Creation Workshop—Ninja's Path Exclusive Synthesis Station.
Hanabi opened the interface and found three card slots arranged in a row, with a separate slot labeled "Reference Item" off to the side.
"Stage—can you walk me through this?"
[Insert three 4-star purple cards to refine them into one 5-star gold item. Stats improve, drawbacks diminish.]
[The final form trends toward the Reference Item if one is provided. Without a Reference, the output will evolve based on the properties of the input materials.]
"Drawbacks diminish?"
An idea was already forming.
"I'll test it when we're back in Konoha."
The Land of Waves storyline was over. If she didn't shoot an OVA, next up—roughly a month out—was the Chunin Exams. The bridge in the Land of Waves was almost finished too. Plenty of time to sort through the increasingly tangled situation.
"Kakashi-sensei—what's Konoha going to do about Zabuza-san?"
"Handing him over to Konoha is messy. Zabuza's a missing-nin from the Hidden Mist, but the Hidden Mist's situation is… complicated." Kakashi let out a long breath. "Why don't you—no, actually, something like this should go to the adults."
He'd almost delegated on reflex. Old habits.
But he caught himself. Some things required an adult's judgment.
"Let him go," Kakashi offered instead—which, from the outside, sounded even more hands-off.
"Just let them walk?" Hanabi asked.
Kakashi looked up at the sky. "You said it yourself—they didn't actually do anything wrong."
In the original timeline, the people Zabuza had killed in the Land of Waves amounted to… Gatō. When you traced it all the way back, Gatō was the one who'd done the genuine harm.
"But we can't just let him go for free," Hanabi said.
"Right. Before the Hidden Mist finds him, have him stay in the Land of Waves and provide protection. Cleaning up Gatō's assets would be a natural next step—Zabuza definitely knows where everything's buried." Kakashi had clearly already thought this through.
"You really think Zabuza-san will just go along with that?" Hanabi hadn't expected Kakashi to place this much trust in a Mist ninja. Had he actually been completely talked into it by what she'd said earlier?
"Whether Zabuza's an ambitious schemer or whether he genuinely cares about the Hidden Mist—it doesn't change the math," Kakashi said. "Completing a contract is fundamental to a ninja's reputation. Gatō's death has already damaged his standing. If he doesn't want to become unhireable, he'll do the job. And if he really is ambitious, securing a foothold in the Land of Waves—right on Water Country's doorstep—is a necessary move. And if he's truly the patriot you described, then he'd have even less reason to refuse."
"That's… really something, Kakashi-sensei."
When Kakashi actually applied himself, he was reliable.
The outcome was technically just "releasing Zabuza"—but Zabuza had been neatly fitted into a role without any room to wriggle out.
"Alright. The rest is in your hands, Hanabi."
—He'd folded the moment she praised him. One compliment and he was delegating again.
"Of course, Kakashi-sensei. Please get some rest."
The extended clash with Zabuza—Sharingan included—had taken its toll. Kakashi needed the break.
As for Hanabi, she turned her attention to the streaming feed.
The broadcast had shifted to Naruto's perspective.
Naruto's solo arc time… well, more like a mother-son scene.
Naruto himself hadn't served as the vessel for the Seance Jutsu—Hanabi had used the Nine-Tails as the core anchor. But Nine-Tails and Kushina both operated through Naruto's body. As the body kept cycling into his mother's form, the physical and spiritual drain compounded, and by the time they returned from the island, Naruto had crashed—flat on his back.
Beyond the physical toll, the internal conflict was brutal.
The Nine-Tails' consciousness hadn't been fully overwritten by Kushina—the beast was too strong for that. But the Seance Jutsu couldn't be undone by Nine-Tails acting alone. Ironically, the fox's massive chakra reserves had become Kushina's power source, sustaining her presence indefinitely—so long as she chose to stay.
Nine-Tails wanted out. Kushina was holding Nine-Tails down. Naruto was caught in the middle, his spiritual energy bleeding from both sides.
"So Naruto went from Tailed Beast Jinchūriki to Mom Jinchūriki?"
Hanabi had a strange thought.
Naruto clearly didn't see it that way.
In his mindscape—a space like the old seal chamber, but stripped bare of Nine-Tails and the seal itself—only Naruto and Kushina remained, her form wrapped in the fox's chakra.
"I don't care if you've taken on Aunt Yukii's face—I won't fall for it, you demon fox!"
But Kushina only looked at him with quiet eyes—though the Nine-Tails' power seemed to obscure her expression. "Are you Naruto?"
"Don't think calling me by name is going to fool me! Even Sasuke wouldn't fall for this!"
Kushina's face looked very much like Kushina Yukii's.
Which made sense—Yukii was a real disguise Hanabi had constructed using Fool's Thousand Faces. The resemblance was intentional.
But because they looked so similar, Naruto had concluded that Nine-Tails had simply copied Yukii's appearance to trick him.
"Too bad Sasuke can't hear that line," Hanabi thought. "I'd love to show it to him."
At first, Kushina kept her expression warm and patient.
But as Naruto kept shouting that she was Nine-Tails in disguise, she had no real way to counter it. Saying she was his mother now would probably just get her laughed at.
And then—
"You little brat!"
After Naruto had ranted on for a good while, Kushina's patience finally snapped. She charged at him and clocked him straight across the face.
Naruto went blank.
"Listen carefully, Naruto." Kushina grabbed him by the collar. "Nine-Tails is in bad shape. If I leave, things could get very messy!"
There wasn't actually going to be a crisis—but Nine-Tails was definitely going to be furious. Sealed within the Eight Trigrams Seal, the fox could throw a fit, but nothing more.
Kushina didn't know that. From her perspective, the Nine-Tails was now her core—and once her soul departed, Naruto would be left holding the fox alone.
She yanked him by the collar. "So until then, you're going to learn my technique. Understand?"
"What are you even talking about, woman?!"
Nine-Tails was putting him through a test? Like this?
Then Naruto caught a second round of smacks.
"Listen! Adamantine Sealing Chains—that's the minimum you need to keep Nine-Tails in check. Are we clear?!"
"…Ugh…"
Naruto looked thoroughly lost.
Helpless and completely out of his depth.
[Pretty cute as a kid]
[Adorable~]
[Grew up pretty fierce]
[Actually, normally she looks like this…][Adamantine Sealing Chains~]
[The qipao's nice too~]