Naruto returned to his tiny apartment with Hinata's oil-paper bundle clutched carefully in his hand.
It was the standard orphan unit Konoha provided—barely over ten square meters. Peeling walls. Drafty windows. A creaky wooden bed.
Yet to his twelve-year-old self, it had once been the safest place in the world.
He gently placed the cookies inside his small wooden cabinet and locked it.
First batch Hinata ever baked for me.
No way he was eating them all at once.
Just as he turned to boil water, his sensory perception caught a faint ripple of chakra outside—the old locust tree by the window.
Root.
Danzō's people.
Naruto let out a quiet scoff.
After fifty years as Hokage, he could identify their surveillance patterns blindfolded. A couple of flies in the dark weren't worth swatting.
He sat cross-legged on the bed, slowed his breathing, and let his consciousness sink along the familiar chakra pathways.
In less than a heartbeat—
He stood once more in the place he had lived in for a lifetime.
The Sealing Space.
The towering iron gates. The shallow reflective water. The dim, cavernous expanse.
And in the center—
The Nine-Tails.
Orange fur gleaming far brighter than it had in old age. Massive body coiled. Eyes closed—pretending to sleep.
But his nine tails swayed restlessly, thudding against the ground.
Naruto grinned.
"Quit faking it, old man. I know you're awake."
He flicked a pebble precisely at Kurama's ear.
Golden eyes snapped open.
"What did you just call me, brat?!" Kurama roared, tails flaring wide. "I've lived a thousand years! I'm older than your ancestors' ancestors! And who said you could just waltz in here like this?!"
Same temper.
Exactly the same.
Naruto laughed and sat down casually by the bars.
"Oh? Then who was it that shoved their last bit of chakra into me during the final battle? Who rasped 'I've walked this life with you—worth it'?"
Kurama's ears twitched.
His tails froze mid-air.
"That was—temporary insanity!" he barked. "If you hadn't been stupid enough to tank that annihilation blast, would I have ended up dragged back here too?! Back in this rusty cage?!"
He had been furious.
His chakra was exhausted. His existence is fading.
Then somehow—
He had been pulled backward with Naruto's soul into this twelve-year-old body.
Back behind Minato's seal.
Naruto leaned against the bars, voice softer now.
"Remember the first time I came here? I was six. Starving. You scared me with chakra just to stop me from passing out."
Kurama huffed.
"You were pathetic. Crying in alleys, getting stones thrown at you. If I hadn't secretly fed you chakra, you'd have died."
"Yeah," Naruto smiled faintly. "You gave me chakra to stand back up against Neji. Against Gaara. Against Pain. You fought with me when we nearly broke the seal."
He looked up.
"In the war, you handed me everything and said, 'Win. Then ten bowls of Ichiraku.'"
Kurama's tails slowly lowered.
"You called me a partner. Not a weapon. Not a monster."
Naruto chuckled.
"You complained when I buried myself in paperwork as Hokage. Laughed when Boruto vandalized the monument. Scolded me for missing Himawari's birthday."
His voice grew hoarse.
"When you started fading… I thought that was goodbye."
Kurama turned his head away.
"Idiot. I'm still here, aren't I?"
Silence settled between them.
A thousand-year-old beast.
A boy who carried sixty years of memory.
Bound together longer than most marriages.
Naruto's eyes shone bright.
"This time, it'll be different. We won't lose Jiraiya. Won't lose Neji. Won't let Itachi die alone. Won't miss birthdays. I'm fixing it all."
Kurama stared at him.
That stubborn, blazing light in his eyes hadn't dimmed—not even after a lifetime.
He clicked his tongue and extended a dense orb of brilliant Yang chakra through the bars.
"Big talk for a scrawny kid who can't even blow a leaf with Wind Style."
The chakra flowed into Naruto's body—warm, powerful, refined.
"But take it," Kurama muttered. "If you embarrass me by losing, I'll flatten you myself."
He flicked his tail casually.
"And next time you eat at Ichiraku, extra pork. I'm young again. Good digestion."
Naruto burst out laughing.
"And if those Root brats bother your future wife," Kurama added gruffly, "tell me. I'll swat them."
Naruto gripped the warm chakra, feeling strength bloom through his small body.
Full elemental affinity.
Decades of mastery.
Kurama at full vitality.
Recovery was only a matter of time.
When his consciousness returned, moonlight spilled through the cracked window.
The cookies in the cabinet seemed to radiate sweetness.
The Root presence was gone.
Konoha slept peacefully.
Naruto lay back on his narrow bed, grinning at the peeling ceiling.
They all thought he was still the lonely dead son.
They had no idea—
He carried sixty years of experience.
A battle-hardened soul.
A fiercely loyal partner.
And everyone he loved was alive again.
This time—
He would fix every regret.
Inside the seal, Kurama buried his face in his tails, ears faintly red.
Fine.
One more lifetime with this idiot doesn't sound so bad.