"What—?!"
Zabuza's eyes widened a fraction—shock cutting through his composure. Even without a clear line of sight, shinobi could read the shape of a battle through chakra alone, and Zabuza had always been exceptional at this; years of conducting precise assassinations inside a blinding mist had honed that sense to a razor edge. The feedback coming back to him now was unmistakable: Haku's chakra had faded to almost nothing. Hinata's burned as fierce as ever.
"I told you—my student is not someone you can afford to underestimate!"
Kakashi had sensed the same thing. He seized the opening without hesitation, snapping open the summoning scroll he always carried and letting Zabuza's own blood—drawn in their earlier exchange—activate his signature technique.
"Take this!! Summoning: Earth Release: Tracking Fang Technique!"
The eight nin-dogs homed in on the blood-scent clinging to Zabuza's Kubikiribōchō and clamped down from every angle. In the same instant, Kakashi's Sharingan began to spin.
"Zabuza! You're too dangerous to be left alive. So—right here, right now—I'm putting you down!!"
"Tch—! To think it ends here..."
Lightning split through the mist. Raikiri's glow found its mark, and with a spray of crimson, Kakashi's hand drove through Zabuza's chest. From start to finish, Zabuza never cried out. He never begged. Not a trace of resentment crossed his face, not a flicker of desperation—just the quiet, unbothered acceptance of someone who had always known this day would come.
With Zabuza's death, the water clones he had been using to pin Sasuke and Naruto dissolved at once. The dense fog blanketing the bridge scattered just as quickly, and sunlight broke through, flooding the structure with clean, warm light.
"It's over, then..."
Sasuke exhaled slowly, gaze drifting to the body that somehow still refused to fall. Until today, Zabuza had been the most powerful enemy he had faced as a declared opponent—a genuine Jōnin-rank threat—and yet, fighting together as a team, dispatching him had cost them surprisingly little.
"Oh... so it's over..."
Naruto stared at the body that refused to topple even in death. Something complicated passed through his eyes. This was, if he counted right, only the second time he had seen a real corpse—and the first time it had belonged to a powerful enemy.
"...Take a good look at this. All of you. This is what the end looks like—for a shinobi, a man, who fought with everything he had just to stay alive."
Kakashi's voice carried a certain hollowness. Zabuza had been his enemy. But he had also been a piece of the shinobi world—one more facet of it—and even having killed him with his own hands, Kakashi felt the old, familiar ache: the sorrow of watching any creature of the wild meet its end.
"Nothing but brute force and ambition. Barrel through the world on stubbornness alone, and this is the only outcome waiting for you."
Hinata spoke flatly. As she did, her hands moved out of sight behind her back, carefully sliding a sealed scroll into the storage pouch at the small of her back.
The scroll was a compact general-purpose storage tool, and what it now carried was a single, specially crafted vessel—a large sealed container designed specifically for transporting living cargo. It qualified as a lower-grade sealing tool; objects placed inside entered a state resembling suspended animation until released. The one limitation: it could only accommodate objects within a certain size range.
The item had originally been manufactured for shipping live food ingredients to daimyō, and it had not come cheap. Money had ceased to be a meaningful obstacle for Hinata some time ago, however, and she had acquired one well before the Land of Waves arc even began—for exactly this purpose. A container for Haku. Things had gone smoothly on that front.
Sealing scrolls couldn't directly seal living creatures, of course. But purpose-built sealing tools could—and once a living creature was sealed inside such a tool, that tool could in turn be sealed into a scroll. By this two-step method, transporting live cargo via scroll was entirely achievable.
"Hmm? What happened to the other one?"
Kakashi glanced around with a mildly puzzled look. By his estimate, the ninja called Haku shouldn't have been capable of running.
"Ran. I didn't exactly have time to chase after her, did I?"
Hinata delivered the lie without a shred of discomfort. Kakashi had no Byakugan. He couldn't see into her storage pouch.
"Is that so... Well. Let's bury Zabuza somewhere nearby—his comrade will probably come back for the body eventually."
Kakashi shook his head and let it go. They were leaving the Land of Waves soon enough; chasing the detail served no practical purpose.
From there, things moved quickly. Once Tazuna rallied his workers, the remaining construction was finished in roughly half a day. The team helped bury Zabuza near the bridge, placing the Kubikiribōchō—blade of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist—before the grave as a marker. Then they set out on the road back to the village.
---
Elsewhere in the Land of Waves, other business was being concluded.
