Inside Naruto's small apartment.
Sunlight shone through the windows, which weren't exactly clean.
The room was filled with a faint scent—a mix of instant ramen seasoning packets and the smell of a teenage boy. It was a bit messy, but it was clear that someone had cleaned it.
At least the dirty clothes were stuffed into the laundry basket, and the empty ramen cups were neatly stacked in the corner, waiting to be thrown out.
With an unprecedented, heartfelt, and brilliant smile on his face, Naruto moved around the cramped room like a child eager to show off a Treasure Trove, gesturing wildly as he introduced everything.
"Dad! Mom! Look! This is my room! It's not big, but it's very warm! Here's the bed, here's the desk, and here's my collection! I have many Limited Edition Instant Ramens."
He shared his things excitedly.
Kushina looked at this simple little room, which was nonetheless filled with the traces of her son's life.
Her "gaze" swept over the aged Konoha landscape poster on the wall, past several dog-eared textbooks and Ninja tool pouches on the desk, and over the small green plant on the windowsill that was growing tenaciously—clearly planted at random but having unexpectedly survived. Finally, her gaze settled on the somewhat high stack of instant ramen boxes with various brand logos in the corner.
Her heart felt as though it were being gently squeezed by an invisible hand.
(Naruto...) Kushina's voice echoed in Naruto's mind, carrying an imperceptible tremble.
(Is this what you usually eat? Who cooks for you? Who washes your clothes when they're dirty? If you get sick... who takes care of you?)
She asked urgently, filled with a mother's instinctive worry and desire to know.
Although she had long since prepared herself mentally, seeing her child's life in such a mess with her own eyes caused a late, sharp heartache to surge forth like a tide.
The smile on Naruto's face faltered for a moment before he scratched his head, trying to answer in a more lighthearted tone.
"Ah... as for eating, because I have to hurry and practice, eating instant ramen saves time. Sometimes I go to Ichiraku Ramen! It's super delicious! But instant ramen is also very convenient; it comes in all sorts of flavors! Look, look, this one is seafood... this one is vegetable... meat..."
Naruto introduced them one by one, but the more Kushina heard, the more her heart ached.
"Oh... and about the laundry, hehe, I just throw it in the washing machine. If I get sick, well, I have a super strong body! I almost never get sick. I do visit the Konoha Hospital occasionally, though."
He tried to speak as nonchalantly as possible, even adding a bit of self-deprecating humor, but to Kushina's ears, every word felt like a tiny needle.
Kushina fell into silence. No aroma of home-cooked meals, no mother nagging him to wear more clothes, no light from a father checking his homework, no warmth of someone staying by his bed when he was sick... Had her child grown up day by day in an environment filled with fast food, managing things haphazardly on his own, and relying on the sporadic care of outsiders?
(Naruto...) Kushina's voice choked up. Even without a physical body, Naruto felt as if he could sense her deep, overwhelming sorrow and heartache, wrapping around him like a warm tide.
(I'm sorry... Mama couldn't do anything for you... leaving you all alone... to suffer so much...)
She looked at that pile of ramen boxes and seemed to see countless nights where a young Naruto sat alone at the table, facing a steaming but nutritionally poor bowl of instant noodles, perhaps even talking to himself in the empty room. Her heart wrenched with pain.
Noticing his mother's low spirits, Naruto quickly spoke up.
"It's nothing, Mom! I'm doing great! Really! Look, I have a place to live, food to eat, I can be a Ninja, and I have a dream! Grandpa Third occasionally comes to visit and brings me tasty food. And now I have Dad and Mom with me, right? I'm super happy!"
He tried hard to make the atmosphere light again.
Hearing Naruto mention the Third, Kushina finally remembered—wasn't Hiruzen Sarutobi still around? She and Minato had entrusted their child to him, and this was how he handled it?!
Just as Kushina was about to fly into a rage, Minato Namikaze, who had been silent, finally spoke up.
(Naruto...) Minato's voice paused.
(Tell me... when you were little, how did the people in the Village treat you?)
He didn't ask "if he was doing well," because the scene before him and Naruto's earlier attempts to hide things had already explained everything. He asked more directly, and more cruelly.
He wanted to know what kind of looks and treatment his son—the son of the Fourth Hokage—had actually endured.
Naruto's body stiffened.
A brief silence spread through the room, broken only by the faint, distant bustle of Konoha's daytime outside the window.
"...Everyone called me the Demon Fox."
Naruto spoke after a long silence, without much emotion, as if stating a fact that had nothing to do with him.
"When I was little, many people would avoid me when they saw me, or look at me with very strange eyes. The ladies at the shops sometimes refused to sell things to me, and kids my age didn't want to play with me."
His voice gradually grew lower. Those fragmented memories, buried by time and thought to be long forgotten, now surged back because of his parents' questioning, flashing by like frames of a faded film.
"But!"
He suddenly raised his voice, as if to dispel the gloom.
"That's all in the past! I have many friends now, my classmates, and Sakura! Kakashi-sensei, Iruka-sensei, and Pervy Sage is also very good to me!"
He was desperate to prove that he was doing well.
Minato didn't ask further. He had heard enough to understand what was hidden beneath Naruto's forced lightheartedness.
As a father and as the Hokage who had once put his life on the line to protect the Village, learning that his son—in the peace he had sacrificed everything for—had endured over a decade of exclusion, loneliness, and even hatred because of the monster Seal inside him... that feeling was far more profound and Soul-piercing than any injury caused by an enemy.
He had once thought his sacrifice would bring peace to the Village and safety to his son, but it had brought his son another form of suffering instead.
Minato's consciousness fell into a long silence. It wasn't an indifferent silence, but a heavy, almost suffocating one, like the deep sea suppressing intense emotions.
He was blaming himself, reflecting, and enduring emotions even more complex than Kushina's—the immense pain of the Hokage's responsibility and the meaning of his sacrifice.
"Old man, what's wrong?"
Seeing that Minato didn't respond, Naruto asked.
(It's nothing.) Minato's voice finally sounded again.
(Naruto, you are very strong. Much stronger than I imagined.) He paused, every word seemingly weighing a thousand pounds. (I'm sorry for letting you endure so much alone.)
"Aww, it's really okay! It's all in the past! Besides, don't I have you guys now? From now on, we can definitely create happier memories together! Right, Mom?"
He tried to change the subject and liven up the atmosphere.
(...Yeah!) Kushina's voice rang out as she tried to pull herself together.
(That's right! Naruto! I can't change what happened in the past, but from now on, Mama will always be here with you! I'll watch you make more friends and see you achieve your dreams. But before that, you have to learn how to cook first. You can't eat this non-nutritious stuff anymore!)
"Eh...?"
(Don't just stand there! Go buy groceries right now!)
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