Being a rogue ninja is worse than being Hokage.

Just when Naruto thought he would lose his last remaining self in this endless fall.

puff-

Naruto fell into the water.

Is it a lake?

Or the sea?

Naruto couldn't tell; he was enveloped in the damp darkness.

The initial unease vanished instantly in this unusual darkness.

Naruto regained his peace of mind.

This description might sound strange... Naruto felt as safe and secure as if he were still in the womb.

Then, Naruto saw a glimmer of light in this reassuring atmosphere.

A faint, yet piercing point of light that tore through the darkness.

The light got closer and bigger to Naruto, eventually enveloping him completely.

The darkness all around faded away, turning into a warm golden yellow.

Someone grabbed Naruto's hand.

Naruto stopped falling.

"You've grown up, Naruto..."

It was the voice of a woman, gentle and powerful, capable of stirring the heartstrings of anyone hearing it for the first time.

Naruto looked up from the hand that was holding him, and saw a woman with long red hair gazing at him with a face as gentle as her voice.

Uzumaki Kushina.

……

The effect of Kotoamatsukami has failed.

Naruto regained his rationality.

Naruto felt the strength of Kushina's grip on his wrist and understood why Kotoamatsukami had failed.

Twelve years ago, Obito Uchiha extracted the Nine-Tails from Kushina's body and used his Sharingan to control it.

The Fourth Hokage, who resealed the Nine-Tails, could not possibly be unprepared for the power of the Sharingan.

Naruto was also well aware of the two defenses the Fourth Hokage had set up in the Eight Trigrams Seal.

One is the Fourth Hokage's own chakra, and the other is Kushina's chakra, which helped Naruto control the Nine-Tails' chakra after Naruto obtained the toad key and began learning to control the Nine-Tails' chakra.

Naruto stared at Kushina with a scrutinizing gaze.

It seems that the Bagua seal composed of the two Four Symbols seals has had half of the Four Symbols seal removed, directly bypassing the first line of defense and awakening Kushina's chakra.

Moreover, Naruto could sense that the chakra seal that Root had placed on him had been lifted.

All of this should be attributed to Kushina.

"Don't be so wary of me, I'm not a bad person."

Judging from Kushina's expression, she seemed unsure how to face Naruto's wary gaze.

Naruto knew, of course, that Kushina wasn't a bad person.

But Naruto is no longer considered a "good person" by Kushina.

"I have some questions that need to be answered, and I hope you can tell me the answers."

Naruto shook off Kushina's hand and spoke to her.

Kushina's gaze turned somewhat forlorn, not expecting Naruto to draw such a clear line between them.

But she quickly smiled again and replied gently, "Ask away, I'll tell you everything I know!"

"The fact that I'm here means that the Nine-Tails..."

Naruto observed Kushina's expression. "You've got her under your control, haven't you? What methods did you use?"

"It's a sealing technique from the Uzumaki clan called 'Diamond Lockdown'."

Kushina replied that although Naruto's attitude towards her was distant, she, who no longer existed in this world, could still talk to her grown-up child.

Kushina wouldn't ask for much more.

"I have one more question."

Judging from Kushina's expression, Naruto could guess what she was thinking, but he was too lazy to pay attention to her.

"Ah."

Kushina remained the same, always eager to listen to whatever Naruto had to say.

Naruto's second question, however, left Kushina momentarily speechless.

"If you use your remaining chakra to fight me and cast sealing jutsu on me, can I defeat you?"

Naruto's words were cold, showing that he did not regard Kushina as his mother.

Rather, they are enemies who will be fighting each other immediately.

He knew Kushina's attitude towards him, and he was filled with the emotions of a mother feeling endless guilt towards her child.

Kushina will definitely answer this question truthfully.

Therefore, Naruto disregarded Kushina's feelings and asked the question he most wanted to know.

He did not want to be freed from the bondage of the other gods.

Furthermore, due to the idea that he had already parted ways with his "parents," he was sealed by the sealing technique of the Uzumaki clan, which was just as troublesome as Kotoamatsukami.

Kushina looked at Naruto, but didn't speak for a long time.

