"According to plan."
Hatake Kakashi and Momochi Zabuza were matched opponents—evenly enough that neither could claim a decisive edge. From the perspective of master director Hanabi, both of them were outside her control range.
Kakashi-sensei listened to her, yes—but he also had his own read on situations, and he was perfectly capable of acting beyond what she'd scripted for him. Zabuza was worse: the Demon of the Mist was moody and unpredictable, and far harder to manage than Kakashi.
If they couldn't be controlled, they could be removed from the board entirely.
In short: both out-of-tier Jōnin had been banned.
"Are all the crew members under genjutsu?"
Naturally, the freighter was one of Gatō's transport vessels. The crew aboard were all civilians, not shinobi—every single one now caught in a genjutsu net.
"Damn. Now that I'm this close to Naruto, I can't sense through the doll anymore."
Sasuke assumed proximity had caused the signal to cut out.
In reality, Hanabi had simply seen his chakra pulse through the doll and decided to leave him on read.
Having boarded from the outside, Sasuke had spent over an hour watching the genjutsu-controlled crew move through their patrol rotations without ever finding an opening. The interior structure was unfamiliar, and the enemy was a shinobi—and stronger than him. Moving cabin to cabin risked exposure.
He'd been considering a Transformation Jutsu—disguise himself as one of the crew and slip through.
"Don't."
But then someone stopped him.
Hanabi had "caught up."
"You're here." Sasuke relaxed slightly at the sight of her.
"Are you all right? Your chakra reserves—"
He'd have needed to run across open water to catch the ship. Sasuke assumed she'd burned through a significant portion doing it.
"I'm fine." Hanabi let herself breathe a little harder than necessary.
Deflate first. Give herself an excuse to hang back later.
Stealing the spotlight was one thing—but the other main character in this scene was also herself. It was like her left hand hitting her right.
"Watch the crew." Hanabi said, and flicked a small stone from her hand.
The stone struck one of the sailors—and instantly froze solid. Ice crystallized over the impact point in a blink.
"What—?!" Sasuke's eyes went wide.
Hanabi had just quietly demonstrated Ice Release in front of him.
"There's something rigged about the crew. Move in recklessly and you'll trigger an Ice Release trap." She schooled her expression into something suitably grave.
She couldn't have pulled that past Kakashi. But on the Sasuke who'd unlocked a single tomoe Sharingan the night of the massacre? Still workable.
"What's the plan?" Sasuke asked.
"Sasuke—can you see an island from the bow?"
"Mm. Yes."
Sasuke knew Hanabi couldn't see that far—she could sense the general area, just not over distance.
"That's an uninhabited island in the open sea off the Land of Waves' coast. The local fishermen used to shelter there on long hauls. But some time ago, ruins were discovered on that island—"
The ruins were man-made.
Because the island itself had appeared through geological activity, it had no actual history worth speaking of.
None of which stopped Hanabi from moonlighting as a fictional historian.
The Riddler Dolls and explosive tags were already in place anyway. Beyond the two she'd given Naruto and Sasuke, Hanabi had a third—this one at the center of a Mutually Multiplying Explosive Tag array, pre-installed in the island's subsurface, ready to "destroy the evidence" once everything was finished.
Thanks to the Academy's elective on precision demolitions.
"The woman's target is the Nine-Tails inside Naruto. She'll perform the ritual there—she has to. The cargo hold is too cramped, and we're still over open water—fighting a Mist shinobi here is too risky, and the genjutsu'd crew would be a liability. I also need to recover my chakra." She paused. "I've already sent word to Kakashi-sensei. For now—don't move. Wait until we're on the island."
"Understood."
Kakashi couldn't come regardless—he was holding Zabuza.
"We're almost there."
The island was modest. A single improvised dock jutted into the shallows.
"Naruto!"
Of all the hands aboard, only two shinobi disembarked. One—a masked young figure—was carrying an unconscious Naruto over his shoulder. The other was Kushina Yukii, now in her full shinobi gear: chain armor under a lightweight mission jacket, ice-blue hair pulled into a side ponytail.
[Gorgeous, I love her]
[She could absolutely be my mother]
[Side ponytail = death flag, I'm calling it]
[The flag is raised]
[I have a very bad feeling about this]
Letting the audience build that anticipation was a strategy in itself. And for now—it was working.
"Two people. The odds are in our favor!" Sasuke took one look at the disembarkation party and his eyes lit up.
[Oh no, Sasuke—]
[Ah yes, let's see who stacks more flags first, protagonist side or antagonist side]
[The comedy of raising death flags at each other from opposite teams]
Sasuke hadn't even considered what that line would do to the viewing audience.
But hey—great improv.
"Let's follow them."
Hanabi and Sasuke followed immediately.
In the audience's view, Naruto had already been carried to a cave at the island's center. The Seance Jutsu array was already inscribed on the ground—the original cursed technique adapted into ninjutsu form through localization. Ritual tools and ninja equipment surrounded the space in precise arrangement.
Naruto was placed at the center of the array.
Yukii pressed her palms against his abdomen.
"What a mess…"
Naruto's seal was an Eight Trigrams Seal—two Four Symbols Seals layered together. Hanabi had studied the Four Symbols Seal in the Scroll of Seals. Between that knowledge and the Byakugan, she could perceive the seal's interior from the outside.
Deep within it—an enormous, deeply ominous chakra.
Any ordinary person who merely sensed that chakra would have been trembling. But compared to the sheer lunacy housed inside Jingliu's body, this was almost manageable. The Nine-Tails, at its core, was just a tsundere with a lot of chakra. A star god's power was a different category entirely.
"And there—two more signatures."
One was Minato Namikaze's residual chakra. The other was Uzumaki Kushina's.
Both were faint. But that didn't matter. Hanabi only needed them as a conduit.
"The Fourth Hokage's soul is sealed inside the Shinigami. No way to call that back. But the other power—that one I can work with."
Good.
Yukii opened her eyes.
"I've located the Nine-Tails' chakra," she told Haku.
"Does the boy have to die?" Haku asked quietly.
"The Nine-Tails' manifestation requires a sacrifice," Yukii said. "What are you still hesitating for? Once the Nine-Tails is summoned, Kirigakure can be destroyed—"
"Kirigakure's shinobi are Zabuza-sama's future subordinates." Haku found his reason. "Are you ready to begin?"
"I've marked Naruto. Seance Jutsu requires a sacrifice. The one who bears the mark becomes both the sacrifice and the vessel. When the vessel itself carries the mark, it maximizes the power drawn from the Tailed Beast. A Jinchūriki as the sacrificial anchor—cough—cough cough—"
Yukii kept speaking, then pressed a hand to her chest as a bout of coughing overtook her.
"Is your body holding up?" Haku murmured.
"Still enough left in me. This power borrowed from the demon—now is exactly when it needs to be used. Wait—" Yukii's brow furrowed. "Interference."
"The Konoha shinobi caught up. Or—were they hiding on the ship from the start?!" Haku stiffened.
"The Jōnin didn't come. Haku—go stop them. You don't need long. Just hold until the ritual completes."
"Yes."
Haku was gone.
Yukii turned to Naruto. "You've been awake for a while. You don't have to keep pretending."
Naruto opened his eyes. Bound hand and foot, his expression was complicated. "Aunt Kushina—none of this is real, is it. It's not real, is it—"
He looked small, pitiful, and helpless. His emotions had bottomed out completely.
The Nine-Tails' chakra felt the opening and surged to press against the seal—but Yukii struck it down with a flat palm, forcing it back under with a chakra far crueler than its own.
"That's right, Naruto. Blame the demon fox in your stomach. But—it's about to be mine."