Hikari Uchiha is a character who originated from a Naruto video game—a story of movie-scale scope in which she was cast as the female lead.
Hanabi had investigated her before, and found that although she came from a game, Hikari Uchiha really did exist. The outlook for rescuing her, however, was not good.
Hikari, sealed away inside that seal, was like a terracotta warrior buried underground—colors still vivid, presence still intact—but the moment she was unearthed and exposed to open air, she would fade. Like an ancient artifact crumbling the instant it met oxygen, she would deteriorate: from something lifelike and whole into something ruined and rotting.
In the original game, Hikari's physical condition was already in dire shape. It could only be described as falling apart piece by piece. Even her life expectancy was running out. Part of the reason the game's protagonist Boruto had to travel through time to save her was that saving her in the present would have been pointless—her body was simply too far gone.
Now that Hanabi had synthesized her signature weapon, that powerful restorative ability gave her a real chance at saving Hikari.
"It'll work perfectly as my OVA," she decided.
"Now—Full mode."
She activated Full mode. The ropes encasing her body began to spread, extending outward, weaving like fabric until they resolved into a kimono—the very furisode she had worn as her Hanabi costume before.
The craftsmanship was something else entirely. Even through all those layers of rope, it had somehow managed to work in white stockings underneath.
Hanabi had a sense she could adjust and modify it—but that would take some effort.
Red mode was the combat mode she'd used before. The Full-mode kimono offered strong protection—heavy as plate armor. Red mode was light to the point of feeling like nothing at all, though protection took a corresponding hit.
The costume could be removed, but the moment it came off, it would unravel into red rope and dissolve into drifting threads.
"Alright, and then—"
Hanabi switched back to Full mode.
The moment she settled into idle rest, she felt the ropes begin to tighten.
"Ugh… heavy."
Per Asceticism's description, while assisting with training, her own body was suppressed to ordinary human strength—and at that point, the kimono she wore became crushingly heavy. It already felt like plate armor under normal circumstances.
"But it doesn't interfere with chakra flow."
"Breaking out of the restraint state takes about one second… right, there's a solution for that. I can pre-load the Utsusemi technique inside the kimono. The instant I take a hit, I shed the kimono—instantly breaking free from the suppressed state—and the threads it dissolves into scatter through the air, disrupting the enemy's line of sight."
The solution came to her immediately.
The Utsusemi technique was a use of the substitution jutsu—using one's own clothing as the replacement, slipping away in the confusion.
"And it stacks beautifully with Curse Bind."
Curse Bind.
The principle: constrain yourself in one area, strengthen yourself in another.
By keeping her eyes covered in day-to-day life, the Byakugan grows stronger each time it's actually deployed.
Physical restraint worked the same way.
Like the class rep in the C3 Cube, who used the two cursed tools on her body to exploit a loophole—
Hanabi was doing the same thing here with Curse Bind's cost-and-benefit mechanic and Zhuixia's restraint system. She'd found her own loophole.
Simply put: Hanabi was always "charging up" at rest. When she needed to move, she spent that stored power—outputting combat strength far beyond ordinary limits.
In principle, it worked something like Tsunade's Yin Seal.
Mastering it properly, though, was a different story.
If she could wield it with the fluency Ryomen Sukuna showed in Jujutsu Kaisen—not just "saving up" but actively "taking out loans," fighting with a lavish all-out burst style—then she'd have no trouble cutting 2.5 Gojo Senseis down to 1.25 Gojo Senseis.
"But I can't get ahead of myself. The Naruto world has no shortage of sealing jutsu, and without a Jingliu resonance active, if I actually ran into a serious sealing technique, I'd be in real trouble."
Sealing jutsu were their own category of broken. Just look at the Boruto series—poor Kaguya was still sealed away. Even Naruto himself had gotten sealed at one point.
Can't win? Seal it. It was absurd how often that answer worked.
And sometimes, immortality only made the outcome more horrifying to think about…
"Then there's this."
Hanabi produced a scroll she'd copied out—something she'd spent considerable time tracking down: the recorded history of the Warring States-era seal involving Hikari Uchiha.
"Stage, I'd like to begin filming an OVA."
She notified the Stage.
[Request received. Please submit a script outline first.]
"There's an outline requirement? What happens if something unexpected comes up mid-shoot?" Hanabi was curious.
[The script outline is to deal with the shoot. Following the basic story structure—setup, development, turn, resolution—is sufficient.]
So the production crew were that easy to deal with?
"Alright, I'd better think this through carefully then."
The Chunin Exams were still a month away. Kakashi had given Team 7 a few days off to recover.
But Hanabi was worried about time, so she requested a few extra days on top of that.
Before any of that, though, she had something else to attend to.
She needed to make her signature weapon feel like it belonged in this world.
"Perfect—I can use the foreshadowing I already laid. I'll trouble the Divine Pestilence Ancestor again—oh, I mean I'll trouble the Merciful Medicine King, and ask him to take the blame for a bit more."
She had this new set of equipment and a collection of unusual abilities, but the audience had no context for them.
The story hadn't supplied any backstory either.
Strictly speaking, the Stage didn't require her to give Zhuixia an origin. But Hanabi held herself to a higher standard.
Other characters' plotlines were one thing—but for herself, as a performer who took her work seriously and whose goal was to become a Superstar, she had a responsibility to the audience.
Give the audience what they wanted. Become the person they wanted to root for. That was what it meant to be an idol.
Especially now that she had an oshi—someone who had even volunteered to take on the promotional work for her, a devoted solo fan.
I'd be happy to sing you a song, Mr. Aha.
"And the foreshadowing from the Warring States seal history is already in place."
"I'll need to find some teammates, though."
Since it was an OVA, Hanabi was the lead by default—no need to ride someone else's screen time.
Naruto and Sasuke, she didn't plan to bring along.
"Hmm, maybe I'll bring in some of the other rookies—help build up their popularity?"
Her own popularity was already well-established. She didn't need to compete for screen time right now.
In fact, she'd reached the point where she needed to be growing the market rather than just dividing it up.
In other words: she'd gone from cutting slices of the cake to baking the cake itself.
"As for screen time—first priority goes to my dear sister and my big brother~"
Naturally, family came first when there was popularity to hand out.
"But before any of that—"
Before any of that, Hanabi had to put on her construction worker hat and build some sets.