Dim prison space—
At this moment Aoba was carving the Reanimation Jutsu's formation into the ground.
The others at the scene stood a little distance away, their gazes fixed on him, waiting for him to finish.
"In less than a week he learned such a forbidden technique, Aoba really does have an astonishing talent."
Jiraiya watched the scene and sighed sincerely.
Kakashi and the others all nodded in agreement.
"Of course, didn't you see whose disciple he is?"
Tsunade said with full pride. Although she knew Aoba's talent had little to do with her, it still meant her eye for talent was pretty good.
"Sensei, you may begin."
After Aoba finished arranging everything, he said to Tsunade.
"Mm."
Tsunade nodded, then took out a scroll and spread it on the ground, on which the "human" seal formation was printed.
After making a few simple hand seals, she pressed the scroll to the ground.
Bang! Bang!
A swirl of white smoke rose, and two figures tightly wrapped in bandages appeared out of thin air on the ground.
These were two death-row prisoners Tsunade had brought from the Land of Fire, and they were still alive.
After all, Konoha was a ninja village; death-row inmates were few.
Usually enemy-village shinobi or spies, once interrogated for information, were either killed outright or exchanged in negotiations, rarely kept alive. Villagers rarely committed crimes punishable by death; the few death-row criminals that did exist had already been dealt with by Aoba yesterday.
If the village had so many death-row inmates to use, Orochimaru wouldn't have deserted.
Tsunade then took out two test tubes containing some tissue samples, "These contain some body tissues of Kushina and Rin Nohara. That should be enough, right?"
"Enough."
Aoba nodded slightly and took the test tubes.
They undid the bandages from the two bodies and placed them into the two circle areas of the ground formation. The two appeared to still be unconscious.
"Edo Tensei!"
Aoba formed the hand seals quickly with both hands and pressed down on the ground.
The two bodies within the reanimation array lit up instantly, then were wrapped and unwrapped in endless thin sheets of white reanimated earth, and two complete human figures emerged.
One was a woman in a dark green dress with long red hair—though now a reanimated body, her striking looks were still visible.
The other was a short-haired, cute girl in a shinobi vest with two adhesive bandages on her face.
When everyone saw the two, memories long buried welled up in their minds.
Naruto had already lost himself. He had imagined meeting his mother countless nights, and today he finally met her.
"It seems to have worked."
Aoba stood up. Compared with those lost in memories, he took a quick measure of the two's current state.
The two blinked, looked around left and right, and surveyed their surroundings.
They were stunned for a moment, then Kushina came to senses first, "So this is the Pure Land? Why does it feel so dark?"
Kushina only remembered using the sealing to restrain the Nine-Tails, but in the end she and Minato had still died under the Nine-Tails' attack. In the shinobi world, there's a saying that the dead enter the Pure Land.
But she quickly saw a few familiar faces.
"Jiraiya-sama? Tsunade-nee? Mikoto?"
"How is this possible?", Kushina looked bewildered, unable to make sense of the situation.
"Why are you here in the Pure Land too?"
Her eyes scanned the crowd, there seemed to be many acquaintances, and one uncle who looked very familiar. But when she saw Naruto, her gaze immediately stopped.
"You…", Kushina opened her mouth in a daze. For some reason, an indescribable sense of familiarity and closeness welled up inside her.
"What's your name?"
Naruto bit his lip tightly, his eyes already red, "Naruto…"
"My name is Uzumaki Naruto!", Naruto stood motionless in front of Kakashi and Jiraiya, simply staring at her.
Kushina couldn't help stepping forward, then rushed to Naruto and looked at that familiar face, the answer had already appeared in her heart.
She reached out instinctively to hug him, but seeing Naruto's aggrieved yet stubborn expression, she paused halfway and instead gently placed her hand on his shoulder.
"Naruto…"
"You are Uzumaki Naruto, Naruto, are you my child?", Kushina's tone was questioning but filled with certainty; she too couldn't hold back tears.
Naruto finally couldn't contain himself and threw himself into Kushina's arms.
His shoulders twitched; at first there were only small sobs.
But with Kushina gently patting his back, those sobs grew into full wails, as if he wanted to vent all the grievances he had held for so many years.
Naruto's face was wet with tears, "Why-why did you leave me alone? Why did you seal the Nine-Tails into my body? Do you know how much I missed you?"
He asked, choked with grievance.
Although he had Aoba, Sasuke, and many friends who helped him forget much of his childhood pain, those memories still lay deep inside him. He often wondered whether things would have been different if his parents had been by his side. At the moment of seeing his parents, joy came, but so did a flood of grievance.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
Kushina could only hold Naruto and apologize over and over. As a reanimated body, she couldn't even shed real tears.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said those things."
After crying for a while, Naruto also apologized to Kushina, wiping his eyes, "You are the heroes who saved the village. I should be proud of you, for I am the child of heroes."
Naruto's understanding words made Kushina feel even more guilty, and she couldn't help but harbor some resentment toward Minato.
She had wanted to take the Nine-Tails and die together while leaving Minato to care for Naruto, but Minato had wanted to keep the Nine-Tails in Konoha and so sealed it into Naruto's body. Seeing Naruto cry like this, she knew he had suffered a lot as a child.
Because she had been a Nine-Tails jinchuriki, she understood those feelings well. Once she became a jinchuriki, her movements had been strictly restricted; someone was always watching her. Third Hokage and those others treated her as if she were a dangerous person.
Kushina hugged Naruto tightly and gently said, "It's okay, Naruto, you can cry as much as you want, because the only places in the world you can really cry are the toilet and your mother's arms."
"Sorry, Naruto. Now that your mother is here, you can cry out loud."
Naruto began to cry again.
At this moment no one interrupted; everyone quietly watched this long-awaited reunion unfold, their feelings complicated.