Naruto's Resolve

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

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

His mind went blank, then plunged into turmoil.

That was Danzo? Shimura Danzō, the scheming bastard who had gotten his mom and dad killed?

How could he... how could he be fighting alongside Grandpa Third?

"Bastard!" Naruto drove his fist into a nearby tree. The blow hurt, but nowhere near as much as the pain in his heart.

"Quit pretending! It's an act! 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 the scene from his mind with anger, to deny what he had seen.

Shimura Danzō had to be pure, unmitigated darkness!

Only then could Naruto's hatred for him remain unshakable. Only then would it make sense.

But the scene had looked too real.

The concern in Grandpa Third's eyes was real, and so was the way they had worked together to drive back the enemy.

Confusion wound around Naruto's heart like a vine.

If... if they really had once been comrades who trusted each other with their lives.

If Shimura Danzō had once been a ninja who fought with everything he had 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 had seen threatened to tear his mind apart.

He couldn't reconcile the awkward but brave young ninja on the screen with the sinister, cold leader of Root who had caused the tragedy of his childhood.

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

"Why, Grandpa Third?" he demanded of the screen, as though questioning the old man he had 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, not only because of Shimura Danzō, but because of the Third Hokage he 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 emotions gave way to helpless, painful confusion.

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

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

The hatred in his heart was no longer so simple or pure. Confusion and grief had seeped into it, along with one enormous question: how had that past led to the present?

So darkness wasn't always darkness? It had once stood beside the light—perhaps even come from it?

The thought sent a chill through Naruto.

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

Sasuke had been through something like that. Of his entire clan, only he had been left after a single night.

Naruto shuddered violently. A bone-deep chill raced up his spine.

The image of young Danzo on the screen overlapped with the sinister Danzo in his memory, then, disturbingly, with Sasuke's lonely, resentful back.

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

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. But he could almost see a cold, inescapable path ahead:

If he achieved his dream of becoming Hokage, Sasuke, the person he was closest to, would surely stand beside him.

Then all the things that couldn't be brought into the light, all the heavy, dark decisions, might fall on Sasuke's shoulders—just as they had with Danzo and Grandpa Third.

No! Never!

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

He could almost see the light fading from Sasuke's eyes until they grew as cold, calculating, and shadowed as Danzo's.

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

"You've got to be kidding me!"

Naruto roared in anger, clenching his small fists so tightly that his nails dug 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 children like him and Sasuke would never have to be lonely again!

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

Danzo's descent into obsession and cruelty was like a terrible mirror, reflecting Naruto's deepest fear: losing Sasuke, whether his life or his soul.

After that rush of emotion, a resolve stronger than anything Naruto had felt before settled in his heart like stone.

The confusion left his eyes. A fierce fire burned in their blue depths.

"I'll never... never let that happen!" he swore to himself, his voice ringing with conviction.

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

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

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

"If being Hokage means compromising, if it means getting dragged into the darkness, then I'll change what it means to be Hokage!"

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

It was no longer just a dream to chase. It had become a weighty responsibility and a steadfast promise.

He would break Konoha's cycle of darkness and forge a new path, one that truly led into the light.

He raised his head and looked once more at the screen as it slowly faded from the sky.

The confusion in his eyes had vanished, replaced by a resolve to face whatever darkness lay ahead and bring it into the light.

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