Chapter 580: The Parents
Young Naruto felt the excitement hit him before he could name what it was. Something in his gut understood -- those nine figures standing at his back had just formed something like a summoning contract with him.
For young Naruto, every new ally was a source of profound joy. He had grown up completely alone. Every time someone new chose to stand beside him, every time anyone was willing to be there, it was as though a light had been lit somewhere in a dark room -- one lamp at a time, slowly, filling in the corners.
He wanted to try out the new contract immediately.
But he could see that young Sasuke's face had gone past impatient.
What young Sasuke wanted most in the world right now was to see his parents. That image -- the one that had appeared in his dreams countless times and left his pillow soaked when he woke -- the wish he had believed could never be fulfilled in this lifetime -- was about to become real.
He was done waiting. Done listening. Done taking one more unnecessary second.
In the next moment, all nine forms lifted from their positions, then one after another dissolved into streams of energy and flowed back into young Naruto's body.
"Um -- then let's go!"
Young Naruto's eyes moved to Satsuki. His face went red again. "Thank you! Satsuki-nee-san! I... I definitely won't let you down in the future!"
"I know you won't."
Young Naruto bowed with a red face. Satsuki answered him with complete attentiveness -- not the polite kind, but the kind that came from genuine warmth.
It left young Naruto feeling something warm, and also, in a small way, something sad.
She was nothing like Sakura. Sakura yelled at him. Called him an idiot. Hit him on the head when he said something wrong.
And this person in front of him -- she was everything he had ever imagined wanting, and she was that gentle, and that patient, and she looked at him that way.
But she was already married. Young Naruto carried that small bittersweet weight with him as he fell into step with the group heading in the direction of the four awakened figures.
"One other thing -- the other me."
Adult Naruto broke the quiet. "Have you already taken Jiraiya as your teacher?"
"The Perverted Sage?"
Young Naruto's mouth pulled down. "...I guess so. He's an old reprobate who spends half his time peeking at women's bathhouses and the other half drunk in the gutter, but he is actually strong... but why do you treat that guy with so much respect?"
It was a genuine question. Jiraiya had taught him summoning and the Rasengan, and both of those things were genuinely impressive, and he really did want to respect the man at some theoretical level.
But every time -- every single time he saw Jiraiya hitting on women in the street, or found him lying in a ditch completely drunk, or watched him getting chased and beaten after being caught peering into the women's baths -- the respect simply would not come.
"...Probably a personality difference."
"But what I want to tell you is this: in the future, don't let Jiraiya go to the Rain Village alone to gather intelligence."
"...Huh?"
"Roughly three years from now. Though with our involvement, the timeline may shift. In the original course of events, that's the moment Jiraiya was meant to die."
"What?!"
Young Naruto's voice blew out at full volume. "The Perverted Sage is going to die?!"
"I absolutely will not let that happen!"
And then young Naruto became a machine that produced questions without stopping. His mouth moved like it had been wound up and couldn't stop. When did Jiraiya die exactly? Where? Who killed him? How? Was there any way to save him? What preparation was needed? Should he go to the Rain Village now and find the enemy in advance? What if he--
One question before the last was finished. The next one already in the air. His face was pure urgency and unease.
He complained about Jiraiya constantly. But if Jiraiya was actually in danger, young Naruto would be the first one moving, the one running without looking back, the one who would have words with anyone who tried to stop him.
The contempt was real. So was the worry. Both at the same time, completely genuine.
...Was that a form of tsundere?
"Father! Mother!"
The words left young Sasuke's mouth and his feet stopped obeying him in the same instant. He locked his eyes on the two faces he had thought he would never see again outside of dreams -- the faces that had appeared through the years in sleep and left the pillow wet when he woke.
His mind went blank. He didn't want to think. He didn't want anything except one thing, and it was right there, and it was real.
In the middle of his questions, the group had arrived.
Uchiha Fugaku and Namikaze Minato were standing together, exchanging a few words, their eyes scanning the unfamiliar surroundings as they tried to piece together what had happened. They were working through it. Fugaku remembered dying -- died on the night of the massacre, at the hand of his own daughter. Minato remembered dying on the night the Nine-Tails attacked. But their bodies were warm. Their heartbeats were real. Their breathing was unobstructed. This didn't feel like Impure World Reincarnation.
