The Fourth Kazekage's wife—Karura—was an extraordinarily beautiful, powerful, and gentle woman, warm and approachable to all.
In order to find a suitable vessel for Shukaku, she gave birth three times under those circumstances—for the sake of her husband, the Fourth Kazekage.
[In the footage, Karura's face is exhausted to the extreme, yet there is still a fragile, almost heartbreaking beauty to her.]
[Weak but focused, she looks at the baby the medical-nin place beside her face…]
[The premature infant in the footage—born with heavy dark circles—looks thin and tiny, pitiful as he curls up beside his mother's pillow.]
["Such a small child," Karura says, smiling with pure maternal affection.]
That smile left two people stunned.
Two orphans.
Two orphans who had never seen their mothers with their own eyes.
Gaara…
And Naruto.
One who had once been a bloodthirsty asura, and one who had been rejected as a monster fox.
[In the Fourth Kazekage's memories, Karura gently and carefully holds the premature Gaara in her arms, pressing him close to her cheek.]
[She gazes at her newborn son with aching tenderness. "No matter what happens, I will always protect you, Gaara…"]
[The sorrow of knowing she would never get to watch her child grow up, and her blessing that he would become an outstanding ninja…]
[That single, love-filled call of "Gaara…"]
[How could that possibly be hatred?!]
In front of the image, Naruto felt his throat tighten. His eyes burned, and his mouth tasted sour.
He… was so jealous.
Gaara felt the same. He couldn't believe it—no, he simply couldn't accept it!
He wished his father were right in front of him so he could demand the truth, even if it killed him!!
[But there was no need—because the image had already told him the truth.]
[Rasa looks his son straight in the eye. "Your mother loved you very much!"]
[Kazekage Gaara: "!!!"]
Genin Gaara before the image: "!!!!"
Both the Gaara inside the image and the Gaara outside it snap their eyes wide open, their pupils trembling violently, as if shaken by an earthquake!!
At this point, the turn of events didn't feel all that surprising—at least not to the people watching around the world. The ending was what it should have been.
Even Naruto and Gaara had harbored faint hopes and suspicions deep down.
But after a lifetime of pain, neither of them dared to hope for too much.
Especially Gaara.
["You're saying… Mother… loved me?" In the image, the young man—now the commander-in-chief of the Allied Shinobi Forces—looks so moving, so painfully heartbreaking. "But back then, Yashamaru, who came to assassinate me, didn't say that!! She said she and Mother hated me!!"]
["That was my order. I ordered Yashamaru to lie to you… Even if there was hatred, it should have been directed at me—the one who put Shukaku into your body while his sister was pregnant…"]
[Rasa: "In truth, Yashamaru and Karura were the same…"]
[The Fourth Kazekage speaks heavily, revealing the truth. "They did not hate you… they loved you more than anything."]
"Uh… ah… ah… ah..."
"Gaara! Gaara!!"
The first to notice something wrong was Naruto. Gaara's pupils were dangerously dilated, veins bulging clearly across his forehead, the curve of his lips twisted unnaturally.!!
At Naruto's shout, everyone around them noticed Gaara's condition. Temari and Kankuro wanted to rush over, but Gaara looked far too much like he was on the verge of a Shukaku rampage!
While they hesitated, Naruto had already placed a hand on Gaara's shoulder—Gaara's Absolute Defense once again showed no hostility toward him.
"Hey! Gaara!! You're getting way too happy there!! I mean… yeah, it really is something to be jealous of…"
Naruto's voice dropped for the last few words.
Happy for him, yet genuinely, painfully jealous—the expression on Naruto's face made his Team Seven teammates feel a wave of quiet heartache.
"Naruto…" "Naruto."
Gaara murmured, "Father's orders… Mother… Yashamaru… Naruto?"
Looking at those trembling pupils, Naruto instantly understood what Gaara meant—he was afraid he'd misheard.
Naruto nodded. "Yeah. Your mom and Yashamaru… loved you more than anything."
He flashed Gaara a huge grin. "Man, I'm really jealous, you know! You had such an amazing mom!!"
Naruto thought: My mom… could she have been like Gaara's mom too?
Ah, but if she had been protecting him, then he wouldn't have failed to learn even the basic Three Techniques and gotten beaten up all the time, right?
Well… he did always try to hit back. His mom could rest easy.
Hmm… maybe his mom wasn't very good at studying either. Maybe she was a bit clumsy and couldn't learn the Three Techniques herself?
"Hahaha… my mom probably wasn't that dumb, right?"
The faceless figure he imagined—clumsily failing to learn the Three Techniques—made Naruto laugh so hard that tears spilled from his eyes.
