The audience seemed to really like Hanabi's new combat look. When the Stage cut over to Naruto and Sasuke's scene, the audience was still wailing—the cinematographer cutting away like this meant his pay should be docked, clearly!
The reaction was unexpectedly solid, and it gave Hanabi some ideas.
Maybe she could use these extra prosthetic limbs to make combat look even flashier.
Hanabi was even thinking about the Stand fights from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure—or more specifically, the Stand-on-Stand brawls.
In a lot of people's mental image, JoJo Stand combat was: the real body strikes a pose, hands in pockets, and the Stand behind them goes absolutely ballistic.
—So, she could give that a try for herself, right?
During combat, her own hands would be folded in front of her chest like a proper lady. Meanwhile the prosthetics beside her would be going ham.
Mm... a faint sense of smug grandstanding welled up.
"You...!"
At that moment, Gaara finally ran out of patience. Sand began to coat his body and spread, moving as if alive. His power seemed to suddenly increase—he actually pried off the puppet arms holding him and flung Hanabi away.
"This is bad—Gaara's state is very unstable!" A look of genuine alarm crossed Kankuro's face.
"My my, that was a close one."
Hanabi caught hold of a tree trunk with Zhuixia and just barely avoided getting flung clean off.
Hanabi had a slight disadvantage in these "heavyweight" matchups, and that disadvantage was body weight.
In wrestling-style contests, it wasn't just raw strength that decided the winner—body weight and tonnage mattered too.
Hanabi was very light, and the prosthetic puppet limbs were made of ultralight materials, so if she didn't anchor herself with chakra or Zhuixia, she really could get "blown away."
Gaara finally had a chance to breathe. More and more sand gathered around him, completely covering him up.
Hanabi wasn't in a hurry.
She'd just wanted to probe Gaara with an opening volley—she even had time to spare to enjoy the livestream on the other channel.
And the livestream's content was almost exactly what she'd expected. Because Naruto wanted to step outside.
"Hey, Sasuke, let me run something by you—can I step out for a bit?"
Naruto was being a little squirmy.
"If you need the bathroom, there's a makeshift one in here," Sasuke said.
"That's not it!" Naruto was exasperated, but he didn't know how to explain.
The Stage cut to a flashback instead.
And the content was the scene from before, when Naruto went to find the Grass-nin.
At that time, Kushina had planned to use the gap in the Grass-nin's attention to go have a chat with the red-haired girl.
But Kushina and Naruto had noticed that the Grass-nin's attitude toward Karin was a bit strange, and there were a lot of bite marks on Karin's arms.
If it were a team op, Naruto might have been able to set that worry aside for now.
But right now he was killing time in the hideout, and Naruto had decided to go find the girl and ask her directly.
He also wanted to know who he really was and where he came from. The way those two Grass-nin treated the red-haired girl who might be his distant relative was bothering Naruto.
But face to face with Sasuke, Naruto didn't know whether to push on this.
"Haah." Sasuke sighed. "There's no way I'm letting you move on your own—so whatever it is you want to do, I'll go with you."
"Seriously?!" Naruto's eyes practically lit up.
[Just spoil him already!]
[I knew those two weren't going to stay put]
[It's like the protective circle Sun Wukong drew for Tang Sanzang—inside the circle is perfectly safe, but Tang Sanzang just has to step outside]
A rush of danmaku streamed across.
The two then left the hut.
Although honestly, even if they hadn't walked out this cleanly, Hanabi had other ways to nudge both of them out.
After all, if she didn't pull this off, how was she supposed to help the two of them with their "plot development"~
"Listen up—we're just going to do a quick scout of the area, and if anything urgent comes up, we retreat immediately, got it?"
Sasuke was still quite cautious.
"Yes!" Naruto was full of energy. "Thanks, Sasuke~"
"Mm, let's... hm?"
Sasuke suddenly stopped.
Because somehow, Naruto—who'd been right next to him—had vanished.
"How did this happen so fast?! Who on earth is this!"
He should still be within the perimeter of the hideout.
But something was definitely off.
The scenery around Sasuke felt unfamiliar, and yet he hadn't noticed it at all.
[Grass (a type of exclamation), he got hit instantly]
[Ridiculous]
[Karma came fast this time, lol]
[So when exactly did Sasuke get hit?]
"Release!"
Sasuke realized he'd very likely been caught in a genjutsu, and tried to dispel it, but nothing happened.
"Naruto and I should've both been fine when we left. So when exactly did I get caught...?"
Sasuke was thinking.
But he quickly realized he couldn't think anymore.
Because a wave of killing intent had already settled over him!
This was a killing intent with real murderous will inside it—a killing intent with absolute oppressive force and dominance.
"Who are you...?"
Sasuke stared ahead.
There was no one in that spot—but there also seemed to be something there.
"Heheheheh, so you can even see me—the last little brat of the Uchiha clan."
A black shadow appeared over there, and the shadow in turn seemed to be observing Sasuke.
The pressure was staggering.
Just being scrutinized and observed had already generated this much pressure. It was the first time in Sasuke's life he'd experienced anything like it.
"What did you do with Naruto?!" Sasuke shouted.
"Who knows. Maybe I let him go, maybe I've already killed him on a whim."
The black shadow spoke at an unhurried pace.
But that casual tone, that casual speed, made Sasuke frantic.
"...Wait!"
Sasuke seemed to realize something. He immediately activated his Sharingan.
The black shadow's outline got a lot clearer.
It was a black silhouette of a person—entirely covered by some kind of black material, which made the whole figure look like nothing but a black cutout.
But within that black cutout, only the eyes were normal.
No, you couldn't even call them normal.
Because they were a pair of Sharingan.
That's right—this black shadow had a pair of Sharingan!
"Who the hell are you... why do you have the Sharingan!"
Sasuke was caught between confusion and fury.
"You can't even figure out this much, you little brat. I'm an ancestor of yours from several generations back. As for my name... mm, you can call me... Madara Uchiha."