Kimiko is brushing her teeth and getting ready for bed when she hears the barely audible sound of sniffing. The sound is coming from Naruto's room. It is so faint that Kimiko would not be able to hear it if she did not have very, very good hearing. She can even hear Namiko, snoring away in Iruka sensei's room.
Kimiko wishes she had bunk beds so that she could invite friends over for sleepovers. But she won't even have her own room until the extension is finished and they can't build the extension until Grandma Kazama and Naruto have come to an agreement about the layout of the extension. Until then, Kimiko is stuck in the music room.
Kimiko hears Naruto sniffle again and decides to go and see what the matter is. Naruto never cries in secret. If Naruto is going to cry, he just does it, usually on Iruka-sensei's shoulder. Naruto has not said so, but Kimiko can tell that Naruto is jealous of Namiko getting to sleep in Iruka-sensei's room.
Kimiko yawns tiredly. What was she thinking about? It was important.
She hears Naruto sniffle again. Oh, that. Kimiko puts down her toothbrush, spits out the toothpaste and heads to Naruto's room. Kimiko knocks softly. "Naruto?" she whispers. No answer. Kimiko opens the door slightly and peers inside. She can't see anybody. Kimiko creeps a little further in and looks around the room. Naruto is not even in his room. Where did he go? Maybe he left while Kimiko was finishing in the bathroom. She didn't hear him, though.
Kimiko is about to leave when she sees something white on the floor. Curious, she picks it up. It is a torn photograph. The picture on the torn photograph is of a beautiful lady with long red hair. Kimiko can see parts of another person. There must be another piece somewhere. Kimiko searches the floor until she finds the piece, lying under the door. The second piece has a blonde man on it. Kimiko has a good look at the two pieces of the torn photo. The two people look like they might be Naruto's parents. Maybe he is upset because the photo got torn.
Kimiko decides to fix it. She takes the torn photo to Grandpa Arashi's study and finds his sellotape. Then she carefully lines up the two pieces and tapes them together. Kimiko is very careful to make sure the picture lines up properly. When she is finished, it is hard to tell if the photo was ever ripped. Proud of her handiwork, Kimiko heads back upstairs to see if Naruto is back in his room. He is not.
Kimiko leaves Naruto's room and searches the rest of the house. Namiko is sleeping in Iruka-sensei's room. Grandpa Arashi and Grandma Kazama are watching TV in the living room. Iruka sensei and Kimiko's Dad are not around - they are both at the Hokage tower reading the Sacred Scroll of Dave. They won't be back until late.
"Do you know where Naruto is?" Kimiko asks Grandpa Arashi and Grandma Kazama. "I can't find him."
"I thought he was upstairs, why do you ask?" replies Grandma Kazama.
"I thought I heard him crying," says Kimiko. "So I went to his room, but he wasn't there. I found this ripped in half on the floor though." She holds out the photo. "I stuck it back together. Is it his parents?"
Grandpa Arashi takes the photo. "Yes, it is," he says, frowning. He looks worried. "Where did he get this? When did he get this?"
"We need to find him," says Grandma Kazama. "There is no way Naruto would rip this photo." She stands and heads for the door. "I'm going to ask those guards to find him. They should be able to locate Naruto easily."
Grandpa Arashi gives the photo back to Kimiko. "Take this back to Naruto's room and then go to bed. We will find Naruto and find out what is wrong. You did well to tell us about this." He pats Kimiko's head and gets up. "I am going to help look for Naruto. I know several places he might hide."
Kimiko watches Grandpa Arashi and Grandma Kazama head outside. Then she runs back up the stairs to Naruto's room. Kimiko does not want to just leave the photo there. She wants to make sure Naruto finds it when he gets back. Kimiko had two friends in her mother's village, but she hardly ever saw them. Naruto is like Kimiko's big brother, and she wants to help him.
Kimiko climbs onto Naruto's bed and contemplates where to leave the photo. Before she even knows it, she is fast asleep on Naruto's bed.
Tsunade had fun at the Never-Ending Party, but she needs to get back to her patients. If Tsunade had known there was a wild party happening so close to the Leaf all the time, she would have come back a long time ago. Tsunade takes a shortcut so that she has plenty of time to get some sake and take a nap before going back to work. By 'nap' she of course means 'drunken sleep'.
Out of the corner of her eye, Tsunade sees something odd. She is not sure what it is from where she is, but she thinks it might be a person. Tsunade leaps off her Grandfather's great stone face and sneaks over to investigate. It is indeed a person that she saw.
It is Naruto, sitting with his knees tucked up under his chin. He is sobbing, completely unaware of Tsunade. Tsunade sits down beside Naruto. The sake can wait.
"Naruto," says Tsunade, softly, but firmly. "What are you crying about?"
Naruto looks up at Tsunade through a wall of tears. "Granny Tsunade…"
For once, Tsunade does not mind being called 'granny'.
"I ripped the photo…" Naruto mumbles, burying his face in his arms.
