"You don't need to be nervous. We trust you; this is just a routine inquiry."
Seeing how tense Karin was, Minato softened his tone as well.
"Alright, I have no more questions. From here on, just treat our conversation as casual chatting."
Throwing out that question had merely been one of Minato's tactics.
He first made Karin nervous, so she would be less likely to hide anything in the conversation that followed.
"Huh? Casual chatting?"
The sudden shift in topic left Karin a little bewildered.
Before Karin could react, Minato had already stepped back. Kushina slowly walked forward and sat on the edge of the hospital bed Karin was leaning against.
"Yes, just casual chatting."
As she spoke, Kushina removed the Konoha Anbu mask from her face.
In an instant, a mature woman with delicate features and hair the same color as Karin's appeared before her.
The moment Karin saw Kushina's face, she froze.
It was not because she recognized Kushina as the Fourth Hokage's wife. Rather, that face gave her an overwhelming sense of familiarity!
This woman looks so much like Mother! Before Mother fell ill, she had beautiful hair just like hers, didn't she?
At that moment, Karin suddenly recalled her late mother.
In Karin's childhood memories, her mother's hair had initially been almost identical to the woman before her!
But later, after constantly healing the grass ninja, that vivid red hair had first become dry and brittle, before eventually turning completely snow-white.
That was why Karin had once sworn that she would never let her own hair become like that!
The Uzumaki Clan's hair was one of their most distinctive traits.
When their lives reached their end and they lost all their Chakra, their originally vivid red hair would turn snow-white.
Nagato had been the same way