"Give it back!"
Hanabi sidestepped Naruto's lunge with a single turn. In the same motion, she tied a red cord around the scroll—a secondary seal. What Naruto couldn't see was the chakra she'd threaded into the binding as she did it.
To accelerate her training, Hanabi always wore Jingliu's black gauze blindfold. Her main method of perceiving the world was the chakra she kept dispersed around herself at a low, constant hum—which meant her chakra control had become exquisitely refined. Copying a few techniques off a scroll? That was nothing.
"Give it BACK!" Naruto was getting desperate. He charged at her again, and again she redirected him effortlessly past her with a light touch, sending him stumbling in the opposite direction.
"Naruto, you're a bit of an idiot, but I don't actually think you'd steal the Scroll of Seals. Not really."
"Don't mess with my mission, Hanabi!"
Naruto picked himself up and lunged again.
"Given how hard you've been working," Hanabi said, crouching down to his eye level, "you must have been learning one of the techniques inside. Let me think—someone told you something, didn't they. Something like: get the scroll and you can graduate."
"Huh?!" Naruto froze.
"Let me think. While you and I were talking this afternoon, there was a fly buzzing around the whole time... It was Mizuki, wasn't it."
[DETECTIVE HANABI HAS ENTERED THE CHAT!]
[She was definitely doing it on purpose this afternoon!]
[Oh my god she actually knew. I'm crying.]
[She's holding the most OP scroll in the village and she doesn't even care. Lady Hanabi is something else.]
[WHAT A WASTE, she's not even reading it!]
[The scroll probably doesn't have anything that good in it anyway.]
[This is such a classic "I have the ultimate secret manual but choose not to read it" power move. Drives you insane.]
"Naruto." Hanabi looked at him—the shock still written across his face. "Do you know what the Scroll of Seals actually is? It's a record of forbidden jutsu. Techniques that violate moral norms, or that harm the user. In other words, nothing in here is something you'd want to learn."
She was, in the same breath, copying several of those techniques.
Thieves don't leave empty-handed. I'm here already—might as well take something.
And there were some things worth taking. Impure World Reincarnation was in there. So were the Four Symbols Seal and Mutually Multiplying Explosive Tags.
Beyond those: Summoning Jutsu and Inner Lotus.
Right—Summoning Jutsu was technically a forbidden technique. Even in canon. Good to note.
She had no particular enthusiasm for any of it, but having knowledge you never use was different from lacking knowledge entirely. I may not use it, but I can't afford not to have it.
That was all.
"Someone tells you to steal the Scroll of Seals and learn a forbidden technique—Naruto, does that sound like a make-up exam to you?" Hanabi asked, delivering a soul-piercing question.
"But Mizuki-sensei said—" Naruto wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, but he wasn't slow. The pieces were connecting. Mizuki had lied to him.
"Naruto! Hanabi, you're here too—thank goodness!"
The Third Hokage had mobilized the village to search for Naruto the moment the theft was discovered. Iruka had been sent out with the rest. When he found Naruto—and saw the Scroll of Seals in Hanabi's hands—he exhaled with relief.
"Hanabi, give me the scroll. Naruto, what were you thinking—pulling something this reckless?!"
Iruka crossed to Hanabi quickly, scolding as he came.
"Of course, Iruka-sensei. Here you go—"
Hanabi flung the scroll sideways into the brush.
Iruka's eyes followed it on instinct—and in that fraction of a second, Hanabi was already moving. She closed the distance in a flash, a kunai driving forward.
Clang.
Metal met metal. "Iruka" was sent flying.
"Hanabi?! Why did you just attack Iruka-sensei?!" Naruto stared.
The situation was moving too fast for his brain to process.
"Damn it—how did you know I wasn't Iruka..." The man who'd been launched into the tree line flickered. His Transformation Jutsu collapsed in a puff of smoke, and Mizuki's face emerged from the haze.
"Huh?! WHAT?!" Naruto's jaw dropped.
The real Iruka appeared from the side a moment later, clutching the scroll, expression complicated.
He'd arrived before Mizuki. When he saw Hanabi talking to Naruto, he'd hung back to observe.
Hanabi's voice had been carrying far enough that he could hear. She was clearly speaking loud enough for him to hear.
But before he could step forward, a second "Iruka" had appeared. The impersonator was obviously Mizuki.
"Why is this happening?" Naruto was completely lost.
"They just don't want you to learn what's inside and undo your own seal," Mizuki said, rising to his feet and vaulting into the branches above. "Let me tell you what's really going on, Naruto."
