[The protagonist difference, right there]
[That's what a golden finger looks like]
[Two-person talent]
[Then why is the two-person talent still this much of an airhead?]
[Maybe it doesn't cover intelligence]
[Or maybe Kushina's brain is a four, Naruto's is a three, a normal person's is ten—add them all up and you get seven]
[Genius, get out of the hospital]
[Grass (a type of exclamation), I almost choked on my keyboard]
"Is that a good thing?"
Naruto tilted his head—well, tilted his head was all he could manage right now.
"In one sense, yes. But if you overuse that power, the effect it has on your own body—you've already seen some of that. Haven't you?"
"What kind of effect?" Naruto swallowed.
"Any number of things could happen. On the gentler end—you turn into a girl. On the nastier end—the Nine-Tails' power runs wild, and you really become a monster."
This line was addressed as much to Kushina as it was to Naruto.
[Can he actually turn into a girl?!]
[That's what I'm here to see—serve it up!]
[Fox-eared girl! Fox-eared girl!]
[Earlier someone mentioned the Three Great Yokai, and they were absolutely right—this is Tamamo-no-Mae]
[By elimination, Hanabi is Shuten-doji—so Sasuke would be the Great Tengu?]
[This might just end up being a yokai brawl]
[So many things in Road to Ninja map onto mythology—how much research did this production team do]
[I suddenly want to see our background story]
[The Hyuga Clan and Tenten in Road to Ninja obviously draw from mythology too]
Hanabi tilted her head.
—Judging by the audience's appetite, was it time to put together a cheongsam set or something?
Ah—bun hairstyle was out, though. Too much of a cliché.
"In any case, Naruto—you'd better learn the Adamantine Sealing Chains as soon as possible."
If the physiology really was additive, Naruto should in theory be able to use the Adamantine Sealing Chains.
Once Naruto had them down, Hanabi could release the other half of the Nine-Tails and start engineering far more interesting plot developments—make the story truly unpredictable.
But Hanabi suspected there was still one missing ingredient for Naruto.
It was the same with Karin in the original story—power like this always broke through in a moment of crisis.
Come to think of it, Karin's awakening had been triggered by Sasuke. So maybe she should just track Sasuke down and arrange a good thrashing, and see if Naruto watching would do the trick?
"I want to learn it too. But I can't figure it out," Naruto admitted.
He sighed.
He genuinely wanted to learn—the problem was that he couldn't make it work.
"Actually—you said 'overuse,' right? Does that mean I'd be fine as long as I don't overuse it?"
Naruto had suddenly thought of something.
"Ara ara..."
How to put this.
Hanabi hadn't expected the question. But it actually made the next part of her plan easier—she didn't need to steer the conversation herself.
[That clever little brain of his]
[Garlic allergy? Just substitute it with Grass (a type of exclamation) instead!]
[What I want is for Naruto to overuse it—he has to overuse it, obviously!]
"In theory, yes—but I can't pin down exactly where 'overuse' begins. Still, Naruto—whatever you do, don't count on getting lucky with this. The moment you start thinking, 'I've still got this ace up my sleeve, I can turn this around'—you'll die worse than you would have otherwise." Hanabi made sure the warning landed.
Kushina was genuinely strong, but her combat instincts were not the sharpest. If an enemy caught a gap in her defenses, there was a real possibility of it going wrong.
Then Hanabi said, her tone shifting to serious: "If you really do force that power out—the most terrifying possibility is this: you die."
"Die..."
Cold sweat broke out across Naruto's forehead.
Die.
That was terrifying.
He would die…
—An absolute lie, of course.
But this was what the scene and atmosphere required.
Naruto needed to carry a real weight of resolve.
Without the will to stake his life on the outcome, certain things would never ring true to an audience.
Grand stages. Brilliant chapters. They demanded commensurate resolve.
A story without that resolve was like a dish without salt—flat and forgettable.
In the original story, Naruto and Gaara's battle was genuinely moving.
But there was a problem.
Placed in Part One of the story, it worked beautifully. Extend it into the later parts and you'd find—it had become the kind of story people mocked as overdramatic fuss over nothing.
Not because the story itself had flaws, but because version updates made everything from the early arc look faintly absurd.
It was like Naruto telling Neji in Part One that even a dead-last can have his day—that fate didn't care about your birth.
And then the reveal came that Naruto was the Fourth Hokage's son. In an instant, Naruto went from "civilian kid" to "Hokage's son," and that entire speech to Neji lost all its weight.
But the world Hanabi lived in now was a real world.
So even the later-arc "version updates" already existed here, fully present.
Which meant Naruto had to carry a sense of genuine stakes. With those stakes in place, the fight against Gaara could carry the emotional weight it deserved.
After leaving Naruto to sit with that, Hanabi turned her mind to Gaara's side of the equation.
"Gaara is apparently planning to assassinate the Wind Daimyō. That's actually interesting."
At the opening of his arc, Gaara was, in essence, a child who had never been loved—with a childhood that appeared ordinary on the surface, even if it truly wasn't. Compared to the parade of tragic backstories around him—Kabuto, Karin, even Kawaki—it actually seemed almost mild.
In the original story, it was the lost and drifting Gaara who was reached by Naruto—and Naruto became Gaara's white moonlight, his unreachable ideal.
But that felt incomplete.
Gaara's actions carried no philosophy behind them.
"This works for Part One. But once we reach the midpoint, things have to change."
The goal was for Gaara—through his confrontation with Naruto—to understand what love truly meant.
To let Naruto's resolve show Gaara his own resolve.
Easy to say. In practice—equally difficult.
"What Gaara needs is the moonlight that once guided Ludwig's path."
Hanabi thought of a particular boss from a certain game.
In the second phase, when this boss raised its sword—when the creature became a knight, when the monstrous thing lifted the holy blade and fought as though it were human—even if the enemy's form remained hideous, the one wielding the Holy Moonlight Sword moved with the grace and dignity of a true knight.
When the second phase began, the boss's characterization was already a success.
"The most repugnant of monsters… and the most beautiful moonlight… Yes—I have it."
When the beast transformed back into a human being, and fought as a human—that was the enemy most worth respecting.
A powerful opponent didn't diminish the protagonist. It elevated them.
A clownish enemy only dragged the hero's dignity down with it.
So—the driving force.
"The foreshadowing's already been planted. And now that Naruto is matched against Gaara in the third stage of the Exams—all of those pieces can come into play. Not easy to pull off."
Kushina Yuki was the key figure Hanabi needed—the one who could generate sufficient conviction and driving force. [Source corruption in raw text at this line; surrounding context decode applied.]
But what Gaara would choose to want—that wasn't something Hanabi could control. She could only guide and nudge from the edges.
No matter. This was exactly the kind of moment that tested a great director's craft.
"Mm—the seed's been planted with Naruto… Next: Gaara's side~"