"The Fourth Kazekage was actually into some twisted shit like that?!"
Kushina and Rin both looked completely stunned.
They were both wives of a Fourth Kage—so how the hell could the gap between their husbands be this insanely huge?!
"Well, to be fair, you can't entirely blame Lord Fourth Kazekage Rasa for it," Yukata said, shaking her head.
"The Fifth Kazekage and his siblings can judge Lord Rasa however they want, but ordinary ninja like us don't really have that right. Lord Rasa was doing it for the village—for the sake of finding a suitable host for Shukaku. That's why his wife had to keep popping out kids without rest, and in the end she died from complications when giving birth to Lord Gaara."
Maki and Matsuri nodded in agreement.
Gossip was gossip, but they still acknowledged the Fourth Kazekage's accomplishments.
Of course, it was painfully obvious that Maki still didn't know her teacher Pakura had been completely sold out by Rasa and left to die like a dog in Kirigakure.
"Hard to say," Kushina muttered, curling her lip.
Everyone else here was still just a bunch of naive young girls who didn't understand how dark the world really got.
They were still blindly clinging to the idea that Rasa forced his wife to make sacrifices "for the village."
But if Rasa could even develop those kinds of sick thoughts toward his own damn son, then whatever moral bottom line he once had probably long since sunk straight into the gutter!
Who was to say he really drove Karura to death "for the village," rather than for far uglier reasons?
"It's totally true~"
"There's actually another rumor too."
"The story says the Land of Wind became a desert because, in ancient times, the Ten-Tails—the God Tree—once took root there. When the Sage of Six Paths destroyed it, part of it was accidentally left buried underground, and later some wandering hero sealed it away without understanding what the hell it was doing…"
"Go on. Why'd you stop?" Kushina asked, just when she was getting super into it.
The three girls across from her exchanged awkward glances, then fell strangely silent.
"This is just how the rumor tells it, okay? I'm not the one saying it…"
"The story says that this leftover part of the Ten-Tails got lodged in the earth in a very… symbolic way."
"And because ancient people worshipped fertility and things like that, the Land of Wind supposedly developed a whole set of highly strange traditions around it…"
"And there's another part," the gossip duo went on, excitedly taking turns talking. "It says the Sage of Six Paths' two sons also had a very abnormal relationship, and that they even created some kind of crazy reincarnation bond so they could keep meeting each other across lifetimes! Even though their descendants later went to Konoha, the Land of Wind was supposedly where the Sage once lived, so if Konoha inherited some strange customs, then Sunagakure absolutely did too…"
Only after the two gossip-loving girls finally finished piecing the wild story together did Kushina understand the main point.
Her face was completely dark.
Still, she understood the core of it.
In short: according to the cursed rumor, Rasa developed deeply inappropriate thoughts toward Gaara, and because Naruto and Gaara were such close bros, Naruto learned about Gaara's dark past.
So whenever the subject of "filial duty" came up, Naruto's traumatized mind automatically connected it with Gaara's messed-up parents!
'So that was why he reacted with such pure terror! It was basically one giant misunderstanding.'
'…Wait.'
'Was it really a misunderstanding?'
After hearing way too many stories like this, Kushina found herself feeling a chilling trace of doubt.
'Back then… perhaps… maybe… Minato didn't actually HAVE to die?'
After the Nine-Tails was extracted, she herself was doomed.
She only managed to keep going for a little while thanks to the Uzumaki clan's insane life force.
But Minato was different.
If not for using the Reaper Death Seal, he absolutely could have survived!
And as for the Reaper Death Seal—couldn't she, the one who was dying anyway, have just used it instead?!
If things had gone that way, Naruto would at least have grown up with a father.
He could have lived as the son of the Hokage, the son of a damn hero!
It should have been a beautiful fantasy.
But after hearing this whole Rasa-and-Gaara horror story from the Sunagakure trio, that fantasy completely shattered.
'If Minato had been widowed and raised Naruto alone, wouldn't that have been exactly like Rasa living alone with Gaara after Karura's death?!'
Even worse, Naruto inherited her verbal tic!
She said "dattebane," and Naruto said "dattebayo."
In Kushina's traumatized mind, an image appeared—Minato gently patting Naruto's head and spoke with a warm, creepy smile, "Naruto, you're becoming more and more like your mother."
Naruto was already living alone and had started developing odd tendencies.
Just now he even went and mixed freaking medicated oil into his food!
If things turned out like Gaara's case, then… Gaara at least knew how to hate and resist.
But Naruto was such a good boy that he might have really tried to fulfill that sick so-called "filial duty"!
What? You're saying Naruto didn't even have the same hair color as her?
So what?! Gaara didn't have the same hair color as Karura either!
Karura had blond hair.
If you were going strictly by physical appearance, then Temari with her hair down should have looked more like her, so why would red-haired Gaara be the one said to resemble her?
Clearly, that sort of resemblance wasn't just about looks.
Maybe it was something more abstract—like chakra!
And Naruto became the Nine-Tails' jinchūriki too, so in terms of chakra, Minato would definitely have found him overly familiar!
Thinking that far, Kushina suddenly remembered the Minato and Menma from the Limited Tsukuyomi world.
Those two were both totally obsessed with the Nine-Tails in their own warped, messed-up way.
Menma could at least interact with the Nine-Tails inside the mental space—but Minato? If Minato wanted the Nine-Tails, then Menma would have had to transform first!
That thought alone was downright horrifying.
Thankfully, in that crazy world, both of them got dealt with in time by Makoto and Uchiha Hikari.
Otherwise, some things wouldn't have remained mere imagination—they might actually have happened right in front of everyone!
"So," Kushina said after the cursed storytelling finally ended, "you young people are quick thinkers and full of ideas. Can you help this big sister figure out how to make Naruto realize he's not in a damn genjutsu world anymore?"
The group thought it over for a long time, but no particularly useful method emerged.
In the end, they could only offer one highly blunt solution.
"I think… if you beat him until he's almost dead, he'll probably realize it."
"..."
"Well… that might actually work," Kushina said at last. "I'll give it a try. Rin, let's go."
She tacitly accepted the brutal suggestion and stood up to leave.
"Um, wait a sec." Maki called out awkwardly and pulled a small notebook from her clothes. "Could you sign this? Just to prove the three of us assisted you."
"Huh? What's this?" Kushina asked, utterly baffled.
"It's one of Amegakure's 'benefit programs' for ninja from other villages," Rin explained, since she actually knew about it.
"You can accumulate contribution points and exchange them for things. For example, you might get Orochimaru to use Edo Tensei so you can see a deceased relative one more time."
"There's a system like that?!" Kushina was completely dumbfounded. "Then what about us?"
"We count as planned Edo Tensei targets," Rin said with a shrug. "So we don't need it."
"I see." Kushina signed the notebook they handed over.
As for who those girls might someday want to summon or revive, that had nothing to do with her.
In the bloody ninja world, whose family hadn't lost someone? It was hardly unusual.