Chakra! I Command You to Turn!

"A ninja's end should be to die silently, without a trace left behind."

"But I seem to have made quite a commotion. I wonder if Mr. Zabuza will be angry."

Haku gave a shy smile. Her soft black hair fell over her shoulders, and her bare feet touched the rippling seawater. The moment she stepped down, it froze beneath her.

With death in her heart, she had faced Gato's band of ruffians and the samurai guards hired from the Land of Iron alone. She had fought her way from the first floor to the seventh, killing every last one of them.

Only after checking the bodies did she discover that Gato had already died while calling for someone to open the door.

The unchecked expenditure of Chakra had drained both her body and mind, and she had fainted on the spot.

But she was impossibly tough. She woke up amid the corpses in a body cart.

Having lost Zabuza, Haku no longer had any attachment to life.

After dying once, she faced her own heart more honestly than ever. With Kubikiribōchō, she cut off her lower body and cleaned herself up thoroughly. She would go to the underworld to meet Zabuza in a new form.

Naturally, the people she chose to send her off were the ones who had killed Zabuza.

Kakashi. Naruto.

At the entrance to the sea-crossing walkway, Naruto held a long blade at an angle. It was nothing special, just a sharp piece of iron, an extension of his arm.

He looked at Haku as she walked toward him over the ice. His eyes were fixed on her, silent, his fighting spirit rising without pause.

Now that Kakashi had lost his ability to fight, Naruto was the one who had to shoulder the burden.

That was how life went. There was no fairness, and nothing could be perfect. Even his adoptive father had died in battle at sea.

Whether he could bear the burden or not, he had to try.

Once he chose a path, all that remained was to see it through.

Naruto raised his blade with one arm. "Tell me your name."

"Haku."

Haku stood on the drifting ice, as beautiful as a snowflake, just like her name. "What's yours?"

"Uzumaki Naruto!"

They exchanged no more words. The battle began at once.

Naruto charged over the water with his blade while Haku formed Hand Seals with one hand.

Sword energy covered the blade. His arm bent like a bow, the blade like an arrow on its string. He poured his strength into a thrust aimed straight at Haku's heart.

"Ice Release: Ice Rock Dome!"

The technique took shape, and an oval wall of ice appeared out of nowhere in front of Haku.

Naruto thrust his arm and blade into it. The ice rang out with a series of hard clanks. His blade pierced more than halfway through, but not enough to break out the other side.

He bent his leg, kicked off the wall, and pulled his blade free as he retreated. At the same time, he released a burst of Chakra behind him to counter the force.

He leaped onto the ice wall, then launched himself into the air and slashed down at Haku again.

Naruto knew where his advantage lay: he didn't need Hand Seals, so he could strike faster and harder.

But Haku made no move to dodge Naruto's attack. Her hands formed Hand Seals at an absurd speed.

Before his blade could fall, she unleashed another jutsu.

"Secret Technique: Demonic Mirror Ice Crystals!"

Ice mirrors formed all around Naruto, encircling him. Haku's figure seemed to teleport as she merged into one of the mirrors, then appeared in every reflective surface.

Dozens of Hakus stared sadly at Naruto.

"Even if you kill me, Mr. Zabuza won't come back to life. So do your best. Kill me."

Hot breath escaped Naruto's nostrils.

The Nine-Tails' Chakra, which had leaked through the Eight Trigrams Seal, surged into his body's cells, driven by his fighting spirit.

"What the hell are you talking about? I don't get it!"

Chakra, fierce as fire, covered his body and flooded into his blade. The blade shone brighter and brighter, like the outline of a sun in Hell.

At that moment, Naruto had only one thought—to swing his blade!

His blade moved with his body, his body with his steps. Naruto followed his instincts and charged into an ice mirror suspended in midair.

He raised his arm and swung!

Every Haku looked surprised, then turned aside in unison to dodge.

The ice mirror felt as hard as granite against his blade, but under Naruto's strike, it melted and split like butter.