"What photo?" asks Tsunade patiently.
"The photo of my parents that I stole from Grandpa Third's house, 'tebayo," says Naruto.
Tsunade frowns. Photos can be stuck back together, so that is probably not the real reason Naruto is upset. "Why did you rip the photo?" Tsunade asks.
"I don't want it anymore," sobs Naruto. "Because they would have...not did…"
Tsunade takes a moment to figure out what Naruto is talking about. 'They' is probably Naruto's parents. But what does he mean by 'would have' and 'did'? "Naruto," says Tsunade sternly. "What did they not do that they would have done?"
"Nothing!" snaps Naruto. "GO AWAY!"
Annoyed, Tsunade hits Naruto over the head, making him grow a giant lump. As she pushes the lump back in, Tsunade says, "Answer my question Naruto."
"My parents didn't love me," says Naruto.
That is the last thing Tsunade expected Naruto to say. Doing her best not to hit Naruto for being such a moron, Tsunade says, "Why do you think that?"
"They sealed what they thought was a monster into me!" says Naruto, sobbing. "And everyone says they would have loved me and they would have been proud of me, but they didn't and they weren't."
"And how do you know that?" demands Tsunade. "You were a baby last time you saw them."
"No one ever says they did," mutters Naruto sulkily. "Just that they would have."
And there it is. Tsunade sighs. This is all just one big misunderstanding. Tsunade puts her arm around Naruto. "Just over 13 years ago I got a letter from my cousin," says Tsunade. "She spent the entire letter gushing over the fact she was going to have a baby, and it would be a boy. She told me that she and her husband were going to name him Naruto, and they both love him so much already." Tsunade takes the letter out of the safety seal she has it sealed into. The seal is beside her heart. She keeps many important things in that seal because only she can get into it, and the seal will destroy everything inside it when Tsunade dies. "Here is the letter," says Tsunade. "It is not very long and the spelling is terrible, but I think you need to read it."
Naruto takes the letter and reads it. As he reads, he stops sobbing and starts to smile. As he gets further through the letter, Naruto's face crumbles and he starts to cry again, but with a ridiculously happy smile on his face.
"Perhaps Minato and Kushina wanted to give you a powerful ally," says Tsunade softly. "And since they did not have much choice in what to do to about the Nine Tails, they sealed him into you, trusting that you would be strong enough to handle him. It is impossible to know unless you were there and remember what happened."
Naruto nods a tiny nod and hugs the letter.
"You can keep that letter, Naruto," says Tsunade, giving the kid's shoulders a squeeze. "But keep it well hidden so no one finds it who shouldn't, okay?"
Naruto nods, sniffing up the streams of snot running out of his nose.
"Let's get you home," says Tsunade, standing and pulling Naruto to his feet. She leads him down off the Fourth Hokage's great stone face and escorts him home. Tsunade is going to have a word with Jiraiya, Kazama and Arashi about this once Naruto is safely out of earshot. She needs to know if they had any idea Naruto was harbouring these doubts.
When Naruto and Tsunade arrive at Naruto's house, they find Kurama's Guards, Arashi and Kazama out in the garden waiting. Kazama rushes to Naruto and hugs him close, crumpling the letter between them. "Don't disappear like that!" Kazama scolds Naruto. "If you're upset come and talk to us, don't run off!" Kazama looks up at Tsunade. "Thank you for bringing him home."
Tsunade smiles. "He's had a rough time," she says. "It's probably best to send him to bed. We need to talk."
"Of course," says Arashi. "Come inside."
"Well, if you don't need us to search for Naruto, we'll go to bed too," says one of Kurama's Guards, yawning. The Guards all vanish back into their temporary cabins.
Tsunade follows Kazama, Arashi and Naruto into the house. Naruto is promptly sent to bed and told, "We will talk about this in the morning," by his Grandfather.
Once Naruto has vanished upstairs, still clutching the letter close, Tsunade follows Arashi and Kazama into their living room and sits down. "Right," she says. "I'll get straight to the point: did you two have any idea that Naruto got the idea in his head that his parents did not care about him?"
Arashi sighs. "We know that he wonders if they were good people," he says. "After he found out about the Nine Tails, Naruto started asked some hard questions about the morality of creating jinchuuriki."
"We answered those questions as best we could," says Kazama. "And Iruka helped us with that one. But Naruto did not give much indication that he started to doubt his parents' love as well. We are not allowed to talk about them around just anyone, and now with extra people around, we do not talk about Minato and Kushina at all. Naruto barely mentions them at all as well."
"He seemed happy enough on the mission to the Temples," says Arashi. "But it is impossible to tell what Naruto really feels sometimes. When Kimiko found that ripped photograph we knew exactly what was going on. Did you manage to help him at all?"
"I gave him a letter that Kushina sent me before she died," says Tsunade, relieved that Naruto's grandparents truly did not know what was going on until know. "It is proof of their love."
"Thank you," says Kazama. Tsunade can tell she truly means it.