"AAHHH—!!"
A scream rang out. The two samurai who had been guarding Gatō crumpled simultaneously, their dying expressions frozen in the disbelief of men who never understood what killed them. Vivid blood spread quickly from beneath their bodies, carrying the sharp reek of death outward into the air.
"Ehehehehe~~! What? That's all? Honestly—as toys go, you're just far too fragile, aren't you~?"
Standing in the middle of the blood-drawn ritual circle, Hidan looked thoroughly unsatisfied, tongue dragging lazily across his lips. His gaze drifted to the samurai trembling around him. "Can't be helped~~ Lord Jashin certainly won't be satisfied with this~ Guess I'd better pick out a few more offerings."
It was no mystery why Gatō and his guards hadn't come charging onto the bridge as they had in the original story. They had been cut off by something considerably more terrifying.
"You always leave such a mess."
Kakuzu stood with arms folded, long past being startled by Hidan's methods. There had never been much opportunity to kill anyone properly before—but the samurai gathered here were plainly all marked for removal, whether by personal inclination or organizational directive.
"Well~~ Suigintou has already left. According to her instructions, this is where we take over."
Kisame, Samehada across his back, cast a knowing glance at Itachi. "Itachi-san~~ they've moved far enough away by now, you know. I half-expected you to step out and at least say hello to your little brother."
"You talk too much."
Itachi answered flatly, then turned to look at Gatō. "So. How are we handling this?"
"Hmph—what kind of question is that? Useless trash gets thrown out. His money and merchandise are sitting in the warehouse; we'll go collect them ourselves. So~~ don't interrupt my calculations. Mm, and after that, I need to work out the overhead costs for building the factory here~"
Kakuzu didn't look up from the notebook he was scratching figures into. Kisame shrugged.
"Fair enough, fair enough~ Allow me."
Kisame walked over to the paralyzed Gatō. The stocky shipping magnate blinked back to himself at last and screamed with everything he had left.
"Don't kill me! You're all missing-nin, right?! I can hire you—name your price, any price, just—"
"Ha~~ How flattering, truly. But... how to put this?"
Kisame seized Gatō by the collar and hoisted him clean off the ground with one hand, holding him there with the effortlessness of a man lifting a rotten apple. Something close to pity flickered in those shark-black eyes.
"As it happens, we already have a much cuter, much more capable employer than you. So~~ farewell. You should have made your peace with what you've done long before now."
A casual swing of Kisame's arm sent Gatō's squat, heavy body cartwheeling through the air in a long, hopeless arc—and he plunged into the sea below the bridge. Several grey-white dorsal fins immediately converged. The blue surface turned red.
"Heh. The irony. Even the flesh of the wicked can paint such a vivid scene."
Kisame shook his head faintly and walked back to his companions.
"Looks like it's finally over..."
With a soft, rustling sound, Zetsu's pitcher-plant head surfaced through the ground nearby. White Zetsu grinned. "Wonderful~~ Every requirement for setting up the factory is now in place~"
"Then don't waste time. That old man Tazuna is the current leader of these people. Find him. Tell him: either serve Akatsuki's factory, or end up as shark food like the rest of this garbage."
Black Zetsu's voice was flat, without inflection or mercy. "Lord Pain has confirmed that Deidara and Sasori are already on their way. Once they arrive, conscript workers from the local population for the assembly line. The figure factory needs to begin full production within one month."
"Is being that heavy-handed really wise?"
It was Kakuzu who spoke, not looking up from his notebook. "If we go about it the same way as that garbage over there, I'd wager even we'll have people coming to cause trouble eventually."
"Yeah, that's fair~~ So I think we should wait for Suigintou, see what she says."
Hidan lay sprawled on the ritual circle, chin resting on one hand. "I mean, we're out of our depth here, aren't we? When it comes to this kind of thing?"
"Hm? But what about Lord Pain's orders?"
White Zetsu tilted his head with a faintly puzzled look. He could hear the undertone in Kakuzu and Hidan's words—this wasn't a refusal, exactly, but they were clearly asking for a more careful, more capable hand on the helm.
"...Fine. We'll report it to Lord Pain faithfully. As long as the work doesn't fall behind, do as you please."
Black Zetsu's voice was unreadable. But his words made plain he had no intention of covering for their quiet insubordination.
After Zetsu sank back into the earth, Kisame let out a slow, considered shrug.
"Honestly..."
"What do you all think? Would it be worth having Suigintou join us for good?"