“Ah… that.”
Naruto smiled faintly.
He leaned back, resting both hands against the stone step behind him, and raised his gaze toward the distant blue sky and drifting white clouds.
Sasuke looked toward the same horizon and quietly waited.
Beside them, Hinata remained peacefully unconscious.
Naruto watched the clouds for a while before murmuring—
“Let’s leave the Uchiha clan aside for now.
I’ll tell you about myself first.”
He paused.
“Do you know who my parents were?”
Sasuke remained silent.
“My mother was the previous jinchūriki of the Nine-Tails.
Ah, a jinchūriki is someone like me—a person with a tailed beast sealed inside their body.”
Naruto’s voice softened.
“And my father was the Fourth Hokage.”
“…”
Sasuke’s head snapped toward him.
Naruto noticed the stare but did not turn around.
He merely gave a careless smile and released a quiet sigh.
“On the day I was born, my mother’s seal weakened because she was giving birth.
A man who knew about it infiltrated Konoha, extracted the Nine-Tails from her, and controlled it to attack the village.”
“As you already know, the Fourth Hokage sealed the Nine-Tails away.”
Naruto placed a hand against his abdomen.
“And the vessel he chose was me—his newborn son.”
“Technically, the one sealed inside me is responsible for the deaths of both my parents.
By all rights, I should hate him more than anything in the world.”
“But…”
Naruto’s smile became complicated.
“But that isn’t how I feel.”
Inside Naruto’s mindscape, Kurama lay quietly upon the dark surface of the water.
His enormous eyes were half-closed as he listened to Naruto’s words.
It was impossible to tell what the great fox was thinking.
Sasuke’s expression shifted.
He had never imagined that Naruto’s past concealed so many secrets.
Naruto’s fingers tightened slightly against the stone steps.
After a brief silence, he continued.
“My master once said that if peace truly exists, then I should be the one to seize it.”
“I hated Kurama.
Kurama hated me too.
He hated Konoha.
He hated humanity.”
“But hatred doesn’t appear out of nowhere.
Without suffering and pain, where would hatred come from?”
Naruto lowered his gaze.
“I suffered because my family was taken from me.”
“But what about him?”
“From the moment Kurama came into this world, humans called him an embodiment of hatred—a symbol of disaster.”
Naruto’s voice became quieter.
“But was that ever fair?”
Golden light suddenly erupted around him.
Fwoom—!
In an instant, Naruto’s entire body was enveloped in blazing golden chakra.
He casually raised his right hand and pointed toward a large tree growing in the nearby garden.
Crack… crack-crack…
Before Sasuke’s astonished eyes, the tree began growing at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Its trunk thickened.
Its branches stretched higher.
Fresh shoots emerged, unfurled, and transformed into lush green leaves.
Sasuke stared in disbelief.
He had never known Naruto possessed a form like this.
Even without understanding what it was, he could clearly feel the overwhelming pressure radiating from Naruto’s golden figure.
It was unlike anything he had ever experienced.
Almost unconsciously, Sasuke activated his three-tomoe Sharingan.
The moment he looked at Naruto through those crimson eyes, his expression changed completely.
For an ordinary shinobi, chakra might appear like a small flame flickering within the abdomen. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
But the chakra burning inside Naruto—
It resembled an enormous sun.
Blinding.
Scorching.
Boundless.
Can this amount of chakra truly be real?
Golden fire burned around Naruto’s body—chakra so dense that it had taken physical form.
“This is Kurama’s true chakra.”
Naruto glanced toward the rapidly growing tree.
“As you can see, it’s a power overflowing with life.”
The golden radiance gradually faded.
Naruto returned to his normal appearance.
“Ever since the wife of the First Hokage became Kurama’s jinchūriki, he’s been imprisoned in Konoha, never allowed to see the outside world.”
“From the time he was created by the Sage of Six Paths, humans have feared him, hated him, and coveted his power.”
“People were terrified of such a monstrous mass of chakra.”
Naruto’s eyes darkened slightly.
“And yet, at the same time, they greedily desired that overwhelming power for themselves.”
“So where did all that hatred truly begin?”
“With our ancestors?”
“With war?”
“With shinobi?”
“With the Sage of Six Paths?”
“Or with chakra itself?”
Sasuke fell silent.
A tremendous shock spread through his heart.
Day after day, night after night, Sasuke had thought only of avenging his clan.
Yet Naruto, who was the same age as him, had already begun contemplating the nature of war and peace.
The contrast struck directly at Sasuke’s pride.
For the first time, he felt as though the distance between them could not be measured by strength alone.
“I don’t hate Kurama.”
Naruto’s voice was firm.
“I truly don’t.”
“Thanks to the experiences of my future self, I came to understand that Kurama was a victim too.”
“I don’t hate him.”
