After a warm evening—just casual chatting, talking about trivial past events, and listening to Kushina recount the interesting stories and adventures she and Minato Namikaze experienced as Ninja partners—Naruto felt his eyelids growing heavier and heavier, eventually falling into a deep sleep with an unprecedented sense of peace.
This experience was a first in Naruto's life... interacting and talking with his mother so naturally, even falling asleep to her stories.
For a creature named 'protagonist,' it was an unimaginable luxury.
After his body fell into a deep sleep, Naruto's consciousness arrived at another familiar place.
The air was fresh, carrying the fragrance of grass and wildflowers. Before him stretched an endless, vast grassland, with layers of grass swaying in the breeze.
However, ten years ago, this was a dark, damp space permeated with an ominous aura.
If not for the towering, massive iron gate reaching the top of his consciousness space, and the mountain-sized, fluffy orange object huddled behind it, it would have been indistinguishable from a real grassland.
He had arrived at the deepest part of his mind—the Seal space.
Naruto slowly walked forward, finding that Kurama, at this moment, was curled up tightly like a giant orange cat lacking security, its massive body huddled together, chin buried in its front paws, and its tail drooping limply.
The reason was simple: tonight, when Uzumaki Kushina appeared, Kurama clearly realized that Naruto would learn of its direct involvement in the death of Naruto's parents. This realization plunged Kurama's heart into complete chaos.
This was almost inconceivable. A Tailed Beast, regarded as a natural disaster and a symbol of hatred, feeling afraid because of a human's potential disappointment or disgust?
But that was the truth. In the past decade of coexisting with Naruto, Kurama had unconsciously grown accustomed to this relationship. Someone genuinely cared for it, valued its feelings, chatted and bickered with it, without needing to be wary of ill intentions.
Kurama actually greatly enjoyed this long-lost feeling of being treated as an independent 'existence' rather than mere 'power.' Since the Six Paths Sage's passing, it had thought it would never feel such a bond again.
It was immensely afraid that when Uzumaki Kushina spoke the cruel truth, Naruto's face would show the sadness it least wanted to see, or complete disappointment in it. However... "It's this 'gift' that you and Dad left for me."
"Although its personality is awkward and not at all straightforward, and sometimes its temper is quite volatile, when I was very young, Kurama and I had already become partners who could talk about anything and understand each other!"
Kurama had lived for a long time, but it had never imagined that one day, it would feel an emotion called'shame' so clearly.
"Yo, Kurama, what's wrong with you? Are you feeling unwell?"
Naruto still greeted Kurama in his usual familiar and relaxed tone, like an old friend. As countless times before, Kurama sensed no malice from Naruto.
Kurama's massive body shifted slightly. It slowly raised its head, but its eyelids remained lowered, its giant eyes closed, and its huge head tilted to one side, silent, pondering something.
Naruto understood. His mother's appearance and his earlier declaration about being "partners" had probably given this proud and awkward big guy quite a shock.
However, after Kurama seemed to have gone through an intense internal struggle, adopting a thoughtful posture as if making a major decision, the words it spoke still stunned Naruto.
"Naruto..." Kurama's voice carried an unprecedented weight, "A long time ago... this old one... once tried to kill you."
"...?!"
Naruto indeed opened his eyes wide in shock, but he wasn't shocked by the fact that Kurama had once tried to kill him—he already knew that. He was shocked that Kurama would actually voluntarily bring up this deeply buried past?!
Kurama evidently misunderstood the reason for Naruto's shock, thinking he couldn't believe it. It took a deep breath and began to explain very slowly. Its narration largely matched the truth Naruto already knew.
At the end of the Nine-Tails Attack, after the Masked Man who orchestrated everything retreated, Minato Namikaze, to ensure Kurama's power remained in Konoha, decided to Seal half of Kurama inside the newborn Naruto.
At that time, Kurama, tightly bound by Uzumaki Kushina's Adamantine Sealing Chains, its hatred reaching its peak due to the humiliation of being controlled by the Sharingan and the pain and rage of being forcibly split in half.
To prevent its half from being Sealed, in despair and fury, it condensed its final killing intent into its claws and fiercely attacked the defenseless infant—Uzumaki Naruto.
However, that fatal blow was blocked by Naruto's parents, Minato Namikaze and Uzumaki Kushina, with their own bodies, without hesitation... Kurama even revealed another truth that made its heart even more uneasy—its hate-filled attack indeed caused fatal injuries to Naruto's parents... Although at that time, Uzumaki Kushina was already in a state of being a living dead person because the Tailed Beast had been forcibly extracted, and Minato had also already performed the Reaper Death Seal at the cost of his Soul, so even if Kurama had done nothing, they were destined to die.
But it still chose to reveal all of this without reservation, not seeking any excuses for itself.
After saying all this, Kurama seemed to have exhausted all its strength, lowering its head deeply again, awaiting the anger, accusation, or... what it feared most, the complete cooling of that warm gaze that Naruto might unleash.
However, after listening to these past events that he already knew, the first thought that flashed through Naruto's mind was... he... was quite amazing?
All the tsundere traits around him had been completely conquered? Satsuki's hint of "tsun" was no longer visible, and now even Kurama...
After briefly organizing his thoughts, Naruto spoke, his tone unexpectedly calm. "Alright... then, Kurama, let me ask you something,"
He looked directly at Kurama, "At that time, Mom was drained of the Tailed Beast, and Dad also used a forbidden jutsu that would kill them both. Even if you had done nothing then, they were both destined to die, right?"
Kurama nodded at this fact, which sounded like self-justification but was true.
"Alright." Naruto sighed helplessly, then changed the subject, "Do you remember? You once told me that you have the ability to sense others' malice, right?"
Kurama didn't understand why Naruto suddenly asked this seemingly irrelevant question, but it still nodded as instructed, feeling increasingly uneasy.
"Sensing malice, huh..." Naruto repeated, his tone becoming exceptionally serious, "So, if someone has ill intentions and wants to lie to you, you can immediately see through it, right?"
Kurama felt even more uneasy inside; the conversation was heading in a completely different direction than it had imagined. It could only continue to nod, anxiously awaiting what came next.
"It seems I didn't have any malice back then either," Naruto suddenly laughed, with a relieved lightness, "Haha, thinking about it that way, somehow, it actually eased my guilt a little, didn't it?"
He thus casually steered the conversation in a direction Kurama had never anticipated.
Immediately after, Naruto's expression also became serious. He solemnly stated, "Then, now, I also have something to confess to you, Kurama. Actually... I once deceived you."
------------------------
I've posted 70+ chapters in advance on Patreon.
Webnovel updates will still be daily, as usual.
It might not seem tempting right nobut who knows what the future holds?
[email protected]/TripleCrown
"And If you're enjoying it, drop a Power Stone for me!"