What was this?
Uchiha Mikoto and Uzumaki Kushina stood a step or two behind them, both of their faces written over with complete bewilderment -- no understanding of where they were or what had happened.
But in both sets of eyes, plainly, undisguisably: longing. The specific kind that had been held for a long time.
Young Sasuke's voice reached Mikoto the moment it left his throat.
She went rigid. Her eyes locked onto the boy running toward her like something had pulled them there and wouldn't let go.
He was much taller than the child she remembered. The soft roundness of his face had given way to angles. But this was the youngest child she had not been able to let go of, in the last moments before she died.
And young Sasuke, in the instant he reached her, understood something about himself -- that he was more fragile than he had believed.
He had told himself, just a moment ago, that he would control his emotions. That he wouldn't embarrass himself in front of young Naruto. That he would act composed, calm, like someone who had grown up and didn't need to be worried over anymore.
All of it was gone now. There was only one thought in his head, and it had no room for anything else.
Mikoto did not ask a single question.
She simply opened her arms and pulled him in -- this child who had thrown himself at her, who was crying without stopping -- and held him as tightly as her arms could manage.
Young Naruto went blank.
He didn't know how to understand what he was seeing. The feeling of having something -- then losing it -- then believing it was lost forever -- then having it back, suddenly, right in front of you. He had no frame of reference.
He had never had parents. Had never experienced the pain of losing them, and never experienced the joy of finding them again.
So Sasuke cried like this too.
The thought moved through young Naruto's head. In everything he had ever observed about Sasuke, Sasuke was proud. Sasuke was strong. Whatever happened, he would not bend, would not give up, would not let anyone see weakness.
But right now, that proud Sasuke was crying like a small child. Crying with everything in him -- desperate, raw, defenses gone completely. Young Naruto didn't feel even a trace of the urge to laugh. What he felt was a kind of helpless, pressing ache.
He moved forward a step. He wanted to do something. Maybe put a hand on Sasuke's shoulder. Maybe just stand there, close enough for Sasuke to know he wasn't alone. His foot lifted.
And then he felt two pairs of eyes.
One belonging to the Fourth Hokage -- the man whose face was carved into the Hokage Monument. The other belonging to a red-haired woman who looked young, and looked beautiful.
Young Naruto's gaze moved from the woman to the Fourth Hokage and back. His expression shifted from confusion to a deeper confusion, and then to something that was faintly like guilt.
He could not understand why figures this important were looking at him with expressions like that.
He tried to remember. He was fairly certain he had never done anything to offend the Fourth Hokage personally.
...Did souls have something like that? Young Naruto suddenly thought of something. When he was small -- to draw attention, to get people who ignored him to look at him for just a moment -- he had done things he probably shouldn't have. Defacing the Hokage Monument had been one of his favorites. And of the four faces up there, the Fourth Hokage had been his most frequent target.
"You're..."
Minato's voice came out unsteady. His eyes were fixed on young Naruto without blinking. His hand came up, then lowered, then came up again, then lowered again.
Young Naruto decided his dignity could not be sacrificed here. He gathered himself internally, told himself: you are Uzumaki Naruto, you're going to be Hokage, and this man is the Fourth Hokage, so you have to make a decent impression.
He straightened up. Adopted Jiraiya's entrance posture as best he could.
"Ahem. Listen carefully."
"I was born in a place called the Land of Fire, in the village of Konoha -- specifically, I arrived in the world inside Ichiraku Ramen. My family name is Uzumaki. My given name is Naruto. People call me--"
He stopped mid-sentence.
Not because he lost his place. Because something wrapped around him and squeezed the air out of his lungs.
The red-haired woman had crossed the distance between them at a speed he never tracked. He saw no movement. She was simply there, both arms locked around his body, holding him with everything she had.
Young Naruto's startled instincts fired and he tried to pull away. His arms moved.
Then a voice came from above his head.
The most impossibly tender voice he had ever heard in his life.
"Naruto... my child..."
It was something he had never heard before. From no one. A quality in a voice he had never encountered, a feeling poured entirely into sound -- every form of love the speaker possessed, nowhere else to put it.
"I've been... wanting so badly... to see you just once."
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