Night fell on Konoha like a shroud at a funeral. The sky was oppressed with stormclouds—ashen-gray and replete with pent-up thunder. Air sparked softly, charged with something greater than chakra. Tension hung in every breath.
Within Hokage Tower, the war council was already in session. The room was dimmer, shadows drawn long across the walls. On the high dais stood Tsunade, with Minato, Kushina, and Mikoto Uchiha at her sides. ANBU agents moved back and forth, bearing reports like blood cells circulating through a wounded body.
On the war map, a Fire Country map pulsed with red markers. Too many.
Minato's jaw was locked as he read through the data. "They're coming at us from three directions. Akatsuki in the west, Danzo's Root from the north, and Orochimaru's men cutting in via the south. Coordinated. Controlled."
Kushina's fists were clenched at her hips, her vibrant red hair standing out in the lamp light. "Danzo knows our patrol routes, our seals, our backup tunnels… Everything."
"Because he built them," Mikoto spat coldly.
Tsunade leaned over the map, her knuckles embedding into the wood. "He's taking all he ever built for the village and burning it. And now, with Orochimaru and Akatsuki? They want what's inside our walls."
Mito Uzumaki. Yin, half of the Nine-Tails.
And Fū, protected in the center of the village, cradled Chōme, the Seven-Tails.
They were the bait. And Konoha was the battlefield.
The Battlefield Moves
Far beyond the walls, dark it was that writhed through the forest like e crawling plague. Akatsuki troops did not disguise their advance.
Kisame Hoshigaki commanded at the head of the western column, Samehada dragged behind him like a guillotine blade cutting into the earth. Water steam swirled around him, his broad and serrated grin equal to that of his teeth.
"Finally," he snarled, "a real battle. Not this spy versus spy stuff. I want to feel the bone and blood beneath my blade."
Behind him, Zetsu materialized from the ground like mold from damp soil. His dark half spoke to white, "Kisame first. We inspire terror. That is how we will get to the girl. And the fox."
"Unu~! So exciting!" White Zetsu trilled.
Elsewhere, Orochimaru's forces slithered beneath the roots of the forest. Silent, serpentine. With them came genetically spliced horrors, mindless puppets of flesh and chakra. Beside Orochimaru strode Kabuto, his glasses glinting.
"They will be so preoccupied defending the village from Akatsuki," Kabuto purred, "that no one will notice us until it's too late."
"And when they do," Orochimaru hissed, "we'll already have Mito."
Danzo trailed behind them—an old ghost reincarnated in hatred. His Sharingan arm pulsed beneath his cloak, and the face bandages whipped back from the reek of the foul wind.
And from darkest abyss descended Menma—alone.
His chakra fumed with hatred. The partial presence of the Nine-Tails within him raged furiously, spurning him, struggling to break free of control. But he persisted, eyes vacant, lips reciting a mantra hammered into his head by Orochimaru.
You were the unwanted. You were the castaway. But you… You can be a god."
Back in Konoha: Prepare the Shields
In the village, platoons formed at each gate.
Naruto sat motionless atop the Hokage Monument, cloaked in ANBU black, looking out onto the horizon, throb red. Haku stood beside him, shrouded in glacial mist, her breath peaceful amidst the turbulence advancing toward them.
They'll be here shortly," she warned, sensing the building chakra signatures as a wave of storm tide rising. "And they won't let up."
Naruto nodded. "This is it. We keep them at bay until the civilians are evacuated below. Then we go in for broke."
He shifted a bit, regarding her—not as a friend, but as something valuable.
"You know what this mission's about. If it comes down to it… we can't hold back. Not even on them.".
Haku closed her eyes for a beat, her memories flashing—the days in ANBU, the frostbitten morning missions, the evenings in the hot springs after missions when Naruto would talk about ramen and nothing else.
"I'll protect our people," she said softly. "And I'll protect you."
He smiled beneath the mask.
A minute later, a messenger hawk streaked across the sky, its chakra flaring.
