临行密密缝,意恐迟迟归.
Careful stitches before the journey—afraid the road home will be long.
(From 游子吟 "Song of a Wandering Son" by Tang poet Meng Jiao. A mother sews her son's travel coat with dense, careful stitches before he sets out—each stitch driven by the fear that he will be gone a long time and there will be no one to mend it for him. The full poem ends with the question: can a blade of grass ever repay the warmth of three springs of sunlight? Here, the image is quietly inverted: it is the one playing the mother who will not be there when the son returns.)
Kushina Yukii sat by the window, an orange jacket in her hands, mending it with quiet, deliberate care. Her stitches were like the woman herself—gentle, unhurried. The jacket had been worn through in places, but under Yukii's hands, the damage all but disappeared.
Naruto sat stiff in his chair.
He looked toward the window.
That warm, gentle woman had her head bowed over his jacket, needle moving in and out without a sound.
It was a scene he had never witnessed in his life. Had never even imagined.
Something went very quiet inside him. The stillness moved through him—and somehow, the boy who was always loud and brash and restless felt, for once, steady.
Kushina Yukii.
This identity was one Hanabi had invented.
False, yes—but not a joke. Not something thrown together carelessly.
When she had built this character, Hanabi had poured herself into it completely.
The gut-wrenching grief of losing everyone you love.
The burning need for revenge, hollow at its core—rage that caved inward and left nothing behind.
Pain that couldn't be described, couldn't be spoken, could only be carried.
And then—the feeling of seeing a loved one again. A feeling too large for words.
Except the "loved one" in question was the Jinchūriki of the very Nine-Tails she needed to use.
Conflict. Chaos. Confusion. Emptiness.
Not an easy character to play.
But for Hanabi, who had set her sights on becoming a superstar—it was exactly the kind of hurdle she had to clear.
"Hey. Naruto, come try it on. Let me help you."
Yukii bit through the thread and lifted the jacket with both hands, smiling.
"Oh. Thank you, ma'am."
Naruto moved like a wooden puppet.
He felt like there was so much he wanted to say, but nothing would come out.
"Naruto, did something happen?"
Yukii asked.
"Huh? Wh—what?"
"You've seemed distracted." Yukii smoothed the jacket across his shoulders. "Earlier, with your friend—it looked like you two were fighting."
"N—no, it wasn't like that."
Naruto stumbled over his words, the way a child does when trying to hide a mistake from a parent.
"It's just… sometimes I wonder if I can actually make my dream happen. I want everyone to acknowledge me. I want to become Hokage—but—"
In front of others, Naruto was always certain. Always loud about believing in himself.
But was it really going to work out?
He was the "demon fox"—someone people despised. Could someone like him ever truly be accepted?
He thought back to something Hanabi had told him once, a long time ago: it wasn't that you became Hokage and then people acknowledged you—it was that people acknowledged you, and then you could become Hokage.
The young Naruto had been too headstrong to take it seriously. He'd let the words slide.
But now, suddenly, he found himself turning them over.
Inari's words had stung. And now the doubt was seeping in.
Were his parents really dead? Or had they left him behind—because of the Nine-Tails?
Naruto didn't let himself follow that thought any further.
Then warmth wrapped around him. Arms, quiet and steady, sheltering the loneliness he'd never named.
"It's all right. Naruto hasn't done anything wrong."
Such warmth.
The kind that said: whatever you've done, you're forgiven.
The voice didn't ask for reasons. Didn't say anything more than that. Just held him in the quiet and let him feel it.
"Huh—"
Something hot ran down his face.
A gentle hand reached up and wiped it away.
"Why are you crying?"
"I'm n—not. It's just—huh—this is weird—"
Why won't it stop?
"…Naruto's childhood must have held a pain no one else knew about. If that pain had never existed—do you think you could have been happy?"
The voice continued, soft and even.
"I—"
If not for the Nine-Tails—would he have had people around him? Would his parents have stayed?
Would he have been like any other kid—spoiled in his parents' arms, coming home from the Academy with good scores to brag about?
"If only it hadn't been there…"
"It's going to be okay. Everything is going to be okay."
A long silence.
At last, Naruto gathered himself.
"Here." Yukii offered him her handkerchief—the one she'd used to dry his tears.
"I should go."
He couldn't stay here.
He was afraid that if he stayed any longer, he wouldn't be able to leave at all.
"Mm."
Yukii walked him to the door.
Naruto pushed it open, then turned back to look at her.
"Well—I'm going."
"Take care." Yukii smiled—the way a mother smiles watching her child head out. "Safe travels."
He stepped through the door and was gone.
On the other side of things, Hanabi surfaced from the deep immersive state that playing Yukii required—and only now had a chance to look at the broadcast feed.
Unlike the real world, the live footage had been intercut with Naruto's inner monologue and his memories.
He lost his parents—but he still has me.
I'll give Naruto the warmth of a mother. I could even arrange for his mother herself to appear before him. That isn't out of reach.
The Land of Waves was a promotion test for the supporting cast. An advancement test for the minor characters.
Upstaging the lead was a trap. You couldn't let a supporting role swallow the stage—and Naruto was this world's "Child of Destiny," the "Child of the Plane." Trying to force herself into the protagonist's seat would only warp the story into something ugly.
But playing the best supporting role alongside the protagonist? Perfectly viable.
And riding a protagonist's coattails was an easier way to gain popularity.
Popularity was everything.
What was the thing that could make Naruto's heart ache most—something he couldn't get over, couldn't let go of?
Not a lover. A mother.
Sasuke was another angle, but the two of them were still at the "building rapport" stage.
For now, shaping this character the way she had—that was the right call.
"And then—Seance Jutsu."
The groundwork with Naruto was solid. The next phase of preparation was the Seance Jutsu itself.
In the original Jujutsu Kaisen, the Seance Jutsu had required complex ritual preparation before it could be performed. The ninjutsu adaptation was the same.
And this version of it was one Hanabi had reinforced considerably.
After meeting with Naruto, Yukii changed into her shinobi gear and made her way to Zabuza's base.
"How did it go?" she asked.
"Gatō's under genjutsu control. The supplies you asked for have been delivered to the island." Zabuza didn't bother hiding the fact that this woman grated on him—but after he'd seen that particular technique of hers, he had to admit: he was swayed.
If she could actually summon and control the Nine-Tails…
"Good. Then we move to the next step. First—we need to draw up a battle plan."