Kurama stared at the green sprout in Naruto's hand, and for a long moment even the Nine-Tails forgot to breathe. The tiny thing swayed with a rhythm that was unmistakably alive, its tender leaves bright with a vitality no illusion could imitate. This was not some crude imitation formed from raw chakra. It was Wood Release, real and undeniable.
Had Naruto really recreated the First Hokage's legendary technique with his own hands?
But that conclusion could not be simplified into some absurd statement like, 'Wood Release is easy to learn.' Naruto's success during a single vacation sounded simple only because the final result was visible while the brutal process behind it remained hidden. In truth, this breakthrough had only become possible because several nearly impossible conditions had lined up at once, and not one of them could have been missing.
First of all, Naruto himself was special. Just like Hashirama Senju, he carried Ashura's chakra. He was the reincarnation of the Sage of Six Paths' younger son, the first man in shinobi history known to have awakened and used Wood Release—unless one counted the Sage himself, who might also have possessed it. Naruto and Hashirama were also connected by blood, Uzumaki and Senju sharing the same ancient root. That link, born from a lineage stretching back a thousand years, gave Naruto not just the right chakra traits, but a deeper affinity tied to life itself.
Second, Kurama's role had been indispensable. Every time Naruto's experiments went wrong and the fusion of chakra destabilized, the backlash struck his meridians like a storm. When the proportions tipped too far, when the energy grew violent and threatened to tear through him from the inside, Kurama would immediately act. The Nine-Tails used its immense, pure chakra as a shield, a filter, even a devouring force, dispersing the failed byproducts before they could do permanent damage.
Without Kurama serving as the ultimate safety valve, Naruto likely would have crippled himself in the very first stage of his experimentation. At best, he would have ended up bedridden. At worst, his chakra network would have been damaged beyond repair.
And finally—most importantly—there was Naruto's way of thinking. He had never chained himself to the conventional belief that Wood Release was simply a fusion of earth and water. From the moment he began investigating it, he treated Wood Release as something closer to a Kekkei Tota, a higher-order fusion involving earth, water, and yang nature chakra. That difference in understanding changed everything.
Because of that premise, his methods had been different from the start. His direction of experimentation, the ratios he tested, even the result he envisioned—none of them followed the normal logic used for bloodline limits. Rather than waste years trapped at the impossible bottleneck of forcing water and earth to merge cleanly on their own, he had skipped straight toward the more complex but more correct path: a three-way balance that let life itself emerge from the fusion.
That was why his success could not be copied by ordinary shinobi. Even if someone else knew the theory, they would still lack his bloodline, his instincts, and the monster sealed inside him who could keep him from dying while he learned through failure.
After that first success, Naruto's consciousness slipped naturally into the sealed space. He didn't need to say a word. He simply lifted his palm and let Kurama see it—the tiny green shoot trembling there, carrying a soft, living pulse that even the darkness of the cage could not swallow.
Behind the bars, Kurama had already forced down the first shock that had surged through him. Even so, the look in the beast's scarlet eyes had changed. Naruto had entered with the unmistakable air of someone coming to show off, but Kurama did not snap at him, nor did he offer a mocking growl. Instead, the giant fox slowly lowered its head and gazed at that insignificant little sprout as though it were witnessing a miracle too small and too real to deny.
Then the corner of his mouth lifted. It was only the faintest curve, but on that ferocious face, framed by rows of sharp teeth, it looked almost outrageous. Naruto grinned back at once, bright and smug and openly triumphant.
At that moment, the boy and the fox understood each other without needing to speak. The sprout in Naruto's hand was the result of their shared effort, their repeated failures, their mutual stubbornness. It represented not only a first success, but the tacit faith that much greater possibilities still lay ahead.
A good beginning was half the battle. This tiny shoot, no thicker than a thread and trembling in Naruto's palm, felt like a prophecy made visible. They both understood that this was only the first step. The road ahead was still long. The control required would only become more intricate. What Naruto had achieved today was not mastery, merely entry.
But a towering tree began as a tender sprout. One day, this first trace of living green would grow into something far greater. Someday, that power would not stop at a twig or a branch. It would become forests. It would become an overwhelming force capable of rewriting the flow of battle itself.
"So the brat was right after all…"
Kurama's low voice rolled slowly through the sealed space, deep and resonant, carrying a trace of disbelief that even he could not completely hide. But beneath that disbelief was something else as well—something very close to awe. He had watched Naruto take that absurd, shocking theory and force it into reality with his own two hands. He had watched him create life from nothing in a shockingly short period of time.
"He actually reached the threshold of Wood Release this quickly."
That fact was stronger than any argument. Kurama let out a long breath and slowly sank back down onto the cold water below the cage, folding his enormous body into a resting posture. His huge head came to rest on his forelegs. Though he tried to maintain the pride and dignity befitting the strongest of the tailed beasts, the slight upward twitch at the corner of his mouth betrayed him completely.
Maybe… maybe this kid really was the child from the old man's prophecy.
The thought rose in him quietly, and once it did, it spread like warmth through a heart that had been dry and frozen for far too long. A thousand years was an unbearably long time. In all those centuries, Kurama had been feared, used, fought over, hated, and sealed away. He had watched generations of humans rise and fall. He had seen shinobi wars consume everything in their path. Little by little, in endless loneliness and resentment, he had grown numb.
Until now.
Somewhere along the span of that endless imprisonment, he had finally found what the Sage of Six Paths had once spoken of before fading from the world: the child who would one day bring change to the ninja world, the child who might guide it toward true peace. For a thousand years he and the other tailed beasts had waited without knowing whether the prophecy was real, without knowing whether such a person would ever come. And now, for the first time, Kurama felt as though he could see a dim but genuine glimmer of that future.
Maybe… maybe I really could entrust my chakra to that brat Naruto someday.
The instant that thought flashed through his mind, Kurama jerked his head violently as if trying to fling the notion away by force. His tails lashed once behind him. He instantly began shouting at himself inside his own head.
That didn't mean he approved of the brat. Absolutely not. It definitely wasn't because Naruto's success pleased him.
No, it was just that the kid was still young. His body was still growing. Forcing himself to use something on the level of Wood Release would place an enormous burden on him and burn through his chakra at a terrifying rate. That was all. Pure practicality.
Yes. That was the reason.
If the brat really exhausted himself to death, then Kurama would be dragged down with him, wouldn't he? So naturally he had to pay attention. Naturally he had to make sure Naruto didn't overdo it. This was self-preservation, nothing more. It had absolutely nothing to do with concern.
As Kurama continued repeating this logic to himself, trying to hammer it into something ironclad, he very conveniently forgot one tiny detail. Over the past stretch of experiments, whenever Naruto had asked for chakra to keep trying again, Kurama had grumbled, cursed, and sneered—but in the end, he had almost always given it to him. Not once had he truly refused.
What kind of future will the appearance of the prophesied child bring to this world?
Kurama lifted his gaze slightly, as though looking through the darkness of the seal and beyond it, past the village and the sky and the barrier between life and death. Old man… from the Pure Land, you'd better watch over Naruto properly.