A Conversation with the Fourth!!

Naruto seizes on the Fourth Hokage's statement that he is the man's son. Overcome, he trails his father into a corner of his own mind where the Nine-Tails no longer looms as a threat to them both. The Fourth explains that he built the seal to leave behind an imprint of himself, one that would surface if the seal ever neared collapse. Naruto demands to know why his father would lock the beast inside his own child.

The Fourth answers that he placed his faith in no one else to tame the fox and, through it, to defeat the masked figure who had loosed it upon the Hidden Leaf sixteen years earlier. Their talk turns to Pain and his vision of peace, which the Fourth reads as the product of the war-scarred world Pain was raised in, a wound the masked man is surely exploiting. He urges Naruto to reach his own answers about peace and about Pain. Then, having mended the weakened seal, the imprint fades away.

Naruto confirms the Fourth Hokage is his father and follows him to a safe part of his subconscious. The Fourth reveals he designed the seal to leave an imprint, and explains he trusted only his son to master the Nine-Tails and stop the masked man. After discussing Pain and the nature of peace, he repairs the seal and vanishes.

The chapter delivers the long-teased confirmation of Naruto's parentage during Pain's invasion, tying the Fourth's sacrifice to the wider threat of the masked man. Viz published it under the title The Conversation with Lord Fourth!!