Hawks from the Land of Light are calling me a dove and an undercover agent in the chat group.

The video even includes footage and sound of Hinata occasionally thinking of Naruto when she's alone, softly murmuring her beloved's name with deep affection.

Seeing this, Naruto was completely stunned: "Hina-Hina-Hina-Hina—"

Hinata likes him? And it's the kind of liking a girl has for a boy—the kind where she wants to date, marry, sleep with him, and have children—and it's always been that way?!

He was stunned. This was way beyond his capabilities! A girl actually liked him this much? He had never even imagined it, let alone dared to imagine it!

Bruce was also particularly cunning. Although the video did not involve Hinata Hyuga's physical privacy at all—after all, he's a superhero, and although he might do anything, he's still relatively caring towards children, just like he never actually hurt Naruto Uzumaki from beginning to end.

But Bruce has unique filming techniques.

Without a doubt, Bruce Wayne is a master photographer. Although Hinata Hyuga was dressed very conservatively, he deliberately chose the best shots to maximize the charm of the little girl and intentionally highlighted her voice when she missed Naruto, amplifying the depth of her emotions tenfold.

If this still can't take down the love-starved Naruto in one blow, then Bruce Wayne might as well quit.

Although Naruto thought he liked Sakura, based on Bruce's observation, he could also conclude that rather than liking her, Naruto was actually confused about his own feelings. He did care about Sakura, but it was closer to feelings of friendship and Oedipus complex.

Perhaps because he grew up without a mother, and because Sakura has a carefree and assertive personality, Naruto felt a sense of security, like being disciplined by his mother, when Sakura bullied him. He couldn't distinguish between these feelings and thought he had fallen in love with Sakura.

Now that Hinata Hyuga, the girl who truly loved him, liked him, devoted herself to him wholeheartedly, thought about him constantly, and was willing to throw herself into his arms, has been revealed, Naruto's understanding of love is finally about to be enlightened.

He will fall in love with Hinata Hyuga in an instant.

Therefore, Hinata, who liked him and whom he liked, was almost kidnapped by the Hidden Cloud Village. Afterwards, the Third Hokage even put pressure on the Hyuga clan and made concessions to the Hidden Cloud Village.

With the Third Hokage like this, can Naruto still be completely redeemed?

If so, then it means there's something really wrong with him.

Naruto, who was being stared at intently, looked pained. After struggling for a moment, he finally stammered out a sentence with great helplessness: "...Grandpa Third Hokage wouldn't be a bad person."

"So you mean he did the right thing?" Bruce asked.

Naruto shook his head.

“Okay,” Bruce offered three choices: “Was the Third Hokage bad, stupid, both bad and stupid, or kind-hearted and neither bad nor stupid?”

"...It's stupid."

It seems there's still hope; at least we don't think the third generation is without problems.

This result also aligns with Bruce's assessment. According to Orochimaru's description, the Third Hokage was not some cunning old fox, but rather a stupid and weak good-for-nothing.

To say that the third generation had any bad intentions is not necessarily true, but he was both stupid and weak, which led to the emergence of many problems.

However, this does not mean that the Third Hokage was without fault. Being a Hokage who was both stupid and weak, and who held the position but was incompetent, was the greatest sin in itself.

Bruce nodded, picked up the mental data measuring instrument that had been placed nearby earlier, and reviewed the data fluctuations throughout the conversation. The data showed that an unknown force was indeed continuously guiding Naruto's thinking towards an almost unconditional repayment of evil with good.

But that still hasn't broken through the upper limit of brainwashing.

In other words, Naruto was born with a problem; some soul or consciousness that was already dead was pulling him toward the side of excessive kindness, but it couldn't be said that he was brainwashed.

Because it's perfectly clear that Naruto Uzumaki himself is indeed an excellent kid. Even without this consciousness pulling him back, he's a positive and optimistic person who's more likely to forgive others, no doubt about that.

Kindness is good.

However, with this being already dead and devoid of self, leaving only its power to influence Naruto's consciousness, Naruto has become overly kind, which is not a good thing.

After a moment of confusion, Naruto, whose mind was working at its most sharp ever, finally had a sudden realization: "Batman, who are you? What do you want?"

This isn't right!

If they wanted to harm him, aside from kidnapping him without prior notice, they didn't really bully him or try to make the Nine-Tails inside him go berserk.

Although this might be pretense before things come to a head, Naruto felt that the man in front of him seemed to genuinely mean no harm.

Having grown up in an environment shrouded in malice, he has a fairly clear perception of malice. But no matter how you look at it, Uncle Batman seems to not only have no malice towards him, but on the contrary, he seems to want to be good to him.

First, she told him that Sasuke was doing well, then she told him about his background, and finally she made him understand Hinata's feelings.

