Naruto's Resolve

Inside Ichiraku Ramen, Naruto's bright blue eyes were fixed on the enormous Light screen in the sky.

He didn't even notice when the bowl of Ichiraku ramen slipped from his hands and landed on the table with a clatter, splashing warm broth onto his clothes.

For a moment, Naruto's mind went blank. Then confusion and turmoil swept through him.

Was that Danzo? Danzo Shimura, the treacherous bastard who'd gotten Mom and Dad killed?

How could he... how could he have fought alongside Grandpa Third?

"Bastard!" He slammed his fist into a nearby tree. His knuckles throbbed, but the pain was nothing compared to the ache in his heart.

"Cut the act! It's fake! It has to be! How could a bastard like that fight shoulder to shoulder with Grandpa Third? He doesn't deserve to!"

Naruto tried to drive away what he'd seen with anger, to deny it all.

Danzo Shimura had to be pure, unmitigated darkness!

Only then would Naruto's hatred of Danzo be unshakable. Only then would it make sense.

But the scene had looked too real.

The concern in Grandpa Third's eyes had been genuine. So had the way they'd worked together to drive back the enemy.

Confusion wound around Naruto's heart like vines.

What if... what if they really had once been comrades who could trust each other with their lives?

What if Danzo Shimura had once been a Ninja who'd risked his life for Konoha?

Then... what had happened? Why had he become like that? Why had he done those things? Why had he gotten Dad killed?

The clash between what Naruto knew and what he'd seen nearly tore his mind apart.

He couldn't reconcile the awkward but courageous young Ninja on the Light screen with the sinister, cold leader of Root he remembered—the man responsible for the tragedy of his childhood.

A deep sense of hurt and injustice surged through him, nearly bringing him to tears.

"Why, Grandpa Third?" he shouted at the Light screen, as though demanding an answer from the old man he'd respected since childhood.

"Why did you... why did you trust someone like him? Why were you friends with him? If he used to be good, why did he turn bad? Why didn't you... stop him?"

Naruto felt the pain of betrayal. It wasn't only because of Danzo Shimura, but because of the Third Hokage he'd admired most: Hiruzen Sarutobi.

"Grandpa Third, you knew what kind of person he was. Why did you let him carry on? Why didn't you stop him before he hurt more people?"

In the end, all those feelings dissolved into a helpless, painful bewilderment.

He looked at the two figures fighting side by side on the Light screen, then remembered the warm but fleeting smiles of Minato Namikaze and Kushina on the previous Light screen.

He thought of his lonely childhood, and then of Danzo's cold eyes.

The hatred in his heart was no longer simple or pure. It was tangled with confusion, grief, and one enormous question: how had that past led to this present?

So darkness wasn't always darkness? It could once have stood beside the Light—even come from it?

The thought sent a chill through Naruto.

Then he suddenly remembered the nightmare of Sasuke's that he'd once seen.

Sasuke had been through something like that. Overnight, his entire Lineage had been reduced to just him.

Naruto shuddered, a bone-deep chill racing from his spine to the top of his head.

The image of young Danzo on the Light screen overlapped with the sinister Danzo in his memory. Then, strangely, it overlapped with Sasuke's lonely, resentful silhouette.

A thought so terrifying it nearly stopped his breathing forced its way into his mind:

What if... what if becoming Hokage meant making the same choice as Grandpa Third and allowing Danzo to exist?

What if, one day, to protect the village, I had no choice but to...

He couldn't bear to finish the thought. Yet he could almost see a cold, inescapable path ahead:

If I become Hokage like I've always wanted, Sasuke will be beside me. He's the person I'm closest to.

Then Sasuke might end up carrying all the things that can't be brought into the Light—all those heavy, dark decisions. Just like Danzo and Grandpa Third.

No! Never!

A fear unlike anything Naruto had ever felt seized him, stronger than anything he'd felt facing an enemy!

He could almost see the Light fading from Sasuke's eyes, leaving them as cold, calculating, and shadowed as Danzo's.

He could almost see Sasuke wrapping himself in secrets and darkness, becoming more and more unfamiliar, drifting farther and farther away from him for the sake of some "greater good."

"You've got to be kidding me!"

Naruto roared, his fists clenched so tightly that his nails dug deep into his palms.

He was fighting to become Hokage so everyone would acknowledge him, so he could protect all his friends, so he could build a world where kids like him and Sasuke wouldn't have to be alone!

Not so he could push Sasuke back into darkness! Not so Sasuke would become another Danzo Shimura!

The image of Danzo on the Light screen, a man who would eventually descend into obsession and cruelty, was like a terrible mirror. It reflected Naruto's deepest fear: losing Sasuke, whether his life or his soul.

After that violent rush of emotion, a resolve unlike any he'd known settled in Naruto's heart, solid as stone.

The confusion vanished from his eyes. A fierce fire burned in their bright blue depths.

"I will never... never let that happen!" he swore to himself, his voice firm.

"I'm going to become Hokage! But my path won't be the same as Grandpa Third's or Danzo's!"

"I'll build a village that's bright and clean! A village that doesn't need Root scheming in the shadows! A village where everything can be settled in the open!"

"Sasuke." At the thought of his closest friend, Naruto's gaze softened. "I'll never let any darkness swallow you again! I'll protect you and Konoha, both in my own way!"

"If being Hokage means compromising and getting my hands dirty, then I'll change what it means to be Hokage!"

In that moment, Naruto's goal of becoming Hokage took on a deeper meaning.

It was no longer just the symbol of a dream. It had become a heavy responsibility and a solemn promise.

He would break Konoha's old cycle of darkness and open a new path, one truly filled with Light.

He raised his head and looked again at the Canopy Screen as it slowly faded.

The confusion in his eyes was gone. In its place was the resolve to face every darkness and bring it fully into the light.

For Sasuke, for Konoha, for everyone—he had to do it!