[Mom, you just keep spoiling him]
[Lol, of course a mom spoils her son—who else, you?]
[That was so cool just now]
[Real talk though, Mom could totally be my husband]
[Lmao, Mom's reputation taking collateral damage]
[Those Adamantine Sealing Chains reminded me of a certain ultra-cool technique... yep, Kurapika lol]
[And here I thought you were gonna say THAT person—but yeah, fair enough lol]
[Almost called the cops, then you swerved on me]
[That steel wire at the end was so sick]
[That's what Mom was talking about, right? But what did she mean by the second half?]
[Cryptic as hell]
[Real talk, I think it's better that Mom stayed cryptic—if she'd actually explained it, Naruto would've been even more confused]
[...you make a good point]
[Because explaining it to her own son would raise her blood pressure even higher, so she goes cryptic instead]
[I can't, let me pause and laugh for a sec]
[Just five minutes—don't laugh yourself into a coma]
The shitposting viewers were in peak form.
Kankuro, on the other hand, was not.
Invisible steel wire blanketed the space in front of him.
Just as he'd toyed with Naruto using puppet strings the kid couldn't see, these wires had been lying in wait—as if ready to toy with him the same way.
One step forward and the wires would shred him.
And the worst part was that he, a puppeteer, hadn't noticed any of those wires in the air.
"We're not here to play around, Kankuro. Pull another stunt like that and I'll kill you myself before anyone else gets the chance." Gaara dropped the threat flatly.
"G-got it..."
Kankuro could only put his bundle away.
Temari, meanwhile, was scanning the area.
After spotting the inexplicable web of steel wire, she'd been looking around for whoever set it.
But the culprit was nowhere to be seen.
"Sorry about that, Leaf ninja. We're just students here for the Chūnin Exams. We're not here to start trouble."
Temari presented her pass, hoping to draw the hidden party out.
"I know~"
—!!!!
A voice came from right beside her.
Temari's heart felt like it stopped for a split second.
On an actual battlefield, if an enemy had closed in on her like this without being detected, she'd already be dead.
She didn't even have time to put up her guard or move. Kankuro froze. Gaara turned his head, expression cold, impossible to tell whether he'd noticed anything or not.
"A girl?!"
Temari's body went rigid.
It was a girl wearing a half-face fox mask and a vivid crimson furisode kimono.
She could easily pass for someone on her way to a festival stroll.
But this was no ninja's outfit.
And yet this girl—who looked like she was just out for a casual walk—had closed the distance without Temari ever noticing.
"You're shinobi from the Hidden Sand, here for the Chūnin Exams—I know~" Hanabi tilted her head. "But when you're in someone else's village, please don't do anything too out of line. Otherwise, people might mistake you for enemy infiltrators."
Hanabi flicked her wrist, recalling Zhuixia. Every thread of steel wire in the air vanished.
"Your name." Gaara's eyes locked onto Hanabi.
"Hanabi. Hyuga Hanabi."
She'd originally abandoned this plot beat, but since things had looped back around, she might as well continue the performance with style.
"Hyuga..." Temari remembered now. The Hyuga clan's newest generation supposedly had some formidable members.
"Hmm..." Hanabi studied Gaara.
"Excuse me, we understand now, Miss Hanabi. We won't cause any trouble. Is there anything else?" Temari asked.
"No, nothing really. I just thought... you have a very gentle mother, Gaara of the Desert."
That single sentence plunged the entire scene into subzero tension.
In an instant, sand erupted from where Hanabi was standing.
But she was already gone. Only a wisp of mist dissipated in the air.
"You want to die?" Gaara's face showed no reaction to what had just happened.
But the moment he heard Hanabi's words, he'd nearly lost control completely.
"How dare she mention Gaara's mother?!" Temari was stunned.
Gaara had fully intended to kill just now. If that sand had caught Hanabi, she'd be dead.
Kankuro took a step back and frantically scanned the area, hoping to find someone—anyone—coming to intervene.
[Here it comes—classic bratty provocation]
[I live for this]
[Dancing on the edge of death, back and forth]
[Hanabi: I'm in~ I'm out~ Come hit me~ Tee-hee~]
[I just wanna see bratty Hanabi crash and burn]
[How can you guys talk about my wife like that? I'm different—I wanna see Hanabi's ropes snag on someone else's kunai]
[That's still crashing and burning]
[Lmao, first thing she does is bring up his mom]
[Real talk, I kinda wanna smack her too]
The improvisation was landing perfectly.
At the very least, Gaara was worked up now. Rock hard, fist-wise.
"But your mother really is gentle, you know." Hanabi's voice drifted from another direction.
More sand surged toward her—and missed again.
"I mean it." Hanabi sounded genuinely puzzled by Gaara's fury. "The character on your forehead—isn't that for the love you have for your mother?"
"I've decided. I will kill you."
[Hanabi: Mama's boy, gross]
[I'm hard now—my fists, that is!]
[Intel-Hanabi in a nutshell: spots someone's embarrassing past, immediately pokes the wound]
"This is bad—this won't end well..."
Temari glanced over at Kankuro.
Now was not the time for complications. They hadn't come to Konoha just for the Chūnin Exams—they had other objectives.
"Hey, hey, hey, when did a fight break out?!" Naruto, the original party to the incident, had been completely sidelined. He had zero idea what was happening anymore.
"That Hanabi girl seems to be saying..." Kushina trailed off.
Her attention was fixed entirely on Gaara.
She wouldn't have noticed it if Hanabi hadn't pointed it out, but now that she'd heard those words, Kushina had picked up on something.
"There does seem to be some kind of power protecting that boy. That chakra... it feels like..."
She didn't recognize it.
But there was a sense of familiarity.
Because it was the intuition of a fellow mother.
"That child's mother has probably passed away. But her power seems to still be within him. It's just... he seems to have some kind of... misunderstanding?"
Kushina didn't quite understand.
But Naruto had quietly taken it all to heart.
"Gaara, we have more important things to—!" At the risk of getting killed, Kankuro finally spoke up to rein Gaara in.
"..."
Gaara finally stopped. Kankuro exhaled.
"Looks like I didn't need to step in after all."
Sasuke's voice came from behind.
Kankuro's scalp went numb. Because Gaara hadn't stopped because of Kankuro's voice—he'd stopped because of this new threat.
—Seriously, do all you Leaf people love appearing behind others this much?!