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Hawk’s Final Hunt Retrospective

Okay, so before I start this, I have two warnings I need to give. The first is that I don’t really have a script for this, and I’m not putting as much thought into structure as I would most essays. It’s going to very stream-of-consciousness-y, for lack of a better description, even though I did think about the topics I want to address beforehand. Please bear with me if I end up meandering or switching topics very abruptly without regard for transitions. My second warning is, rather obviously, spoilers incoming for my entire fic. Usually I try to be as spoiler-free as possible when talking about my fic in posts outside of it, but this is an exception; I won’t be able to give a proper analysis of my own work if I’m holding anything back. So before you read this, I highly advise that you read all of Hawk’s Final Hunt first. With that out of the way, here’s my retrospective on Hawk’s Final Hunt.

To kick things off, I would like to say that I feel I understand Kishimoto’s struggles with writing just a little more. I never intended for Hawk’s Final Hunt to wind up as long as it did. When I first announced it, I said that I planned on it being 25 chapters long, plus a one-shot prologue and a one-shot epilogue, with 27 chapters in total. The final count? One-shot prologue, 78 chapter main body, and six-part epilogue… 85 chapters in total. That’s more than three times as long as I envisioned it. There are two big reasons for this. The first is that I underestimated how long my story would need to be told at various points; I recall several times where I was writing one chapter, but it got so long that I ended up splitting it into two, even during places where I had everything planned out in advance. Take the Father of the Impure World arc for example: that was going to be only two chapters long, one for getting introduced to Butsuma up until Sasuke and Karin use Samsara of Heavenly Life together, and another for Suigetsu’s fight with Butsuma and everything else that happened until the four of them left the tiny island. But instead, it wound up four chapters long, double the length I intended it to be. Because of this, when Kishimoto said things like “I know how the story is going to end, it’s just a matter of getting there” when the manga isn’t even half over and “the story is coming to an end” at the beginning of an arc that would take five years to finish, I think he was being sincere, just underestimating the length of his own story and how much time it would take to properly tell it.

The second is that several choices I made in the middle of writing would end up spiralling into later developments and story arcs that I never initially intended, forcing me to write on the fly while still trying to keep narrative cohesion. I mentioned several times that I didn’t plan on taking the story to the Land of Frost, but I never gave my in-depth reasons as to why all in one place, and believe me, there are plenty. The first of which, of course, was give Jugo something to do after his return from Sage training. In my original draft of the showdown at Whirlpool Island, the point of connection with the Shinigami’s dimension wasn’t on the same island as the Hidden Whirlpool Village, but on a nearby island, and Jugo would have been there to fly people between the locations… and nothing else. That would have been a waste of his newly acquired Sage Mode and Gyuki chakra, so I had him be absent from the fight altogether, sending him elsewhere until I needed him again. When I was writing chapter 43 I thought about how to accomplish this, and I decided on a trip to the Land of Frost where he would meet with the Hidden Cloud characters again. I had this happen in order to rectify Sasuke’s refusal of A’s training back during the Silent Thunder arc, in order to show his character development since the Waterfall of Truth.

Speaking of the Waterfall of Truth, that’s also related to an earlier arc I didn’t plan in advance – Shimeri Suna Estate. Originally Taka was going to refuse their invitation to Kurotsuchi’s party and continue their mission, leading straight to the Father of the Impure World arc after Desert Maelstrom, but I knew that Sasuke was going to take the Waterfall of Truth test later after the first battle with Jashin, and as is Sasuke didn’t have a motivation to take it that meshed with the story, taking it for no better reason than his rivalry with Naruto. That in the same chapter as telling Jugo not to continue with his Sage training unless he personally enjoys it, to avoid becoming obsessed with power, would have made Sasuke a colossal hypocrite, and not in the way I was intending him to be, i.e. claiming to seek redemption yet rejecting everyone willing to forgive him because he hates himself too much. That motivation ended up being Karin concluding that Sasuke was lying to himself and calling him out on it while they were together at Shimeri Suna Estate. Four whole chapters of breather fluff and fan service came to be because of a single out-of-character moment later down the road.

