In Naruto's mindscape.
The Fourth Hokage looked at Naruto and Menma and slowly recounted the truth about the Nine-Tails Attack.
"My wife was the previous Nine-Tails Jinchuriki. The night the Nine-Tails Attack happened was the night she gave birth. A masked man suddenly appeared and attacked the delivery room. He used my son to threaten me, then took the Nine-Tails from my wife and let it run wild in the village."
Hearing this hidden truth, Naruto and Menma listened intently.
Remembering that night, the Fourth Hokage looked regretful. "As Hokage, I failed to protect both the village and my wife."
"What happened next? What happened next?" Naruto asked.
"As you know, I used the Reaper Death Seal to split the rampaging Nine-Tails in two. I sealed one half inside myself and the other inside my son."
Menma's eyes widened.
Naruto said, "What? You sealed the Nine-Tails inside a tiny baby?"
Menma knocked on Naruto's head, then asked the Fourth Hokage, "Was that baby us?"
The Fourth Hokage looked apologetic. "Yes. You're my sons."
Naruto's mind went blank for a moment before he finally understood: he was the son the Fourth Hokage had been talking about!
Menma's face was streaked with tears. "Why? Why did you seal the Nine-Tails inside us? Do you know how much scorn and discrimination we faced because of that damn fox?"
"I'm sorry!"
The Fourth Hokage didn't try to explain. He simply offered Naruto and Menma a sincere apology.
Naruto accepted it easily enough. "Well, I am the Hokage's son!"
Menma wiped his tears and accepted the Fourth Hokage's apology too.
As Naruto's Inner Demon, Menma had always resented how unfairly the world had treated him. Now that he knew his parents had been the village's Hokage and Jinchuriki, and that they hadn't abandoned him on