"Behave yourselves! No fighting!" Tsunade sharply quelled the commotion, then turned to the bewildered Naruto, her tone solemn. "Now, it's time to talk about you, Naruto."
"Huh? Me too?" Naruto blinked in confusion, then seemed to realize something. He instinctively rubbed his empty stomach and spoke with his usual nonchalance.
"It's about the Nine-Tails, right? I already know. It's fine, I'm used to it!"
"I won't let the Nine-Tails out. I'll never let him destroy the village."
Tsunade slowly shook her head, her gaze softening. "Not the Nine-Tails. Your background. Your parents."
The carefree grin Naruto had been wearing froze on his face, and he went utterly still.
Then his nose stung, his eyes rapidly reddened, and his voice trembled. "Dad, Mom... I have them? Then where are they?"
Sakura and Sasuke both looked curious, turning to Tsunade in unison as they waited for an answer.
Unable to bring herself to tell him the cruel truth, Tsunade turned her head and motioned for Jiraiya to explain.
He was your student!
Jiraiya sighed softly, setting aside his flippant manner. His voice was heavy yet gentle. "Naruto, your father was Minato Namikaze, known as the Yellow Flash. Your mother was Kushina Uzumaki, the previous Jinchūriki of the Nine-Tails."
"Minato Namikaze?! Isn't that... isn't that the Fourth Hokage's name?!" Sakura's eyes flew wide, disbelief covering her face as she cried out.
Sasuke's pupils abruptly contracted. He was stunned.
He had never cared about the names of Konoha's past Hokage. He couldn't even be bothered to remember the Third's full name, let alone that of the Fourth Hokage, whom he'd never met.
Yet he never could have imagined that Naruto, the dead last, was actually the Fourth Hokage's biological son.
The gulf between that status and Naruto's life was so absurd that he couldn't