"Huh?"
Naruto had just sprinted to the base of the large tree when he froze, staring at Zabuza floating face-up on the water's surface with his eyes rolled back. The sight left everyone present struggling to process what had just happened.
"That's... it? He's really a Jōnin from the Hidden Mist?"
Sasuke was equally stunned. Clearly, he too had underestimated how quickly this would end. Zabuza's killing intent and bearing had placed enormous pressure on him, so the last thing he'd expected was for the man to go down in a single exchange.
"Mm... it was a bit unexpected, but honestly, it shouldn't be surprising at all."
Kakashi let out a quiet breath of relief, his expression visibly relaxing.
Surprising as the outcome appeared on the surface, the logic behind it was straightforward once he pieced together what he'd observed.
First, yes—Zabuza was a Jōnin, and a formidable one at that. No question there.
But when he'd faced Naruto and Sasuke's combined assault, he had committed the cardinal sin of any shinobi: underestimating his opponents.
Not only had he failed to treat the charging Naruto with caution, he hadn't even bothered to take Sasuke's incoming Starflower Claw Storm seriously—opting instead to sweep it aside with the Executioner's Blade. That single careless swing had let the lightning-attribute chakra coating those shuriken paralyze the muscles in his fingers.
For a shinobi, barring a handful of extremely rare exceptions, hand signs were an absolute prerequisite for casting ninjutsu. Perhaps the Starflower Claw Storm had only numbed Zabuza's fingers for less than a few seconds, but during that brief window, even someone of his caliber was locked out of performing any ninjutsu whatsoever.
Then came Naruto's Sonic Boom. That pure air-blade attack had shattered Zabuza's battle plan entirely, forcing him into a desperate leap—which left him stranded in midair, unable to dodge or defend.
So there he was: a Zabuza who could neither form hand signs for ninjutsu nor evade or block. His only remaining option was to take the hit. And when Hinata closed the distance and slammed a clean Orochinagi into him, the outcome was inevitable.
The difference between reality and a ninja video game was simple: there was no such thing as "resistance" or "defense stats" here. Outside of a few highly specialized defensive techniques, the vast majority of shinobi—no matter how powerful—didn't see any meaningful improvement to their physical durability.
Zabuza was built solidly, his muscles dense and well-conditioned, but his actual defensive capability didn't exceed an ordinary person's by much. The fact that he'd been beaten to death by a mob of common ronin in the original story illustrated this point perfectly well.
It had been over a week since Hinata and her team had sparred with Kakashi, and during that time she had already learned how to execute the Orochinagi. Her mastery was far from polished, but its destructive output was sufficient to melt stone.
That kind of force, landing clean on Zabuza's body—if he hadn't been a Jōnin whose instincts had channeled chakra to absorb part of the blow, and if he hadn't landed in the river, he would already be a charred corpse.
This was the truth of most shinobi combat: fights were extraordinarily short. A single exchange could decide life and death. One clean ninjutsu hit was often enough to kill, and conversely, taking one clean hit was often enough to end you. Zabuza had eaten an entire combo before going down—if anything, that spoke to how tough he was.
People like Sasuke and Madara, who possessed the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan and could deploy Susanoo as a permanent defensive shell, were statistical anomalies. Across the tens of millions of people in this world, only those two had that particular ability.
"Looks like even the so-called Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist can get complacent."
Gazing at Zabuza's floating form, Hinata's tone carried no surprise whatsoever. She was thoroughly confident in her own destructive output. Had Zabuza not been paralyzed by Sasuke's attack, he could easily have used ninjutsu to neutralize Naruto's strike, or employed Body Replacement or Clone Techniques to evade her follow-up. But the shinobi world had no room for "what ifs," so he had simply been one-shot—defeated far more quickly than in the original story.
Come to think of it, even in canon, Zabuza had held the upper hand after trapping Kakashi in the Water Prison Technique, only to lose it all because he'd underestimated his opponents. Naruto and Sasuke's teamwork had broken the prison and turned the tide from certain victory to total failure.
But the battle was clearly not over yet.
"Secret Technique! Demonic Mirroring Ice Crystals!"
A clear, youthful voice rang out without warning, and a wave of strange, biting cold materialized around the group. The sudden phenomenon snapped the just-relaxed Kakashi back to full alert, and he barked: "Watch out! There's another enemy!"
A fine, buzzing hum of cutting instruments slicing through air accompanied a deluge of senbon needles raining down from multiple angles at once. Kakashi, standing closest to Tazuna, flickered to shield the old man behind him. His kunai blurred in a rapid chain of deflections, knocking every incoming senbon cleanly out of the air.
