[Lady, I'm in love with you!!]
[White hair, red eyes—I'm done for]
[Isn't she technically a blue-haired girl?]
[From what Tazuna said, this one's a widow, right?]
[→ read it again, "widow" not "blind"]
[前面的 — that's a homophone pun, nothing to do with blindness]
[For the curious: there's a fanwork with a snow-woman version of this character—check it out]
Naruto's storyline hadn't aired "in real time" on the broadcast.
His scene and Kakashi's were happening simultaneously—and while Naruto was visiting as a guest next door, the show had been walking its audience through the Land of Waves' history, laying out how this island nation had fallen. Only afterward did the feed "catch up" and cut back to Naruto's side.
[Hold on—where did this lady even come from? That's gotta be setup for something]
[Her silhouette looked odd at the end of last episode—anyone save the screenshot?]
[I capped it, it's blurry, hard to tell]
[Definitely foreshadowing. Both of them look like they're in poor health—classic "ominous connection" setup]
[+1. She approached Naruto probably because she sensed the Nine-Tails. Wants the fox's power for herself]
[She talked about burning Kirigakure to the ground—what if she's planning to unleash the Nine-Tails there? Like a second Nine-Tails Night, but in the Mist?]
[Naruto, that woman is a VILLAIN!!]
[Villainous women are better]
[bro 💀]
[Fixing the collar tho—that attacked me personally]
[There's no way to ship this]
[???]
[Some of you people, I swear]
After reading the comments, Hanabi found herself genuinely impressed by the audience's creativity.
She wasn't afraid of people guessing at the plot.
If anything—certain things were better when the audience could see them coming and still couldn't stop them. That was how you made something ache.
"Why does that guy keep staring at me?" Naruto muttered as he came inside, immediately clocking the small figure peeking around the doorframe.
"That's Inari—Tazuna-san's grandson." Hanabi stepped out to join him. "He seems to think we don't stand a chance against Gatō."
"Huh?!" Naruto bristled immediately.
He and Kakashi had combined to drive off Zabuza the great Demon of the Hidden Mist—like him and Kobe combining for ninety points, basically. That achievement had done wonders for his confidence—possibly too many wonders.
"Hey, you—listen up. It doesn't matter how scary the villain is, I will take them down! I'm going to be Hokage someday! I'm the super-awesome hero ninja, Uzumaki Naruto!"
"What hero? You sound like an idiot. Heroes don't exist," Inari said flatly, and walked away.
Naruto stood there, alone, seething at nothing.
Hanabi tilted her head. She didn't intervene. Once Naruto stepped outside again, that Shadow Clone dispersed in a puff of smoke.
Meanwhile, the main body—in the guise of Kushina Yukii, wrapped in her heavy robe—made her way to Zabuza's hideout. She kept herself covered. A few viewers had already started theorizing, but until the reveal, a little dramatic tension was worth preserving.
[Sinister background music~]
[I want carnage. I want blood. Burn it all down]
[Burn Kirigakure to ash!]
[It's called the Hidden Mist Village]
[前面的 — that's a "Castle of Weakness and Disconnected Warriors" meme reference]
[It's 4202, and people still reference that game??]
Kushina Yukii's meeting with Zabuza played out as a proper scene—an interlude from the villain's side of the story.
"How long have you been watching us?" Zabuza's eyes locked onto her.
"Since you arrived in the Land of Waves. Gatō is the Bloody Mist's lackey—and I've come to claim lives. You lot who aided him were targets as well."
Her voice was low and deliberate.
"That bastard Gatō really should've been dead by now."
Zabuza had never liked the man. After Hanabi's quiet analysis had planted the right seeds, every thought of Gatō now carried a particular flavor—there are those who would have me removed.
The woman in front of him had all but confirmed those suspicions.
Zabuza had fallen completely into the web Hanabi had woven for him.
The logic was clean: Hanabi's insinuations and observations as "Hyuga Hanabi" had seeded doubt about Gatō. Now Kushina Yukii—a woman with a blood grudge against the Hidden Mist—arrived to push Gatō squarely into the Mist's orbit. Zabuza's unease deepened on cue.
Once a person begins to doubt, they only believe what they already believe. Evidence becomes noise.
And there was no scenario in which Zabuza would go to Gatō and ask for his side of things.
"Then why did you save me?"
"Because you were deceived into serving an enemy's purpose. And…" Her gaze shifted to Haku. "I haven't seen my own people in a long time."
Haku said nothing.
Even if they were of the same clan, Haku's trust belonged to Zabuza. This stranger who had appeared from nowhere—what did kinship mean between them?
"It's not that simple." Zabuza folded his arms. "You said you want to burn Kirigakure to ash. How? Can you even get near the Nine-Tails?"
Controlling the Nine-Tails—that had a certain appeal.
If the Nine-Tails appeared near Kirigakure, the Mizukage would have no choice but to show her face.
He could position it outside the village rather than inside—draw the Mizukage and her inner circle out here, deal with them all at once, and the village itself would come through relatively intact. The Nine-Tails could even become a bargaining chip with Konoha afterward…
Wait.
When did I start caring whether Kirigakure's people live or die?
"I'm Zabuza Momochi, the Demon of the Mist!"
But no matter how he tried to shake it, the kimono girl's words kept circling back. Winding around and around inside his skull, tighter and tighter, until he felt something very close to rage.
"The hell is wrong with me?!" he muttered.
Zabuza was furious. He felt like he'd been brainwashed by that girl.
He looked at Kushina Yukii again. "You're serious about this? How exactly do you plan to pull it off? You think you can actually release the Nine-Tails?"
"Twelve years ago, Kirigakure sealed the Three-Tails into a Konoha shinobi, intending to release it inside the Leaf and tear the village apart. If the Nine-Tails appears in Kirigakure, it's nothing more than what they brought on themselves." Her voice didn't waver. "And I struck a deal with a devil. Originally, I intended it against the Three-Tails—but now I have a better option. The Nine-Tails' power dwarfs the Three-Tails."
"Is that so…"
Zabuza was still weighing it.
"What exactly do you need?" he asked.
Cough—cough—
Kushina Yukii pressed a hand to her chest. "I need to prepare a ritual. I know you have men—I need your people to help with the preparations."
The Land of Waves arc in the original run was shallow—its meditation on heroism and what it meant to be a shinobi pleasant enough for its time, but thin by today's standards. Twenty years of the genre had produced a hundred versions of the same story.
Grimdark starts with me.
Besides—nobody was actually going to get hurt. Naruto gets motherly warmth; Gatō gets what's coming to him; Zabuza and Haku might even get their happy ending.
Everything was perfect.
Everything was delightful.
Wasn't it?
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