The trio of Zabuza, Haku, and the mysterious woman had gone.
Team 7 had survived their first ambush in the Land of Waves. The immediate crisis was over.
But no one looked relieved.
"She noticed the Nine-Tails..."
Kakashi adjusted his eyepatch, gaze sliding toward Naruto, who still hadn't fully come back to himself.
Tazuna was sitting nearby on the ground, equally stunned. The clash between forces that had just played out above him was something he had no way to process.
He wasn't the only one. The audience watching from their screens hadn't recovered either.
From their perspective, the mysterious woman had not only rescued Zabuza and Haku—the broadcast had even caught her conversation with them after the fight.
[let's burn the Leaf to the ground!]
[let's burn the pirates to the ground!]
[let's burn the Shinigami to the ground!]
The last line had kicked off a round of crossover memes. But most viewers were still sitting with the shock of what they'd seen.
Hanabi's scene design had been deliberate.
First: the conversation with Zabuza pulls out the history—the Bloody Mist, the brutality of the Hidden Mist's old regime.
Second: "seal" Zabuza's moment in the spotlight. He was no longer the arc's primary antagonist, so she couldn't let him steal the stage.
Last: let the "real" antagonist arrive as the rescue at the end—then use her conversation with Zabuza to lay out her objective.
The Ice Clone looking at Naruto was also planted deliberately. Plant the seed early. Without it laid in advance, the explosion later would ring hollow.
"Who was that woman at the end?" Naruto still looked dazed.
During the attack, she had seemed to approach him specifically—as if confirming the tailed beast's chakra for herself. But Naruto hadn't sensed anything like the contempt and disgust he usually saw in people who knew what he carried. It was more like... heartache and pity.
He hadn't seen her face clearly. But the feeling clung to him anyway.
"Ice Release is a bloodline technique—it requires a unique hereditary trait to use. This type of ability is what we call a kekkei genkai. In the Land of Water, there was a clan known as the Snow Clan that carried it—but I've heard they were wiped out during the Bloodline Purges."
Hanabi's Shadow Clone explained this to the group.
"So she had a hidden ace up her sleeve. The woman who showed up and the ice-using boy—mother and child, maybe?" Kakashi offered.
"No." Hanabi shook her head. "More accurately—we weren't the original target. Zabuza-san was. Her hostility, when she first arrived, was directed at him."
Hanabi appeared to think it over. "That said, what ultimately brought her out wasn't any of us—it was the boy's presence. And Naruto's."
Both Kakashi and Sasuke turned to look at Naruto.
"I—she was coming after me?" Naruto swallowed.
"Someone who covets the Nine-Tails' power," Kakashi concluded.
"The Nine-Tails?" Sasuke shot a look at Naruto—the expression clearly asking whether this guy was carrying something dangerous nobody had mentioned.
"It's classified—but if she's targeting the Nine-Tails, you should know. Naruto has the Nine-Tailed Fox sealed inside him. If his power draws enemies, you need to be ready. Naruto—you too."
Fortunately she hadn't been stronger. If the encounter had gone worse, Kakashi would have had no choice but to call for backup from the Leaf.
"But she—she looked like she was in so much pain."
Naruto found himself wanting to push back, though he couldn't articulate why.
He didn't know what he wanted to say. Just an inexplicable restlessness.
Hanabi was already walking ahead.
Of course Naruto would feel that. The woman called Kushina Yukii had been built for him.
After entering the advancement assessment, the grip of fate on Hanabi had loosened considerably.
She still couldn't fabricate events out of nothing or inject impossible settings into the world. But adding a character—that, she could do. So long as it was grounded, backed by logic, something the world could support.
There were conditions, of course.
First: the character's origins couldn't be arbitrary. No "secret descendant of the Sage of Six Paths"—it had to follow from the world's own internal logic.
Second: the character was hers to embody. Whoever she created, she would be performing.
Third—and most important—the creation only applied to this "set" and this "audience." The world itself was real and living. The character didn't materialize from nothing just because Hanabi declared it so, nor would the world spontaneously add that setting to Hanabi herself.
