The next morning, warm sunlight spilled through the window into the room, and a steaming breakfast sat on the dining table.
"What's wrong, Naruto? Is the food not to your taste?"
Kushina Uzumaki asked rather tentatively. When Naruto opened his eyes that morning, he had found that his mother had already prepared everything.
Since a body revived through Impure World Reincarnation needed no sleep, Kushina had gotten up at the crack of dawn to carefully prepare breakfast for her son, hoping to make up for her regrets. It was a duty she had never been able to fulfill in life. Now that she could finally do even a little of it, she felt a small but profound sense of satisfaction.
"No, not at all!" Naruto hurriedly waved his hands, realizing that his thoughtful expression might have given his mother the wrong impression. "Your cooking is delicious, Mom! It's really great!"
He quickly lowered his head and took a big bite of his sandwich. Kushina's breakfast was an unusual blend of styles, pairing Western sandwiches with traditional Japanese miso soup. It really did taste quite good, and he could feel the care she had put into it.
Of course, objectively speaking, it still fell a little short of Naruto's own cooking.
Across the table, Uchiha Satsuki was also rather distracted as she sipped her soup. Since Kushina couldn't sleep, she had stayed beside Naruto almost the entire night, gazing tenderly at her sleeping son's face.
Such overwhelming motherly love was certainly moving, but it had also robbed Satsuki of any chance to carry out certain plans of her own, leaving her with a hollow sense of disappointment.
Meanwhile, within Naruto's inner world, a scene utterly unlike the warmth outside was unfolding in the Sealing Space.
Minato Namikaze's consciousness "watched" the outside