All Resisters Shall Be Eliminated

Reality tore apart Haku's last illusion in the crudest, most undisguised manner.

The chakra flow within the Demonic Mirroring Ice Crystals instantly fell into catastrophic disorder.

"Crack... crack..."

Spiderweb-like fractures surfaced across the ice mirrors. What had once been Haku's proud masterpiece, the perfect embodiment of his will and power, now seemed like an abandoned pane of glass, utterly fragile.

The face beneath his mask had long since drained of color. Shock, humiliation, and the bewilderment of being stabbed in the back utterly destroyed his will to gather chakra.

The ice crystals melted away, turning into vapor and returning to the surrounding dense mist.

Naruto Uzumaki calmly watched Haku collapse to his knees without pursuing him. He merely stated a fact that had already happened.

"Now, you've seen what real 'sand' looks like."

"Do you still want to use it to build a ship?"

Those words were like a red-hot iron nail driven into Haku's soul.

"Crash—"

The final ice mirror shattered in response.

The standoff on the bridge came to an abrupt halt. Kakashi and Zabuza stopped fighting at the same time and looked toward the clearing where the chakra had dissipated.

Sasuke had recovered slightly and shakily rose to his feet, just in time to witness the scene.

Haku, the powerful enemy who had driven him to despair, was hanging his head in silence like a student who had made a mistake.

And standing before him with his hands behind his back was Naruto Uzumaki.

"Haku!" Zabuza's roar tore through the mist. "You..."

"Zabuza-sama."

Haku interrupted him. Without turning around, he slowly pivoted to face Zabuza and dropped to one knee in an unprecedented posture.

It was not the kneeling of a tool before its master.

It was an admonition mixed with sorrow, realization, and resolve.

"We... took the wrong path."

His voice was quiet, yet incomparably clear.

Zabuza's mind went blank. Then he recalled the moment, not long after defecting from Kirigakure, when he had encountered Haku on the road.

They had traveled together, and Haku had held up snowflakes formed from Ice Release as he told him:

"Zabuza-sama's dream is my dream."

At that very moment, the dense mist that had troubled everyone seemed to have completed its mission and began to rapidly disperse.

Sunlight pierced through the clouds once more, illuminating the entire bridge.

It also illuminated the mass of dark figures at the other end of the bridge.

Gato, the short man with a fleshy face, stood at the forefront. Behind him were hundreds of thugs and ronin wielding machetes, spears, and iron clubs. Their faces were a mixture of greed, cruelty, and stupidity.

They had completely surrounded every ninja on the bridge.

"Hahaha!" Gato let out a shrill laugh, smugly pointing his cane at Zabuza. "Demon Zabuza? What an expensive piece of trash! I spent so much money on you, and you couldn't even handle a few Konoha brats!"

Zabuza's body stiffened.

He looked at the smug Gato, then at Haku, who was kneeling on the ground and admitting that they had "taken the wrong path."

For the first time, the heart filled with ambition and hatred felt cold bewilderment and the fury of utter betrayal.

"Momochi Zabuza, your usefulness has run out." Gato spat. "I was planning to let you tear each other apart, then come clean up the mess. But it looks like you can't even manage that much."

"But it doesn't matter." He waved his cane. "The result is the same either way. Hack them, along with that old bridge builder, into minced meat! This bridge and this country both belong to me, Gato!"

The thugs let out excited roars and tightened their grips on their weapons.

In their eyes, these legendary ninja were nothing more than a few trapped beasts.

Zabuza fell into profound humiliation. He had spent his entire life using others and treating human hearts as tools, yet he had never expected that he, too, would ultimately become an expensive tool to be discarded after use.

At that moment, Haku stood up.

He did not look at the thugs. Instead, he stepped in front of Zabuza.

"Zabuza-sama, that Konoha boy told me that loyalty is wood, something that can build a ship and sail far. A contract built on profit is sand, scattered by a single gust of wind."

In his own words, he recounted the theory that had completely overturned his understanding.

"Our dream is to establish an Order of our own in this rotten world. That is our 'ship.'"

"Serving someone like Gato is merely using sand to patch holes in that ship. We were wrong from the very beginning."

His voice was incomparably steady. The coldness of a weapon remained, but its core had changed.

"What I am loyal to is your dream, not this mistaken method."

"So please, believe in my choice this one time."

Zabuza breathed heavily as he stared at Haku's back. This was the tool he had picked up from the snow, his sharpest blade. But now, that blade had a will of its own.

It enraged him, yet he could not refute it. He could not ignore the glaring reality.

He looked toward Naruto Uzumaki in the distance.

The blond boy had merely stood there quietly from beginning to end, as though the siege by hundreds of people before him and this life-or-death betrayal were nothing more than a drama he had expected.

Everything was under control.

Sasuke clenched his fists. If it had only been a gap in strength, he could still have found a direction in which to catch up. But Naruto Uzumaki's methods had already gone far beyond his understanding.

How was he supposed to learn the ability to defeat an enemy without fighting, using only words, and even pull that enemy into his own camp?

As he watched Naruto Uzumaki's figure, a feeling of longing rose within him. As long as I possess the same kind of will, revenge and killing Itachi Uchiha will only be a matter of time.

Am I admiring him? Sasuke suddenly shuddered.

Impossible. He is only a tool that can help me take revenge.

While everyone on the bridge was caught up in their own inner struggles, Naruto Uzumaki took a step forward.

Naruto Uzumaki walked past Kakashi, past Zabuza and Haku, and alone faced the hundreds of armed thugs.

When Gato saw him, he laughed even more wildly.

"Oh? Another brat who isn't afraid of death? Do you want to be the first one chopped to pieces?"

Naruto Uzumaki did not look at him.

His gaze swept over the twisted faces driven by money and desire.

Then, in an utterly emotionless, matter-of-fact tone, he pronounced judgment.

"In the name of Konoha Hidden Village, all illegal armed forces within the Land of Waves shall be forcibly purged."

"Drop your weapons, place your hands behind your heads, and kneel on the ground. You will receive basic treatment in accordance with humanitarian principles."

His voice paused. There was not a shred of pity in those blue eyes.

"All resisters shall be regarded as hostile combatants."

"They shall be eliminated."