"Stop—don't say it!" Iruka lurched forward, immediately grasping what Mizuki intended.
But Mizuki had the high ground and no reason to worry about Iruka rushing him—not while Iruka was holding the scroll and couldn't risk Mizuki getting his hands on it.
Mizuki's smile was cold. "Twelve years ago, the village passed a certain rule. A rule that said one person—you, Uzumaki Naruto—must never be told a certain secret."
"Me? Why?!"
"Don't, Mizuki!" Iruka hurled a kunai. Mizuki batted it away with the giant windmill shuriken on his back without blinking.
"The rule says no one can tell Naruto that his true nature is that of a demon fox. That's right—the Nine-Tailed Fox that killed Iruka's parents, that devastated this village—that's you, Uzumaki Naruto!"
"...Huh?"
The weight of it hit, and Naruto went still.
"Naruto." Iruka moved toward him—but Mizuki's eyes stayed fixed on the scroll in his hands. Iruka didn't dare give him an opening.
Tossing the scroll to Iruka in the first place had, it turned out, put Iruka on the back foot.
The Third Hokage, watching through his crystal ball, saw it all. He looked grimly at the scene—then, with faint unease, let his gaze drift to Hanabi.
Hanabi was one of Naruto's few friends. Now that she knew the truth—would she pull away from him?
[Here it comes. Classic anime "displaced resentment" logic.]
[So painfully standard. Even in this day and age, we're still getting this arc.]
[Not just getting it—new shows are still running it.]
A silence settled over the clearing.
The audience, on the other hand, was having a very spirited time.
"Pfft."
A laugh cut through the silence.
Hanabi had laughed out loud.
"What's so funny?!" Mizuki snapped.
Three against one—Hanabi, Naruto, Iruka—and the situation was stalled. If more people arrived, his plan was done. Even with just two to deal with, he was willing to push his luck, but the current odds weren't in his favor. He needed to drive a wedge between Naruto and Iruka—didn't even need them on the same side; just needed Naruto opposed to Iruka.
But this Hanabi was the problem. She'd interfered twice now, almost like she was doing it on purpose.
"Oh, I just thought the little clown routine was amusing. You have real talent for it, Mizuki-sensei."
Hanabi's tone was unhurried. Deliberate.
Yes. She knew he was rattled—which was exactly why she was doing this.
"Nani?!"
Not just Mizuki. Naruto and Iruka both turned to stare at her.
"The villagers are simply ignorant and weak. The target of their hatred was sealed away by the Fourth Hokage—and so they had no outlet. They turned the weight of their suffering onto a child who couldn't fight back, because children... can't resist." She paused. "Like mindless beasts. No—wait. Even beasts know to protect their young."
— What is she talking about?
Naruto's processing power hit its limit.
But he caught the general shape of it: Hanabi seemed to be... speaking for him?
Yeah. Probably.
Mizuki, meanwhile, understood her meaning clearly. But it wasn't anything that could touch him. He smiled with contempt. High-minded talk from a child. He'd expected something sharper.
"But you, Mizuki-sensei—" Hanabi's voice didn't change. "— are simply incompetent."
Mizuki's expression cracked.
"A chūnin taking the Scroll of Seals is meaningless. Forgive my bluntness, but I doubt you could even read what's inside, let alone use it. Even if the scroll were a gift, you wouldn't make a ripple. You're a clown—and clowns have handlers. Somewhere behind you is the person giving the orders. But executors like you, no matter what—never have good endings. You are, quite simply, a disposable piece."
Mizuki snapped. He hurled one of the giant windmill shuriken. "YOU—!"
Naruto hadn't broken yet—but Mizuki had.
"Hanabi!"
The attack came without warning. Iruka scrambled toward her but couldn't intercept.
"Hanabi!"
Naruto screamed as the enormous shuriken tore through her—
—and Hanabi's silhouette dissolved like a reflection on rippling water.
Then her voice came from a different direction entirely: "That was a genjutsu."
"Nani?!" Mizuki spun. Hanabi was perched on a branch to his side.
He went cold—when had she gotten there?
"By the way," she said pleasantly, "the jutsu I used during the graduation exam—that was also a genjutsu. Did you not notice? And you call yourself a chūnin?"
"I knew it!" Iruka covered his face.
He'd never been able to pin down exactly what was off about Hanabi's performance during the exam, but something had nagged at him. Her bearing had been slightly different than usual. Now it made sense—she'd been pulling something. Mizuki, naturally, had never caught on.
"Mizuki-sensei," Hanabi said, her tone serene as ever. "You're somewhere below maggots."