Chapter 304: Mutual Hearts
After experiencing a warm evening—just casually chatting, talking about past trivialities, listening to Kushina recount interesting stories and adventures she and Minato Namikaze experienced as ninja partners—Naruto felt his eyelids growing heavier and heavier, ultimately falling deeply asleep with an unprecedented sense of security.
This experience was a first in Naruto's life... interacting so naturally with his mother, conversing, even falling asleep listening to her stories.
For creatures called protagonists, this was almost something one wouldn't dare even hope for.
After his body fell asleep, Naruto's consciousness arrived at another familiar place.
The air was fresh, carrying the fragrance of grass and wildflowers. Before him stretched a vast grassland extending beyond sight, gentle breezes passing over it creating layers upon layers of grass waves.
However, ten years ago, this had still been a dark, damp space permeated with ominous aura.
If not for that majestically towering massive iron gate reaching the consciousness space's ceiling in his vision, and behind the gate that curled-up, mountain-sized fluffy orange-red object, it would be indistinguishable from a real grassland.
He'd come to his innermost depths—the seal space.
Naruto slowly walked forward, discovering that the Nine-Tails currently resembled a massive orange cat lacking security, its enormous body tightly curled together, chin buried in its forepaws, tail also hanging limply and powerlessly.
The reason was simple. Tonight, when Kushina appeared, the Nine-Tails had clearly realized—Naruto would learn it had direct connection to his parents' deaths. This recognition had completely plunged the Nine-Tails' heart into chaos.
This was almost unimaginable. A Tailed Beast, viewed as natural disaster, symbolizing hatred—actually feeling afraid because of disappointment or disgust emotions a human might produce?
But the fact was precisely so. During these past ten-plus years coexisting with Naruto, unknowingly, the Nine-Tails had grown accustomed to this way of getting along. Someone would genuinely care about you, mind your feelings, chat and bicker with you, no need to guard against ulterior motives.
The Nine-Tails actually greatly enjoyed this long-absent feeling of being treated as an independent "existence" rather than pure "power." Since the Sage of Six Paths' death, it had originally thought it could never again feel such bonds.
It was incomparably terrified that when Kushina personally spoke that cruel truth, Naruto's face would show the sorrow it least wanted to see, or complete disappointment in it. However...
"Precisely this 'gift' you and Dad left me."
"Though its personality is stubborn, not honest at all, and sometimes its temper is quite explosive, when I was very young, Kurama and I already became partners who could talk about anything and understand each other!"
The Nine-Tails had lived through long ages, but it never imagined that one day, it would so clearly feel an emotion called "shame."
"Yo, Kurama, what's with this appearance of yours? Not feeling well physically?"
Naruto still greeted the Nine-Tails as usual, using that familiar and relaxed tone for treating old friends. Like countless times past, in the Nine-Tails' perception, it couldn't hear the slightest malice from Naruto.
The Nine-Tails' massive body moved slightly, slowly raising its head, but it still kept eyes lowered, giant eyes tightly closed, massive head turned aside, silent, pondering something unknown.
Naruto understood inwardly. His mother's appearance plus his earlier declaration about "partners" had probably brought considerable impact to this always proud yet stubborn big guy.
However, after the Nine-Tails seemed to undergo fierce inner struggle, adopting an appearance of deep contemplation as though making some major resolution, the words it spoke still stunned Naruto.
"Naruto..." The Nine-Tails' voice carried unprecedented heaviness. "Long ago... I... once wanted to kill you."
"...?!"
Naruto's eyes indeed widened in shock, but what shocked him wasn't the fact that the Nine-Tails had once wanted to kill him—he'd long known that—but shock that the Nine-Tails would actually proactively speak out this deeply buried past?!
The Nine-Tails obviously misunderstood Naruto's shock, thinking he couldn't believe it. It took a deep breath, beginning to explain in extremely slow fashion. What it recounted roughly matched the truth Naruto knew.
At the Nine-Tails Calamity's end, after that masked man who'd plotted everything retreated, Minato Namikaze decided to seal half the Nine-Tails inside the just-born Naruto to ensure the Nine-Tails' power remained in Konoha.
At that time, the Nine-Tails tightly trapped by Kushina Uzumaki's Adamantine Sealing Chains, because of the humiliation of just being controlled by the Sharingan plus the pain and fury of being forcibly split in half, had hatred emotions reaching their peak.
To prevent this half from being sealed, in desperation and rage, it condensed final killing intent into its claws, ruthlessly attacking that infant without resistance capability—Uzumaki Naruto.
But that fatal strike was blocked by Naruto's parents, Minato Namikaze and Kushina Uzumaki, using their own bodies without hesitation...
The Nine-Tails even spoke another truth making its heart even more uneasy—that hate-filled strike had indeed inflicted fatal trauma on Naruto's parents... Though at that time, Kushina was already dying from having the Tailed Beast forcibly extracted, and Minato had already executed the soul-as-price Reaper Death Seal. Both were essentially in living-dead states. Even if the Nine-Tails did nothing, they were destined to soon perish.
But it still chose to speak everything unreservedly, not seeking any excuses for itself.
Having said all this, the Nine-Tails seemed to have exhausted all strength, once again deeply lowering its head, awaiting Naruto's possibly erupting fury, accusations, or... what it most feared seeing—that warm gaze's complete cooling.
However, after hearing these past events he'd long understood, the first thought flashing through Naruto's mind was...
He was... pretty impressive?
The tsundere attributes around him had all been completely conquered? That trace of "tsun" shadow in Satsuki was now invisible, and now even Kurama...
After simply organizing his words, Naruto spoke, tone unexpectedly calm. "Alright... then, Kurama, let me ask you something."
He looked directly at the Nine-Tails. "At that time, because Mom had the Tailed Beast extracted, and Dad also used a mutual destruction forbidden jutsu, even if you'd done nothing then, those two would have been destined to die anyway, right?"
The Nine-Tails nodded at this fact that seemed like making excuses for it, but was truthful.
"Alright." Naruto sighed helplessly, then changed direction. "Do you remember? You told me before that you possess the ability to sense others' malice, right?"
The Nine-Tails didn't understand why Naruto suddenly asked this seemingly unrelated question, but it still nodded as stated, heart growing increasingly anxious.
"Sensing malice..." Naruto repeated, tone becoming especially serious. "In other words, if someone harbors ill intentions, wanting to lie and deceive you, you'd immediately see through it, right?"
The Nine-Tails' heart grew even more uneasy. The conversation direction was completely different from what it thought. It could only continue nodding, anxiously awaiting what followed.
"Looks like I also had no malice back then," Naruto suddenly smiled, carrying relieved ease. "Haha, thinking of it this way, somehow, it actually slightly eased a bit of guilt, you know."
Just like that, he casually guided the topic toward a direction the Nine-Tails had completely never envisioned.
Immediately after, Naruto's expression also grew serious as he solemnly said: "Then now, I also need to confess something to you, Kurama. Actually... I once deceived you."
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