Zabuza had come prepared.
If one person wasn't enough, he'd found another.
Haku.
The orphan he'd taken in—a genius boy with the Ice Release kekkei genkai.
He couldn't handle Kakashi. But he only needed to buy time. That was enough.
Whatever the original plan had been was irrelevant now. Zabuza, stung and furious, had decided to teach these arrogant Leaf shinobi a lesson they wouldn't forget.
The effect had been real.
Kakashi was tied up protecting Tazuna and couldn't move.
All Zabuza had to do was use that window to finish off this insufferable little brat in front of him.
That was the plan.
That had been the plan.
"My chakra... won't move—"
Something was wrong.
His body had been shut down.
"You—you're—a Hyuga!"
Crack.
Hanabi's final strike sent Zabuza into the tree behind him.
The moment Zabuza went down, Haku stopped pressing Kakashi and immediately moved to his side.
"Even someone like Zabuza Momochi—when he's missing intelligence, he can be blindsided." Kakashi exhaled, the tension bleeding out of him. "That's what combat is. Information warfare."
"Kakashi of the Sharingan... and then a Byakugan..." Zabuza pressed a hand to his chest.
He was strong.
But even the strongest shinobi had limited options when their chakra was sealed.
"What's happening, what just happened?" Naruto was still three steps behind.
"Hanabi sealed Zabuza's chakra with the Gentle Fist. He can't channel it anymore." Kakashi filled in the gap, though he was privately stunned himself. "The Hyuga Gentle Fist is most effective when paired with the Byakugan—Hanabi just sealed Zabuza's chakra without it. How much of a prodigy is she..."
Hanabi kept her smile easy. "I apologize—I'm a Hyuga, but I don't have the Byakugan."
She did, actually. But it wasn't time for that to surface.
"Impossible. Without the Byakugan, how did you locate the tenketsu?" Zabuza didn't buy it.
"If your sensory ability is strong enough, you can feel the chakra flowing through an enemy's body without needing a dōjutsu. Is that really so difficult?"
[who said you need a spear to kill someone?]
[lmao, so her actual trump card is point-striking]
[acupressure—ninja edition?]
[wait, so the Byakugan's function is basically to map the meridians?]
[chakra has meridians too?]
[so chakra is basically internal energy]
[not quite the same—chakra is more like stamina, you draw on it constantly]
[the opening combo looked a little like Wing Chun]
[just because someone watched Ip Man one time doesn't mean every hand-to-hand fight is Wing Chun, people]
[my wife is broken in the best way. no Byakugan, still pulls off a Hyuga exclusive technique]
[honestly not that far-fetched—memorize the human body's meridian map and you could do it too]
[sure, you first]
The comment section kept bickering.
In principle: locate the tenketsu, seal and sever it with Gentle Fist strikes—it was possible. Even in canon, Haku used senbon to find Zabuza's tenketsu and fake his death.
"Find" being the operative word—in theory.
It was like programming in raw machine code. Technically possible to write 0s and 1s without using if, else, or any other abstractions.
Technically.
Half of this was Hanabi cultivating her genius persona. The other half was setup for things to come.
"I'm so sorry, Zabuza-sama. It's my fault." Haku was reproaching himself.
"I let a brat outmaneuver me." Zabuza's voice was flat.
He'd lost his combat capability for now. There wasn't much he could do.
The situation had gone sideways.
"Do we really have no choice but to retreat?" Zabuza was running the calculations.
"I'm afraid retreat isn't going to be as easy as you'd like." Kakashi walked toward them.
After Haku's appearance, Kakashi had relaxed—slightly.
He had assumed the enemy Hanabi had been bracing for was Haku.
"Kakashi-sensei—this isn't over yet." Hanabi turned to him. "Are you certain you want to hold them here?"
"Obviously. If they get away now, next time will be far worse. Your Gentle Fist can only blindside him once—second time around, Zabuza will be ready."
Zabuza was formidable. But he'd walked in blind, and the unseen had struck first—an upset was inevitable when the prepared side ambushed the unprepared.
If Zabuza came at them with everything—Kakashi wasn't confident Hanabi could hold.
So letting Zabuza go meant a far worse problem the next time.
"I won't let you take Zabuza-sama!" Haku stepped forward.
He knew he wasn't a match for them. He knew there was nowhere to run. He stood anyway.
"Be careful. That boy has the Ice Release kekkei genkai." Kakashi flagged it for Hanabi.
"..."
But Hanabi had gone quiet.
"Hanabi?" Kakashi frowned.
Something was off.