And I wouldn’t have even thought of that if I didn’t make the changes to the Worst Natural Gift arc that I did, namely changing its location from the Land of Earth to the Hidden Rain Village, and by consequence, creating Ameko. It’s during the conversations with Ameko that Sasuke points out Obito lied about calling himself Madara, and from there Karin would recognize one of the flaws of her lie-detecting ability, since Obito called himself Madara without Karin noticing it was a lie, and bring that up in front of Sasuke. These conversations would also come into play later as foreshadowing for some events that I planned in advance, such as Sasuke being Madara’s reincarnation as it pertains to Butsuma and the destruction of the Hidden Whirlpool Village, but also for some events that I did not plan in advance, such as Yahiko being part of the 90% of Jugo’s clan that don’t inherit the Kekkei Genkai and Nagato’s parentage, both of which were revealed when Nagato was released from the Totsuka Blade.

That’s right, Nagato wasn’t originally going to make a “live” appearance in my fic, and remain strictly a posthumous character. I wasn’t even planning on it when Taka went to see Nagato’s corpse. I had only settled on having Nagato show up in-person when I was writing chapter 41, and Kabuto pointed out that he hadn’t had a chance to release Nagato from the Totsuka Blade (by virtue of summoning Itachi), and his soul was still trapped and needed to be freed. At that point I made the necessary steps to have it happen, with Kabuto summoning Itachi only for him to be sent to the Shinigami by Jashin, the spiritual weapons coming into play in chapter 48, Sasuke taking them off Itachi’s hands in chapter 50 before releasing everyone from the Shinigami, and Sasuke finally releasing Nagato from the Totsuka Blade in front of Naruto, Karin, and Hidan in chapter 53. Nagato would go on to stay for another chapter where the cast deduces the truth behind Nagato’s parents’ deaths (because, given some earlier developments in my fic regarding the Kagura Dynasty, something must have been way off for Leaf ninja of all people to mistake Fuso for an enemy), where it’s revealed that not only was Nagato’s mother the woman that purged Jashinism from the Land of Hot Water after the First Ninja World War and Karin the First’s granddaughter, but that Nagato’s father was an Uchiha that trained under Sasuke Sarutobi. So retroactively, Ameko asking if Sasuke and Karin were Nagato’s children becomes a hint about Nagato’s parents.

Of course, Sasuke released Nagato from the Totsuka Blade just after Karin defeated Hidan, and that conflict was something I came up with while writing chapter 27, the one where Karin talks to Sasuke about lying to himself. Don’t get me wrong: Hidan was always going to be in my fic as Jashin’s eventual Dragon, but his role in the story beyond that wasn’t quite set in stone when I first started out. Chapter 27 had me first hint that Karin’s mother was murdered by Hidan, and while no straight-up confirmation was given until the end of chapter 41, the hints became stronger and stronger as time went on, and by that point I needed to have Karin master her chains and defeat Hidan herself using them eventually. From that decision came the Soul Attractor Field, finalizing the method Karin would use to master her chains (I planned on Karin mastering her chains at the Hidden Whirlpool Village from the start; foreshadowing it was the whole point of the scene in chapter 6 where Taka flies over the Hidden Whirlpool Village, but the method hadn’t quite been decided yet), and the battle with Hidan after Jashin’s defeat in the Shinigami’s dimension.

But as a result, the “short scene in the final act of the play” Sasuke foreshadowed through his story about Madara had to be pushed back, since Jashin was originally going to possess Hidan after leaving the Shinigami’s dimension, and with Karin defeating Hidan herself (with some assistance from Naruto) being a top priority, that couldn’t happen anymore. That’s when I got the idea of the Holy Grail of Jashin and its hiding place being the Land of Frost, since that’s where Jugo was headed anyway.

