Naruto: Naruto's Uchiha girlfriend is too arrogant

Chapter 548 Straightforward Hate and Love

Satsuki listened quietly to Sasuke's story.

Those bitter, heartbreaking, and fragmented words slowly reopened the boy's already scabbed wounds.

He recounted the events of that day—just an ordinary day, a day when he went to school as usual, thinking about having his mother cook dinner and his brother practice shuriken throwing when he got home in the evening.

Then they returned to their ancestral land and found that there was no one alive left.

Returning to his familiar home, he saw his parents' bodies lying in a pool of blood. Then he learned that the murderer was his own brother.

Zuo Yue's eyes had turned cold during that part of her narration.

But what she cared about most was what came next.

Sasuke said that he was tormented by Itachi Uchiha's genjutsu. In that genjutsu-constructed world, he watched his parents die over and over again, countless times.

Again and again, unable to escape, unable to wake up, I could only watch those scenes replay before my eyes.

It's Tsukuyomi, right?

Satsuki knows that technique.

She also knew what the night of genocide in her world was like.

That night, it was Naruto's intervention that prevented her from suffering such torment.

As she listened to young Sasuke recount the details, looking into his empty and pained eyes, Satsuki's gaze grew increasingly cold. That coldness wasn't aloofness, but rather an emotion about to erupt.

"You don't know what to do right now, do you?"

Zuo Yue spoke, her voice much calmer than before, "I don't know if I should seek revenge against Uchiha Itachi, nor do I know if I should forgive him?"

Sasuke looked up at her and then slowly nodded.

Then, Zuoyue spoke without hesitation.

"If it were me, I wouldn't give up on revenge."

"I will kill Uchiha Itachi and make him pay for what he has done."

"And before he dies, I will tell him—I have merely walked the path he ordained, and a place is meaningless if no one cares about it."

"...What?"

Sasuke was a little confused.

He hadn't expected Zuo Yue's answer to be so... direct.

He expected to hear a bunch of motivational platitudes. Things like "You have to decide your own path," "Revenge can't fill the void in your heart," and "Letting go of hatred is the only way to gain true power"—those grand principles.

But what Satsuki said was completely different.

"But...Itachi...in the end, he did it to protect..."

Sasuke tried to speak with difficulty, attempting to say something.

"So this is the reason why he could so easily turn the knife on others?"

Satsuki interrupted him without hesitation.

"To protect yourself, you kill everyone you care about? And then tell you, 'It's for your own good'?"

She looked directly into Sasuke's eyes. "Listen carefully."

"If right now, someone, under the guise of 'for your own good,' were to kill all the people who are important to you—"

"Kill the companions and friends who follow you around all day, kill the guys who stayed by your side during your darkest times—"

"Then he stands in front of you and says, 'I had to kill them to protect you—'"

"Will you forgive him?"

Sasuke's lips trembled slightly, but he couldn't say anything.

"Do you consider that a 'necessary sacrifice'?"

Satsuki continued speaking, each word piercing deep into the places in Sasuke's heart that he dared not touch.

"Would you be grateful to him for 'protecting' you, leaving you all alone in this world?"

"Were those who were killed guilty?"

"What did they do wrong? They just care about you, they're dragged into this because of your existence—and you're telling me that's forgivable?"

Her voice carried an angry questioning tone, an anger not born of hatred, but of an inability to accept such absurd logic.

"To portray murder as protection, to glorify massacre as sacrifice, to treat all lives as disposable bargaining chips—all because he has a 'great' reason?"

"Don't be silly."

"Itachi Uchiha made his choice."

"He chose to kill everyone, chose to let you live, and chose to bear everything alone. That was his choice."

"But you are not obligated to accept it."

Her gaze was fixed on young Sasuke, on this younger version of herself from another world.

"You can hate him."

"You can kill him."

"You can let him know how foolish, arrogant, and presumptuous his 'protection' decision is."

"You don't have to hate him."

"You can let him live too."

"You can also choose another path."

"But whatever you choose—don't fool yourself with the idea that 'he's doing this for your own good.'"

"Because true protection is standing beside you, not standing opposite you."

True love gives you the right to choose, rather than deciding everything for you.

"Did you understand?"

This is Zuo Yue's answer.

Straightforward and passionate, she couldn't condone this behavior from the bottom of her heart—killing the most important person in one's life for one's own good? What kind of logic is that?

She tried to mentally rehearse what would happen. If that day, if there really was a situation where killing Naruto was the only way for her to live, and Itachi Uchiha actually did that... would she do it?

Naruto knew the answer perfectly well—If killing him could guarantee Sasuke's safety, Itachi would do it. After all, in that person's heart, the safety of his younger sister or brother was above the safety of the village.

Satsuki didn't think about it anymore.

She dared not think about it anymore.

Because that scene was too cruel. In Zuo Yue's imagination, after killing Uchiha Itachi, who killed Naruto, she discovered that her inner collapse would not be healed.

And then what she would do next... she felt it would be terrifying, so terrifying that she dared not continue thinking about it.

Forget it.

She banished those terrifying images from her mind. After all, that hadn't happened yet, so she shouldn't scare herself unnecessarily.

Sasuke lowered his head, staring at the ground, seemingly looking at something.

Is this the answer...?

Yes.

What right does he have to forgive Itachi Uchiha on behalf of those who died in the clan? You have to remember that on that day, Itachi Uchiha didn't even spare the babies.

Those children who know nothing, those lives that died before they could even see the world clearly—why should they be "sacrificed"?

This protection... is just too heavy a burden.

It was so heavy that he couldn't breathe.

"The art of rebirth in the Pure Land."

Suddenly, a voice rang out, breaking the silence of the Valley of the End.

Naruto was surprised to find that his future self's one eye had suddenly changed color, becoming a strange black with gold pupils, looking mysterious and eerie.

With the power of his [Star Eye], Naruto accomplished two things in an instant—he found the Pure Land of this world, and he also found the Grim Reaper of this world.

Then, the connection is established.

The next moment, a huge head suddenly emerged from the ground!

The head was enormous, with a ferocious face and a gaping maw full of fangs. It emerged from the ground, startling both Naruto and Sasuke, who were still immersed in grief!

"What, what is this?!"

Naruto cried out in surprise and instinctively took a step back.

This is Yama, the King of Hell, the being in the Pure Land who can control souls.

The King of Hell slowly chewed something, its mouth opening and closing with a teeth-grinding sound. It was using the special chakra that Naruto had just passed on to it to create something.

After all, a soul already exists, but without a physical body, a person cannot exist in this world.

Sasuke looked up, his tear-streaked eyes filled with confusion and panic. He didn't know what this was, what this monster wanted to do, or what would happen next.

Yama continued chewing.

Then, it opened its enormous mouth.

The tongue is sticking out.

Several things were curled up on the tongue and gently placed on the ground, their clear outlines revealed in the sunlight.

That's a person.

It consists of the bodies of four people.

They lay there quietly with their eyes closed, as if asleep, their faces showing no pain, only a peaceful tranquility.

Naruto looked at the four human figures that had suddenly appeared on the ground, puzzled.

Who are these people? He only recognized one of them somewhat; the others were completely unfamiliar to him.

Sasuke's body froze completely in that instant.

He could hardly believe his eyes; his pupils contracted violently, and he felt as if he had been struck by lightning, completely unable to move.

The four people on the ground—are Minato Namikaze, Kushina Uzumaki, Fugaku Uchiha, and Mikoto Uchiha—representing this world.

Their souls, having just been awakened from the Pure Land, were now in a state of slumber as they returned to this world.

For Naruto, doing these things was just a matter of a thought.