So. No character—make one.
Hanabi had long since thrown out the Land of Waves script.
The first thought Hanabi had was a character tied to Kushina.
What kind of figure could stand against Uzumaki Kushina?
Or rather—what kind of person could hold their own against a mother that great?
Only another mother.
That was the answer. To parallel Kushina, only someone who was equally a mother would do.
And so: Kushina Yukii was born.
The surname "Kushina" (栉名) was phonetically identical to Uzumaki Kushina's given name (玖辛奈)—the same sound, written differently. In certain translation versions, Kushina Uzumaki had even been rendered as "Uzumaki Kushina-na," the surname distinguished only by characters. Normally 栉名 served as a family name, not a given name.
Then there was Hanabi herself—the Jingliu card and its inheritance had given her a natural affinity for Ice. In the Naruto world, that translated neatly into an Ice Release kekkei genkai.
That was enough.
In this world, Ice Release belonged to the Snow Clan—a bloodline the Hidden Mist had persecuted and killed for generations. Most of them were dead or scattered. Haku's mother had been among the last to survive, but she was discovered and killed the moment Haku's bloodline awakened, leaving the boy homeless until Zabuza found him.
Haku had no surname. In this world, not everyone did—same as ancient Japan. The "Haku of Mizutsuki" popular in fan works was pure fanon; ironically, the actual Hōzuki clan did exist somewhere in the Naruto setting.
But a "member of the Snow Clan"—that opened the door easily. The Snow Clan had been hunted across the Land of Water; scattered survivors were hardly surprising.
No issues with continuity.
The "snow" in Kushina Yukii came directly from this.
As for "Yukii" itself: the full name 雪衣 was inspired by the Tailed Beast Cloak—Naruto's mother was the "Red Hot-Blooded Habanero," all fire and warmth. So her parallel would be cold and white.
Their appearances echoed each other too.
Kushina: red hair, blue eyes. Yukii: blue hair, crimson eyes. Even their faces shared several features.
That was why Naruto had felt it. What radiated from Kushina Yukii—the deep current of motherhood running beneath her surface—and the pain hidden inside it—had reached him without words.
So: origin decided. History next.
Kushina's story spoke for itself.
No force in this world ran deeper than a mother's. A wounded mother even more so.
And a mother who had lost her child?
There was nothing beyond that.
To build the setup properly, Hanabi had first needed to find a destroyed village—something to root Yukii's background in. Fortunately, that hadn't been difficult. The Hidden Mist's internal purges had leveled countless communities. Creating an identity inside that history was simple.
Origin confirmed. Now: the backstory.
Kushina Yukii was built as Uzumaki Kushina's counterpart.
The question Hanabi had posed for herself: what if, on the night of the Nine-Tails attack, the one who died wasn't Kushina—but Naruto?
She'd initially tried reading Kushina's kana or romaji backwards. Nothing had felt like a real name. She'd given up on that approach.
Naruto walked a few steps behind the group, restless and subdued in a way that didn't suit him—as though something had taken the usual brightness out of him and left him reaching for a word that wasn't there.
And then they came to the town.
There were very few people on the streets. Everyone walked with hollow eyes and drawn faces. The whole place sat beneath a weight.
"My house is just ahead. Finally." Tazuna let out a breath.
"Cough—cough..."
"Hm?"
Naruto heard it before he saw her—a coughing figure a short distance away, a woman in a long robe, resting with a water bucket at her feet, clearly worn out.
"I'll help—!" Naruto moved before he thought about it. He needed something to do with his hands.
"Don't wander off," Kakashi called after him.
Naruto reached her.
"Here, let me take that!"
"Thank you."
"Haven't seen you around—those forehead protectors, you're a shinobi?"
"Heh, yep! A shinobi of the Hidden Leaf, future Hokage—Uzumaki Naruto!"
"Naruto...?" The woman's body went still.
"Kushina." She answered quietly, her voice carrying the faintest tremor. "Kushina Yukii."