Of course, the Land of Frost arc took much longer than anticipated as well, partially because I didn’t plan for it. I thought it’d take one chapter for Jugo, Tenten, Nodan, and the Hidden Cloud team to assemble and be taken prisoner by the Frost Daimyo; it took three. Then I thought it’d take one chapter for Sasuke, Karin, and Sakura to travel there, defeat the Frost Daimyo, and watch him get sacrificed by Jashin. Again, that took three chapters. And at that point, Jashin would have made his final appearance in chapter 62, with Sasuke using the Human Path to take Jashin’s soul out of Fuzai’s body, which would have kick-started the Shuryo Jikan arc because Sasuke would have read Jashin’s memories. But two things changed my mind at the last second, prompting me to instead write another full-scale battle with Jashin more or less on the spot: first of all, there was the risk of Jashin giving control of Fuzai’s body back to Fuzai when Sasuke goes for the Human Path that was acknowledged in chapter 62, and also that Jashin having the memories of everyone that drank from the Holy Grail since his soul was sent there, particularly Jugo, would mean that Jashin should have had knowledge about Fuzai’s immunity to the lie detector ahead of time and see Sasuke’s gambit coming, which was made clear in chapter 63. Hence another five chapters of content I didn’t plan in advance, with the Shuryo Jikan arc being delayed until chapter 68.

That being said, while the Shuryo Jikan arc was planned in advance, and the general plot remained intact, a lot of the material ended up being improvised, and while I firmly believe the end product was much better than it would have been initially, it also took a lot longer. The main reason for this is, ironically enough, my reading of Twilight (which I plan to continue after I’ve made the table of contents for Hawk’s Final Hunt on Livejournal!). During my review of chapter 6 of Twilight, I criticised the chapter for making the first five effectively worthless by handing Bella’s answers to her on a silver platter via Jacob and Lauren. In the original draft of my fic, I would have done the very same thing: Turtle Island was going to acquire the natural energy it needed on its own and warp all the relevant characters to the God of Life’s dimension to tell them exactly what was going on and what they needed to do to stop Shuryo Jikan when everything seemed hopeless… one massive Deus Ex Machina that would have killed all the conflict in the story up to that point. To the end of avoiding that outcome, I made Taka work for Turtle Island’s information, by figuring out it’s the source of Gamamaru’s prophecies themselves, taking down Black Zetsu and learning he was created with Curse Energy in the process, and then helping Turtle Island reach the amount of natural energy it needed to awaken its lost powers. It was also during this time I decided that Jashin was going to make one last appearance at the very end, disguised as Shuryo Jikan itself, to interfere in Sasuke and Karin’s dealing with it, because the original confrontation with Shuryo Jikan would have been anticlimactic, but also because Sasuke’s story about Madara would reclaim its significance in foreshadowing Jashin’s fate. A challenging hunt for information and then a disrupted final confrontation is much better than a Deus Ex Machina followed by an Anti-Climax Boss, so while it became 11 chapters rather than 2 or 3, I’m still very proud of my final arc’s development.

In case you didn’t infer it from the last few paragraphs, the Frost Daimyo wasn’t intended to begin with, while Black Zetsu was originally going to be merely a posthumous character as Jashin’s accomplice in the murder of Kamina Uzumaki and being indirectly responsible for the Hidden Whirlpool Village’s destruction and thus Jashin’s resurrection (he was the client for the Hidden Cloud’s second anonymous mission that the Frost Daimyo claims innocence for. Never outright stated it, but it was heavily implied). Thankfully both of them have convenient justifications for entering the plot without Taka noticing them earlier (the Frost Daimyo had a mole in the Hidden Cloud eavesdropping on Taka, letting him know that Karin was on board and hide underground to avoid her detection when Odaka flew over their country on the way to the Hidden Sand, while Black Zetsu’s ability to merge with the planet made him impossible to detect by anyone except for Naruto in Chakra Mode, and Black Zetsu got out of dodge as soon as Naruto entering Chakra Mode around Taka became a distinct possibility in Shimeri Suna Estate thanks to Lee’s challenge).