The enemy was all out in the open—so why was Hanabi still on edge?
"...It's here. That presence... it's arrived."
She had been tracking something the entire time. And now it had come.
"—Here? What's here?"
Kakashi extended his Sharingan again. Nothing. His expression shifted to confusion.
"Another complication?" Sasuke muttered. He'd been trying to work up the nerve to ask Kakashi about the Sharingan, but the moment had slipped again.
"Why does everyone keep acting like something bad is about to—" Naruto started to complain. Then a shiver ran down his spine, out of nowhere.
"Wh—"
Like something dark had crawled across his back. Every hair on his body stood on end.
"Naruto?!" Was the Nine-Tails losing control?
No.
Wrong.
And then Kakashi felt it too.
"What is this—this chakra is pure malice—"
Something was closing in.
Getting closer. Closer.
"Fire Release."
Hanabi formed a single seal. Flames kindled at her feet.
"Hm?!"
Kakashi looked down. The ground—when had the ground frozen?
The river had frozen over.
The moisture in the mist had frozen.
"Ice Release: Ancient Mirror Illuminates the Gods."
An ominous voice rang out.
Kakashi abandoned all thought of Zabuza and Haku and fell back three paces, rushing to Naruto and Sasuke's side.
"Earth Release—Earth-Style Wall!"
Earth surged from the ground.
And then—almost simultaneously—a raging torrent of ice and snow slammed into it. The cold was absolute, the kind that wanted to freeze everything it touched. It crashed into the wall like a battering ram.
The wall went white—it seemed to turn into an ice wall.
"Get DOWN—!!"
Even Kakashi's wall couldn't hold. He could only tell Naruto and Sasuke to get down.
And in the next moment, the ice shattered the wall and the full blast hit—in an instant, the edge of spring became the dead of winter.
A figure walked out of the blizzard.
Kakashi froze.
He didn't move.
A woman.
A woman with hair the color of blue-white frost.
She walked past him like he wasn't there.
He couldn't move. The killing intent radiating from her was something he had no framework for. Of course it was—this was Jingliu's aura. It wasn't something Kakashi was equipped to face.
As though sensing something, Naruto lifted his head.
Someone was getting closer.
Eyes the color of dark red.
"The Nine-Tailed Fox—a child carrying it, of all things—I didn't think it would lead me here."
The voice was a woman's.
But why was she clutching her chest like that—like she was in pain?
"Detonate."
A voice came from somewhere—Hanabi.
And in the next instant, the doll Hanabi had set on the ground earlier detonated. The shockwave was enough to scatter the blizzard, if only for a moment.
"Fire Release."
A fireball formed in Hanabi's palm, swelling steadily larger.
"Flame Heaven."
She threw it. It burst in the air above them—a fire-nature transformation of the Rasengan.
Kakashi shook free of the killing-intent grip. "Lightning Cutter—!"
He drove through the figure—but the target shattered into crystals.
"Ice Clone—damn!"
He spun around.
A cloaked silhouette, slight and seemingly feminine, had already moved to Zabuza and Haku's side. She'd even picked up the Executioner's Blade.
The blizzard had been a feint.
A first-strike trap.
Kakashi processed it fast: for all her terrifying aura, this woman wasn't as strong as she'd seemed. The killing intent hadn't been aimed outward—it had been leaking inward. She was carrying it herself, and she'd simply let a fraction bleed out.
He'd been blindsided the same way Zabuza had earlier.
An ambush in the first encounter—and he'd fallen for it.
"Don't pursue. Hanabi."
The woman was retreating. Kakashi gave the only order he could.
"Yes, Kakashi-sensei."
Hanabi turned, changed back into her kimono, and rejoined the group.
She couldn't pursue anyway. If she did—this Shadow Clone of hers would be exposed.
On the other side of the clearing, the mysterious woman had already carried Zabuza and Haku to safety.
"Thank you very much." Haku bowed immediately—he was a good kid.
"Who are you?" Zabuza didn't lower his guard. "What do you want?"
Ice Release.
That told him the woman was from the Snow Clan—possibly Haku's kin by blood. But her intentions were unknown. That didn't make her an ally.
"Ah." The woman pulled back her hood.
Ice-blue hair. Crimson eyes.
"You can call me..." She paused. "...Kushina Yukii."
Kushina (栉名)—a surname, and phonetically identical to the given name of Uzumaki Kushina. The same sound, written differently.
The audience hadn't heard it yet—the camera had panned down and obscured the next line of dialogue. Only now did it reach them.
"As for my purpose—I intend to burn the Hidden Mist to ashes."