[In the image, the Fourth Kazekage Rasa continues dissecting his sins. "I forced you to become a jinchūriki. I took away your life, took away your mother, took away your bonds with those around you… I even tried to take your life multiple times…" He offers his sincere repentance in the 'arms of his wife.' "In the end, as a father, I only gave you one thing…"]
["The pain in your heart."]
Naruto: "…"
If Karura and Mikoto had finally given shape to Naruto's vague fantasies about a mother…
Then the Fourth Kazekage shattered every fantasy Naruto had ever held about a father.
He remembered sitting alone on the swing at the Ninja Academy, watching other kids' fathers come pick them up. Every time, he would pull his goggles down over his eyes.
The pain in the heart…
No one understood that pain better than he did.
[Gaara's memories show a young Gaara asking Yashamaru, "My chest hurts. There's no blood, but it hurts so much. It hurts so bad."]
Naruto thought: Yeah. Exactly this kind of pain. No bleeding, but it hurts like hell.
["Wounds on the body may bleed and look painful, but with medicine they heal quickly," Yashamaru says. "But there's nothing harder to heal than a wound to the heart. Sometimes… it never heals in an entire lifetime."]
Naruto: "…"
Gaara: "…"
Yugito, sitting coldly in the clouds and watching the distant image: "…"
The rarely-quiet Killer B: "…"
Utakata, silently blowing bubbles: "…"
Yagura in the Mizukage Tower: "…"
Rōshi, chopping wood without a word: "…"
Hān, adjusting his hat slightly: "…"
Fū, flying through the clouds: "…"
They say that people with unhappy childhoods spend their entire lives healing from them.
And jinchūriki… if they never find the medicine to heal the wounds in their hearts… then they are doomed to a lifetime of misery.
The Second and Third Hokage, and the advisor council: "…"
Chiyo and the Sunagakure elders: "…"
The Fourth Raikage A: "…"
The Third Tsuchikage Ōnoki: "…"
As Kage, no one understood the darkness of the shinobi villages better than they did.
It wasn't just the jinchūriki. Living in this world, born as shinobi, they had endured far too many regrets—losing themselves step by step within those regrets.
And yet, this inexplicable image—not only foretelling the future, but laying bare the mistakes of the entire shinobi world.
This Five Kage Summit, initiated by Konoha…
Was truly something to look forward to.
It was time to make some changes.
…
Land of Fire · Konohagakure—
In the future, resurrected from the Pure Land in the form of Edo Tensei during the Fourth Shinobi World War, the Second Hokage, Tobirama Senju, discovered something while reviewing mission reports—
Who had 'accidentally' leaked Naruto's identity as the Nine-Tails' jinchūriki.
Who had 'intentionally or unintentionally' spread the foolish notion among Konoha's villagers that 'Naruto killed the Fourth Hokage.'
And who, driven by their own stupidity and obsession with the Hokage position, had completely lost sight of what truly mattered!
Tobirama Senju stared at the image, arms crossed in silence. "…"
Perhaps it would be better if the Fourth Shinobi World War never happened.
Madara—and that brat called Obito—had been deceived by the will of the old era, carrying out some so-called Eye of the Moon Plan.
Back then, he had sensed something was wrong, but burdened by the title of Hokage, he lacked the energy to investigate it personally.
Now that he possessed complete intelligence on the Fourth Shinobi World War, Tobirama felt it would be unforgivable not to adjust those outcomes. Besides, wasn't there this mysterious image lending a hand?
Though he couldn't pinpoint the exact reason, judging by the current situation, the mastermind behind all this was far more likely to be on their side.
It was time to change—and overturn—the old rules and systems.
The systems he himself had established should have been adjusted along with the times long ago.
And also—
Tobirama Senju thought: Shimura Danzō… as my student, when did you lose yourself so completely, becoming obsessed with power? Don't you know that if the roots rotting in the darkness decay, their stench can destroy even a towering tree?
What Tobirama didn't know was…
He wasn't the only one looking to settle accounts with Danzō.
…
There was also Shisui of the Body Flicker, revived and wielding Kotoamatsukami.
And Akatsuki's Vermilion Bird, bearing the Totsuka Blade, returning to Konoha with the Uzumaki princess.
Uzumaki Mito, who had personally led the team that designed and protected Konoha's sealing barrier, learned of what followed through Itachi's genjutsu. She immediately noticed the most unbelievable point in both the Nine-Tails incident and the Uchiha massacre:
"Who was it?! Who opened the barrier and let that masked man attack Konoha?!"
...