"Poop in her hand... But hey at least it shows Naruto likes girls. I can relax now."
Kushina let out a massive sigh of relief, completely ignoring the sheer depravity of what her son had just asked a girl through a bathroom door.
"You are relaxing way too soon," Senju Tobirama remarked coldly from behind her.
"Huh?" Kushina blinked, turning to look at the Second Hokage.
"Are you saying Naruto is just pretending?" Kushina gasped, her maternal paranoia flaring up again.
"That he is deliberately acting like he is into girls just to get closer to Sasuke as a cover? No way! Naruto is not that cunning!"
"That is not what I meant," Tobirama sighed, crossing his arms. "Think back to the people in the Limited Tsukuyomi, and how they were hopelessly drawn together by the gravitational pull of their twisted fate."
"Of course, our real world does not have such a blunt, overpowering force of destiny. But there are two major exceptions. Remember the story of the Sage of the Six Paths and his idiot sons?"
Tobirama began his grim history lesson. "Indra swore to reincarnate across generations purely to destroy the Shinobi Sect and prove his father wrong. Asura, being equally stubborn, vowed to reincarnate endlessly just to thwart Indra's plans."
"That is how my elder brother and Madara Uchiha came to be. And now, the cycle has fallen onto Uzumaki Naruto and Uchiha Sasuke."
"Do you see the problem here?" Tobirama asked pointedly. "Because of the ancient vows made by those two brothers, anyone who inherits their chakra is biologically and spiritually destined to be perpetually obsessed with each other."
"It creates a dynamic suspiciously similar to how the degenerates in the illusion viewed the Tailed Beasts. The only difference is that the attraction between Indra and Asura's reincarnations is completely mutual."
Tobirama's grim explanation left Kushina entirely stunned.
She had always assumed the claims about the alien Ōtsutsuki Clan manipulating fate were just fabricated nonsense from the illusion.
She never imagined there was a horrifying basis for it in reality.
"Does this mean Naruto and Sasuke are truly bound by destiny to be obsessed with each other?" Kushina murmured, staring blankly at the sky.
Indra and Asura's transmigrant chakra was the only realistic path for Sasuke and Naruto to reach the Sage of Six Paths' level of power.
Even if there were a medical way to extract that cursed chakra, they could not afford to do it.
Doing so would cripple their future potential and deprive the village of its only defense against the looming alien threat.
"Don't overthink it," Tobirama said, patting her shoulder in a rare attempt at comfort.
"Even though Uchiha Sasuke will undoubtedly be the most important person in Uzumaki Naruto's entire life, that will not magically prevent him from marrying a woman and having children normally."
"Just look at my elder brother and Madara. They were thoroughly obsessed with each other, but Hashirama still managed to marry your relative, Mito Uzumaki."
Tobirama's words of comfort instantly backfired.
'My elder brother and Uchiha Madara?' Kushina's eyes widened as a horrifying realization washed over her.
Grandma Mito, the woman who had cared for her the most... was she not essentially the ultimate third wheel?
She was wedged right in the middle of a legendary, reincarnated bromance!
Yet Grandma Mito harbored no resentment.
She remained optimistic and lived a remarkably long life as a Jinchūriki.
'Wait a minute!' Kushina thought frantically.
'If Grandma Mito had not been genuinely happy, she would have succumbed to the immense stress of being a Jinchūriki and died young.'
'How did she survive long enough to meet me?'
Kushina's face shifted into an expression of profound, dawning horror.
"Wait, that is messed up!" Kushina gasped, clenching her fists. "Grandma Mito was probably on the verge of dying from severe third-wheel depression! But then she learned that Madara died at the Valley of the End, and she immediately cheered up! Then, shortly after, the First Hokage died too, making her even happier!"
Kushina nodded to herself, entirely convinced by her own unhinged theory.
"Those two old geezers dying finally lifted her massive depression! It made her feel so light and free that she lived for decades! That is the only reason she survived long enough to welcome me to Konoha!"
"Uzumaki Kushina! Mito is your esteemed elder, show some basic respect!" Tobirama reprimanded her sharply.
Yet inwardly, a cold sweat broke out on Tobirama's neck.
'Could she actually be right?' he mused in horror.
'Why else did Mito show zero signs of grief when my brother passed away? He did not even die of old age—he died in his prime.'
'Was it really just because she was a hardened Warring States kunoichi? No... that never quite added up.'
"Oh, I'm sorry, I did not mean to say that out loud. That was my fault," Kushina muttered, covering her mouth.
It was indeed a bit harsh to speak ill of the sweet old woman who had always treated her so kindly.
"Maybe Grandma Mito truly was just a noble soul," Kushina sighed, falling right back into anxious contemplation.
"But not everyone possesses her saintly patience. For Naruto and Sasuke's future wives... knowing they will never be the most important people in their husbands' hearts is going to cause them endless misery..."
"And why do you insist they must have wives?" Tobirama retorted, growing impatient with the melodrama.
"I never married, and did that diminish my legendary reputation?"
"Huh?" Kushina blinked, looking at the Second Hokage.
That's true.
The Second Hokage never married and left behind zero descendants.
Kushina's gaze slowly turned distinctly suspicious, and highly disrespectful.
"Second Hokage..." Kushina asked cautiously, leaning away from him. "Did you perhaps lose the love of your life during the Warring States Period? Or are you just..."
"I am sick of you people and your heads full of romance!" Tobirama snapped, his pale face flushing with irritation as he realized what she was implying.
"I dedicated my entire life and body to this village!"
"The village is your lover?" Kushina blurted out. "Is that not the Fourth Raikage's entire gimmick?"
Tobirama's eye twitched violently.
"I am going to propose to Tsunade that the Land of Fire formally establish those intellectual property laws Makoto mentioned earlier," Tobirama declared, his expression turning terrifyingly impassive.
"From now on, anyone who uses the Flying Thunder God or the Shadow Clone Jutsu will have to pay me direct royalties for every single use. Your son is going to bankrupt your family."
"Ah?! No! I'm so sorry, Second Hokage!" Kushina cried, clutching her head and apologizing frantically to save Naruto's wallet.
"Save your apologies. I'm about to do something," Tobirama said coldly, his crimson eyes fixed entirely on Uzumaki Naruto down in the streets below.
"Just don't get in my way."
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