They've arrived.
The Mist Breaks: Haku vs. Kisame Begins
On the western gate, Haku walked the broad riverbank alone, mist swirling around her like a boundless ocean.
From the mist, a ripple, then a thunderous splash as Samehada tore through the row of trees.
Kisame stepped forth, water churning up beneath his feet as if the ground itself surrendered to him.
"Ah, ah," he grinned, "I was looking for a warm-up, but they send a pretty one instead?"
Haku's breathing did not accelerate. Her eyes were tranquil. "You won't find any warmth here."
Her fingers moved swiftly—ice mirrors twisting into being on all sides of her, reflecting the moon. The battlefield grew cold in an instant.
"Oho! Ice Release?" Kisame's smile expanded. "Never once fought one of you. Let us dance, then."
He shot out with a splash of water beneath his feet—Water Style: Exploding Water Colliding Wave!—and a wave tide burst out of Samehada and came crashing down at Haku like a falling mountain.
Haku vanished.
She materialized mid-air, between mirrors, her shape gliding along surfaces as if she were traveling on another axis of time. Senbon shone in her hands.
They struck their target—each needle at joints, pressure points, tendons.
Kisame blocked the majority of them with Samehada, but one was stuck deep in his bicep.
He laughed.
"Did you think that would slow me down?" He ripped it out, blood spurting.
Haku didn't move—she'd already shifted, behind him.
A torrent of ice daggers erupted, to be met by a vortex of water as Kisame thrust his sword into the earth.
"You're fast," he said, turning, "but I'm faster when I fight in my home!"
The river widened unnaturally as Kisame activated Water Prison Shark Dance Technique, covering the battlefield in a watery dome.
Haku was underwater.
And he was gone.
He's merging with the water, she thought. I need to stop him from controlling the battlefield.
She focused—Crystal Ice Mirrors: Frozen Heaven.
Dozens of mirrors shimmered throughout the water, grounding themselves on chakra, encasing the world in a fractal maze of ice. The water decelerated—thickened—and froze.
Kisame came back inside the dome, grinding his teeth.
"So you're going to try to defeat me on my sea, little snowflake?"
"I don't fight on the sea," Haku gasped. "I make it freeze."
And then dozens of reflections all moved together. Haku was behind him, above him, below him—senbon falling from the air like a blizzard.
Kisame bellowed in rage as he was forced back, blood streaming.
And then—Samehada flared.
It pulsed, sucking chakra out of the mirrors, eating her jutsu.
Haku's eyes went wide. It devours chakra?
Kisame smiled, bleeding but grinning. "Gotcha now."
He attacked.
But Haku did not flee.
She drew in her chakra, not into ice, but back within.
"Then I'll strike where your sword can't devour—she said, sealing,—your will." Kisame's boisterous laughter shook across the battlefield like waves crashing.
Samehada flashed out in a cruel slash, consuming chakra eagerly as water crested and receded at his feet like an obedient tide.
"You're not the first shinobi to make a last stand," Kisame growled, eyes wild. "But you might be the most civilized one."
Haku landed on one of her ice mirrors, a bead of blood trickling down her lip. Her cloak was in shreds. There were welts across her white skin, but her eyes—nothing about them had altered.
"I'm not standing last," she murmured.
"I'm killing you here."
She raised one hand, and the air cooled. Frost curled around from the water-soaked battlefield, choking the very mist that clung to the trees. Kisame's shark-filled water dome groaned as the surface began to freeze—ice creeping along the curve like a closing trap.
"You think you can freeze the sea itself!?" Kisame bellowed, raising his blade to shatter the burgeoning crystal.
"I can freeze anything," she told him, "as long as I refuse to be broken."
And with that, she vanished in her mirrors.
To naked vision, she was nowhere to be seen. But Kisame was no fool. His instincts screamed out to him as six mirrored images of Haku erupted out of different points, senbon needles tracing lines of frost in their trails.
Clink—clink—clink!
