"Nine-Tails..."
Naruto Uzumaki stared blankly at the enormous fox before him.
"Why can't humans understand each other?"
["..."]
You're asking me about a problem even the Sage of the Six Paths couldn't solve?!
Naruto: "They all think I can solve it."
The Pervy Sage, Kakashi-sensei, Iruka-sensei—but all those who believed in him had already left. He once held confidence he could solve this puzzle in the future, yet during his conversation with Pain, Naruto's resolve crumbled. This problem seemed truly unsolvable.
["Why not just destroy everything? Wipe out everything that causes you pain, and you'll be free from this torment."]
Naruto Uzumaki was pushed before the cursed seal on the cage. The Nine-Tails extended a sharp claw tip. With a savage grin, it tore open Naruto Uzumaki's clothing. Black sludge oozed from the sealing point on the boy's abdomen, resembling the chakra form that appeared when he transformed into his pitch-black beast mode.
Far away, Yamato, racing back from a mission, felt intense pain in his palm. The numbers on it shifted from six to seven, then from seven to eight. In just over ten minutes, Naruto Uzumaki had come dangerously close to fully unleashing the Nine-Tails.
Pain, the three Edo Tensei Hokage, and the young Obito Uchiha gazed upward at the colossal seal in the sky, resembling a meteorite. It was impossible to tell whether it was the Nine-Tails or Naruto Uzumaki struggling in agony within. A sense of desolation emerged.
For the people most important to Naruto were gone. His current struggle held no hope, only pure hatred and rage.
A claw painfully tore out from the meteor-like seal. The wretched wail, the desperate struggle to break free from the body—it wasn't Naruto Uzumaki, but the Nine-Tails growing muscle from bone.
The First and Second Hokage quietly glanced at the Fourth beside them. As a qualified ninja, Minato had already suppressed all his emotions. But witnessing Naruto transform into the Nine-Tails, struggling within the Rinnegan's seal with almost no chance of survival, the grief flooding Minato Namikaze's heart at that moment was beyond what ordinary people could imagine.
It was impossible to tell if it was the Nine-Tails or Naruto. Half a body emerged from the Chibaku Tensei technique, the form of a demon fox, its body only just beginning to form muscle... Skinless, dark pink flesh exposed to the air. Round eyes brimming with agony and hatred for humanity, unshielded by eyelids, fixed on this unbearable world.
Sharp fangs protruding from gums, unrestrained by lips, unleashed a bloodcurdling roar—a cry of protest against this world steeped in despair!
Deep within his psyche, Naruto's blue eyes had turned crimson, the white now pitch black. The blood-red glow seemed to signify his decision to embrace destruction over salvation. Had Jiraiya been present, he would surely have grieved for the youth before him, recalling the Great Toad Sage's prophecy…
—His choice will determine whether the 'Child of the Prophecy' becomes the catalyst for peace or the harbinger of ruin.
Naruto Uzumaki's hand slowly reached for the cursed seal. A soul that had waited sixteen years opened its eyes without hesitation at this moment.
Against the light, a figure sat at the edge of the world's end. Vaguely discernible was the outline of the chakra Minato Namikaze had sealed within Naruto sixteen years prior—the very essence he had spoken of from the other world. His fingers touched the massive sealing scroll.
'Your father, your mother, and Jiraiya-sensei are watching you from the other world...' Minato Namikaze's gentle voice echoed in Naruto Uzumaki's ears.
'They long to witness your growth and see your dreams—and theirs—come true in the near future.'
Naruto's fingers paused on the seal, hesitating to proceed.
'Fulfill my dreams and theirs? What are these dreams?'
'To bring this ninja world...'
'Precious peace.'
Bring peace to the Ninja World. But in this cycle of hatred, how could people possibly understand each other, cast aside prejudice, and treat one another with genuine kindness?
Peace... it sounded so elusive and illusory.
His fingers slowly pressed down, and with the movement, a tiny crack appeared in the sealing symbol. The Nine-Tails, on the verge of achieving its desire, struggled to contain its excitement, not even daring to joyfully slap its tail against the floor.
Naruto's crimson beast eyes were hollow and lifeless, his heart filled with agony.
"The Pervy Sage should never have left such a difficult problem for me. I'm just the bottom of the class at the Ninja Academy. This problem bearing the fate of all humanity..."
"I can't possibly solve it."
"Iruka-sensei couldn't do it! Kakashi-sensei couldn't do it! Even the Sage Grandpa couldn't do it!"
"And Hinata... why would she do this for someone like me..."
By this point, Naruto's agony had numbed his thoughts to the point of emptiness, leaving him utterly unable to control his emotions! He clenched his teeth with all his might!
