Naruto : Konoha Light

Two months after that gathering, at Kushina's home.

"Ambush him, listen to me! That sign is mine!"

"Because I listened to you last time, I don't even know how much I've lost already!"

Hearing the other party's disdainful voice, the fox inside the sealed space grew anxious. "I've lived for over a thousand years! What haven't I seen? How could I possibly deceive you?"

Kushina could only shake her head helplessly. "I didn't say you were lying… but, your skill is really terrible."

"Terrible?" The word echoed in the fox's mind, making it momentarily silent.

Outside World

Suddenly, the blood-red chakra tendrils around Kushina shrank back. Minato, watching from the side, grew concerned. "Kushina, you're not… scolding Kurama, are you? It is, after all, a being of pure malice and hatred. If you—"

Before he could finish, a red tail suddenly shot up from behind Kushina, wildly twisting in the air. One part pointed at Minato, another aimed at the Hokage Rock, as if extremely excited.

Minato stared blankly at the tail for a long time before awkwardly asking, "Kushina… what's it saying?"

With an odd expression, Kushina translated, "Kurama says… it's not a manifestation of hatred and malice. It's just that humans fear its strength and force that reputation onto it. In reality, when it fought against other beasts, it deliberately avoided human settlements."

"It also said the thing it hates most is being attacked out of nowhere by Hashirama and Madara. It was just resting at home peacefully when it got captured into a battle. And as if that wasn't bad enough, one of them even put a blue armor over it and rode it into battle, making it take a solid punch!"

"And finally, Mito-sama sealed it away, saying that since no one could balance Kurama's power anymore, it was better to imprison it forever rather than risk it seeking revenge on humanity."

Minato felt a cold sweat forming. This… actually sounded kind of pitiful?

It got ambushed, captured, forced into battle as a mount, punched, and then permanently imprisoned for something it didn't even do?

Even he wouldn't be able to stand such injustice!

At the end of her explanation, Kushina seemed a little awkward. She poked her cheek with her index finger and tried to compromise, "Alright, don't be mad. How about this—out of ten rounds, I'll listen to you five times?"

Immediately, the chakra around the tail flared up, and then nine small tails split off from the tip, floating in the air.

Minato nearly had a heart attack. Seeing Kurama's reaction, he almost thought it had broken the seal in rage!

But Kushina firmly shook her head. "No. At most, six times."

Hearing that, one of the small tails hesitated and shrank back, while the remaining ones flailed wildly, showing its strong stance.

However, Kushina didn't back down this time. She slammed her hand on the table and yelled, "Listen here! I lost money because of you! If you have money, I'll listen to you all ten times!"

At that moment, one of the tails suddenly puffed up its chakra, making Minato tense. Just as he prepared to grab Kushina and escape, he noticed something strange—the tail didn't attack.

Instead, it hovered above Kushina's head… and gently swayed.

It was… fanning her?

Minato stood there, dumbfounded. The supposedly fearsome tailed beast, the one feared as a living disaster, was actually trying to please Kushina over a gambling debt?

No one would believe this if they heard it!

Off to the side, Shimizu, who had been watching the show, suddenly spoke up. "Kushina-neesan, Kurama's tails could probably simulate the Tailed Beast Bomb, right? Maybe it can help us understand the structure of the Rasengan better? Since I asked, could you give it one more chance?"

The Rasengan, in the original timeline, was inspired by the Tailed Beast Bomb.

So, using his silver tongue and a bit of persuasion, Shimizu successfully tricked the giant orange fox into helping.

Hearing Shimizu's request, Kushina thought for a moment before nodding. Then, with a sigh, she mumbled, "Other people raise dogs to guard their homes… I raise a fox to pay off my gambling debts."

Of course, she was only joking—after all, she didn't actually own the house, she only had the right to live there.

Kurama, on the other hand, didn't seem to mind her teasing. Instead, it stretched out a tail and patted Shimizu on the shoulder, as if to say, Well said, young man!

At that moment, Shimizu asked thoughtfully, "Kushina-neesan, can you ask Kurama something? Why does it go out of its way to avoid human settlements? Normally, as long as it doesn't actively attack humans, that should already be enough to be considered friendly."

Kushina paused. That's true. Avoiding humans completely seemed too friendly.

Is this fox lying to me?

But before she could dwell on it, Kurama responded. "It said… this was a promise it made to some old man. But if you ask who that old man was, it refuse to say."

Shimizu's eyes narrowed slightly, deep in thought. "Could it be that Kurama doesn't know the current situation of the Sage of Six Paths? Has Hagoromo's chakra not appeared in millennia?"

Kurama should have the most sensitive chakra perception. If something had changed, it should have noticed!

Seeing Minato and Shimizu fall silent, Kushina hesitated before speaking up for Kurama. "Even though it won't say who that old man was, I don't think it's lying."

Minato nodded slightly. He hadn't really considered this before.

Like Shimizu once said—growth comes from experience, not just from time.

Kurama had lived for over a thousand years, but it had almost no social interactions. Its entire existence had been nothing but sleeping, fighting… and more recently, taking beatings while imprisoned.

In this case, could anyone really say Kurama had some deep, cunning plan?

After seeing how it acted today, Minato was more convinced than ever.

Kurama is actually just a big, innocent, and kind of dumb fox!

Just then, the card game was interrupted when Kurama, now being called "Kurama-chan," impatiently waved its tail.

Kushina sighed and rubbed her temples. "Kurama says, shuffle the deck faster! No one's leaving tonight until we finish this game, or it'll destroy the world!"

Shimizu laughed. "So… are we playing cards for world peace?"

Minato sighed in defeat. With this kind of fox around… how was he supposed to take Kushina on a date in the future?