“And I don’t hate the man who controlled him that night.
He was also nothing more than another sacrifice swallowed by this enormous cycle of hatred.”
“I don’t want to hate anyone.”
“I don’t want to kill anyone.”
Naruto’s blue eyes shone with more determination than ever before.
“If peace truly exists…”
He clenched his fist.
“…then I’ll be the one to hold on to it with everything I have.”
Reading granted wisdom.
And wisdom compelled people to think.
At first, Naruto had begun reading only because he wanted to become different from his future self.
He wanted to make up for the weaknesses and regrets of the person he might otherwise become.
But as his knowledge deepened and the world before him grew wider, books naturally led him to question, reflect, and seek answers of his own.
He had even borrowed Jiraiya’s novel, The Tale of the Utterly Gutsy Shinobi, and respectfully read it from beginning to end once more.
Then, without warning, a voice came from directly ahead of them.
“When Itachi was six years old, he had already begun thinking like a Hokage—about the village, the clan, and the relationship between them.”
Sasuke’s head snapped toward the speaker.
The Third Hokage stood there, having appeared without either of them noticing.
Smoke curled slowly from his pipe.
Sasuke stared at him.
“Then… Itachi…”
His voice trembled.
“Does that mean Itachi…?”
His hands clenched so tightly that his fingernails dug into his palms.
“The truth of that night…”
Hiruzen’s aged voice sounded unusually hoarse.
“You should ask Itachi yourself, once you possess the strength to stand before him.”
“Damn it…”
Sasuke’s body began trembling.
“Damn it!”
His voice rose, raw with anger.
“Why does everyone insist on hiding everything from me?!”
“You all know the truth!” Visit g.com for the full chapter.
“You know what happened, so why won’t any of you tell me?!”
His breathing became ragged.
“The people who died were my parents!
My family!”
“Itachi… Itachi—!”
“Because knowing the truth now wouldn’t help you.”
Naruto’s quiet voice interrupted him.
He glanced toward Hinata, who was still unconscious beside them.
She still hasn’t woken up.
Grandpa Third must have done something.
Naruto looked back at Sasuke.
“If Itachi chose to hide the truth from you, then he obviously wanted your hatred to become the force that drove you forward.”
“He needs you to become stronger.”
Naruto nearly said, He doesn’t have much time left.
But he stopped himself.
Instead, he continued—
“He wants you to become as strong as he is.”
“No—stronger than he is.”
“The destruction of the Uchiha clan was caused by forces even Itachi couldn’t overcome.”
“So there’s only one thing you can do.”
Naruto met Sasuke’s eyes.
“Become stronger, exactly as Itachi wanted.”
Sasuke raised his head.
He looked at Naruto.
Then at the Third Hokage.
Confusion filled the twelve-year-old boy’s eyes.
“Turn your desire to uncover the truth into the strength that allows you to grow.”
Hiruzen exhaled a slow cloud of smoke.
“No matter what happens, Sasuke…”
“You are still a shinobi of Konoha.”
For six years, Hiruzen had watched Naruto gradually influence Sasuke.
He understood what the boy was trying to accomplish.
Naruto did not want Sasuke to be abandoned by the village as he had been in the original future.
He did not want Sasuke to become isolated and slowly pushed toward the village’s edge.
Hiruzen knew perfectly well how great Sasuke’s future potential was.
And Naruto had spent years trying to show him that Sasuke did not have to betray Konoha.
Sasuke was merely a child.
A child who understood nothing because every adult around him had kept him in the dark.
Hiruzen had acknowledged Naruto’s silent efforts.
That was precisely why Kakashi had been permitted to guide Sasuke.
Had the decision been left to Danzō, teaching Sasuke would have been no different from strengthening a future enemy.
In Danzō’s eyes, the safest solution would undoubtedly have been to eliminate Sasuke while he was still young and powerless.
But Hiruzen refused to take that path.
He was willing to believe in Naruto.
He was willing to believe in Sasuke.
He was willing to believe in the Child of Prophecy.
And more than anything—
He believed in the Will of Fire passed down from one generation to the next.
Hiruzen believed that Konoha’s true foundation was not built upon the rejection of those who were different.
It was not hatred.
It was not resentment, malice, prejudice, or suspicion.
Konoha was built upon acceptance.
Friendship.
Kindness.
Forgiveness.
Understanding.
It was built upon the efforts of one generation after another—
And upon the strength people found by believing in one another.
In this chaotic shinobi world, such ideals might have sounded laughably naïve.
And yet, every hidden village that might mock those ideals had its origin in Konoha.
Konoha itself had been born from a beautiful dream shared by two men during an age of endless war.
Sarutobi Hiruzen believed in the future Hokage—
Uzumaki Naruto.
And so—
He would entrust Uchiha Sasuke to him.