Really... even the way he ate hadn't changed.
Watching Chiba wolf down his food amid a clatter of dishes, Kushina finally showed a relieved smile.
To be honest, when she had first seen Chiba, beyond her joy, Kushina had felt more concern.
She was worried that all the killing had warped his personality.
Though she had rarely taken part in battle, she was still a ninja and knew certain things. In fact, throughout Konoha's history, some people had suffered personality distortions from too much killing—becoming cruel and bloodthirsty, or mentally unstable. Sometimes, excessive slaughter could drag a person into darkness.
During that encounter with five thousand Iwa ninja, Chiba had personally slain over a thousand of them. His record had been so astonishing that even the Third Hokage had risen straight from his chair upon seeing the report, barely stopping himself from saying, "How is that possible?"
Minato Namikaze had been beside the Third Hokage at the time. Since the Third Hokage had already informed Minato Namikaze that he was a Hokage candidate, he had naturally seen the report as well. And as Minato Namikaze's fiancée and Chiba's teacher, Kushina naturally learned of it too.
At the time, as she watched the mingled surprise and regret in her fiancé's eyes, she had felt no happiness or joy at all—only worry. She had feared that the blood of a thousand people might have warped Chiba's mind.
As for the news of Chiba's death that her fiancé had brought back, before seeing Chiba's body with her own eyes, Kushina had never believed that her most outstanding student was dead.
Just now, she had seemed to be asking about Yukina's eyes, but in truth, she had been probing Chiba, testing for changes in his mental state.
If Chiba had not changed—or rather, if