"...Huh?"
Naruto and Kushina both made the same sound at the same time.
Naruto knew that name. The name Aunt Yukii had just cried out wasn't his.
The moment that name appeared in the chapter, the comments detonated.
The audience had been half-expecting it—but what they really wanted was to see Naruto's face when he finally heard it.
[A mother-and-son showdown]
[If you think about it, Hanabi's plan for 'letting Yukii burn herself out'... that's actually horrifying]
[Having the son stall while his mother falls apart—holy hell]
[Did you not see them talking trash at each other this whole time? That WAS her holding back]
[Hanabi, you absolute monster]
[I was so ready for a fully animated all-out fight, but now I don't even want to see them throw hands anymore!]
[Stop! Just stop fighting!]
[I'm apologizing on behalf of my wife, this is all her fault QAQ]
The comment section was incredibly immersive. This batch of viewers had a talent for careening in directions no one expected—and then somehow generating popularity points in the process.
They had no idea that their chaotic commentary was, in its own twisted way, exactly on target.
"Her child... died?"
Kushina grasped something.
The same name. Shared with someone else. A child who shared her son's name.
"They put a paper bomb on Narumen's swaddling cloth—for sport. Menma died. Only I survived... cough cough... If Narumen had lived, he'd be about your age now..." Yukii's eyes went redder. "That was the moment I decided. I would have my revenge—even if I had to sell myself to a death god to get it."
"That's..."
Kushina stared.
Because she had lived through something very like it. On the night she died—if the paper bomb that mysterious attacker had placed on Naruto's swaddling cloth had gone off—would she have become something like this?
Naruto had gone rigid. He couldn't move.
He couldn't fight back. His consciousness had nearly stopped.
Yukii charged.
"No, you don't."
Another mother stepped into the path.
"Her chakra is strange—but I might be able to suppress it! Adamantine Sealing Chains!"
The Nine-Tails' power answered her call and became her own.
Kushina deployed her clan's secret technique—chains erupting from behind her, reaching for Yukii.
"The Nine-Tails is not yours to take. I will protect Naruto!"
She closed the gap and drove her fist into Yukii—sent her flying.
The whole cave collapsed and caved in.
"Naruto!"
Sasuke tried to follow—but someone caught him. Held him back. He didn't plunge into the pit with them. Only Kushina and Yukii dropped down into the ruins beneath.
Ancient ruins. The kind that Hanabi—playing engineer and set designer—had once fabricated, then destroyed.
"Hanabi?" Sasuke looked up. She was right there.
"Time to go." No explanation. She had him bundled in rope and was already moving, Haku closing in behind them after Hanabi had shaken him earlier.
"What about Naruto?!"
Sasuke was spent—completely helpless, being carried like cargo.
"That woman. Yukii. She doesn't have much longer." Hanabi's voice was careful, deliberate. Something unspoken behind it.
"But the Nine-Tails—"
"That chakra—it's not quite the Nine-Tails. Or rather—it looks like the Nine-Tails has been wrapped inside something else."
[Is the one who got summoned the Fourth Hokage?]
[No, the Fourth was male, and the face doesn't match the cliff carving either]
[Feels more like mom]
[Wait, is it actually mom?]
[I'm starting to think so—that first-person close-up earlier—]
[Nine-Tails' mom could totally be named something that sounds like Kushina, why not]
[So Yukii's son is Narumen—does that mean Naruto's mom can't be named something that rhymes with "Jiupin"?]
[What's "Jiupin"?]
["Zhiming" sounds like "Jiupin"—same tones]
[Also—that chain jutsu. That doesn't feel like a monster's power. That feels like something designed to contain monsters]
[Actually... that tracks]
The audience in 4202 were not to be underestimated. They'd caught all of this in the space of a few minutes—the live simulcast version, no less. When the full broadcast dropped, the analysts and detail-chasers would be relentless.
Down in the ruins, the two women were already at each other.
Hanabi was no match for Kushina in direct combat—but her resonance gauge was full.
She tapped it.
Resonance with Jingliu—a temporary, enormous spike in power. Just long enough.
Dark energy spread across Yukii's body. The ice-black shroud crept over her from all sides, enveloping her completely.
And the ice became her robe.
This was the final-boss form Hanabi had designed for Yukii: modeled loosely on the Herrscher of Ice from another world entirely, then rebuilt from the ground up with a ninja aesthetic.
Crimson chakra collided with ice-black chakra.
Kushina was no lightweight, and right now the Nine-Tails was inside her. The two of them traded blows without stopping—furious and matched.
Yukii's attacks came in cascading waves of ice—technique after technique—though none of it was Hanabi's native power. All of it was borrowed through resonance.
A longsword of ice formed in Yukii's grip.
She launched into the air—and came down from above, blade sweeping in a wide arc that trailed a roaring vortex. The strike fell like a giant pressing its heel to the earth, intent on crushing everything beneath.
Kushina didn't retreat. Her hands flew through seals, coiling a churning current of red chakra into a sphere, meeting the ice sword head-on.
BOOM.
The energies collided. A single thunderous impact blew out a ring of blazing light in every direction.
The ruins—already half-destroyed—took another round of damage.
Outside, the three of them scrambled back. The upward blast of air from below nearly swept them off their feet.
Inside the ruins, the two women wove through the wreckage at blinding speed—agile, precise.
Watching them, it barely looked like a fight. It looked like partners drilling a rehearsed sequence.
Jingliu's sword style was merciless—lightning-quick, bone-cold at every edge.
The Nine-Tails' power was savage and wild—like fire in shape, but poisonous at the core, saturated with a fury that wanted to unmake everything.
Yukii's ice sword suddenly extended its reach, lunging for Kushina—but the Nine-Tails' chakra tails trailing from Kushina's back intercepted the blade, deflecting it mid-strike. The tails swirled, sending small gusts spiraling off the impact.
"She's a handful..."
Every one of Kushina's strikes carried full-body momentum—the Nine-Tails' amplification made her feel as though she could tear through a mountainside bare-handed.
But the force across from her was no smaller. That ice felt like it could freeze the bedrock.
Fire and sword-light wove together, throwing off a blinding radiance.
Yukii's sword technique grew sharper with every pass—but Kushina could feel it. The life in the woman's body was draining.
If I just keep this going, she'll destroy herself.
The thought arrived fully formed.
"...No."
No.
She couldn't do that.
If she did—if she let that happen—
Naruto is crying.
And then—from somewhere beneath the ruins—a deep, grinding tremor.
Water erupted upward from below.
"That's bad—!"
The island. A real island, this one—and the combined output of two forces this large had done something to its foundation. The sea was coming in.
Yukii swept one hand out and froze it all—but in the same moment, she stumbled, clutching her chest.
Now.
Kushina moved.
She closed the distance in an instant—
And didn't strike. She wrapped her arms around Yukii entirely, and pulled her close.