Aside from the sad fact that he was forced to acknowledge that his third-generation grandfather was both stupid and weak, he was now almost completely enveloped in happiness, as if he had eaten honey!

Faced with this question, Bruce, unusually, did not play the riddle-maker, but instead spoke in a deep, husky voice:

"It's very simple. I'm trying to understand what kind of person you are, and I hope you can stand on Sasuke's side to prevent you two best friends from killing each other."

Of course, it goes without saying that he wanted Naruto to help him with experiments.

"Fighting each other?" Naruto tilted his head in confusion. That couldn't be possible.

Unless Sasuke intends to harm the village, he would never kill Sasuke. At most, he would break Sasuke's arms and legs and carry him back to the village.

But didn't Batman already say that Sasuke had no intention of harming the village?

Bruce didn't rush to answer. He repeatedly reviewed the data from the mental instrument, then took out a special device from behind him. It was a head-mounted device that resembled an electric shock device. He fiddled with it, inputting data and making some extremely detailed settings before putting it on Naruto's head.

"Wait, wait, wait, Batman, what are you doing?"

Naruto Uzumaki became uneasy, but before he could resist, Bruce had already pressed the start button. In an instant, the device overloaded, and with a loud bang, it did get a little electric shock, making Naruto's hair stand on end, but he wasn't injured.

Bruce nodded: "Alright, we can begin now."

"Huh?" Naruto was bewildered. He felt that something was different from before, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. Moreover, the difference didn't seem that big. His various beliefs were still pretty much the same as before.

Bruce was too lazy to explain to an illiterate child in detail what kind of advanced technology he had used to temporarily suppress the undying consciousness within him.

After all, back in Gotham, he often didn't give Chief Gordon a detailed explanation of the plans; that would be a waste of time.

Although his current technological advancements are insufficient to extract the consciousness power within Naruto, suppressing it temporarily is barely enough.

“Sasuke has changed. He may want to overthrow the entire ninja world from a positive perspective. I came here to persuade you to fight alongside him, Naruto Uzumaki.”

Chapter 244 The Root of All Evil: The Sage of Six Paths, and a Groundbreaking Reform

"what?"

To overturn, to overturn the ninja world?

You're not planning to wipe out Konoha right in front of me, are you? No way!

Naruto blinked. When he heard this word, all he could think of was war and invasion, which were accompanied by evil and death. He definitely couldn't agree to that, even if the enemy was Sasuke!

Upholding the Will of Fire and protecting Konoha is our inescapable duty!

"Don't rush, let me explain slowly."

Bruce shook his head slightly. Although it would be difficult to explain things to Naruto, an illiterate person tainted by the backward education of the ninja world, in a way that would make them understand, he had already planned how to proceed step by step.

The first step was to let Naruto know that the Third Hokage was an incompetent leader, and the next step is the second.

"A thousand years ago, the daimyo of various countries were constantly at war. The strongest soldiers under the daimyo were samurai without chakra. It was at that time that the Sage of Six Paths appeared. He brought chakra to this world, and this world has been called the Ninja World ever since."

"At that time, the Sage of Six Paths possessed the power to create the moon. He cared for the people, showed compassion to the weak, dug canals and built roads to help people. However, he was still very respectful to those mortal daimyo and took the lead in showing respect to all nobles. Under his leadership, the unspoken rule of ninjas naturally respecting and honoring nobles emerged."

"In the thousand years since the Sage of Six Paths died, this unspoken rule has gradually evolved into a formal system, which stipulates that no matter how much ninjas fight, it can only be limited to ninjas and commoners, and cannot involve nobles, especially daimyo."

"Ninjas possess great strength and productivity. They are divided into clans and their identities are limited to mercenaries. They are hired by nobles and daimyo to fight each other and kill the ninjas hired by the opposing nobles. Under these circumstances, ninja children even need to go to the battlefield as early as six years old."

"After this cruel situation lasted for nearly a thousand years, Madara Uchiha and Hashirama Senju appeared. The two reached a consensus to bring peace to the ninja world and eventually joined hands to create the ninja village system, transforming the ninja world from [ninja clans] to [ninja villages].

"From then on, the ninjas' concept of 'love for their clan' evolved into 'love for their clan + love for their village,' and ninja children could go to the battlefield in their teens when it was not a critical period. The ninja village has been established for about sixty years."

"Currently, it's a one-country-one-village system, with one daimyo paired with one ninja village. In name, the daimyo and the Hokage are equal, and the Hokage is not subordinate to the daimyo. However, in reality, while the daimyo doesn't have 100% of the power to choose who becomes the Hokage, their opinion actually carries at least half the weight."

