To avoid Gato's surveillance, Team 7 had departed by boat in the dead of night, arriving at the outskirts of the Land of Waves by morning before slipping into the country through an underground waterway.
After disembarking at a midway dock hidden in the wild, the group set off toward town. The dock sat deep in the wilderness—dense jungle pressed in on all sides, and the air around them was still thick with shadow.
After a full night's rest, Naruto had returned to his usual irrepressible self.
The moment they entered the Land of Waves, he was already bouncing off walls under the guise of "staying alert." Aside from Hanabi, who kept her calm smile, the other three were watching him with sweat on their brows.
"There—right there!"
Naruto had been staring into the underbrush for a beat too long before he suddenly hurled a shuriken into it.
"And?" Kakashi said, his patience running thin.
First a mouse. Then a frog. Naruto had been startling at shadows for a while now.
"Your aim is terrible. Stop throwing shuriken in places where people might be walking—it's dangerous."
If a passerby got hurt, it would be his problem as the supervising Jōnin.
"And of course—whatever it was used a Substitution Jutsu and bolted."
One line from Hanabi, and Kakashi felt his brain go numb.
[lmao]
[what a start]
[Kakashi: talking to Hanabi is genuinely exhausting]
[did she actually nail it though?]
[I'm dead]
For Hanabi, this had simply been another night. For the audience, however, they were already on Episode 9.
This was the opening of Episode 9, in fact. Because Hanabi was currently in the middle of her assessment, all reward payouts would be held until the event concluded—a lump-sum "performance fee" at the end.
"Huh? What?" Naruto scrambled over and pushed apart the brush to find a snow-white rabbit lying unconscious on the ground.
"A white snow rabbit." Kakashi's tone sharpened. "But it's spring. Snow rabbits should be brown this time of year. A white one means it was kept indoors. This is a decoy rabbit—someone was hiding here, got flushed out, and swapped themselves with the rabbit to make us think it was just an ordinary rabbit."
One of the standard uses of Substitution Jutsu: when exposure seemed imminent, make the enemy think they'd only startled a small animal.
"Everyone—get down!"
The warning tore out of Kakashi's mouth.
Kakashi, Tazuna, Naruto, and Sasuke hit the ground instantly.
And in that same moment, something enormous came spinning through the air with a howling shriek—its arc cutting right at chest height.
Then, in the next instant, countless red cords lashed out and seized the spinning object. The two forces collided with a ringing clash of metal on metal.
[the Chains of Heaven, lmaooo]
[something feels off here]
[wait, are those metal cords??]
The object was stopped. As the dust settled, they could make out what it was: an enormous cleaver whose blade alone was as tall as a grown man.
"Hm?"
Hanabi had ignored Kakashi's order and moved to intercept the attack directly. Why?
"Wait—"
By then Hanabi had already removed her outer robe and pulled on her mask.
"Kakashi-sensei—form a manji formation and protect Tazuna-san. I'll handle this one."
Even as she spoke, a tall, lean silhouette had already closed the distance, lunging at Hanabi in an attempt to drive her back and reclaim the blade.
But Hanabi brought both hands together and the cords around her cinched shut, moving to immobilize the attacker.
"Tch!" The figure launched a kick forward—naturally deflected by Hanabi's restraints—then used that deflection to push back and open the gap.
Kakashi recognized him immediately. "Well, well. If it isn't the Hidden Mist's missing-nin—Zabuza Momochi."
"Kakashi-sensei. Guard Tazuna-san and stop talking." Hanabi issued the order again without looking back.
[I can't, I'm actually dying]
[Kakashi: hold on, who's the teacher here]
[the tables have turned!! COMPLETELY TURNED!!]
[wait—Hanabi sounds really serious. something's up?]
[yeah, this feels wrong somehow]
Kakashi was thoroughly baffled.
"I'm going to help!" Naruto made to charge in, but Kakashi caught him by the collar. "This man is in a completely different league from the last one."
Kakashi was watching Zabuza.
No—he was watching Hanabi.
And yet, Kakashi noticed: Hanabi's attention didn't seem to be on Zabuza at all.
—Was there another enemy?
Hanabi had no Byakugan, but Kakashi knew she possessed some kind of powerful sensory ability—she could feel the fluctuations of chakra in the area around her. Whatever was driving her to act like this, it almost certainly wasn't Zabuza. In her estimation, something hidden was the greater threat.
"Kakashi of the Sharingan." Zabuza's voice was flat. "Hand over the old man—it'll make things simpler. You're not bad," he added, his gaze flicking to Hanabi. "Stopping my Executioner's Blade like that."
"Sharingan…?" The word snagged in Sasuke's mind. He stared at Kakashi.
Kakashi had always kept one eye covered. If that eye was a Sharingan—
But why would the Uchiha clan's dōjutsu be in someone else's hands?
That question would have to wait. Kakashi couldn't spare attention for Sasuke right now.
"Hanabi—you're sure you want to take this on alone?"
"Yes. He'll be a challenge, but with full effort—I can fight him."
"Arrogant little brat," Zabuza snorted. "You don't know what you're getting into."
"I don't," Hanabi agreed. "Just like I don't know why you're doing Gato's dirty work, Zabuza-san."
"—You! Stop spouting nonsense."
Zabuza's anger flared.
At first, fleeing to the Land of Waves had been a matter of necessity—somewhere to lie low after a failed coup. If not for the fear of Mist's hunters, he'd have killed a guy like Gato long ago.
But Hanabi's question had planted a hook in his thoughts.
—Could it be that Gato truly was the Mist's puppet?
"This isn't nonsense, Zabuza-san." Hanabi said. "Gato controls the sea routes. The nation that depends most on sea trade for communication with the outside world is the Land of Water."
Hanabi tilted her head, the fox mask's pupils fixed on Zabuza.
"Do you really think a great nation—one of the Five Powers—would let a corrupt merchant control their maritime corridors? No ruler tolerates a rival at their bedside—or are you suggesting that the Land of Water's daimyō and the Mizukage are both too dim to grasp something that simple?"
To be fair, given the general reasoning patterns of people in this world, the latter couldn't be entirely ruled out.
But Hanabi's argument was sound, and Zabuza found himself unable to poke a hole in the logic.
"Naturally, direct, visible control can get inconvenient. But for shinobi, pulling strings from the shadows is hardly difficult. You don't even need to pull strings—a well-timed suggestion here and there is enough. That way, Gato might not even be aware he's anyone's puppet. Which also conveniently keeps other villages from asking questions."
Zabuza turned the reasoning over and over in his head. He couldn't find a flaw.
This was... completely sound.
...Could it actually be true?
Had he really been dancing in the Mist's palm this whole time?
I can't tell. I genuinely can't tell.