In a private room, Naruto saw Satsuki again after her examination.
The hospital's white walls looked beige in the afternoon light. The curtains were half-drawn, and Satsuki sat on the edge of the examination bed, one hand resting unconsciously on her stomach.
Her expression was impossibly complex: surprise, bewilderment, and a dazed look as she tried to take in the news. But beneath all those swirling emotions, what showed most was the relief and anticipation of someone who had seen this coming.
"So it's true... Naruto's child..."
"Y-yeah... It is..." Naruto's gaze bounced between Satsuki's face and her stomach several times before he lowered his head. His voice dropped too.
"I'm sorry..."
"...Why are you apologizing? This was bound to happen sooner or later, wasn't it? We've been married for so long. Isn't having a child perfectly normal?"
"Because I don't know what to say... If I'd known! What was I thinking?! If I'd known, I should've been the one to act! I let you use the Rinnegan's Dojutsu while you were pregnant! And I just stood there like an idiot doing nothing?!"
Naruto truly regretted it. That was the source of the distress weighing on him. His pregnant wife had used a tremendously draining Dojutsu, and when he saw her face go pale, he had assumed she was merely tired. His wife was pregnant. Why hadn't he noticed sooner? If he had known, Naruto would have used Tailed Beast Transformation himself.
"That hardly counted as a fight... And I've already recovered." Seeing him on the verge of bursting with regret, Satsuki couldn't help laughing. She rose from the examination bed, reached up, and stroked Naruto's blond hair.
"In that situation, of course I had to act as Hokage. You couldn't expect me to stand back and watch, could you?