Naruto wasn't in a hurry. He had always been very patient; otherwise, he wouldn't have been waiting for the right moment to defect from Konoha.

Although it turns out that sometimes being too patient doesn't necessarily get you the reward you want—it might even be an unwanted god.

"A mother is someone who can never fight against her own child."

Kushina finally answered Naruto's question. Her answer had nothing to do with Naruto's question, but it was exactly what Naruto wanted to hear.

“If you want to kill me, I will not resist.”

Kushina suddenly reached out and scratched her face with her index finger, laughing as she corrected her earlier grammatical error, saying, "But I'm already dead, I'm just a ball of chakra now."

But even as she smiled, sadness still permeated her entire being.

"Naruto, is that so... You've had a tough time all these years..."

"I'm sorry... I haven't fulfilled my responsibilities as a mother... I'm sorry..."

"Not only did I fail to be your mother, and fail to give you the love that should have been yours... but I also imposed my own pain on you... I'm sorry... for making you suffer so much, for making you live such a humble life..."

"It's only natural that you hate me..."

"But no matter what you choose in the future, I will support you. Become Hokage or leave Konoha—I will support you, because you are my son... And also, don't resent your father... He has his responsibilities, but Naruto, your father loves you just as much as I do."

Kushina took Naruto's hand again, and she used her chakra to re-form the Eight Trigrams Seal that sealed the Nine-Tails.

“I was originally supposed to appear when you received the key Minato prepared for you, to help you control the Nine-Tails… but you encountered this situation, so I appeared directly… You still can’t control the Nine-Tails, so the seal is still necessary, but I can’t help you again… If you had the key, Naruto, you certainly wouldn’t go to Mount Myōboku, right… so I strengthened the seal, giving you more time to prepare other methods to control the Nine-Tails…”

"But this time I used the Adamantine Sealing Technique to extract a lot of the Nine-Tails' chakra for you to use—but this is the only time, my chakra will soon disappear... I'm worried, Naruto, I'm so worried that after my chakra is gone, you won't be able to control the Nine-Tails properly..."

After saying a lot in one breath, Kushina finally regained her composure.

She hesitated as she looked at Naruto, then slowly approached him.

She confirmed that Naruto did not resist her approach.

As Kushina's chakra ran out... she stepped forward and hugged Naruto.

These were her final words, the words her mother, who had died 12 years earlier, choked back in her final moments, words she had longed for for twelve years:

"Naruto, I love you..."

Chapter 62 Intrusion into the Battlefield

Konoha Forest.

Team 10, carrying out Kakashi's orders, is leaping and moving between tree trunks, led by the ninja dog Pakkun.

"What's the situation now? How far away are we from Sakura and Sasuke?"

Shikamaru asked Puck a question.

Parker's nose was indeed very sensitive; it had detected two enemy squads from afar, allowing Team 10 to successfully avoid battle.

However, this choice also caused Sakura and Sasuke to fall further behind Team 10 once again.

"We're not too close to them, but we're not too far either... The three Sand Village members have slowed down, and Sakura's scent is mingling with Sasuke's, so they must have successfully reunited..."

Parker sniffed; it could construct all sorts of details just from the scent.

Upon hearing Parker's reply, Shikamaru frowned slightly.

Team 10's detour just now only seemed to widen the gap between Sasuke and Sakura.

"Things are getting complicated. The Sand Village guys should have noticed Sasuke and Sakura tracking them by now."

Shikamaru deduced this, then turned to Ino and Choji and said, "We need to speed things up!"

Ino and Choji exchanged a glance. Shikamaru's judgment was rarely wrong, and his current anxiety indicated that the situation was becoming increasingly difficult to handle.

But just as Shikamaru asked Ino and Choji to speed up, Pakkun, who was leading the way, suddenly stopped.

"Parker! What happened? Why did we stop now?"

Without Parker's guidance, Team 10 had no choice but to stop together at this critical moment.

"A massive amount of chakra has suddenly appeared ahead!"

"There are at least three ninja squads surrounding that massive amount of chakra!"

Parker offered an explanation for his sudden stop.