public..."

"Um…"

Tony Stark nodded weakly.

If these things were exposed, wouldn't a lot of people go crazy?

Is there a loophole in Uehara's words?

(End of this chapter)