All in all, I understand Kishimoto’s struggles about having to write by the seat of his pants while simultaneously putting together a story he had planned very early on, and the kind of difficulties that can arise trying to do both at once. And I only had to concern myself with those troubles for one year: Kishimoto’s story went on for fifteen. Introducing new characters partway through, having characters come back after you initially thought you were done with them, revising plot threads for the sake of compelling conflict and consistent character development… Kishimoto must have went through a whole lot of that, to the point his story’s universe arguably became too big for its own good and made it harder and harder to keep track of everything. I have something to follow this up on, but before I do I’ll make mention of something unrelated that I had absolutely no intention of doing, and only noticed in hindsight:

The progression of conflict in my fanfiction as a whole mirrors canon to such a degree that I’d forgive you for thinking it was completely intentional on my part.

Here me out on this. The story begins with a team coming together (Team Seven and Taka). On their first major mission, they fight a Swordsman of the Mist (Zabuza and Nashiken). Then Fuzai, the antagonist of the Silent Thunder arc, has similarities with all of Naruto’s major opponents introduced in the Chunin Exams: he worked as mole for Orochimaru just like Kabuto, turned to evil because of the incident that took Hizashi’s life like Neji, and uses a Tailed Beast’s power - and is not-so-different with the protagonist - like Gaara. To say nothing of his Heel Face Turn at the end, like Neji and Gaara. Next comes the Worst Natural Gift arc, where the protagonists join forces with ninja from another country to take down someone/people related to the Curse Marks (Hidden Sand and Sound Five / Hidden Rock and Warushizen), but nonetheless a member of the core team leaves to train after fighting with the protagonist (Naruto vs Sasuke and Sasuke vs. Jugo).

The next arc involves going to the Hidden Sand Village and fighting a Rogue Sand ninja with connections to a guest star party member and uses puppetry. Am I describing Sasori, Chiyo’s grandson, or Yoshitsune, Temari’s mentor? For an added bonus, Yoshitsune also has a history of terrorism, as does Sasori’s partner Deidara. The next antagonist would be an immortal that was old enough to know the First Hokage, so Butsuma is like Hidan and Kakuzu put together, and he would also temporarily take the fourth spot on the core team, as Sai did for Team Seven around the same time. What would follow would be a story-altering loss and the start of the deuteragonist’s family history dominating the plot (Sasuke vs Itachi and the Uchiha Clan / Taka vs Jashin and the Uzumaki Clan), and the death of a prominent mentor (Jiraiya and Butsuma). Next, the protagonist does a bit of very significant training (Sasuke at the Waterfall of Truth vs Naruto at Mount Myoboku) while someone is invading and curbstomping the Hidden Leaf (Nagato and Jashin).

The action in Hawk’s Final Hunt takes us to the Hidden Whirlpool Village, where both battles that transpire there parallel Naruto vs. Pain in various ways; Sasuke vs. Jashin has Sasuke use everything at his disposal, both old and new, and ends with a mass resurrection, while Karin vs. Hidan’s similarities were pointed out more than once in the actual text. For bonus points, Hinata gets critically injured both in canon and in my fic, and Nagato himself makes an appearance at the end.

The Land of Frost would then first parallel the Five Kage Summit in some ways, with the most immediate antagonist being a corrupt politician abusing the law and underworld connections to rise in power, and is also behind a terrible tragedy (Danzo with Uchiha Clan Massacre and the Frost Daimyo with the deaths of Hizashi and Fuzai’s father), who meets his end through a sacrifice play (Sasuke stabbing through Karin and Jashin blowing the Frost Daimyo up remotely). Then comes similarities with the Fourth Ninja World War, with Jashin controlling immortals against their will like puppets, just like Kabuto’s use of Impure World Resurrection. In particular, Sasuke’s rematch with A is a role reversal of the Five Kage vs. Madara, with A being the immortal with infinite stamina this time and Madara’s reincarnation being the one fighting under fatigue. And in the middle of it all, the protagonist uses Kurama’s name to earn his co-operation in both stories.

