By the time Team Seven boarded the ship back to the Land of Waves, the unnamed island—already strained past its limits—had sunk completely into the sea.
The whirlpool swallowed everything.
"What does it mean to be a shinobi? What does it mean to be a hero? I feel like I've lost track."
Naruto stared at the horizon. There was nothing left out there. Just the ocean, indifferent, exactly as it had always been.
"A hero is someone who sees how cruel the world is—and smiles anyway. A shinobi is someone who can endure anything, accept anything, and think through all of it."
Hanabi had moved to stand beside him.
Her voice was quiet. Her body swayed slightly—the ghost of exhaustion still in her limbs.
With the sea reclaiming what was left, the Land of Waves arc had reached its end.
Hanabi's popularity count had nearly broken 300,000.
In the story itself, "Hyuga Hanabi" had been largely in the background after the Zabuza fights—a supporting presence, nothing more. But "Kushina Yukii," Hanabi's alias, had swept the final act completely.
That kind of single-use alias was simply too useful.
A shame they can't be reused. Fabricating a whole story from scratch—without the Stage's help—isn't something I can do freely.
Unauthorized "cheating"—manufacturing narrative from nothing—was prohibited.
But as long as it isn't coming from nothing—
Compared to what the original story had been, this version had come out better in almost every way. She couldn't speak for everything—but in this one arc, at least, everyone had gotten a real ending.
No sacrifices.
The Land of Waves had protection. The bridge was complete.
Team Seven had cleared the mission. Zabuza and Haku could go back to being lovey-dovey again.
Even Naruto had grown—and somehow, in the process, gained two mothers.
A world where no one got hurt was complete.
Everyone had a future ahead of them.
How wonderful. Truly wonderful.
Once the final loose ends were tied off, the payout could be settled.
[A shinobi endures everything]
[I still can't get over this—if Yukii had actually become Naruto's mother, imagine...]
[Naruto's mom is such a gentle person]
[The first time the hero went berserk, the person he least wanted to fight—this whole trend of throwing the protagonist into the worst possible emotional gut-punch, who started this?]
[Old Urobuchi: don't look at me]
[Anno: why is everyone staring at me?]
[My wife always seems to see right through everything]
[So what even was that evil death god? It didn't seem stronger than the Nine-Tails]
[That's how Japanese media works—eight million gods, you could pray to a rock and it might work]
[Honestly, the death god was the biggest victim here. Based on the ruins, that place was probably its shrine. Yukii found it, and then blew it up on the way out]
[There's so much more in the background of this Ninja Path arc—lots of interesting threads]
[Same—the anime version gave us a lot. Kakashi almost tripped when he heard the name "Kushina"—I didn't think much of it at the time, but now it's obviously because Naruto's mom shares the name]
[So Naruto's mom and Kakashi have history? And who's Naruto's dad anyway?]
[Go ask the all-knowing Hanabi!]
[Consult Hanabi the Oracle!]
The comments veered into meme territory soon after.
—Though Hanabi did actually know, for what it was worth.
She just didn't have the energy right now. She'd settled against the ship's railing, watching the horizon in silence.
The mental load from two consecutive resonance sessions with Jingliu was real. Her body had no visible injuries—but she had taken the Nine-Tails' force head-on more than once.
By the time the cargo ship docked at the port, the Land of Waves arc was truly over.
Gatō's operation had already been dismantled—Zabuza's side had rounded up Gatō and his men. Pulled out at the roots.
Zabuza himself had been caught in Kakashi's trap, defeated under the Sharingan—not surprising, given that Hanabi had quietly handed Kakashi every piece of intelligence she could gather on Zabuza before the fight began. If Kakashi had somehow lost with all of that, there would have been no helping him.
"Didn't expect this to be how it ended, Haku."
Zabuza looked at Haku when he saw him—and understood that everything had concluded.
"Just finish it, Kakashi. Better to die here than get dragged back to the Hidden Mist."
The defeat wasn't only a matter of intelligence. Part of it was Zabuza's own head getting muddled.
After Hanabi had talked at him—analyzed him, as she would put it—Zabuza had started questioning what kind of person he actually was. He'd ended up more tangled than he'd started. The confusion bled into his fighting, and when he and Kakashi finally went at it for real, the cracks showed. Kakashi found them.
"The Hidden Mist isn't a good place." It was Naruto who spoke up first, which surprised everyone. "Zabuza-san was trying to change it, right? That's what he wanted."
Hanabi's words from earlier, layered on top of Yukii's tragedy—somehow, it had bent Naruto's understanding of Zabuza into something unexpected.
"Don't pity me, kid!"
The indignity of it.
Momochi Zabuza, the Demon of the Hidden Mist—pitied by a child?
"Someone like Zabuza-san, who wanted to change a place like that—he must be a good person!"
"I'm not a good person!"
"No, you definitely are!"
"Say that one more time, kid!"
Zabuza got angry for a second.
That was really all he could do right now.
"But you're at least safe for now," Hanabi said. "Based on what I've found, the Hidden Mist doesn't appear to have sent anyone here. There may be internal problems in the village already. Zabuza-san—there might be people in that place who share your vision."
Zabuza said nothing.
He was furious at being forcibly labeled a good person.
After the fury came doubt.
"That woman—she didn't even leave a body behind?"
He looked around. Yukii was nowhere. And now that he thought about it, that blonde kid who'd always been bright and relentless looked like something had gone out of him.
He'd heard Yukii say she'd made a deal with a demon. Probably the body had finally given out.
"She returned to the sea with the island," Hanabi said.
"I see." Zabuza didn't say anything more.
Hanabi turned to Kakashi: "Keep them in custody for now. With no client left, Zabuza-san won't keep fighting to the death."
Kakashi pressed a hand to his chin. "So you're moving on to the next stage?"
With the fighting resolved, the rest was Hanabi's domain. For his part—time to relax.
"That's right."
The next stage: getting the Land of Waves to take over Gatō's shipping business.
The village of Konoha couldn't be involved in that acquisition directly—shipping routes touched Hidden Mist affairs, and the Hyuga clan couldn't absorb something this large on their own.
Most critically: the Hyuga clan and the Hidden Mist had an existing, delicate entanglement. There was a Hyuga main family's Byakugan out there—somewhere in the Hidden Mist Village.
As for the Third Hokage, he was the easiest of all to persuade. Whether you appealed to his basic decency or his strategic instincts, he would not say no.
And with that, everything had found its place.
[Ninja's Path — Land of Waves Arc: Complete]
[Advancement Assessment Concluded — Evaluation in Progress]
[Current Fan Count: 34,043 — Completion Rate: 340%]
[Current Fate Deviation Rate: 30% — Completion Rate: 300%]
[Evaluation: The Unpredictable Stage of Fate]
[Congratulations — Advancement Assessment Passed. Rank Updated: Minor Supporting Character LV1]
[Minor Supporting Character permissions unlocked]