"What do you want to do?"
Kurama's crimson eyes gleamed with interest. Perhaps due to their recent exchange, the Nine-Tails' tone toward Naruto had softened slightly, tinged now with curiosity rather than contempt.
"Kurama, do you want to destroy Konoha with me?" Naruto said it plainly, as though suggesting a walk through the forest.
"..."
The Nine-Tails was silent for a long moment, the rippling water beneath them echoing the stillness. When it finally spoke, its tone was low and almost nostalgic. "Ashura… that guy would never say something like that."
Kurama's words didn't faze Naruto. He too remembered Ashura's portrayal in the ancient tale selfless, pure-hearted, the paragon of peace. That kind of saintly figure didn't match what he felt now.
Naruto tilted his head. "What kind of person was Ashura, really?"
Kurama frowned, visibly thinking. As a tailed beast, it had fought alongside Ashura during the Warring States Era, back when Indra and Ashura were locked in a brutal spiritual struggle for the legacy of the Sage of Six Paths. Even after centuries, it remembered Ashura well his energy, his words, his ideals.
But Kurama was still a beast, not a scholar. After several moments of pondering, it could only come up with a few simple words.
"Ashura… was a very kind person."
Naruto blinked. That was it? He watched Kurama struggle with the memory as if expecting a poetic monologue, only to get a brief eulogy.
Just "kind"? After all that effort?
Still, it was accurate. Too accurate, in fact. Ashura was so kind that it bordered on blind faith. The same kind of faith Naruto himself once echoed like when he told Obito, right after Neji died, "You're the coolest guy... because you wanted to be Hokage." Even in the face of tragedy, he believed that love could save anyone. That kind of naïve kindness, passed from Ashura to Naruto, used to define him.
But now?
Naruto looked Kurama dead in the eye. "So, Kurama, do you really believe that? That love can bring peace?"
The Nine-Tails didn't answer. In truth, there was a time when it had. Back when it roamed free, before being hunted and chained. Back when Ashura led the early Shinobi and tried to bridge worlds with compassion. But those days were long gone. The years sealed within humans had chipped away at that idealism.
Kurama's silence was answer enough.
Naruto's voice grew cold. "I can't be that person. I can't just forgive people like them."
"Kurama, don't you think it's ridiculous?"
The smile had vanished from Naruto's face. In its place was a chilling clarity, a reflection of the pain he'd buried too long. His ocean-blue eyes now carried the weight of betrayal.
Kurama knew that pain. It had watched Naruto since infancy from the scornful glares of villagers, to the isolation of being ostracized, to nights filled with quiet sobs. It had felt the hatred Naruto endured. If it weren't for the Uzumaki clan's strong life force, Naruto likely wouldn't have survived childhood.
The irony wasn't lost on Kurama: the hero's bloodline, drowning in suffering.
"Kurama… when kindness becomes a tool to pacify those who harm you, it's no longer kindness it's submission. And when you force others to embrace that kindness, you're no better than the tyrants you oppose."
He stepped closer to the gate between them.
"Was Ashura really kind? Or did he just force others to swallow his ideal of 'love'? Telling people to let go of hatred without addressing its root isn't that a kind of cruelty?"
Kurama stared at the boy no, the young man before it. He had inherited Ashura's chakra, but not his blind hope. Naruto had grown into someone far more complicated.
"The prejudice in people's hearts is like a mountain," Naruto continued. "No matter how hard you try, you can't move it."
"If I tried to connect with the villagers like Ashura did, would they have ever accepted me?" His lips curled into a bitter smile. "No. In this world, only strength speaks."
In the original timeline, Naruto had earned their approval. He became Hokage, the village's hero. But this Naruto wasn't willing to walk that path, not when it meant enduring pain while his tormentors never paid a price.
Why must the victim beg for the oppressor's recognition?
He wouldn't beg. He had power Kurama's power.
He was done asking nicely.
Uzumaki Naruto would no longer walk the path laid out by fate.
The prejudice in people's hearts is like a mountain. No matter how hard you try, you can't move it.
Kurama understood him, perhaps too well. It, too, had known isolation called a monster, hunted, sealed away not for its crimes, but simply for existing.
Before being captured, it had done nothing but sleep and roam. Then came Uzumaki Mito and the sealing within her during the founding of Konoha, simply because it was "too powerful."
Kurama remembered cursing the heavens. If being strong makes me a threat, why not seal the ones who fear me instead?
It had done nothing, and yet it was imprisoned labeled as the "embodiment of hatred."
Just for being what it was.
Now, as it stared at the boy who bore its chakra, it realized it wasn't alone in that resentment.
"Little ghost," Kurama finally said, its deep voice quiet now, "you should already know this…"
"Know what?"
"Your parents Minato Namikaze and Kushina Uzumaki they died by my hands."
The words hung in the air like a blade.
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