The story then ends with a Dog is the Mastermind revelation (Black Zetsu and Turtle Island), albeit my fic has a rare heroic example rather than the standard villainous one. Also, the core team reunites and joins forces with a member of the leader’s previous team (Obito and Naruto) to stop a variant of the End of the World as we Know it (Kaguya and Infinite Tsukiyomi vs. Shuryo Jikan), one member gets an Eleventh Hour Superpower (Kakashi getting Susano’o vs. Karin’s sensing boosted to Kamina’s level), and lastly the protagonist and deuteragonist resolve all their issues in tandem with the coup de grace (Naruto and Sasuke ending Infinite Tsukiyomi vs. Sasuke and Karin feeding Yamikami the Chakra Seed). Black Zetsu appearing around the same time as his canon moment of revelation and Shuryo Jikan being indirectly responsible for Kaguya are just the cherry on top.

This leads me to the final similarity I noticed, and what I alluded to earlier regarding Kishimoto’s universe getting too big for him to keep track of: both our endings only appeared happy on the surface, and there were more ambiguous implications that neither of us addressed in the ending proper. That’s part of the reason why I wrote my end credits, to acknowledge those bits of Fridge Horror. The biggest one is that Yamikami left the world with a warning that if the Light of Life disappears again, then it’ll destroy the world without hesitation… and Kurama’s still a substitute Light of Life. Hence Turtle Island being worried and working to hasten the growth of the new Shinju to grow a new one before Naruto’s death. The other big one is that with a portal between Yamikami and the Pure World now existing, any dead soul could pop out and try to take it over from the inside, just like Jashin did (and may very well try to do again). Thus the Shinigami recruiting Itachi and Nagato to act as Guardians of the Afterlife to keep that from happening.

What did I mean by Kishimoto doing the same thing, you might ask? It’s nothing like NaruSaku and SasuNaru stans claiming that Naruto and/or Sasuke isn’t actually happy with the way things turned out, because those claims are wrong. I’m talking about the world as a whole. Sure, the Five Great Nations stopped fighting, but what about everyone else? The Pain arc made a point to show that the smaller nations are also affected by war and that in some ways the big villages earned their ‘peace’ at the cost of the smaller nations’ lives. The Land of Rain is only one example. I brought up the Land of Hot Water and the Land of Frost in my fic, and I even revealed the entire Land of Stones was wiped out by Yoshitsune and the Curse Mark Army without either big neighbouring country noticing. There’s actually something in the Boruto movie that caught my attention that relates to this: the Alliance-Wide Chunin Exams only has ninja from the Five Great Nations participating. Who’s testing everyone else? We know that in Part 1 the Hidden Leaf’s Chunin Exams also had Sand, Grass, Rain, Waterfall, and Sound ninja participating: the Hidden Leaf hosted an exam for all their allies. Now the Grass, Rain, and Waterfall villages aren’t participating in another exam hosted by the Hidden leaf? What does that imply? I don’t even know.

And what about countries like the Land of Waves that have no ninja of their own to protect them? The problems with the system that were addressed in the Land of Waves arc were never actually solved. Yeah, Gato’s dead now and so the country’s economy can flourish, but there are bound to be other people like Gato all over the world, abusing their wealth for personal gain at the expense of everyone else (Hello, Frost Daimyo!). They stopped one case of corruption; they didn’t fix the system that allowed that corruption to exist in the first place.