"Furthermore, since the ninja villages rely heavily on funding from the daimyo, the Hokage is actually following the daimyo's orders in more than 90% of matters. This is the current situation in the history of the ninja world."

Bruce recounted the history of the ninja world, half of which he had dug up from Orochimaru—for example, the Sage of Six Paths' respect for ordinary daimyo was a finding that Orochimaru had unearthed from a historical site.

The other half was the knowledge he gained by sneaking into the forbidden area of ​​Konoha and secretly reading the books that recorded history there.

Of course, although he had his own way of dealing with rats, Konoha's defenses were not entirely ineffective. He didn't have a complete understanding of everything, only a general overview, but it was enough for him.

"Oh, is that so?"

Naruto was dumbfounded, blinking his eyes. He hadn't studied much about ninja history, being a typical underachiever. He couldn't even answer many of the most basic ninja questions. Now that he'd been given a crash course, he nodded in bewilderment, but didn't understand what Batman was up to. "Uh... and then what?"

Bruce said, "I ask you, is it reasonable that ninjas possess the most powerful strength and the most advanced productivity, yet the world order is controlled by the daimyo?"

"Uh, I don't understand what this 'productivity' thing is," Naruto scratched his head, "but it makes sense, doesn't it? It's always been like this, hasn't it?"

"Just because it's always been this way, does that mean it's right?" Bruce shook his head slightly.

The ninjas in the ninja world are as if they have been implanted with a mental seal; over the past thousand years, not one or two have dared to even think about overthrowing the daimyo.

However, this cannot be entirely blamed on the ninjas. The idea that ninjas were born with a lower status than daimyo, or even lower than ordinary nobles, was ultimately influenced by the Sage of Six Paths.

Even the Sage of Six Paths, as the master of ninjutsu, was extremely respectful to all nobles and daimyo, and never dared to think of overthrowing a daimyo. So, you ordinary ninjas should naturally follow in the footsteps of your ancestor.

Anyone who dares to think that a ninja is above a daimyo is defying the laws of their ancestors and violating the political correctness of the ninja world, and will inevitably be attacked by the masses.

Take, for example, the Uzumaki clan, Konoha's ally. They built their own village and even called themselves daimyo, but when their village was wiped out, Konoha, despite having the resources, didn't offer any assistance.

The Third Hokage was incompetent, not evil. He wouldn't have stood by and watched an ally of a village perish, but the result was that Konoha didn't offer any assistance. There are two possibilities for this.

Either Konoha received orders from the Daimyo of the Land of Fire, who would not allow the Uzumaki clan, who dared to call themselves Daimyo, to live, and the Third Hokage had no choice but to stand by and do nothing.

Either the Uzumaki clan's plea for help to Konoha was completely cut off—for a ninja village to be completely cut off from external aid would obviously require an extraordinary amount of power—it could only be because other daimyo were secretly helping to cut it off; otherwise, it would be impossible to do something so drastic.

In any case, the rule that ninjas were lower in status than nobles and daimyo were of the highest status was all thanks to the Sage of Six Paths for setting such a bad precedent.

But the Sage of Six Paths wasn't a bad person either.

The fact that the Uzumaki clan could become daimyo, and that Hashirama Senju could change the world from a system of ninja clans to a system of ninja villages, both of these things prove one thing.

That is, regardless of whether the Sage of Six Paths is truly dead or feigning death, he will not prevent future generations from changing the world's system.

The reason why the Sage of Six Paths held the nobles in such high esteem a thousand years ago can be understood as follows: he was also illiterate and most likely grew up in the ninja world, where he was naturally influenced by the nobles and thus felt that daimyo should be noble.

The reason he didn't overthrow the nobles and daimyo wasn't because he unconditionally sided with the daimyo, but because as an illiterate man he simply didn't know what to do or how to act. So he just stuck to the old ways and could only hope that the common people would be better off within the scope of his own understanding.

Therefore, after witnessing the martial arts tournament in the main universe of the Land of Light and being cleansed of his mind by the existence of Kassa, Sasuke subconsciously had the idea of ​​changing the ninja world. If he really carried out the change, he would not have to worry about being hindered by the Sage of Six Paths, who might still be alive.

This is the only good news.

The bad news is that the Sage of Six Paths is highly unlikely to help Sasuke, just as he wouldn't suddenly appear to help Hashirama Senju and Madara Uchiha establish a ninja village.

"what?"

Naruto, unaware of these intricacies, simply stared wide-eyed, finally realizing what was happening, and gasped in shock: "You, you, you, you, you're not planning to wage war against the Daimyo, are you?!"

"Why not?"

"That's a famous name!"

"Hmm, it's a daimyo, and then what? What's the reason for not being able to wage war against a daimyo, for not being able to overthrow a daimyo?"

"That's for sure—"