NABC Chapter 398 The Harm of the Truth
Chapter 398 The Harm of the Truth
"...What?"
Uchiha Satsuki froze in mid-air, as if he hadn't heard clearly, or perhaps he couldn't believe it. "What...did you just say?"
Naruto raised his head, and his blue eyes, which were always filled with sunlight, now shone with a complex light, serious and stubborn.
"The [Ember] organization... was founded by me." He repeated it again, his voice clear.
"I am 'Menma'."
The [Ember] organization... what was that again?
Satsuki's thoughts were abruptly pulled from their sweet, tender reverie, plunging into a blank, bewildered void. This organization... to her, had always been just a few syllables from distant rumors, never truly intersecting with her life.
No, that's not right. She actually did have contact with it—in the Land of Waves. It's just that Naruto covered her eyes back then, so she could only hear sounds most of the time.
Earlier... this organization had attacked Konoha, causing quite a commotion, yet strangely, they didn't kill anyone. But back then...
"Naruto, Naruto, don't joke like that." Satsuki's smile was somewhat forced, and his voice became dry. "This kind of joke... isn't funny at all."
How old was Naruto when King attacked Konoha? A child, how could he possibly—
"I'm not kidding!"
Naruto suddenly stood up from the sofa, his movements unusually flustered. It was as if he no longer wanted to be burdened by the secret, and was afraid that he would lose the courage to confess at any moment.
"I don't want to hide it from Satsuki anymore... Oh, look at this!"
Under Zuo Yue's stunned gaze, he swiftly formed several hand seals—
"Blue, White, Vermilion, Black, Void, South, North, Three Jade".
The moment the deep chanting ended.
"roar--!!"
A deep roar echoed from the void, and nine enormous beast figures of different shapes, exuding an aura of ominousness and majesty, slowly emerged, their ferocious outlines almost filling the living room space.
They intended to display their power, but upon appearing, they realized there were no enemies around their master. They froze in place, bewildered, only letting out confused gurgling sounds from their throats.
"..."
Satsuki completely lost her ability to speak.
Nine-Faced Beast. She had heard those rumors—a summoning beast from hell, a demonic minion symbolizing misfortune, an incarnation of destruction lurking in the shadows… Those descriptions were now presented to her in the most concrete form, yet it stood docilely and somewhat blankly beside Naruto.
Immediately afterwards, she saw Naruto's figure sway slightly, the color of his coat darkening, and a jet-black robe covering his body, revealing a fox mask on his face—cold, eerie, and completely out of place with the face she knew so well, yet strangely familiar.
"So...the person who finished the cleanup work in the Land of Waves that day..." Satsuki's voice was soft, as if confirming something, "was it Naruto?"
"Hmm." Naruto quickly deactivated his transformation. His mask and black robe vanished like smoke, and he returned to being the disheveled blond boy in his pajamas, his eyes filled with a cautious plea.
"I'll explain everything slowly and clearly... so please... please don't hate me because of this..."
Zuo Yue looked at his frightened appearance—a vulnerable yet honest look that he showed because of her.
"...Gulp."
She unconsciously swallowed.
To be honest, she hadn't fully processed the shocking truth yet, but a certain untimely, burning emotion quietly surged up from the bottom of her heart—Naruto panicked because he cared about her opinion, and confessed because he was afraid of losing her… This realization that he cared about her to the extreme made her feel a secret excitement amidst the chaos… until Satsuki remembered that one thing.
The nine-faced beasts slowly disappeared. They were evidence that appeared to "prove" something, and once their mission was complete, they returned to silence.
The two of them were left alone in the living room again.
"I see..." Zuo Yue murmured, her thoughts gradually becoming clearer. "No wonder that organization used the Flying Thunder God Technique..."
She chose to believe this reality—despite its still intense sense of unreality. To her, the [Ember] organization remained a symbol of distant legends; most of what they had done was hearsay.
Even on the day of the Konoha Collapse Plan, [Jin] supported Konoha. As a result, Konoha no longer publicizes [Jin's] "infamy," but only Kumogakure still exaggerates the organization's terror.
