"..."
The sealing space was utterly silent. The Nine-Tails watched Naruto below.
Hearing the distant and unfamiliar words "father" and "mother," Uzumaki Naruto remained silent for a long time.
In the beginning, when he first met Sarutobi Hiruzen, he actually asked about his parents.
However, Hiruzen's answer was clearly half-truth and half-lie, saying that his parents, like many others, died during the Nine-Tails' attack.
Naruto pressed him, asking who his parents were and what kind of people they were.
Hiruzen's reply was, What difference would knowing make? The dead won't resurrect.
Since then, Naruto never asked again.
But he had already guessed the real answer.
"My father..."
Finally, Naruto spoke, asking the question that had long revolved in his heart: "Is the Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze, right?"
"Yes." Kun'shiki slowly nodded.
Naruto took a deep breath and continued to press, his voice carrying a barely perceptible tremor: "Then my mother, was she the previous Nine-Tails Jinchūriki?"
Kun'shiki nodded again in confirmation.
Receiving the definite answer, Naruto closed his eyes, taking a deep breath as if to suppress the surging emotions in his chest. After a long moment, he slowly exhaled.
"Is that truly the case?"
When he opened his eyes again, his emotions were complex. He whispered, "Although I suspected it for a long time, at the moment of actual confirmation, I still feel a little angry."
"Why?"
"As the previous Nine-Tails Jinchūriki and the Fourth Hokage, they understood better than anyone the pain, loneliness, and hatred that comes with being a Jinchūriki..."
"Why did they still make me, their child, a Jinchūriki?"
"If I hadn't met Brother Kawa, if I hadn't met you, Sensei, I might still be alone now, enduring the cold looks and rejection of everyone..."
"Brat." At this moment, the Nine-Tails' deep voice rang out. "You want to know why?"
Naruto looked up at the massive, scarlet vertical pupils. The Nine-Tails bared its mouth, revealing stark white fangs.
"That Fourth Hokage fellow could have actually survived if he wanted to."
The Nine-Tails spoke: "I had already broken free from that Uchiha bastard's control by then."
"And that woman, Kushina, though her life force was almost exhausted and she was about to die, she still had the last bit of chakra left—enough to completely seal me, taking me with her to the grave."
"The Fourth Hokage could have completely survived and raised you."
"But." The Nine-Tails' voice held a trace of annoyance. "That fellow did not do that."
"He chose to seal Kushina's remaining chakra into your newborn body."
"Then, he himself used the Reaper Death Seal to seal half of my chakra into his own body."
"...Why?" Naruto asked softly. "Just to leave some of Mother's chakra so she could see me one last time?"
"Did Mother agree to this as well?"
"No." The Nine-Tails said coldly, "Kushina, your mother, did not agree. She wanted the Fourth Hokage to live, to protect you, and watch you grow up safely."
"But the Fourth Hokage said that if Kushina and I died together, Konoha would lose its Tailed Beast until I revived."
"The Tailed Beast balance that had been maintained among the Five Great Nations for decades would be broken, and war might flare up again because of it. A Konoha without a Tailed Beast would become a target for all."
"Also, he believed that you would become some kind of damn 'Child of Prophecy,' that you would be the savior, that you would open a new future, and that you would stop that masked man."
"So, he sealed half of my chakra into you, making you the new Nine-Tails Jinchūriki to maintain that ridiculous 'balance.'"
"He left Kushina's chakra for you, partly wanting her to see you one last time, and partly hoping she could help you when you tried to control me."
Naruto, expressionless, looked toward Kun'shiki. Seeing that his teacher did not correct the Nine-Tails' narrative, he knew that the Great Fox was speaking the truth.
"Hoo..."
He slowly exhaled a long and heavy breath, as if to release years of pent-up emotional stagnation.
"So that's how it is."
Naruto's voice was low but unusually calm: "Willing to become a sacrifice for the sake of the Tailed Beast balance, for the nation, for the village."
"And making me, from birth, destined to be a sacrifice..."
Hearing these words, the Nine-Tails' huge head drooped, moving closer to Naruto. It grinned, revealing its sharp, fanged mouth: "Don't you feel that the Fourth Hokage is absolutely hateful?"
