Direct Love and Hate

Satsuki listened quietly to Little Sasuke's story.

Those bitter, heartbreaking, and fragmented words slowly reopened the boy's already scabbed wounds.

He recounted the events of that day—just an ordinary day, a day when he went to school as usual, thinking about having his mother's cooking and practicing Shuriken his brother when he got home that evening.

Then they returned to their ancestral land and found that there was no one alive left.

Returning to his familiar home, he saw his parents' bodies lying in a pool of blood. Then he learned that the murderer was his own brother.

Satsuki's eyes had turned cold during that part of her narration.

But what she cared about most was what came next.

Little Sasuke said that he was tormented by Itachi Uchiha's Genjutsu, and in that Genjutsu- constructed world, he watched his parents die over and over again, countless times.

Again and again, unable to escape, unable to wake up, I could only watch those scenes replay before my eyes.

It's [Tsukuyomi], right?

Satsuki knows that technique.

She also knew what the Night of the Clan Massacre in her world was like.

That night, it was Naruto's intervention that prevented her from suffering such torment.

As she listened to Little Sasuke recount the details, looking into his empty and pained eyes, Satsuki's gaze grew colder and colder. That coldness wasn't aloofness, but rather an emotion about to erupt.

"You don't know what to do right now, do you?"

Satsuki spoke, her voice much calmer than before, "I don't know if I should take revenge on Itachi Uchiha, and I don't know if I should forgive Itachi Uchiha?"

Little Sasuke looked up at her and then slowly nodded.

Then, without hesitation, Satsuki spoke up.

"If it were me, I wouldn't give up on revenge."

"I will kill Itachi Uchiha and make him pay for what he has done."

"And before he dies, I will tell him—I have merely walked the path he or she prescribed; a place is meaningless if no one cares about it."

"... What?"

Little Sasuke was a little confused.

He hadn't expected Satsuki's answer to be so... direct.

He expected to hear a bunch of motivational platitudes, like "You have to decide your own path," "Revenge can't fill the void in your heart," and "Letting go of hatred is the only way to gain true power"—all those grand principles.

But what Satsuki said was completely different.

"But... Itachi... in the end, he did it all to protect..."

Little Sasuke tried to speak with difficulty.

"So this is the reason why he could so easily turn the knife on others?"

Satsuki interrupted him without hesitation.

"To protect yourself, you kill everyone you care about? And then tell you 'it's for your own good'?"

She looked directly into Little Sasuke's eyes. "Listen carefully."

"If someone were to kill all the people important to you under the guise of 'it's for your own good'—"

"Kill the companions and friends who follow you around all the time, kill the guys who stayed by your side during your darkest times--"

Then he stood in front of you and said, 'I had to kill them to protect you.'

Will you forgive him?

Little Sasuke's lips trembled slightly, but he couldn't say anything.

Do you consider that a 'necessary sacrifice'?

Satsuki continued speaking, each word piercing deep into the places in Little Sasuke's heart that he dared not touch.

"Would you be grateful to him for 'protecting' you, leaving you all alone in this world?"

Were those who were killed guilty?

"What did they do wrong? They just care about you, they're dragged into this because of you—and you're telling me that's forgivable?"

Her voice carried an angry questioning tone, not out of hatred, but out of an inability to accept this absurd logic.

"To portray murder as protection, to glorify massacre as sacrifice, to treat all human lives as bargaining chips to be discarded at will—all because he has a 'great' reason?"

"Don't be silly."

"Itachi Uchiha made his choice."

He chose to kill everyone, chose to let you live, and chose to bear everything alone. That was his choice.

But you are not obligated to accept it.

Her gaze was fixed on Little Sasuke, on this younger version of herself from another world.

You can hate him.

"You can kill him."

"You can let him know how foolish, arrogant, and presumptuous his 'protection' decision is."

"You don't have to hate him."

You can also let him live.

"You can also choose another path."

"But whatever you choose—don't fool yourself with 'he's doing this for your own good.'"

Because true protection comes from standing beside you, not from standing opposite you.

True love gives you the right to choose, rather than deciding everything for you.

"Did you understand?"

This is Satsuki's answer.

Straightforward and passionate, she couldn't condone this behavior from the bottom of her heart—killing the most important person in one's life for one's own good? What kind of logic is that?

She tried to mentally rehearse what would happen. If that day, if a situation truly arose where killing Naruto was the only way for her to live, and Itachi Uchiha actually did that... would she do it?

Big Naruto knew the answer perfectly well—if killing him could guarantee Satsuki's safety, Itachi would do it. After all, in that person's heart, the safety of his younger sister or brother was above that of the village.

Satsuki didn't think about it anymore.

She dared not think about it anymore.

Because that scene was too cruel. In Satsuki's imagination, after killing Itachi Uchiha, who killed Naruto, she discovered that her inner collapse would not be healed.

Then she thought about what she would do next... She felt it would be terrifying, so terrifying that she dared not think any further.

never mind.

She banished those terrifying images from her mind. Since that hadn't happened yet, she shouldn't scare herself unnecessarily.

Little Sasuke lowered his head, staring at the ground, seemingly looking at something.

Is this the answer...?

yes.

What right does he have to forgive Itachi Uchiha on behalf of the dead clan members? Remember, on that day, Itachi Uchiha didn't even spare infants.

Those children who knew nothing, those lives lost before they even had a chance to see the world clearly—why should they be "sacrificed"?

This protection... is simply too heavy a burden.

It was so heavy that he couldn't breathe.

"The Pure Land Reincarnation Technique."

Suddenly, a voice rang out, breaking the silence of the Valley of the End.

Little Naruto was surprised to find that his future self's one eye had suddenly changed color, becoming a strange black with gold pupils, looking mysterious and eerie.

With the power of his [Star Eye] Big Naruto accomplished two things in an instant—he found the Pure Land of this world, and he also found the Grim Reaper of this world.

Then, the connection is established.

The next moment, a gigantic head suddenly emerged from the ground!

The head was enormous, with a ferocious face and a gaping maw full of fangs. It emerged from the ground, startling Little Naruto and Little Sasuke, who were still immersed in grief!

"What, what is this?!"

Little Naruto cried out in surprise and instinctively took a step back.

This is King of Hell, the King of Hell, the being in the Pure Land who can control souls.

The King of Hell was slowly chewing something, its mouth opening and closing with a teeth-grinding sound. It was using the special chakra that Big Naruto had just passed on to it to create something.

After all, the soul already exists, but without a physical body, a person cannot exist in this world.

Little Sasuke looked up, his tear-streaked eyes filled with confusion and panic. He didn't know what this was, what this monster wanted to do, or what would happen next.

King of Hell continued chewing.

Then, it opened its enormous mouth.

The tongue stuck out.

Several things were curled up on the tongue, which was gently placed on the ground, their clear outlines revealed in the sunlight.

That's a person.

It consists of four bodies.

They lay there quietly with their eyes closed, as if asleep, their faces showing no pain, only a peaceful tranquility.

Little Naruto looked at the four human figures that had suddenly appeared on the ground, puzzled.

Who are these people? He only vaguely recognized one of them; the rest were completely unfamiliar to him.

Little Sasuke's body froze completely in that instant.

He could hardly believe his eyes; his pupils contracted violently, and he felt as if he had been struck by lightning, completely unable to move.

The four people on the ground are Kushina Uzumaki, Fugaku Uchiha, and Mikoto Uchiha Minato Namikaze this world.

Their souls, having just been awakened from the Pure Land, were now in a state of slumber before returning to this world.

For Big Naruto, doing these things was just a matter of a thought.