Hinata, still standing where she'd landed, frowned slightly. The pale-eyed girl's silhouette blurred once and she was already in front of Naruto, her right arm sweeping out in a trail of blazing orange flame that vaporized the incoming needles to nothing. As for Sasuke, his two-tomoe Sharingan was more than sufficient to track every senbon trajectory. He batted the ice needles away with quick, precise sweeps of his kunai—the projectiles lacked the force to threaten him.
But while they were busy deflecting, an ice mirror had materialized ghost-like beside Zabuza's body on the water's surface. The youth who appeared within it scooped up the unconscious Zabuza without hesitation. Both figures flickered once and vanished behind the thin mist hanging over the river.
"Reinforcements? Should we pursue?"
Watching the unconscious Zabuza being carried away, Sasuke frowned. Though Hinata's Orochinagi had taken half the man's life, as long as he wasn't dead he would certainly come back for another round—and next time, there would be no carelessness.
"No. What escort mission involves chasing down the enemy? Our mission is simply to deliver Mr. Tazuna safely to the Land of Waves."
Confirming no remaining threats in the area, Kakashi exhaled and reached up to pull his forehead protector back down over his left eye. Granted, Naruto's reckless scruples had forced them to fend off an A-rank-caliber threat on behalf of their client pro bono, but that kind of discount couldn't last forever. If every future client pulled this sort of stunt, things would get out of hand fast.
"Fair enough. Now that the enemy's dealt with—Naruto, from this point forward, you will shut your mouth."
Hinata shot a frigid glare at Naruto, and the blond boy instinctively shuddered. He'd had the courage to defy Hinata's suggestion in the moment, sure—but that absolutely did not mean he had the courage to face the punishment coming afterward.
"Talk, Mr. Tazuna. What exactly is going on? Why would a Jōnin like Zabuza show up on a C-rank mission? Whatever trouble you've gotten yourself into, it clearly isn't simple."
Kakashi folded his arms and fixed a cold stare on the profusely sweating Tazuna, his tone sharpening: "I need you to understand—if your misrepresentation of the mission rank results in casualties among our village's shinobi, that is a responsibility no civilian can afford to bear."
"...I'm truly sorry..."
His knees buckled and he dropped into a textbook dogeza. Tazuna clearly knew there was no angle from which he could justify what he'd done. The old man's expression twisted with inner conflict as he sighed and began to speak in a low murmur.
"It all started after a thug named Gatō set his sights on the Land of Waves..."
"Hmm~~ The Land of Waves is an island nation surrounded by water on all sides. Geographically speaking, it's extremely easy to control. And it has no significant ties to any of the major nations. If we build the factory here, it's both highly defensible and requires minimal oversight to maintain. Yes—this location passes on every count."
Standing on a small boat, Kakuzu nodded approvingly as he compared the terrain against the maps and documents in his hands. As a detached island nation, the Land of Waves possessed an ideal geographic position. Control the sea routes and the boats, and you essentially eliminated the threat of any large-scale invasion. Station some fortified emplacements and defensive works along the shoreline, and the defenses would be airtight.
"Seriously, though—an island like this has basically nothing going for it except mud, right? Perfect for having Deidara make clay figures, I guess."
Hidan pulled at the oars with a thoroughly sour expression. He'd gotten trigger-happy earlier and split the boatman in half with his scythe, so now he was stuck doing the rowing himself.
"Mm~ no interference from major nations, no large ninja villages nearby to cause problems. Military assessment: also passing."
Checking off another item in his notebook, a rare note of satisfaction crept into Kakuzu's voice. "Based on this evaluation, this island nation is ready to fall into Akatsuki's grasp."
"Hah? Hey, hey, hey—didn't the Leader say we still need to survey the domestic power structure?"
Hidan swiveled to look at his partner, his expression genuinely baffled. "Don't tell me you're trying to cut corners."
"Idiot. The reason we needed to survey domestic forces in those other countries was to assess whether they might leak intelligence to nearby major nations or ninja villages. Since the Land of Waves has neither major nations nor large ninja villages anywhere near it, whoever's holed up on this island is irrelevant."
Kakuzu lifted his gaze toward the mist-shrouded Land of Waves ahead, his voice dripping with the arrogance and contempt unique to the powerful.
"If anyone gets in our way, we simply make them all... disappear."
"What Akatsuki wants, Akatsuki takes."