The three from Sunagakure sat down with Kushina and Rin at a roadside stall and began talking.
First, there was the matter of who these three actually were.
Maki specialized in using cloth for sealing techniques.
Her style seemed modeled right after Sunagakure's desert mummy methods, and she was a disciple of the Scorch Release user Pakura.
And who was Pakura? She wore the exact same kind of spicy backless outfit as Konan, except without the giant Akatsuki cloak covering the goods.
Compared with her teacher, Maki, as her disciple really did seem rather painfully ordinary.
That was, of course, unless Maki happened to dangerously resemble Nohara Rin!
Strictly speaking, it wasn't really a cheap "Rin imitation."
Face markings like those two cheek lines were literally everywhere in the ninja world, especially in Sunagakure.
Konoha had plenty too.
The Inuzuka clan had two red cheek marks, Jiraiya had them, and even the damn Second Hokage had them!
It was just that, by sheer coincidence, Maki and Rin also had highly similar facial features and face shapes.
So after the five of them sat down, Kushina noticed it immediately, and her gaze kept awkwardly drifting back and forth between Maki and Rin.
As for Maki's two teammates— Matsuri and Yukata, they were Sunagakure's ultimate gossip duo, extremely sensitive to romance, juicy scandals, and strong people's rumors.
Matsuri was the one with short brown hair.
In the original timeline, she showed up during the Fourth Shinobi War as Gaara'sdisciple, and she had now indeed become Gaara's student.
The other one, Yukata, with long straight black hair, was basically a background NPC without much notable history or special abilities.
The exact moment this gossip duo noticed someone looked so much like their teammate Maki, their curiosity violently exploded.
Before Kushina even had a chance to say a single word, the two of them started talking over each other and yanked off the cloth cap wrapped around Maki's head.
Sure enough—even her hairstyle was short, and the hair color was super similar too!
"Maki, could she be your long-lost sister?!" The gossip duo stared at their teammate with bright, fiercely expectant eyes.
"Probably… not?" Maki herself looked totally uncertain.
Mainly because, in the ninja world, not having parents around was incredibly normal.
Someone like Sasuke, whose whole family got slaughtered, was practically considered fortunate—at least the guy knew who his family was!
So since Maki didn't know who her parents were, she naturally couldn't be sure whether this girl who looked so much like her was actually related to her or not.
But Rin and Kushina were absolutely certain.
The reason was stupidly simple. The timeline did not match up at all!
"You guys misunderstood. Actually…" Rin just opened her mouth to explain the truth when her thoughts took several sharp turns all at once.
'STOP.'
That was because Rin suddenly realized that if something as totally absurd as resurrection became widely known, many people would surely covet it, and it could bring massive trouble to everyone!
But then, right as she thought that, she also remembered the psychological counseling Orochimaru, Nono Yakushi, and Makoto gave her after her revival.
They all told her clearly that this resurrection bullshit was nothing too unusual.
And since they were already letting her casually stroll around town without restriction, it obviously meant they never intended to keep it hidden in the first place!
So Rin continued, "Actually, I was born in Konoha Year 37, and I died in Konoha Year 48. Later I was summoned back with Edo Tensei, and then Orochimaru, Makoto, and the others revived me."
"HUH?!"
"Edo Tensei?! Revival?!"
The others were deeply shocked for a moment, but they recovered quickly.
After all, the very reason the three from Sunagakure came here in the first place was to witness this exact sort of crazy thing!
Revival might sound outrageous, but in Sunagakure, it was said that Granny Chiyo also developed a technique capable of bringing someone back to life.
"So that means this big sister here is actually pushing thirty?! A whole generation older than us?!"
"Not really a whole generation. More like half a generation, unless everyone started getting busy and having kids at fourteen."
"..."
The gossip duo once again spoke one after the other.
But after they finished, the two of them suddenly realized something was way off.
In peaceful times, the age at which ninja married tended to get pushed back.
But in brutal times of war, that age could move much, much earlier.
And in the endless meat-grinder of the Warring States Period, even the sons of clan heads weren't guaranteed to live to fifteen or sixteen.
To ensure a clan's continuation, of course things would happen earlier!
If they could, then they would have kids.
And based on the years Rin just casually mentioned—her birth year and the year she literally died—it lined up perfectly with the bloody era of the great ninja wars!
So…
"Could it be… you're Maki's MOTHER?!" Matsuri and Yukata stared at Rin with four wide astonished eyes.
"HUH?!" Rin completely froze.
Both her physical age and mental age were still that of a teenage girl!
Now suddenly having someone her own age call her "Mom" felt way too damn weird!
What kind of logic was that?!
"R-really?! I've never had parents since I was little! The only family I've ever had was my teacher! I-I…" Maki looked both wildly emotional and heartbroken.
"Uh…" Rin hesitated.
"Rin, you absolutely can't decide something like this based on sheer kindness alone!" Seeing the look on Rin's face, Kushina hurriedly cut in.
Rin was still an innocent, pure girl was beyond doubt.
Kushina hadn't personally verified it, but Makoto definitely had!
So how the hell could Rin possibly have a daughter?!
"For example, Might Guy and his student Rock Lee look very alike, but they aren't father and son! And Uchiha Izuna and Sasuke supposedly look alike too, but they aren't directly related either!"
To make her argument more convincing, Kushina frantically brought up two solid examples.
"Fine~"
With the juicy gossip completely ruined, the gossip duo looked a little dejected.
But they quickly recovered!
Even if one direction for receiving gossip vanished, the direction for spreading gossip was still totally there!
The weird topic of Rin and Maki looking alike was temporarily tossed aside.
Next, they moved on to why the three of them actually stopped Kushina from chasing down Naruto.
"This is a juicy story that started spreading around at some point. It's about Lord Kazekage Gaara!" Yukata glanced left and right with a guilty sneaky expression, hunching her shoulders as she quietly began telling the tale.
"Lord Kazekage Gaara? What the heck does that have to do with Naruto?" Kushina looked totally puzzled.
"Huh? You didn't know?" Yukata instantly put on the expression of someone judging a total boomer.
'Wow, you are so behind the times.'
"Uzumaki Naruto is Lord Kazekage Gaara's CP, you know!"
"Could we maybe get to the actual important part first?"
Seeing Yukata starting to drift back into gossip mode, Rin quickly interrupted.
They could spend some time figuring out the real situation, yes.
But that didn't mean they could waste time carelessly.
Every extra damn moment wasted meant Naruto might do yet another ridiculous, unhinged thing!
"Yukata, Matsuri, just get to it. We're still on a mission too," Maki chimed in as well.
"Okay, okay. So basically…"
Yukata puffed out her cheeks, then began explaining the wild, cursed old story about "filial piety."
For some reason no one knew, that cursed story had successfully spread all the way into Sunagakure too!
And as it spread, the unhinged details completely changed.
For example, in one increasingly absurd version, Kankurō, as Gaara's older brother, was said to have gone to extreme lengths to "protect" Gaara from a highly disturbing situation at home.
The crazy rumor even claimed he made a life-sized puppet in Gaara's likeness and used his puppet techniques to make the creepy substitute seem totally convincing!
In other words, the tale had grown more and more unbelievably outrageous the farther it spread!
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CP : In Japanese pop culture and fandom slang, CP stands for "Coupling" (カップリング - kappuringu). It is used to describe romantic or emotional pairings (shipping) of characters in anime, manga, or games, as well as real-life people, often appearing as "CP" or its abbreviation, "Kapu"
Everyone is getting slander equally, Madara soon will also get slander courtesy of you know who.