Clang!
The moment Kirito Namikaze said those words, Kushina, who had been cooking nearby, dropped the spoon from her hand.
Minato Namikaze immediately understood what his girlfriend was thinking. He bent down, picked up the spoon, and gently tried to calm her.
Across from them, Hiruzen Sarutobi and Jiraiya both went still.
Neither of them had expected Kirito to say something like that so directly.
And yet... he was not wrong.
The emblem on the back of Konoha's flak jackets was the crest of the Uzumaki clan.
From the very founding of Konoha, the village had shared deep ties with the Uzumaki. After all, Uzumaki Mito—the princess of the Uzumaki clan—had become the wife of Senju Hashirama himself.
The Uzumaki clan had been destroyed because other nations feared them. They feared the clan's formidable sealing techniques, their immense life force, and their natural compatibility as Jinchūriki.
With Uzumaki sealing arts, controlling a tailed beast became far easier than it should have been.
And yet, when Uzushiogakure fell, Konoha—their ally—had not reached out a hand to save them.
That failure remained one of the stains left behind during Hiruzen's time as Hokage.
Now that Kirito had spoken of it so bluntly, even someone as composed as Hiruzen felt awkward. For a brief moment, he did not know what to say.
Jiraiya noticed his teacher's discomfort. He had his own thoughts about the matter, but this was neither the time nor the place to voice them.
"The fall of the Uzumaki clan is something we still regret," Jiraiya said after a moment, his tone softer now. "You've been on your own all these years... that couldn't have been easy. How did you survive?"
Kirito's expression did not change in the slightest. He remained as calm and indifferent as ever.
"How else?" he said flatly. "I survived."
That was all.
Seeing that Kirito had no intention of speaking further, Jiraiya could only let the matter drop. His earlier question had partly been to probe the young man's background, but Kirito had given him nothing.
And inside Minato's home, it was not the place to push harder—especially when Kirito had done nothing openly hostile to Konoha.
Hiruzen studied him in silence, his old eyes half-lidded.
For some reason, this young man—who didn't seem to possess even the slightest trace of chakra—gave him a faint sense of danger.
If it were anyone else, they might have dismissed it as imagination.
But Hiruzen Sarutobi was not just anyone.
That instinct had been honed through countless battles and decades of war. He trusted it.
The Uzumaki youth before him was hiding something.
And whatever it was, it was not simple.
"The food's ready!"
Minato's voice suddenly broke the tension.
Everyone turned as he began carrying the dishes over and setting them on the table.
There were several people gathered here, so he and Kushina had prepared more than enough.
Orochimaru showed no interest in the meal itself. His golden eyes casually drifted toward Hiruzen and Jiraiya, quietly observing them.
Hiruzen and Jiraiya, in turn, were doing much the same. Both were weighing the danger posed by the two unexpected guests in front of them.
Only Kirito had already started eating.
This was food his mother had made.
There was no way he would waste it.
Kushina watched him eat, and rather than feeling offended by how openly he did so, she found herself smiling in quiet satisfaction.
Who wouldn't feel happy seeing someone genuinely enjoy the meal they had made?
And even more than that... the boy before her was one of her own clan.
Minato, meanwhile, praised Kushina's cooking with his usual warmth while eating.
"Your name is Uzumaki Kirito?" Hiruzen finally asked.
The reason he had chosen to speak now was simple.
He had already sensed the movement outside.
ANBU and Root had quietly taken up positions around the house, surrounding it completely.
Kirito had sensed them as well, of course.
But with his current strength, dealing with the people outside would be effortless if it ever came to that.
Then, all at once, an ominous and malevolent chakra surged from Kushina's body.
The Nine-Tails had awakened.
It had been dormant before, but the moment it noticed Kirito's presence, it stirred violently. The instant it "saw" him, it sensed something familiar.
Something dangerous.
Something that reminded it of the Sage of Six Paths.
Kushina suddenly winced, pain flashing across her face.
Without hesitation, she directed her consciousness inward, preparing to reinforce the seal.
Seeing her falter, Minato immediately caught her in his arms, his face full of worry as he looked down at her.
As Kushina was the Jinchūriki of the Nine-Tails, this was not entirely unheard of. There were times when Kurama's chakra would become unstable.
But this was not something anyone else could resolve for her.
Only Kushina herself could suppress it.
All Minato could do was wait.
Hiruzen and Jiraiya, however, turned their full attention toward Kirito and Orochimaru, their guard rising instantly.
The moment these two outsiders arrived, the Nine-Tails reacted.
If someone said it had nothing to do with them, no one here would believe it.
They watched closely.
If either of the two made the slightest suspicious move, Hiruzen would immediately signal the shinobi outside to storm the house.
And yet, in the middle of all that tension, Kirito simply continued eating as though nothing at all had happened.
What no one present knew...
was that, at that very moment, Kirito's consciousness had already entered Kushina's inner world.
The instant he arrived at the place where the Nine-Tails was sealed, he saw it—
a massive cage, secured behind a powerful seal.
Inside it, the Nine-Tails roared violently while Kushina's Adamantine Sealing Chains wrapped around it, suppressing it with unyielding force.
A pair of savage eyes burned with pain and fury as the beast glared at the woman before it.
Then it suddenly sensed Kirito's presence.
Its head snapped toward the space behind Kushina.
Kushina, startled by the shift in Kurama's gaze, turned around as well.
Her eyes widened.
"Kirito...? What are you doing here?"
Kirito walked forward at an unhurried pace.
"Kushina... Nee-san," he said softly. "Leave this big fox to me."
At first, Kushina should have questioned how he had entered her seal in the first place.
But when she remembered that he too was from the Uzumaki clan, it no longer seemed impossible. If anyone could find a way into a sealed space like this, it would be an Uzumaki.
And for some reason, as she looked at him now, she found herself trusting him instinctively.
She did not doubt him.
She did not fear him.
Deep down, she felt certain of one thing—
he would never harm her.
That instinct was right.
After all, how could a child ever truly wish harm upon his own mother?
Kirito came to a stop before the cage and looked at the restless Nine-Tails behind the bars. Then, with one slender hand, he lightly touched the seal.
"Kurama," he said calmly, "why not be a little more honest for once?"
The Nine-Tails' eyes narrowed.
"You little Uzumaki brat... why do you carry the Sage of Six Paths' presence on you?" Kurama growled. "And how do you know my name?"
The moment Kirito spoke that name, Kurama had been genuinely shaken.
The boy did not look old enough to know anything about the distant past.
That name had been given to the tailed beasts by the Sage of Six Paths himself.
So how did this child know it?
As the question rattled through his mind, Kurama began struggling even more violently inside the cage.
Kirito let out a quiet sigh.
Kurama really was stubborn.
But dealing with a stubborn tsundere—whether person or tailed beast—wasn't difficult.
Sometimes, the simplest answer was the truth.
Kirito slowly closed his eyes.
Then he opened them again.
His pupils had already changed.
A pair of golden Rinnegan stared back at Kurama from the darkness.
PS: Unfortunately for all of you…
Bad news.
(Just kidding… mostly.)
I started another Naruto story.
Title: Naruto: Breaking The Limiter
The MC is Yujiro.
He breaks his limiter, gains increasingly illegal abilities, and eventually turns the Naruto world into his personal gym.
Anyway, give it a try and feel it yourself.
Tagged below 👇