Chapter 633: Naruto Stops the War

After saying goodbye to his friends on perfectly friendly terms, Naruto suddenly thought of Hinata.

This world’s Hinata possessed the Tenseigan. Not only was her strength extraordinary, but her intelligence was completely different from the Hinata Naruto knew as well.

If she were willing to help him end the war, maybe she could come up with a solution.

Naruto had learned his lesson, though.

He remembered that whenever Hinata saw him, she immediately recalled the day the Hyūga compound had been turned into a sea of sewage and passed out on the spot.

So rather than approaching her personally, he decided to have someone else pass on the message.

Kiba would normally have been the best choice. Naruto could have mentioned it before they separated, and as Hinata’s teammate, Kiba had a perfectly good reason to visit her.

Unfortunately, the gathering Naruto had just held had somehow turned into the equivalent of a tavern full of dangerous speeches.

Naruto himself hadn’t really done anything, but after hearing everyone else’s ideas, his friends had all experienced their own moments of enlightenment.

Kiba, for example, had been awestruck when Tenten announced that she planned to fabricate evidence accusing her parents of treason.

Compared to that, sitting at home doing nothing and merely hoping his own family died on the battlefield suddenly seemed far too lazy.

If you were going to “do everything you could and leave the rest to fate,” then you first had to actually do everything you could.

So Kiba decided to mix a huge quantity of chocolate into the ninja-dog food being shipped to the front lines.

Not only could he get rid of the stinking dogs he despised, but if his mother and sister failed their duties because of it, the tyrant Kushina might execute them under military law.

Kiba had something far too important to handle now.

Naturally, he had no time to deliver a message to Hinata for Naruto.

As for Shino?

That name sounded really familiar.

Had Shino even been at the gathering?

Naruto couldn’t remember.

So Naruto decided to wait outside the Hyūga compound until Hanabi appeared, then ask her to pass the message along.

He waited for quite a while.

No Hanabi.

With no other choice, Naruto finally went looking for Shino.

Before long, Shino returned with an answer.

“Well? Well?”

Naruto rushed toward him expectantly.

“Shino, did Hinata agree?”

“She refused.”

“Huh? Why?”

Naruto’s shoulders immediately slumped.

“Did you know Hanabi went to the front lines?”

Shino adjusted his glasses.

“Hanabi? She’s that young and they already sent her to war?”

Naruto looked shocked.

“That just means I need to end this war even faster!”

“Before anything happens to her!”

“…”

Shino paused.

“Naruto, I think you misunderstood.”

“That was the answer to your previous question.”

Naruto blinked.

“What?”

“Officially, Hanabi was sent to the battlefield to recover Byakugan from fallen Hyūga shinobi.”

Shino continued calmly.

“In reality, she wants eyes like Hinata’s.”

“So she went to the front to act as the Hyūga clan’s executioner.”

“Whenever a Hyūga is seriously wounded, Hanabi uses ‘preventing the Byakugan from falling into enemy hands’ as justification to finish them off and remove their eyes.”

“…”

Naruto stared at him.

“Also, Naruto, you’re underestimating Hanabi’s importance to Hinata.”

Shino adjusted his glasses again.

“Ever since you became the walking embodiment of that sewage disaster, Hanabi has effectively become the only person left in Hinata’s heart.”

“After Hanabi pointed it out, Hinata realized she had already killed far too many Hyūga.”

“There aren’t enough clan members left to gather the eyes needed for another Tenseigan.”

“So, in her capacity as the future clan head, Hinata introduced rewards for Hyūga families who have a third, fourth, or fifth child.”

“She also introduced penalties for anyone who refuses to have children.”

“And apparently, she contacted Orochimaru to discuss cloning more Hyūga.”

“…”

Naruto listened to one ridiculous revelation after another.

For a moment, he suddenly felt that being Hokage in this world must be incredibly difficult for his mother.

But he didn’t sympathize with Kushina enough to conclude that becoming a tyrant was justified.

Quite the opposite.

Naruto saw all of this as the consequence of becoming Hokage without first earning everyone’s acknowledgment.

That only strengthened his own convictions.

