The short break ended faster than anyone expected. In the next moment, all eyes were on the arena once again.
The arena floor shimmered in the midday sun, the packed sand still scarred from the last fight.
From the Sand village side, the boy with the giant gourd on his back stepped out and stopped in his tracks.
From the Snow side, a boy in a white-and-blue uniform walked out at a calm, unhurried pace, coming to a halt opposite the boy who looked… not good at all.
Between them, Genma let out a slow breath, senbon tilting in his mouth.
…Man, he thought dryly, one of you looks like you'd apologize for hitting too hard, and the other looks like he's about to start gnawing on somebody's bones…
Genma paused for half a second, taking in Gaara's expression.
…Seriously, kid, wipe your mouth, he thought, resisting the urge to gesture at the line of drool. You're making this look like feeding time, not an exam match…
Out loud, he only sighed faintly.
"Alright then," he said. "You both know the rules. No killing, avoid lethal blows where possible. If I say the match is over, you stop immediately. Clear?"
"Yes," Haku answered.
Gaara didn't bother replying. His answer was the way his grin stretched even wider.
Genma's gaze flicked between them one last time.
"…Alright. If there are no questions—" he lifted his hand, senbon glinting between his teeth, "—begin."
The word had barely left his mouth before Gaara moved.
The gourd on his back cracked open with a dry grinding sound, sand pouring out in a wave that surged across the arena like a living thing, rushing straight for Haku's legs.
The crowd barely had time to gasp.
Haku simply exhaled.
He raised his right hand, palm open, fingertips relaxed.
A soft, ringing chime of cold spread out from him.
The temperature on the arena floor dropped in an instant. Every grain of sand that lunged toward his ankles abruptly slowed, then stopped, the motion freezing mid-swirl as a filigree of frost crawled over it.
In the blink of an eye, Gaara's attacking sand solidified—transformed into a gleaming sculpture of twisting dunes and reaching hands, all carved in translucent ice.
Sunlight speared through it, refracting into shards of color that danced over Haku's face.
"…Ice," someone in the stands breathed.
Haku glanced down at the frozen wave at his feet, then up at Gaara.
"Scary," he murmured calmly, lips curving in a faint smile. "If that caught me, it would've hurt."
Gaara's eyes went wide for a fraction of a second.
Then he started laughing in a low, dry, unstable sound.
"Heh… heheheh…"
His shoulders shook as he stared at the ruined attack, then at Haku through the curtain of red hair.
"You… stopped my sand… Mother won't like that…" he whispered, voice hoarse. "You think you can play with it… turn it into something pretty…?"
The sand gourd shifted again, a harsher grinding this time.
"Your face..." His cracked lips stretched into something that might've been a smile if there was anything warm in it. "You'll look even prettier… when you're broken… when Mother's had her fill of your blood…"
Gaara spread his arms slightly.
The remaining sand exploded from the gourd in a roaring wave, far denser and faster than before, spiraling around and above him like a sandstorm caught in a vortex.
"Sand Coffin."
The mass of sand lunged again—this time not just at Haku's feet, but from all directions at once. Front, back, above, sides—seeking to crush him in a single, unavoidable grip.
Haku didn't move from where he stood.
He pressed his hand gently against the air.
"Hyōton…"
A ring of frost pulsed out from his palm, invisible for half a heartbeat.
Then every grain of sand that entered that radius began to slow.
What should have been a crushing, suffocating wave instead became a drifting halo—the sand stiffening in mid-air as ice spider-webbed across each particle, weaving them together into intricate, branching shapes.
What had started as a killing technique transformed again, right there in front of everyone, into a drifting crown of glass-clear ice, its edges sharp and beautiful and utterly harmless as it spun lazily past Haku's cheek.
Haku's eyes softened.
"…You really have a lot of sand," he commented politely, as if they were discussing the weather. "I'm impressed."
On the balcony, a few people choked.
"...He really knows how to aura farm," Sasuke muttered to himself.
"Ehh? Aura what, Sasuke-kun?" Sakura beside him heard and came out of her stupor from the spectacle below, asking in confusion. That was a word she had never heard before.
"Something you will never have, Sakura. You just need to know that," Sasuke replied without holding back.
