The next morning, warm sunlight streamed into the room through the window, and a steaming hot breakfast was laid out on the dining table.
"What's wrong, Naruto? Does it not taste good?"
Uzumaki Kushina asked somewhat cautiously. When Naruto opened his eyes that morning, he found that his mother had already prepared everything.
Due to the nature of the Edo Tensei body, which requires no sleep, Kushina had gotten up practically at dawn. Driven by the desire to make up for her regrets, she meticulously prepared this breakfast for her son—a duty she had failed to fulfill while alive. Being able to practice it even slightly now filled her heart with a small sense of satisfaction.
"No, no!" Naruto quickly waved his hands, realizing that his thoughtful expression might have been misunderstood by his mother. "Mom's cooking is delicious! It's really great!"
He quickly lowered his head and took a large bite of the sandwich in his hand. The breakfast Kushina prepared had a strange fusion style—Western sandwiches paired with traditional Japanese miso soup—and the taste was indeed quite good; he could feel her effort.
Of course, objectively speaking, it was still a little less refined than Naruto's own cooking skills.
Uchiha Satsuki, sitting across the dining table, was also somewhat distracted, sipping her soup slowly. Because Kushina could not sleep, she had spent nearly the entire night watching over Naruto, gazing tenderly at her son's sleeping face.
While this intense maternal love was certainly touching, it also caused some of Satsuki's planned actions to completely lose their opportunity for execution, leaving her feeling an unavoidable sense of regret and emptiness.
Meanwhile, inside Naruto's inner world, within the Seal space, a drama completely different from the warmth of the outside world was unfolding.
Minato Namikaze's consciousness viewed the outside scene through Naruto's perspective, and when he saw Kushina preparing breakfast for their son, he froze completely.
"Oh, did you see that, Fourth Hokage?" The Nine-Tailed lay comfortably on the grass, mocking him with a venomous tongue. "Your wife, Uzumaki Kushina, has been temporarily 'revived' using a forbidden jutsu. Although her state is special, she doesn't seem to have any intention of resting in peace immediately."
"Hmph, just think, if you had chosen the path to live back then, maybe your family of three could be reunited now, enjoying domestic bliss?"
The Nine-Tailed's words could not withstand careful scrutiny; the mere hypothesis of the "Fourth Hokage living" would trigger countless unpredictable butterfly effects, but the Nine-Tailed simply didn't care about logic.
Its goal was singular: to make the Fourth Hokage feel miserable!
The reason Naruto's thoughts were wandering during breakfast was precisely because of the truth about his Soul's essence that the Nine-Tailed had finally revealed last night.
So... Reincarnation truly exists in this worldview... He wasn't some otherworldly Soul that had taken Possession of someone else's body, but was Uzumaki Naruto himself? Was it just that his Soul carried fragments of memory?
Well... if judged by the typical configuration of those standard "Transmigration" characters, he seemed to be a little bit... soft-hearted?
The Nine-Tailed had stated clearly that what it saw was the "memory of the Soul." This meant that whether it was the blonde boy who grew up lonely in Konoha or the consciousness that lived an ordinary life in another peaceful world, the entity experiencing all of it was ultimately the same Soul.
When he was very young, Naruto had secretly felt guilty for a long time because he mistakenly believed he was some kind of villain who had committed Possession of another person.
"Oh, right, Naruto," Kushina asked expectantly, pushing a cup of hot milk toward her son. "Do you have any plans today? Mom intends to go check out the Uchiha Clan Compound with little Satsuki later. Do you want to come along?"
Among the people she couldn't let go of when she was alive, the first was naturally the newborn Naruto, and the second was her good friend—Uchiha Mikoto. When she previously asked Satsuki about her parents' current situation and learned they were both well, the worry in Kushina's heart eased slightly.
Going out with his mother... this was an experience Naruto had never had before. However, unfortunately, he already had plans for this morning.
"I'm sorry, Mom," Naruto said, a hint of apology on his face. "The prisoners of war from the Hidden Sand Village are being repatriated to the Land of Wind today, and I have to see someone off."
Naruto certainly hadn't forgotten about Gaara.
Hearing this, a flicker of disappointment crossed Kushina's eyes, but she quickly smiled again and nodded vigorously to show understanding. "It's alright, important business comes first."
At the same time, she silently apologized to Minato in her heart. She knew she shouldn't remain in the present world in this form, but Kushina hadn't chosen to become like this. Until the technique was undone, she would allow herself... to spend a little more time with her son in this way.
The reason Kushina wanted to go to the Uchiha Clan Compound, besides confirming her friend Mikoto's status with her own eyes, was actually twofold. First, she wanted to confirm with Mikoto whether the "child engagement" agreement they had made back then—half-joking, half-serious—still counted.
Second, she also wanted to find out the progress regarding the Uchiha Clan's standing within the Village, a situation Minato had worked hard to improve while alive. This was one of Minato's unfinished endeavors, and she hoped to check on it for him.
However, perhaps the joy of reunion and her maternal thoughts occupied too much of her mind, as Kushina overlooked a crucial detail—she forgot to ask Satsuki in detail about the overall current situation of the Uchiha Clan...
"Did you hear? The Third Hokage was attacked! He is severely injured and barely managed to survive after being in the hospital for a long time."
"What? Is that true?! I knew there was a reason the Third Hokage didn't show up at such an important event. But who was the attacker? Was he caught?"
"No, I went to the Hokage Building this morning to deliver mission documents, and I found the entire Hokage Office had collapsed. The attacker had long since vanished. However, according to eyewitness descriptions, the attacker seemed to be a red-haired woman."
Naruto walked on the road leading to the Konoha Gate. Along the way, he had lost count of how many times he had politely declined the Villagers who, filled with guilt, tried to "compensate" or strike up conversations with him in various ways.
Just as he was about to reach his destination, the low conversation of several Konoha Ninja who were maintaining order reached his sensitive ears, and the content immediately caught his attention.
However, Naruto temporarily suppressed this thought. He decided to wait and think about this matter later; there were more important things right now.
Naruto collected his thoughts and continued toward the Konoha Gate. The Sunagakure prisoners of war who were about to be repatriated had already gathered there, undergoing final counting under the supervision of Konoha Ninja. When Naruto's figure appeared in sight, the previously somewhat noisy crowd instantly quieted down considerably.
Unconcealed fear and dread flashed in the eyes of many Sunagakure Ninja, and they retreated to both sides like a tide.
Naruto ignored them. His gaze swept over the area, and he quickly spotted the three familiar figures in the corner of the crowd—Kankuro and Temari, who wore very strange expressions as they stared at their younger brother, and Gaara, who sat quietly to the side, head lowered, looking anxious and afraid of something.
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