Hinata clearly wasn’t going to help.

As the newest member of the obsessive-sibling club after Uchiha Itachi, she would never agree to end a war while Hanabi was benefiting from it.

Naruto was on his own again.

He walked home alone, suddenly missing his real teammates more than ever.

If only Sasuke were here with him.

If only Uncle Obito were still alive and standing beside him.

“Huh?”

Naruto suddenly stopped.

“Wait!”

There was still another group he could ask for help.

Jiraiya and Orochimaru!

They were still hiding inside the Fire Temple.

Jiraiya aside, Orochimaru definitely knew plenty of underhanded schemes.

And Naruto was still carrying the Fire Daimyō’s secret edict.

He could totally use it to—

well—

hold the Daimyō’s authority over the entire shinobi world.

There was no time to waste.

Naruto immediately headed for the Fire Temple.

There, he found Orochimaru still spending his days suspiciously close to Jiraiya.

There was an old saying that when you decided to flip a coin to choose between two options, you often knew what you truly wanted the moment the coin left your hand, before you even saw which side landed faceup.

Something similar happened to Naruto.

On the way to the Fire Temple, an idea had already occurred to him.

He still continued to the temple, however, because that plan required Orochimaru’s help.

Orochimaru eventually emerged wearing white robes, his long hair styled into the neat, elegant look of a married woman.

Then he handed Naruto several bottles.

“Use these sparingly.”

“They’re concentrated.”

“One bottle is enough to contaminate an entire water source.”

Orochimaru gave him the warning seriously.

Naruto’s inspiration had come from Kiba.

Kiba’s idea of mixing chocolate into dog food made Naruto realize that he could do something similar.

The difference was that Naruto didn’t want anyone to die.

He merely needed both armies to lose the ability to fight.

And what better way to accomplish that—

than an extremely powerful laxative?

So Naruto had gone to Orochimaru for help.

To his surprise, Orochimaru genuinely had exactly what he needed.

Naruto never stopped to wonder why Orochimaru happened to possess so many concentrated laxatives.

He simply thought he had gotten lucky, accepted the bottles, and left.

The people watching from outside Engraved Tsukuyomi, however, immediately began thinking in much more questionable directions.

The Fire Temple really was a den of hidden filth.

What exactly were these monks doing every day that required enough laxative to thoroughly empty so many digestive systems?

Naruto raced toward the front lines.

Along the way, his Nine-Tails chakra finally returned.

He immediately entered Nine-Tails Chakra Mode, created several shadow clones, handed each one a bottle, and sent them toward the different battlefields to contaminate the opposing armies’ water supplies.

Naruto himself headed for the front where Konoha was fighting Iwagakure.

That was where his father, Namikaze Minato, had been deployed.

Kakashi was there too.

Once Naruto stopped the war, he planned to handle his other objective at the same time—

lure his father into the Kamui dimension.

Of Konoha’s two active fronts against Iwagakure and Sunagakure, Iwa was clearly the stronger opponent.

Both of Iwagakure’s jinchūriki were participating in the battle.

Sunagakure’s jinchūriki, on the other hand, had refused to fight because of his feelings for Naruto.

Logically, Kushina—the stronger of Naruto’s parents—should have gone to face Iwagakure, while Minato handled Sunagakure.

But Minato had insisted that he could persuade both of Iwa’s jinchūriki to surrender.

He even claimed he might be able to bring them over as allies.

After confirming several times that Minato was serious, Kushina finally agreed to send him to the Iwa front.

She also made him sign a military pledge.

If the Iwagakure front collapsed because of him—

he would be executed without mercy.

Minato agreed with complete confidence.

After all, half of the Nine-Tails against the Four-Tails and Five-Tails wasn’t an especially difficult matchup.

Even if Minato failed to persuade them to surrender, simply holding the two jinchūriki back shouldn’t have been much trouble.

But after Naruto reached the front, he quickly understood exactly where his father’s confidence had come from.

During a lull in the fighting, everyone assumed the three jinchūriki had disappeared somewhere secluded to fight an earth-shattering three-way battle.

Instead—

the three of them had gone into a cave for a very different kind of three-way “battle.”