"U-Uhh, I see, Sasuke-kun." Sakura nodded, completely not understanding, but just thinking maybe it was something to do with the two guys below.
Maybe Sasuke-kun thinks I'm not strong now… I have to work hard, she thought with conviction.
"So… so cool, Haku! It's so amazing!" Naruto said in a broken voice, his face red. Surrounded by those ice sculptures, Haku looked even more beautiful.
Of course, not everyone was appreciating the scene, and Gaara could confess to that… he didn't like what he was seeing.
Gaara's eye twitched.
The sand around him growled like a living thing, resisting the freezing touch crawling over it.
"Don't… touch it," he hissed. "Don't taint Mother… with your cold…"
The ground under Haku's feet swelled. A sudden spike of sand burst upward from directly beneath him, aiming to impale him in one brutal strike.
But as it shot up, white mist exploded around Haku's sandals.
The spike froze mid-lunge, stopping a hair's breadth from his chest—its point now a translucent spear of ice, glittering inches from his heart.
Haku rested his fingertips lightly against it.
A soft crack echoed as the spike shattered into harmless shards, scattering like snow.
"Hyōton: Shiroyuki no Te (Snow-White Hand)," he said quietly. "I apologize… but if I don't do this, you'll really kill me, won't you?"
Gaara's breath hitched. His anger was already something he couldn't hold back; the guy's attitude was rubbing him the wrong way.
Enough. I will kill him… You're making Mother angry… the sand wants your blood…
The sand behind him surged up in a tidal wave, towering over the arena wall. He poured even more chakra into it, forcing it to ignore the biting cold crawling along its surface.
"I'll crush you," he whispered, voice trembling with something close to excitement. "I'll crush you until not even your bones are left…"
The monster grin stretched across his face again.
"Mother's hungry."
The massive sand wave crashed down.
To everyone watching, it looked like Haku disappeared under it.
But inside that avalanche of sand, the temperature plummeted.
Haku's chakra flowed outward in a powerful force. Every time sand tried to close around a limb, it slowed, stiffened, and turned to ice, layer after layer, until an entire section of the wave became a frozen wall instead of a coffin.
From the stands, they saw the wave stop… then lift.
A jagged, expanding structure of ice erupted from within, pushing the sand up and away, turning the whole attack into a rising sculpture of frozen dunes that reached toward the sky.
At the very center of it, Haku stood on a blooming platform of ice, hair fluttering gently in the chill air, as if he were standing on a throne of glass.
His gaze slid past the frozen sand and landed back on Gaara.
"…You really shouldn't talk about being crushed so casually," he said, voice still soft, still almost shy. "That feeling… isn't pleasant."
As he spoke, the ice he'd created didn't stop spreading.
Thin veins of frost raced along the ground, snaking toward Gaara's bare feet. The sand armor around him tried to rise in defense, but the moment it touched the encroaching ice, it began to harden, the outermost layer turning pale, then clear.
"Tch—"
Gaara shifted, sand whipping up to carry him backward.
But the frost was faster.
It climbed the sand at his ankles, racing up his legs in jagged patterns, encasing the sand shell, then biting through to the skin beneath.
A sharp hiss tore from his throat.
The part of his body that was still flesh flushed instantly, his skin turning an angry, blotchy red wherever the cold kissed it.
He let his body crumble into sand, slipping out of the forming prison in a swirl of grains, reforming a few meters away, chest heaving.
The moment he reformed, a shudder ran down his entire body.
"You…" Gaara rasped, eyes wild and bloodshot as drool began to leak from the corner of his mouth, looking completely as if he was about to lose control at any moment.
"You hurt me…"
Haku tilted his head, looking genuinely regretful.
"I did warn you... I'm not very good at holding back, either."
"Good… good…" Gaara whispered, voice cracking between words. "It hurts… Mother likes it when it hurts…!"
His fingers dug into his own arms, nails scraping over reddened skin as the sand behind him roared to life again, more vicious than before.
Despite the defensive stance, despite the politeness in his expression, there was no mistaking it now.
From the first blow until this moment, the one in control of the arena… had been Haku.
But now, Haku's gentle expression shifted slightly, turning serious as he sensed the instability in Gaara.
Is he losing control…?