"Why sacrifice yourselves for me?!"
"The peace I seek is simply for you to stay by my side!"
"That's all!"
His arm thrust downward—he'd had enough of this reality.
"Snap—!"
A hand seized Naruto Uzumaki's downward-swinging arm. Before Naruto could react, the hand's owner pulled him away from the Nine-Tails' cage seal.
"Things have gotten rather complicated." Minato Namikaze, appearing deep within Naruto's mind, forced his tone to sound as light as possible.
"Sixteen years ago, I set it up so that 'the moment the seal breaks and the tail count reaches eight, I will appear in your consciousness.'"
Naruto stared at the Fourth Hokage before him. Having already met the Fourth twice, he wasn't startled enough to make his eyes—now pitch black with crimson veins—return to their original azure blue.
Minato Namikaze sighed. "I don't know why my counterpart from the other world met you twice—once alive and once via the Edo Tensei Technique. It certainly disrupted the original plan."
Behind him, the Nine-Tails roared furiously at its failed attempt, its terrifying claws straining through the cage bars, desperate to tear apart the Fourth Hokage who had sealed it here!
He knew Naruto's heart still lay shackled in darkness. He had to guide Naruto to break the seal before Minato Namikaze could re-seal it completely! Once the seal was fully broken, even the remnant chakra of Minato Namikaze would be powerless to reverse it!!
["Naruto Uzumaki, you know it was the Fourth Hokage who sealed this old man within you, right? But do you know who he truly was?"]
"Who? The Fourth Hokage..."
["Hmph. He wasn't merely the Fourth Hokage. He was your father."]
["For the sake of so-called peace, he turned you into the village's Jinchūriki, sealed me within your body—his own son—and made everyone hate you. No matter how hard you tried, you could never earn their acceptance!! Do you know who the real culprit behind all this is?"]
Naruto: "!!!!"
Minato turned and glared at the creature behind him. "Shut up, Nine Tails!"
Of course, the Nine-Tails wouldn't obey Minato Namikaze and simply keep quiet.
["The root of all this... is..."]
["...the foolish belief that this ninja world could ever truly achieve peace!"]
["True peace is impossible, yet generation after generation of fools die for it! They pass on their meaningless ideals to the next generation, calling it 'passing on the will,' but it's nothing but self-deception!"]
"..."
Disturbed by the Nine-Tails' words, Naruto—already deeply confused about peace—felt even more lost.
"The Nine-Tails is too noisy," Minato Namikaze snapped his fingers. "Let's talk somewhere else." A golden domain signaled the conversation had shifted from Naruto's subconscious to Minato Namikaze's.
"Scared?" Minato sighed with resignation. Many things had unfolded beyond his expectations.
"Why..." Naruto Uzumaki's pitch-black eyes still glowed with a blood-red light.
"Hm?"
Naruto roared with heart-wrenching fury: "Why did you seal the Nine-Tails inside me! Why did you all pin your hopes for peace on me! Why didn't you save Iruka-sensei and the others!"
In Naruto Uzumaki's mind, seeing Minato from the Kannabi Bridge Timeline alive meant that as the Fourth Hokage, he could have found a way to save the village. Surely he could have rescued Kakashi-sensei, Iruka-sensei, Hinata, and the others, couldn't he? So why didn't he act?!
Why, after irresponsibly forcing him to endure a childhood of utter loneliness, and finally allowing him to experience familial love, did he have to watch helplessly as...
"The Pervy Sage is dead! Kakashi-sensei is dead! Sage Grandpa is dead! Iruka-sensei is dead! Hinata is dead!!"
Naruto Uzumaki clutched his head, yanking at his hair. "What the hell do you all want?! I can't make any sense of this anymore!!"
Minato Namikaze frowned. Naruto was in a terrible state.
"Looks like we need to have a serious talk, Naruto." Minato smiled wryly, placing a hand on his son's shoulder.
"Though I don't know why my counterpart from another world came here via the Edo Tensei technique, I believe he and the other Hokage-sama must have known something. And because they believed in you, they chose not to intervene."
"Trust me?"
Naruto violently shook off the Fourth Hokage's hand from his shoulder!
"So the death of the Pervy Sage, the death of Kakashi-sensei, the death of Sage Grandpa, the death of Iruka-sensei, the death of Hinata—all because of me! Because I betrayed your trust, right?! Or!"
Blood-red pupils blazed with fury within his dark eyes, tears streaming from the corners as his emotions boiled over.
At that moment…
The Edo-Tensei Minato stared up at the Chibaku Tensei in the sky, a profound sense of unease gripping his heart.