That’s not all. What’s stopping the Shinobi Alliance from falling apart in the future? The whole reason the Fourth Kazekage (Gaara’s father) allied with Orochimaru to destroy the Hidden Leaf during the finals of the Chunin Exams was because the Wind Daimyo was outsourcing most of the missions that came his way to the Hidden Leaf, rather than trust his own country’s ninja with them, which ruined the Hidden Sand’s economy, which in turn convinced the Daimyo to send less missions to the Hidden Sand, and so on, forming a vicious cycle that spiralled the Hidden Sand further and further into poverty. Destroying the Hidden Leaf was the Fourth Kazekage’s way of breaking that cycle. He had more or less no choice but to break the alliance the Hidden Sand had with the Hidden Leaf and try to destroy it for the sake of the village. And there’s nothing, aside from the Hidden Sand appearing more optimistic with time, which shows the cycle ever being broken another way. If it was, then we didn’t get to see it. If it wasn’t, then it’s only a matter of time before Gaara has to weigh the lives of his village and his best friend against each other and sacrifice one for the sake of the other. And that’s just one possible scenario: as long as the Daimyo have the ability to take missions away from their home country’s village the Shinobi Alliance runs the risk of falling apart for the very same reason the previous alliance between Leaf and Sand was broken. How do you ensure the Daimyo don’t misuse their power? The manga never gives us an answer.

All of this leads me to think that over time, Kishimoto introduced too much into his story, and when Naruto was coming to a conclusion, rather than give every conflict the proper recognition and closure it needed, he focused on a small portion of them and forgot or ignored all the rest. Hence the finale appears as though it’s a universal happy ending when in truth it fails to address a lot of the problems the ninja world would have going forward. As it turns out, I would end up addressing a lot of those very same problems in my fic, either directly (the Frost Daimyo) or indirectly (Yoshitsune). I originally didn’t intend to do so to the extent that I did, but as my fic went on I noticed more and more holes in Kishimoto’s story and wanted to fill them.

Ironically enough, some of those very same developments that Kishimoto threw to the wayside when wrapping up Naruto are my main cast, the members of Taka. I would even go so far as to say that Karin, Suigetsu, and Jugo are among the most underutilized characters in the entire series, and the saddest thing is they were likely doomed to be so from the start. Kishimoto already had his ending figured out before they were even introduced; Sasuke forming an Enemy Mine with Team Seven, then fighting Naruto, then coming back to the team for real, was all in the cards. But then what happens to the rest of Taka (and Sai and Yamato for that matter)? They don’t have a spot in the ending, save for Sai being the father of Ino’s child. We don’t see Karin, Suigetsu, or Jugo in the New Era until Gaiden where, in contradiction of everything that happened to them over the course of the series, they’re back to working under Orochimaru. Right where they started, in other words. The only consolation for any of them is that Karin’s feelings for Sasuke have matured somewhat, but aside from that all three of their characters went literally nowhere.

That would have been okay if they weren’t in the position they were in, though. If Sasuke just got three random extras to follow him around for a bit. But that’s not what happened: Karin, Suigetsu, and Jugo are not even close to ‘three random extras’. All of them are intrinsically tied into the series’ mythos in some way. Suigetsu wants to collect all the Swords of the Mist, giving him connections to Zabuza and Kisame, Itachi’s partner in Akatsuki, and it’s later revealed he’s related to the Second Mizukage. Karin is a member of the Uzumaki Clan, Naruto’s own clan, whose history is deeply connected to the Sage of the Six Paths and the Tailed Beasts, Kurama in particular. Jugo is the source of the Curse Mark, the thing that Sasuke left the Hidden Leaf in order to master and is later revealed to be an off-shoot of Sage Mode, and is Kimimaro’s best friend. Furthermore, every time Sasuke shows up, they’re right around the corner. Think of it this way: Taka has about as much screen time and plot relevance as Teams Asuma, Kurenai, and Guy put together in Part 2... and all that potential goes literally nowhere.

