The screen cut back to Naruto—the heavyweight match.
"This guy is absolutely not a Chūnin Exam candidate!"
"And he's no ordinary intruder either!"
"Plus that ninjutsu…"
Kushina was already thinking of one specific person.
Orochimaru.
—But why would one of the Sannin go to all this trouble to ambush a single examinee?
This was no special test.
While Kushina was still alive, Orochimaru hadn't yet defected. Orochimaru had even been in Konoha to witness Itachi's Sharingan in action—and that was already after the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox's Attack.
So in Kushina's mind, Orochimaru's ninjutsu had always been unsettling, but the man himself was still one of the Leaf's three Sannin.
Unless…
"Did he betray the village?!"
Kushina sensed something was wrong.
"—It's the Nine-Tails, isn't it. Brat. The power you used carries the Demon Fox's chakra in it!" Orochimaru had finally confirmed it. Naruto's strength was laced with Nine-Tailed Demon Fox chakra.
That "red," "ill-omened" chakra was undeniably Kurama's.
But layered over the Nine-Tails was another, different power.
"Tch."
Naruto wanted nothing to do with talking to a creep like Orochimaru. He had zero interest.
Orochimaru, meanwhile, was running calculations of his own. That outer layer of power had to be either the Fourth Hokage's or the previous jinchūriki's. When the Demon Fox was sealed, some of the Fourth's or the previous host's chakra must have been mixed in. But… it felt like a lot. And whenever the brat drew on this power, his body actually transformed.
Naruto obviously had no idea what was running through Orochimaru's head, but the audience was lighting up.
[So Naruto's mom is the previous human host?]
[They've mentioned jinchūriki a few times now. What does that even mean?]
[The "human pillar" idea pops up a lot in folklore—usually as some kind of sacrifice. Jinchūriki sounds like a coined term, a proper noun. The meaning's probably similar though]
[Naruto's mom was the previous human host but she lost control, then the Fourth sealed the Nine-Tails inside Naruto. That's gotta be how it went]
[Right now what I really want to know is who Naruto's dad is]
Even before this, some of the audience had already speculated that Naruto was the Fourth Hokage's child.
But after Orochimaru's words, the takes shifted again.
If the "Demon Fox host" status was inherited, then the connection to the Fourth Hokage didn't seem all that strong anymore.
"I see. I see now." Orochimaru looked like he had pieced it together.
"Hey, what are you mumbling about over there!" Naruto was getting more annoyed by the second.
"As it happens, I have some material on hand. Let me run a little experiment."
Orochimaru, having said his piece, did something completely unexpected—he turned and left.
Kushina, meanwhile, had a terrible premonition.
Naruto had Karin rest where they were, then chased after him.
Sure enough, when Naruto caught up, he found Orochimaru gripping one of the Grass-nin who had been blasted away earlier.
Orochimaru proceeded to cough up a glass tube from his throat.
Kushina noticed it immediately—inside that tube, there was a trace of her own essence.
"Well then, let's give this a try—Summoning: Impure World Reincarnation!"
Orochimaru clapped his hands together.
But nothing happened.
"Hehe. Hehehehehahaha! As I thought, as I thought! Your soul isn't in the Pure Land!"
Orochimaru turned his gaze on Naruto.
But those serpent eyes seemed to see straight through Naruto—and lock onto something inside him.
She didn't know what the man was after, but it couldn't be anything good.
"You bastard. I'm not going to let you do whatever it is you're planning—"
But before Naruto could finish, the Orochimaru still standing across from him suddenly appeared right in front of him.
"Demonic Illusion: Hell Viewing Technique."
"Huh—"
Visions filled his eyes—Sasuke and Hanabi, battered and bloody.
Then a younger version of himself, standing helpless in the middle of a crowd.
The next moment, the Sword of Kusanagi had appeared in Orochimaru's hand, lunging straight at the dazed "Naruto."
"Rasengan."
A sphere of chakra appeared in "Naruto's" hand. It blocked the Sword of Kusanagi and flung Orochimaru back in the same motion.
Orochimaru went spinning through the air, smashed through a tree, and—momentum still unspent—slammed into a stone wall.
The wall cracked open, inch by inch.
But Orochimaru was howling with delight.
"It really is you! It really is you! No wonder I couldn't bring you back through Impure World Reincarnation—your soul isn't in the Pure Land at all!"
Meanwhile, on the other side, Naruto was now wrapped in golden chakra. His body had grown noticeably larger.
Cloaked in tailed-beast chakra, the golden-shrouded Kushina stood facing Orochimaru.
"Orochimaru. Have you betrayed the Leaf?"
When his face had hit the wall, the false mask he'd been wearing had cracked away in chunks.
Kushina was now certain. The man in front of her really was Orochimaru.
"How interesting. So you really don't know anything yet." The mask fell completely. "I gave up on Konoha a long time ago. I came here for a particular boy I had my eye on. I never imagined I'd run into a surprise like this on top of it."
Kushina hadn't been brought back through Impure World Reincarnation.
She was, almost completely, the woman she had been at her peak. And her soul was wrapped around the Nine-Tails.
The Kushina here and now could fairly be called the Nine-Tails' perfect jinchūriki.
"How did you pull this off? Leaving residual chakra on the Demon Fox brat to surface temporarily, fine. But this—completely free of the Pure Land, your soul layered over his—it's practically resurrection!"
The Spirit Descent Technique wasn't resurrection.
It was even meant to be temporary—once the chakra binding the spirit to the host body ran out, the soul would return to the Pure Land.
But Hanabi had let Kushina hit a loophole.
Kushina was riding the Nine-Tails as her vessel.
The Nine-Tails' chakra was effectively limitless. The chakra Kushina burned away in any given moment wasn't even a fraction of what the Nine-Tails regenerated per second.
That was why Kushina could remain present indefinitely.
Better still, the Nine-Tails himself was locked in his cage. He couldn't even protest. He could only be used like a Nine-Tails-brand battery.
"There's nothing for you and me to talk about."
Now that Orochimaru was confirmed as a traitor, Kushina had no intention of wasting another word on him.
"Hm. Is it grudge that brings you back?" Orochimaru mused.
"Don't talk nonsense, Orochimaru." Kushina frowned.
"I left the village early, but I've heard about the Demon Fox brat's situation. Heh heh heh. Compared to you, his life has been far worse."
Kushina fell silent.
It was true. She had picked up on bits of it from Naruto's daily life. She had simply forced herself not to follow the thought any further.
And Orochimaru had ripped that fantasy open.
—After she and Minato died, Naruto had not lived a happy life. In fact… his life had been one of pain.
The two of them stood in silent confrontation.
Hanabi watched, quietly going crazy on the inside.
"Fight, come on, you two—fight already!"
"Aaagh—how does this episode end here?!"