The person she loved was none other than the legendary, mysterious, and feared "Menma".
Satsuki slowly sat back on the sofa. She looked up at Naruto, who was still standing there like a prisoner awaiting trial.
"I won't ask you why you did that..."
Naruto looked up in surprise, but Satsuki's gaze remained unwavering, her dark eyes holding a deep, stillness. Her voice was calm, so calm that it made Naruto uneasy.
"I only care about one thing... the day the Uchiha clan was wiped out..."
Are you asking me why I didn't stop Itachi? Are you questioning whether I knew about the annihilation of the Uchiha clan?! Are you questioning why I didn't save the Uchiha clan?!
Naruto's Adam's apple bobbed as he rapidly organized his thoughts. He wanted to tell her the truth, to tell her that the Uchiha clan hadn't truly been wiped out, to slowly explain everything behind it all…
"When Itachi Uchiha stabbed you... were you confident... you'd survive unharmed?"
"...Huh?"
Naruto was stunned. It wasn't about the Uchiha clan, it wasn't about the clan, it wasn't even about her own tragedy.
She was asking about that day—the moment the blade pierced his chest.
"I understand." Before he could answer, Zuo Yue continued softly, her voice trembling slightly. "Back then, you wanted me to awaken my Sharingan, right? That's why you didn't dodge, and you didn't fight back with all your might… Tell me, it wasn't an adventure, you were 100% certain you'd survive unscathed, right?"
"You...aren't you going to ask about the Uchiha clan?" Naruto blurted out.
"That kind of thing doesn't matter."
Satsuki's answer was too quick, too soft, as light as a feather, yet it landed heavily on Naruto's heart. Even though it was a question, every word she spoke was still tightly tied to his safety.
Should he be moved? But at the same time, an indescribable bitterness welled up inside him—she had shown such indifference to the life and death of so many of her people.
But that wasn't indifference.
When love grows tender roots amidst extreme pain, it clings to Zuo Yue's soul, becoming her sole obsession. Her world had already been cleaved in two by the sword light of that day; one half was bloodstained, and the other half was him.
"I... I guess so..." Naruto's voice was a little hoarse.
"I guess so... What do you mean?" Satsuki repeated, her pupils slightly contracting. "I see... So back then, Itachi really wanted to kill you. You weren't entirely sure, were you?"
The temperature in the air plummeted. The ambiguous atmosphere vanished completely, and Satsuki's gaze made Naruto's chest tighten.
Zuo Yue suddenly raised her hand and pressed it to her chest. The deepest shadow in her life was never the blood and fire of the night of the massacre, but the sword in Itachi Uchiha's hand that had pierced Naruto's body.
At that moment, even though she was not injured, she felt as if her body was being torn apart from the inside out—and then, blood stained her eyes.
Naruto wanted to say that of course he could survive, that he never did anything he wasn't sure of... but Satsuki asked "completely unharmed".
Faced with Itachi Uchiha in that state, that mentally ill man... who dares to say 100%?
Naruto opened his mouth, but ultimately couldn't utter a lie.
Then, he heard Zuo Yue's voice, very soft, like a gentle blade. "I... forgive you."
"...Huh?"
Naruto was completely stunned. He thought he would be met with anger, questioning, or a long cold war, but he never expected to hear this.
He looked up—
What he saw made his heart clench painfully.
The truth is a double-edged sword.
Satsuki tried hard to keep her expression calm, but her eyes were already red. She bit her lower lip hard, but tears still rolled down her cheeks uncontrollably.
She quickly raised her hand to wipe away the tears, feeling a sense of disgust at her own weakness, but the more she wiped, the more tears flowed, leaving wet, glistening marks on her pale skin.
She turned her head away, not wanting him to see her disheveled state, but her trembling shoulders and drooping eyelashes betrayed everything—a burning vulnerability that she was desperately suppressing but still managed to burst forth.
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(The author won't write any melodramatic or misunderstanding-filled plots! Don't worry! Things will be explained clearly!)