--
Up in the stands, moments earlier...
Obito leaned back in his seat, one arm draped lazily over the backrest, the other hand propping up his cheek as he watched the arena with bright, amused eyes.
"Man…" he exhaled, his grin stretching wider. "Look at him go."
He folded his arms across his chest, looking absurdly proud.
"Beautiful."
Then, almost as an afterthought, he glanced at Kushina sitting beside him.
From the moment he had casually asked, "Is this seat free?" after dropping into it like he belonged there, she hadn't given him much of a reaction.
Even now, while he kept half an eye on the fight below and the other on her, Kushina remained sitting straight, her gaze fixed on the arena with a serious, unreadable expression.
Honestly… that was unexpected.
A small part of him felt disappointed.
Another part of him, annoyingly enough, felt relieved.
What am I thinking…? No, what am I hoping for, huh?
His eyes flicked over her for a moment before returning to the arena.
He had to admit it.
She was getting prettier by the day.
Then he finally dragged his attention away from her and looked back at his student showing off below.
Yeah, he wouldn't admit he was a bit annoyed.
He watched Haku's performance for another second, then gave a small, self-assured nod.
He just felt like he should be paying more attention to his student.
Still…
He couldn't help noticing how different Kushina felt now.
The old Kushina would've had some fire in her eyes by now, some excited glint, some loud reaction, some obvious hype. But this Kushina just sat there quietly, calm and serious, without showing much of anything at all.
That was what had been throwing him off since the moment he arrived.
He just wasn't used to her being this quiet and unreadable.
…Maybe she misses me, Obito thought, with the shameless confidence only a narcissist could produce.
And just as he was deciding they might not end up speaking at all, fate apparently decided to prove him wrong.
"Do you know that kid down there?"
The calm, mature voice caught him slightly off guard.
Obito's brows lifted behind his shades, but he adjusted instantly. Turning his head toward Kushina, he met her gaze with an easy smile.
"I'd answer," he said lightly, "but I'm not sure which one you mean, Lady."
His eyes narrowed just a fraction behind the dark lenses.
What now? Did she notice something?
Kushina kept her arms folded as she looked toward the arena.
"The one with the Snow headband," she said. "I heard what you said earlier, so I thought you might know him. That child is… very impressive."
Then her eyes shifted briefly toward Naruto.
"My brat seems to be friends with him."
Obito followed her gaze, then let out a small sound of understanding.
"Ahh, so that's what you meant."
He glanced toward Naruto, then back toward Haku below.
"The blond kid, huh? I heard he beat the Hyūga boy earlier. Your son's pretty impressive too, ma'am."
Then, with absolutely no shame, he pointed at Haku in the arena.
"Yep. That's my teaching right there."
He gestured downward like a tour guide proudly presenting a masterpiece.
"You see that? That's what happens when you learn from the strongest."
Another heavy impact echoed through the arena below.
Obito adjusted his glasses with smug satisfaction.
Kushina looked at Haku for another moment, her expression thoughtful.
"…I see," she said at last. "He does seem like a gentle child."
Just like that, she ignored his narcissistic nonsense entirely and gave her honest impression instead.
Obito smiled, but inwardly, something twisted.
This is… weird.
He had never felt this awkward talking to her before.
It was such a strange, crawling discomfort that it almost made his skin itch.
Before he could gather his thoughts, Obito suddenly felt it.
His gaze shifted toward Gaara below.
Then he smiled.
Well, well~ it looks like the finale is here… I should get ready too.
His eyes moved from the arena to Orochimaru, who was still seated beside the Third Hokage.
Obito didn't need to think too hard about it.
That snake should be making his move any moment now.
After all, Gaara starting to lose control was basically the signal.
The bell that marked the beginning of this war.
Of course, he wasn't the only one who noticed the change in Gaara.
Beside him, Kushina frowned as soon as she saw Gaara's condition. At the same time, the Third Hokage's expression hardened, and his eyes shifted toward the 'Fourth Kazekage' with unmistakable seriousness.
He already had more than enough doubts as it was.
Now those doubts only deepened.
What exactly was the Sand Village trying to do here…?
Sending their Jinchūriki into the Chūnin Exams was one thing.
But letting things reach this point?
That was another matter entirely.
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