The Child Chooses to Speak
Naruto was building something out of wooden blocks when I returned home.
Not a tower.
A circle.
Each block was placed with careful precision, adjusted slightly after placement, nudged until it felt right to him. Kushina watched from the doorway, arms crossed, half amused, half unsettled.
"He's been doing that for an hour," she said. "Every time it looks finished, he moves one piece and starts again."
"Optimization loop," I murmured.
Naruto looked up. "It's not right yet."
"What isn't?" Kushina asked gently.
"The loud part," Naruto said. "Inside."
Kurama stirred instantly.
This time, Naruto did not wait to fall asleep.
He closed his eyes.
Inside the mind palace, the architecture responded to him now, not me. Corridors widened. The door Kurama lingered behind opened without resistance.
The fox loomed, vast and ancient, watching the small human who approached without fear.
"You returned," Kurama said.
Naruto nodded. "You were upset."
Kurama snorted. "The world is upsetting."
Naruto sat down cross-legged in the mental space, mirroring his physical posture. "You don't like when people lie."
Kurama's tails swayed once. "Neither do you."
Naruto frowned. "Lying makes things crooked."
Kurama paused. That word mattered.
"You straighten things without knowing how," the fox said slowly. "Do you understand what that does to others?"
Naruto thought carefully. "It makes bad stuff stop fitting."
A long silence followed.
Kurama, destroyer of cities, catastrophe made flesh, studied the child not as prey or host or jailor.
As an inevitability.
"You will break this world," Kurama said finally. "Or you will remake it."
Naruto tilted his head. "Which one is better?"
Kurama laughed, deep and rumbling. "That depends on who you ask."
Naruto opened his eyes in the real world.
He looked at Kushina first, then at me.
"They tried to take things again," he said.
"Yes," Kushina replied carefully.
Naruto looked down at his blocks, then moved one piece slightly.
"We should help them stop doing that," he said seriously.
I felt the harmonic field shift again, broader now, more deliberate.
Kurama's voice echoed in my mind, quieter than ever before.
"Your child does not seek power," the fox said. "He seeks correction."
"Yes," I replied. "And the world will resist that."
Kurama's grin was feral and amused. "Good."
Outside, beyond Konoha's walls, alliances hardened.
Troop movements began to shift.
Plans were rewritten with fear baked into every calculation.
And in a quiet house, a child adjusted wooden blocks until the circle finally felt right.
When he smiled, the world leaned just a little closer to balance.