Chapter 578: Parting Gift
Young Sasuke heard the words and his heart lurched hard in his chest. His eyes went wide for a single moment, then he pulled them back, composing his face into something that showed almost nothing.
But it was a different kind of nothing from the dazed blankness he had worn after killing Danzo. This was controlled. The deliberate effort of someone working very hard not to let too much show.
His parents were really coming back. Uchiha Fugaku. Uchiha Mikoto. They were really coming back. He would be a child with a mother and father again.
That thought rose from his chest and crowded into his throat and pressed against the backs of his eyes and sat there, making it faintly difficult to breathe.
What was he supposed to do when he saw them? What should he say? What was the right first thing to say?
"Welcome back"? "It's been a long time"? Should he say nothing at all and just stand there and let them look at him? Smile when he walked in? Keep himself composed? Throw himself at them the way he used to when he was little?
He wasn't a child anymore. He was past the age when it was acceptable to cry out for his mother. He should act mature. Steady, like an adult.
But what young Sasuke most wanted to do in the world -- what he had wanted in countless sleepless nights, alone in an empty house, knees pulled to his chest in a corner, long after the tears had dried into nothing but a dry persistent ache -- was to throw himself into Mikoto's arms.
Throw himself into his mother's arms. And cry until everything came out. Every piece of loneliness and hurt accumulated across these years. Every thought he had wanted to say in the middle of the night and never had anyone to say it to. The kind of crying that belonged to children -- full-throated, with no restraint, everything pouring out at once.
He wanted his mother to know how hard these years had been to walk through alone. Wanted her to know how many nights he had lain in that empty house too frightened to sleep. Wanted her to know how much he had missed her.
But he didn't want young Naruto to see him fall apart.
As for young Naruto -- the announcement hit him like something yanking him out of the current he'd been caught in over "Sasuke leaving the village."
"That's great, Sasuke!"
He slapped young Sasuke on the shoulder with a crack loud enough to make Sasuke's whole body rock sideways.
He was genuinely happy for him. But somewhere in a small, quiet corner of himself, something went a little dim.
When young Naruto was small -- on those evenings when he sat alone on the swing watching other children being walked home by their parents, on those mornings when he stood in front of a mirror and asked "why only me" -- Sasuke had been the one who was the same.
Sasuke was also alone. And knowing someone else was the same had made young Naruto feel, if only a little, like he wasn't.
When you're standing alone on a barren plain, and you see another person standing in the distance, the plain doesn't feel quite as vast. It doesn't feel quite as cold.
...Who are my parents, anyway?
The question surfaced again in young Naruto's mind.
His eyes drifted to adult Naruto -- to that face, identical to his, settled into a composure he wouldn't reach for years. He had thrown that question out into the world many times. No one had ever answered it.
But a future version of himself -- had he gotten the answer?
Young Naruto didn't follow the thought. Not without something concrete in front of him, not without someone saying it directly with all the evidence laid out clearly -- he didn't let himself think in that direction. The Fourth Hokage, my father?
The son of the man the whole village feared and hated as a demon fox -- the Fourth Hokage's son? The gap between those things was simply too wide.
"Come here."
Adult Naruto's voice interrupted the thoughts that hadn't finished forming into words.
"Now that they've woken up, we'll be leaving soon. Before we go, I have something to give you."
"Something? For me?"
Young Naruto's eyes lit up -- the kind of lighting up that came with mild curiosity and mild anticipation mixed together.
His body shifted forward slightly, like a fox that had just heard "dinner's ready" and couldn't keep its ears from rising.
"Yes. I can't play favorites." Adult Naruto's voice carried a trace of amusement. "Because right now, if you were to spar with Sasuke, Sasuke would probably have to be very careful not to kill you by accident."
That sentence went off in young Naruto's head like an explosion.
"What?! What happened?! That's not okay, dattebayo!"
His voice shot upward. "You powered Sasuke up?!"
"...In a manner of speaking. Hold on, don't panic. I'm about to help you get stronger too. But listen to me first."
Young Naruto drew a deep breath and shoved his heart back down from where it had been trying to climb out of his throat.
He waited for adult Naruto to speak. He had only one thing he needed to confirm -- he would not fall behind Sasuke. Would not be left at a distance he couldn't close. Would not be abandoned.
That was all he needed. Just that he would not be left behind.
The question about his parents had been completely displaced from his mind in that moment.
Because something more important had taken its place. For young Naruto, being unable to stand beside Sasuke -- having the distance between them grow until it was uncrossable -- being left behind entirely -- that was as unacceptable as death.
"How do you see the Nine-Tails inside you?"
"Huh? The Nine-Tails inside me..."
Young Naruto's voice dropped. His eyes moved away from adult Naruto. Something he didn't want to say worked its way out of him regardless.
He went quiet.
Young Naruto's view of the Nine-Tails sealed inside him was simple. Hatred.
Everything had happened because of the Nine-Tails. The village's contempt, his peers' isolation, the adults who would cross the street rather than walk near him -- all of it, because of the Nine-Tails. He hated the Nine-Tails.
"I see... but I can understand that. Still -- I want you to know something. The Nine-Tails was also a victim. Every bit of hatred it carries was cultivated in it by human hands."
Young Naruto raised his head and looked at adult Naruto. Adult Naruto said nothing more. He raised a hand, palm upward, and something began to take shape in it.
A light, gathering slowly -- the way a star forms when scattered material begins to condense.
It was a cluster of Yin chakra -- Tailed Beast chakra -- radiating a vast, deep power that everyone present could feel without trying.
Then that cluster of chakra slowly shaped itself into a small, sleeping Nine-Tails.
No bigger than a palm. Body curled, tails wrapped around itself, muzzle buried in its paws -- indistinguishable from a fox kit in winter hibernation.
The thing was no bigger than a hand. But the chakra inside it was as immense as a complete Nine-Tails.
This small Yin Nine-Tails that Naruto had shaped carried no Tailed Beast will.
It could not speak, could not think, had no desires or emotions of its own. It was pure, vast, usable chakra -- nothing more. A blade that had been forged and was waiting to be picked up by someone's hand, with no awareness of its own.
But inside that blade, there was something else.
The memories of Naruto's own Nine-Tails.