He deflected three, four—Samehada clanged and spit, consuming the chakra of her senbon. But then—
A senbon laced with a paralyzing agent struck his thigh.
Kisame stumbled. Just a second—but that was all she needed.
She moved faster.
Her mirrors began rotating—each one splitting into smaller reflections, fragments of her form bouncing between surfaces in a dizzying spiral.
"You're too late!" Kisame growled. "This sword of mine doesn't just eat jutsu. It eats your strength—your soul!"
Samehada's maw opened wide and lashed forward, striking straight into Haku's chest—
Or at least, he thought so.
Shatter.
A crystal decoy.
Haku had baited the assault, and in that brief moment of overextension, she was directly over him, both arms now outstretched.
"Hyōton Secret Technique: Winter Crescent Burial!"
The mirrors exploded outward, their fragments condensing into thousands of razor-sharp slivers of chakra-imbued ice. They spun around Kisame in a shrieking whirlwind, a cage of blizzard. The water vapor was sucked into the storm, freezing instantly.
Kisame tried to move ahead, but his limbs were becoming heavier. His chakra was being pushed inward, not withdrawn, but compressed. Ice encircled his arms and legs, encasing even Samehada.
"This is a jutsu I came up with for people like you," Haku spoke quietly, reaching just beyond the encircling ice. "People who understand nothing but power."
Kisame bellowed with fury and plunged Samehada free, smashing it into the ground. The blade's chakra stormed uncontrolled, devastating the frost. The prison crashed. Collapsed.
"STUPID GIRL!" he roared. "I AM THE MONSTER OF THE MIST!"
He rushed forward—but she was already in motion.
A single senbon through the back of his neck.
And in that split second—
Everything froze.
The jutsu within it had no poison or paralysis. It was silence.
Kisame gasped—and found—
He could no longer hear Samehada.
The sword, momentarily severed from his chakra by her expert blow, stopped—its thirst cut short.
"You wield your sword too much," Haku panted. "But swords tend to turn against you. Like humans."
She drew one last breath and let fly a corkscrew of ice needles into Kisame's newly exposed chest.
They found their target.
Kisame knelt on his knee, spitting blood. The battlefield was still, except for the trickle of thawing ice.
"Damn…" he gagged. "You're stronger than you look…"
He laughed.
And slumped forward, unconscious, over broken ice and frozen water.
Samehada squirmed out of his hold, thrashing like a living thing struggling to escape. But Haku stepped forward and froze it with one last chakra burst.
Elsewhere: The Battle Heats Up
A crow flew overhead—black against the stormy twilight—and settled on Naruto's outstretched arm.
He looked at the message tied to its leg and exhaled.
"Kisame—neutralized. Haku is alive."
Beside him, Ino and Shikamaru arrived from the eastern wall, their team bloodied but intact.
"The enemies are pushing harder toward the main compound," Shikamaru reported. "Danzo's forces are trying to come in through the barrier routes he had mapped years ago."
"Then that's where we'll make our stand," Naruto said.
The distant hum of chakra stirred again.
In forest darkness…
Itachi Uchiha emerged from the shadows, Sharingan spinning with silent menace.
At his back: Pain.
And above the trees, chakra cloaks glowed—the Path of Heaven arrived.
Final Scene: Menma Awakens
Deep beneath Orochimaru's temporary headquarters, there was a room locked away.
Menma sat at the bottom of a pillar covered in Uzumaki seals.
Dark bonds wrapped around his wrists, restraining in check the monster within him.
Orochimaru waited in wait.
You will master the Nine-Tails, Menma," he ordered. "Or it'll eat you alive. And if you don't.Wee ship you off to Konoha anyway."
There was Danzo's voice. "This isn't about your pain anymore. This is about power. Our foes will wail for the mercy they denied you."
Menma's eyes went amber-red.
Kurama growled inside him.
"You are not my host," the monster bellowed. "You are not even whole."
Menma's fists were clenched.
"I don't need to be whole," he gasped. "I just need to be enough to kill Naruto."