In the deepest reaches of Naruto's consciousness space, two Narutos faced each other. Naruto looked at his other self and said, "I thought you'd disappeared. I didn't expect you to still be here. Why haven't you shown up all this time?"
The other Naruto said coldly, "Haven't you always wanted me to stay away? So I followed your wishes and never appeared. Besides, I didn't want to come out again either. When you decided to live as an ordinary person, I decided to sleep. I just never imagined there would come a day when I'd wake up again."
Naruto looked at his other self with complicated feelings, then finally sighed. "You don't have to do that. From now on, if you want to come out, then come out. I won't stop you anymore. After all, you're me, no matter how you look at it. We've always been one. I suppressed you, but I've figured it out now. Whether it's me, the main personality, or you, if we exist, there's a reason for it. Without you, I might have died back in the Amazon. I wouldn't have had those dozen-odd years of an exciting life in my first lifetime, much less those eight years of happiness. Even if it was all a lie, I was truly happy. That's enough."
The other Naruto froze for a moment. "Don't you hate her?"
Naruto knew who his other self meant: his wife from his first life, the woman who had deceived him for eight years. He smiled. "Heh, what's there to hate? Those were my own choices, my own decisions. I don't have anything to regret. If there's one thing, it's making you sleep for so long because of that woman. I'm sorry. I didn't listen to you back then, and I even forced