He barreled forward, but the circle of ice mirrors expanded and shifted, trapping him inside again. Dozens of steel needles shot at him from behind, aiming for the vital points across his body.

Naruto turned and swept his blade sideways.

Clang, clang, clang. The needles snapped and fell onto the ice.

He understood now. It would be hard to escape this technique.

He had to either kill the real Haku or make her run out of Chakra.

Instinct was often right when he acted on impulse. If he deliberately tried to sense what it was telling him, he couldn't get a read on it.

Luckily, he still had his wits.

He'd hack through the walls one by one! Sooner or later, the woman wouldn't be able to take it!

A wild grin spread across Naruto's face. Then he began furiously slashing through the ice mirrors.

"Haku! You're as good as dead!"

The Haku in the mirrors smiled mournfully. She continued using various jutsu and attacking him with Senbon, but Naruto blocked every single attack without fail.

She almost began to suspect that the incredible speed of her secret technique had stopped working, but the speed at which she moved each time proved she was already moving as fast as she could.

Without time to recover between one battle and the next, her Chakra dwindled. Her life was truly slipping away.

Once, she had never feared standing naked in the snow. Now, she was numb with cold.

She thought she could see the day Zabuza had taken her away from the Land of Mist.

"Haku, I'm leaving this rotten country. But I'll definitely come back and make it mine."

"I'm sorry. I just can't carry on your dream alone."

Haku looked up at the sky. "Since the end is already decided, I'll come see you sooner."

She emerged from a mirror, spread her arms, and fell toward Naruto without using any strength.

Naruto never held back against his enemies, and he wouldn't now.

His blade thrust straight into her heart, piercing Haku between her ribs.

Only when Haku smiled tenderly did he realize she was a beautiful woman.

Without pulling out his blade, he carried Haku back to the flower field where she had come from.

His innate senses told him that Haku had a kind heart.

But their positions had determined their actions. Zabuza had attacked them first; Naruto could never have spared him.

Across the shore, Sasuke arrived late after getting word from the children. He looked across the sea at Naruto, who had won on his own, and felt as if the gap in their strength were as wide as the sea between them.

Haku held Naruto's hand. Blood kept spilling from her mouth. She was weak and helpless, unable to speak no matter how hard she tried.

She could only look at him, choking on blood.

Naruto's compassion led him to do something on instinct, something that defied reality.

He poured Chakra into Haku's heart and activated "Cellular Reorganization."

He had tried projecting Chakra before, but once it left his body, he couldn't control it precisely.

But now, his Chakra seemed to have grown nerves and eyes, connecting directly to his brain.

It stopped the bleeding, sealed Haku's heart tightly around the blade, and forced it to pump.

Haku turned her face to the side and spat out the blood clogged in her throat. Smiling, she said, "I knew... not killing you was the right choice."

"You're good with a blade. I want to give you Mr. Zabuza's Kubikiribōchō. I buried it..."

Naruto didn't have time for all that. He had only one thing to say. "Woman, do you want to live or not?"

Haku had never imagined Naruto would ask her that. For a moment, she was stunned.

But Naruto couldn't hold back his urge to push Cellular Reorganization to a higher intensity for even a second longer.

It was like a flag stretched to its limit, just waiting to unfurl!

"Forget it! If you don't want to live, I'll just kill you again!"

Naruto's blond hair stood on end, and every pore on his body opened.

Boom!

An attraction that targeted living things erupted from his body and swept outward. The flower field around him withered rapidly as its vitality was seized.

"Chakra! I command you to turn!"

The current, which had been at a level of 250,000 volts, strong enough only to control the energy within his body, surged and climbed under the force of Naruto's will.

Though his power was insufficient, he briefly forced open the channel connecting him to the Natural Energy outside.

Shk!

Naruto yanked the blade out of Haku's heart, emptied the blood from her lungs, and pressed all five fingers against her left chest.

Chakra brimming with vitality poured into her. The wound gradually healed at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Haku lay in the withered flower field, unable to believe what was happening.

Even more unbelievable than the sheer scale of the ability was Naruto himself.