"No."
Naruto raised his head, looking directly into the Nine-Tails' scarlet vertical pupils. His face was devoid of any emotion: "He simply cared more about the Land of Fire and Konoha than he cared about me, his newborn child."
"Just as I don't care about him right now, a person I've never met."
"For the sake of what he cherished, he first sacrificed himself, and then, he sacrificed me—who was unable to make a choice at the time. That is all."
"If it were me, for the sake of the people and things I cherish, I would also make a similar choice: to sacrifice my 'father,' whom I have never met."
"You..." The Nine-Tails was choked by this completely unexpected reaction. "You brat, don't you feel any sadness or anger in your heart?"
"Sadness? Anger?" Naruto repeated the two words. "I chose to understand and accept even you, who killed countless people and caused my parents' deaths."
"Because I know you were controlled by the Sharingan, because I know you just didn't want to be sealed."
"How much less should I feel for a biological father I've never met?"
With that, he looked at Kun'shiki, who was sitting on the Nine-Tails' head, and smiled: "If Sensei chose to sacrifice me, I might feel sad."
"As for the Fourth Hokage... a stranger who never brought me any warmth, but only suffering and burden, why should I be sad because of his choice?"
This brat...
A look of sheer "astonishment" was clearly reflected in the Nine-Tails' vertical pupils.
"I just think the Fourth Hokage was stupid," Naruto continued.
"Stupid?!" The Nine-Tails was completely dumbfounded.
Even though it detested Minato Namikaze, it had to admit the man's extraordinary talent. It never expected Naruto's evaluation to be that word.
"That's right, stupid," Naruto said word by word. "He talks about being worried that the Tailed Beast balance would be broken, so he wouldn't let Mother die with you."
"Did he seriously expect an infant Jinchūriki to maintain the Tailed Beast balance among the Five Great Nations?"
Hearing this, the Nine-Tails paused again, suddenly realizing that the Fourth Hokage's reasoning simply didn't hold up.
Look at what Minato Namikaze's death resulted in: Konoha lost the powerful fighting force of the Fourth Hokage, gaining a Nine-Tails Jinchūriki who would take over a decade to grow up.
What would have happened if Minato Namikaze hadn't died and let Kushina die with the Nine-Tails?
Konoha would have gained a powerful fighting force, and the Nine-Tails would revive in a few years and could be recaptured, leading directly to a Nine-Tails Jinchūriki who could be put into battle immediately.
One could say that Minato Namikaze's death was almost meaningless.
"Didn't you just say you would make a similar choice?" the Nine-Tails couldn't help but ask.
"If it were me, and I could be one hundred percent certain that a certain person possessed the power and wisdom to change the world, I would of course choose to sacrifice myself for their chance to live."
"That is a rational choice," Naruto's voice suddenly intensified, "but..."
"I would never sacrifice my life as a Hokage based on someone else's few words, believing that a newborn infant would become some Child of Prophecy."
"Talking about how this child is the Child of Prophecy, how he will be the savior, how he will open a new future, how he will stop that masked man..." Naruto couldn't help but laugh lightly.
"I would never arbitrarily force these vague 'hopes' and 'responsibilities' onto a newborn baby who doesn't even know his own future!"
"To entrust the weight of the entire world to a newborn infant instead of relying on oneself and the efforts of those currently alive to solve problems..."
Naruto said heavily: "That is something only an extremely foolish gambler would do; it is an act of evasion carried out only by an irresponsible person."
"The Fourth Hokage made this self-indulgent choice purely out of his own emotional impulses."
"He might have been a devoted husband, but he was not a qualified father, and he was even less of a competent Hokage."
The Nine-Tails' mouth hung open, its vertical pupils reflecting Naruto's calm yet sharp face. It found itself speechless before the person it viewed as a "brat."
Kun'shiki sat on the Nine-Tails' head. The aurora illuminated his face. His eyes were lowered, and no one could see the amusement in his eyes at that moment.
This kid, he says he doesn't care and it doesn't bother him, but he clearly has some deep-seated feelings, he chuckled inwardly.
Naruto's words clearly carried a degree of bitter resentment and bias.
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