Naruto: Naruto's Uchiha girlfriend is too arrogant

Chapter 295 Thoughts on Darkening

At this moment, the Third Hokage finished speaking all the words that had been buried in his heart for many years, and the office fell into silence. He quietly waited for Naruto's reaction, his aged eyes filled with tension and anticipation.

Jiraiya, standing to the side, felt that Naruto was not narrow-minded, but he was also anxious until he received a definite answer.

"...Um," Naruto began, his tone tinged with doubt, "do you mean by 'disappointment and resentment' that I might become a rogue ninja because of this?"

Upon hearing this, the Third Hokage and Jiraiya tensed up even more instantly. However, Naruto then gave a somewhat speechless look and continued speaking.

"But people's opinions on things they don't care about aren't that important. In that situation, if I didn't go to save them, I would even despise myself... Okay." He waved his hand, his tone relaxed.

"Old man, you can have a little more faith in me now." Naruto's familiar smile returned. "In Konoha, I experienced more than just those unpleasant things... By the way, my Chunin Exams were interrupted. Is there still any hope for me to become a Chunin?"

Looking at Naruto's smiling face, and that last question—clearly meant to ease the tension and carrying a hint of everyday triviality—the Third Hokage felt the enormous weight that had been pressing on his heart for who knows how long finally lifted with a thud. The immense sense of relief even made his legs go weak, and he almost collapsed backward into his chair.

He gazed at the face before him, so similar to that of the Fourth Hokage, yet also possessing Kushina's resilience and cheerfulness, and his eyes welled up slightly.

Yes...he...he is, after all, that person's child...

"Naruto... thank you."

Hearing such a sincere apology, Naruto scratched his face somewhat awkwardly. "Um, well, it's nothing. Can I go now? I still have some things to take care of." His mind was full of questions about his mother, Kushina, and he was eager to find a solution.

As for what he said earlier about "not caring," that's definitely true. Naruto doesn't consider himself that petty. He's never really understood why a character would be so enraged by a few insults that they'd want to kill everyone or even destroy the entire village.

He couldn't help but think of some of the sensational Naruto fanfiction he'd occasionally glimpsed—those so-called "darkened Naruto" stories that claimed to be "decisive and ruthless," but actually contained the line, "I don't eat beef."

It's as if Naruto in the original story, once he knew the plot, would inevitably go astray and become destructive.

Even if Naruto hadn't had Sasuke's company when he was young, and the villagers had acted even more outrageously, he would have simply given up completely and then found an opportunity to leave the village and live on his own.

Naruto muttered to himself. He thought of those widely circulated sayings—"The one who should have become a rogue ninja ended up becoming Hokage."

Gaara – Besides being ostracized, he also lived under constant threat of assassination by his closest relatives. Nagato – His parents died tragically before his eyes, he wandered in the war and almost starved to death, and he witnessed his best friend die on his body. Kakashi – His father committed suicide with a bad reputation, one of his teammates died and the other "betrayed" him, and his beloved teacher and teacher's wife also sacrificed themselves. Almost all of his close friends who are still alive are now only Guy.

If we're really talking about how tragic it is, then to truly turn evil, one would have to reach at least the level of the individuals mentioned above, right?

Being bullied or verbally abused means you can fight back or verbally retaliate, but is murder the answer? Are you suggesting this is a sign of a darker side to elementary school students?

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Consciousness floated in a chaotic darkness, as if struggling to awaken from an endless slumber, with heavy drowsiness constantly eroding the edge of wakefulness like a tide.

Kushina Uzumaki could sense that if she relaxed even slightly and gave up resisting, she would immediately fall back into that unconscious slumber.

Just clearing her mind and trying to understand the current situation had already used up all her strength except for fighting off sleepiness.

The last image in my memory is... being pierced through the body by the Nine-Tails' sharp, enormous claws... intense pain, the rapid loss of life... no, even if I wasn't pierced, as a Jinchūriki, having the Tailed Beast extracted meant death was inevitable...

That day should have been the happiest day of her life, but instead, she could only catch a fleeting glimpse of her newborn child in the final moments before facing an eternal separation from him...

and then?

My memory was fragmented. When consciousness returned, what flashed before my eyes was that face... that young face... was it him?

That face bore an air of resentment, a bottomless sorrow, and an intense, unyielding reluctance… The contours of his features somewhat resembled mine, but the look between his brows was more like that of Minato…

But wasn't I already dead? Why am I in this situation? The sensations in my body... are so strange, there's no reality, no pain...

"Oh right... Minato seems to have mentioned a similar situation to me, right...?"

With a strange habitual murmur running through her mind, Kushina Uzumaki struggled to search through her chaotic memories. She recalled that Minato, when studying the Flying Thunder God Technique, seemed to have mentioned... on that forbidden scroll containing countless secrets, there existed a forbidden technique that could bring the dead back to the mortal world.

Of course, Kushina didn't delve into it at the time; she only knew that such a technique existed, but didn't understand its specific principles. After all, who would want to learn a technique that disrupts the order of life and death? But considering the current situation, it seems that only this possibility can explain it.

My body is bound by some kind of force... This feeling is...

"This is... the Eight Trigrams Seal?"

As the inheritor of the Uzumaki clan's bloodline and a master of sealing techniques, Kushina immediately recognized the familiar feeling of restraint on her body.

In other words, after he and Minato sacrificed themselves that day, for some unknown reason, he was summoned by forbidden magic... and may even have been manipulated into doing something.

The thought made her heart tighten. So... that child, Naruto, why did he show such a sad, painful expression? Was it to stop me from being controlled?

After death, and before being summoned... there's no memory, not even the passage of time. Is that what it feels like for the soul to remain in the Pure Land? And now, being able to think and perceive means the soul is still imprisoned in the mortal world, right...?

I'm already dead... I shouldn't interfere with anything in this world anymore...

This rational thought flashed clearly through Kushina's mind. However, when she tried to move her fingers very slightly and felt that long-lost "touch," even if it was based on her dusty body, an irrepressible impulse from the depths of her soul made her unconsciously want to move more.

How old is he now? He should be... a teenager by now...

Without his parents by his side, has he been lonely all these years? Has he been bullied?

Have you been eating well? Are you going hungry? What do you like to eat? Are you growing up healthy and strong?

Have you made any friends? Is your personality as gentle as Minato's, or as impulsive as mine?

Does he...hate us? Hate us for just leaving him all alone...?

Doubts, worries, guilt, and deep love instantly shattered the newly erected bulwark of reason about "not interfering with the present world." That unforgettable, motherly concern overwhelmed everything at that moment.

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(I'll write some exciting parts about the troublemakers in Konoha.)