Members of the Uzumaki clan had just passed by the front gate earlier. Kushina had carefully looked over every single one of them. Although she recognized many familiar faces, she did not see the two people she cared about most.
Her grandmother went without saying—having lost her parents at a young age, she was the closest family Kushina had left in the world.
As for Uzumaki Mito, she was someone her grandmother had personally entrusted to look after her in the future, an elder Kushina had always kept firmly in her heart.
Yet neither of them had appeared.
That inevitably made her uneasy.
When the Uzumaki clan returned to Konoha, most of those who came back were elderly people or very young children. By all logic, her grandmother—and her grandmother's elder sister, Uzumaki Mito—should have been among them as well. So why hadn't they appeared?
The moment Arata heard her question, he knew the real moment had arrived.
If he wanted to, he could easily gloss it over with a few comforting lies. After all, Kushina was an Uzumaki, and with the system rewards in effect, her favor toward him was already at least ninety points. Even if she later learned the truth, she likely wouldn't harbor resentment.
But Arata felt there was no need to hide it.
As family—and as descendants—of Uzumaki Suigetsu and Uzumaki Mito, Kushina had every right to know the truth.
"Suigetsu and Mito-hime… have already fallen in battle," Arata said quietly. "Not even their bodies were recovered."
His words struck Kushina like a heavy hammer to the chest.
Even though she had already suspected it, hearing Arata confirm it outright was something she couldn't immediately accept.
After all, she was only five years old—still a child who needed the love of family and the indulgence of elders.
To lose the two people closest to her all at once… how could she possibly come to terms with that so quickly?
Her eyes reddened almost instantly, and before long, she curled up and began to cry.
Seeing Kushina finally break down, Arata felt relieved instead of alarmed. Crying was a good thing. Bottling up pain like this would only cause deeper wounds later. Sorrow of this magnitude had to be released.
He gently patted her shoulder and spoke softly.
"If they're watching from above, seeing you able to live on in Konoha… they would be happy too. From now on, Tsunade and I will take care of you, just like family."
His words seemed to help. Kushina's sobbing gradually quieted.
It was clear that, thanks to the system's influence, she already felt a certain closeness toward Arata. A single sincere sentence was enough to ease her heart considerably.
And Arata deliberately mentioned Tsunade. Though Tsunade had never met Kushina, strictly speaking, they were of the same generation. With an elder sister like that, Kushina quickly realized that life in Konoha might not be as unbearable as she feared.
Still, she looked up timidly and asked in a small voice,
"Really? The people of Konoha all hate the Uzumaki… will you truly treat me as family?"
Arata hadn't expected her to notice Konoha's hostility toward the Uzumaki so quickly. He gently tapped her head and replied,
"Of course. Don't forget—I went to support the Uzumaki myself. No matter how others in Konoha feel, I'll treat you as family. Besides, Tsunade has Uzumaki blood too. By that count, the two of you are sisters."
As soon as he said this, Kushina's expression visibly brightened.
At her age, she could already understand that someone willing to face five Kage-level opponents and an army of twenty thousand just to aid the Uzumaki must truly care about them.
No one would go that far otherwise.
Combined with Tsunade's presence, Kushina finally accepted her new place.
She stopped crying and asked instead,
"Do you know who killed my grandmother and Mito-hime? They were both so strong—how could they have died so easily?"
Arata hadn't expected that question to come so quickly, but after a moment's thought, it made sense.
The shinobi world was, at its core, a world steeped in hatred. Many people spent their entire lives bound by it.
War never truly ceased here, and countless war orphans were born already carrying the weight of vengeance—just like Nagato and his companions from the Land of Rain. Orochimaru had once said he'd seen too many such children, and that killing them outright was sometimes a form of mercy.
Now, Kushina seemed to be standing at the edge of that same cycle.
If Arata did nothing, she might end up living for hatred as well.
Her feelings were natural. Anyone who lost their only family would react the same way. Even Arata admitted to himself that, in her place, he would immediately want to know who was responsible.
Still, he knew that repression would only make things worse. The choice ultimately had to belong to Kushina. All he could do was guide her—so that her world wouldn't be filled with nothing but hatred.
After a moment, Arata looked at her seriously.
"If it were anyone else asking, I wouldn't tell the truth. But since it's you… I'll be honest."
Kushina's eyes widened, and she urged him on without hesitation.
"Please tell me. No matter who it is, I'll stay calm."
Arata answered plainly,
"The one who killed Suigetsu and Mito-hime was the former Asura of the Shinobi World—Uchiha Madara."
The words themselves were few, but the moment Kushina heard them, she froze completely.
Her first reaction was disbelief.
Uchiha Madara's legend was simply too well known—so famous that no one in the shinobi world was unaware of it. Kushina even remembered how, when she was naughty as a child, her grandmother would joke, "If you don't behave, Uchiha Madara will come and take you away."
Though said in jest, it showed just how terrifying Madara's reputation was.
Kushina knew very well what kind of existence he was.
But in her memory, Uchiha Madara had died decades ago at the Valley of the End. How could he possibly have killed her grandmother and Mito-hime?
Her first instinct was that Arata was lying—naming a dead man to keep her from seeking revenge.
Yet his expression was unwaveringly serious. He had said it himself: he wouldn't speak the truth to just anyone—but since she had asked, he would.