Uzumaki Kana

Two days later.

Hyuga Ao sat outside the wooden cabin, watching Uzumaki Kana work, and couldn't help but sigh.

Back during that great calamity in the Land of Whirlpools, the escape boat was destroyed by ninjutsu. Uzumaki Kana clung to a broken plank, drifting with the current.

By sheer luck, she wasn't discovered by the search parties along the way and finally made landfall in the Land of Hot Water.

Panicked, she didn't dare rest. She ran inland without looking back, eating whatever she could find when hungry or thirsty.

Relying on the Uzumaki Clan's constitution, she pushed through until she stumbled and fell while crossing a mountain.

When she groggily woke up, she found herself in this valley.

The valley was surrounded by sheer cliffs, making it hard for ordinary people to enter.

For water, she relied on a mountain stream that flowed down and the small pond it formed.

She lived off the fish in the pond and wild vegetables she planted herself.

Kana fell from the mountain into this valley. She didn't die, so she accepted her fate, deciding to live here and let the future take care of itself.

And so, Kana lived a self-sufficient life in this small valley. Strangely, though the valley wasn't large, it had a bit of everything, so she never left all these years.

"Speaking of which, this is like the Heartless Valley." Hyuga Ao tried to lift her right arm, found it completely numb, and smiled bitterly:

"What am I? Hyuga Pass?"

Hyuga Ao's right arm, after being eroded by the Four-Tails Chakra that day, hadn't been treated in time, and the erosion grew worse.

Luckily, she met Kana here. Kana used a Sealing Jutsu to help Hyuga Ao seal away the Four-Tails Chakra, but her arm was still severely injured.

Still, with the hardest part—the tailed beast chakra—removed, the arm injury was no longer a major problem.

"Hey, Kana, in all these years, haven't you thought about leaving?"

Kana paused in picking vegetables. She looked up, brushed her stray hair behind her ear, thought for a moment, and said:

"I have. Many times."

"Did you ever leave?" Hyuga Ao pressed.

"No." Kana stopped what she was doing, smiled at Hyuga Ao, a very open smile:

"I wanted to leave countless times, to know what happened to everyone in the Land of Whirlpools, the clan head, Princess Kushina. But I was afraid. I didn't want to face reality, so I chose not to leave, preferring to grow old here."

Hyuga Ao fell silent at that.

Seeing Hyuga Ao's expression, Kana smiled:

"Don't make that face. I know the outcome for the Land of Whirlpools in my heart. Besides, after all these years, I've gotten used to this life."

"Then do you want to come back to Konoha with me?"

"Forget it." Kana shook her head. "Besides, there's a war going on out there, isn't there? I hate war. Life in the valley is fine. Instead of that, why don't you tell me about Kushina?"

!!?

Seeing Hyuga Ao's surprised expression, Kana couldn't help but chuckle. "When I first met you, you called me that. Otherwise, I wouldn't have saved you."

Is that so? Hyuga Ao looked at Kana's sly expression. Didn't expect you to be such a schemer.

"But you were completely stunned when you heard the word 'Uzumaki,'" Hyuga Ao mercilessly teased.

Kana's face flushed, and she stammered:

"It's just that what I feared came to mind. I've always been scared that the people from back then would come after me, and at that moment, I connected you to them."

"Can you tell me about what happened back then in the Land of Whirlpools?" Hyuga Ao asked seriously.

Kana was pulled into memories by Hyuga Ao's words. Her expression shifted, and she shook her head:

"First, tell me about Kushina."

"Alright then." Hyuga Ao shifted to a more comfortable position. "That's a long story."

Kana hugged her knees, tilting her head as she listened to Hyuga Ao's tale.

A look of envy appeared on her face.

"How wonderful," she sighed.

"Someone who loves you, a couple of close friends, no worries about food or clothing, and safety from harm."

Kana let out a satisfied sigh. Knowing that her old acquaintances were safe filled her with emotion.

She stood up, stretched, as if a weight had been lifted from her heart, then turned and went inside to cook.

"Tap, tap, tap."

Hyuga Ao struggled to eat with her left hand. Having become a one-armed hero, she was lucky Kana took pity on her and made her a wooden spoon; otherwise, she'd have to eat with her hands.

A fish, a plate of greens, and a plate of mushrooms she couldn't name.

That was their dinner tonight.

The valley was poor in resources, mostly vegetarian, which was bad for Hyuga Ao's recovery. So these past few days, they'd been discussing leaving.

Back then, Xiao Longnu was trapped in Heartless Valley and couldn't climb up, but Hyuga Ao and Kana were both ninjas—they could.

It was just that Kana, after all those years, had been trapped within her own heart, never stepping out of her comfort zone.

After learning about the outside world, Kana felt it was time to go out and take a look.

"After we eat, I'll check the wound on your right arm," Kana said.

"Okay." Hyuga Ao nodded.

She slowly unwound the silk cloth serving as a bandage, revealing an arm charred black.

The once fair and slender arm was no more—under the intense heat of the Four-Tails' chakra, it had been burned to a crisp.

If Hyuga Ao hadn't been lucky enough to meet Kana, that arm might have been beyond saving.

Two faint glimmers flickered over the arm. Most of the tailed beast chakra had already been sealed away by Kana, but due to time constraints, a small amount still lingered.

So now, Kana suppressed it while Hyuga Ao healed, slowly mending the injury.

In the spare moments during treatment, Hyuga Ao could steal a glance at Kana's focused profile.

"This deal... not a loss!" Hyuga Ao thought to herself.

Hyuga Ao was still alive because of that deal.

When she had been floating in the air, utterly exhausted, she was pulled into some unknown place in a daze.

There, she struck a deal with the Planet's Consciousness.

It was to break the image of the Sage of Six Paths in people's minds—simply put, to shatter his golden pedestal.

The ninja world originally had a Planet's Consciousness, back before chakra appeared.

But later, the Otsutsuki came from the heavens, killed the native strongmen, gravely wounded the Planet's Consciousness, and planted the God Tree on its body.

When Hyuga Ao received her Golden Finger, some great power poured into her, and the Planet's Consciousness awakened as a result.

It had used its last shred of strength to make Otsutsuki Kaguya conceive naturally, then guided people along the way, leading Hagoromo to eventually seal Kaguya.

By that point, things should have ended, and the ninja world, now with chakra, would have developed naturally.

But it never expected chakra to be so wondrous. Over the years, the chakra of the Sage of Six Paths drifted through the ninja world, controlling its situation.

It even began to slowly replace the Planet's Consciousness itself, trying to become the new ruler of the world.

So it asked Hyuga Ao, when the time came for everything to be settled, to tear away the Otsutsuki's false veil, let the ninja world know the truth, and at the same time, break the faith that the Six Paths Ninja Sect had spread for so many years.

It was that faith—or rather, that lingering thought—that kept Hamura's existence tethered.

Hyuga Ao agreed, because she had already wanted to make everything public. Besides, if no one had helped her back then, she would have drifted down naturally, either dying from the fall or being picked up by someone else.

That would have led to a different timeline, not the story being told here.

While the outside world was raging with battle, Hyuga Ao was quietly recovering in this small valley.

Enjoying the leisurely days of watching flowers bloom and fall before the courtyard, and gazing at the clouds rolling and unrolling across the sky.