What makes it even worse is that Taka is repeatedly put into situations where they could be fleshed out more, and actually develop, but they just don’t happen. Cases in point:

Suigetsu challenges Kisame for Samehada right before Sasuke goes to battle Itachi. You’d expect: for Suigetsu vs. Kisame to actually be shown since, you know, it was being built up since the moment Suigetsu was introduced. Instead: Suigetsu vs. Kisame is entirely off-panel, and we don’t even learn the results until after an extended flashback following Sasuke vs. Itachi.

Taka is moving in on the Five Kage Summit. One of the Mizukage’s bodyguards wields one of the Swords of the Mist. You’d expect: that Suigetsu fights this bodyguard for said sword, and possibly gets some backstory as to how he defected from the Mist and ended up Orochimaru’s lab rat, since he’s interacting with people still loyal to his village. Instead: Suigetsu and said bodyguard don’t even meet; Sasuke leaves Suigetsu and Jugo for dead during his pursuit of Danzo and only encounters Chojuro after that.

Karin was just stabbed near-fatally by Sasuke, healed by Sakura, and then witnessed Naruto manage to connect with Sasuke on some level and get him to stop his rampage. She is now being taken to the Hidden Leaf by Sasuke’s former team. You’d expect: that Karin actually talk to Naruto, Sakura, and Kakashi about Sasuke. Instead: Karin makes some inner remarks about Naruto’s chakra and then promptly passes out, remaining silent for the duration of the trip.

Suigetsu and Jugo just broke out of Samurai prison. At the same time, Suigetsu’s brother Mangetsu was just revived for the Fourth Ninja World War. Elsewhere, Kimimaro is also present in a reanimated form for the Fourth Ninja World War. You’d expect: that Suigetsu and Jugo meet up and fight with Mangetsu and/or Kimimaro, fleshing out their relationships with said characters. Instead: Mangetsu is sealed by Kakashi’s team off-panel and Kimimaro is returned to the afterlife when Sasuke and Itachi make Kabuto end Impure World Resurrection without a single on-panel fight. The most Suigetsu or Jugo contribute to either battle is Suigetsu giving some exposition on the Swords of the Mist in the chapter where the Swordsmen are revived.

Sasuke’s just spoken with the Hokages and decided to protect the Leaf rather than destroy it. Karin’s still in the Hidden Leaf Village and would no doubt have sensed his chakra coming. You’d expect: for Sasuke to give Karin a proper apology for what he did to her at the Five Kage Summit, since he’s feeling pretty remorseful at the moment and sacrificing Karin to murder Danzo is the single most terrible thing he’s ever done. Karin would also take his apology to heart, thinking about it before begrudgingly accepting it, properly resolving the bond they have. Instead: Sasuke apologizes in a single panel and Karin forgives him just as quickly.

Kabuto and Tobirama both state that Karin is an Uzumaki. Naruto has, since their last meeting, met his mother Kushina and saw her use the Adamantine Sealing Chains. You’d expect: for Karin to bust out the Adamantine Sealing Chains on the battlefield and Naruto to gush about how Karin’s like Mom, leading into the final two Uzumaki getting some family bonding. Instead: Karin uses the Adamantine Sealing Chains alright, but Naruto is unconscious and nowhere near Karin when it`s happening. The one to comment on the similarity to Kushina is Orochimaru.

And finally…

In chapter 618 Orochimaru claims that the members of Taka are ‘no longer snakes’, refusing to work with Suigetsu to destroy the Hidden Leaf partially on those grounds. You’d expect: that the ending would show them walking their own paths, or together with Sasuke as a family in their own right, not working under Orochimaru again. Instead: Karin, Suigetsu, and Jugo become Orochimaru’s subordinates again. Furthermore, a picture of them together with Sasuke is covered up by Sakura, Suigetsu and Jugo get accused by Naruto of “always being a pain in someone`s ass”, while Karin’s story about how she and Sakura became friends gets cut for time.

It’s so frequent that part of me thinks it was intentional on Kishimoto’s part, trolling anyone that cared about Taka for more than one second. “What, you think I’m going to develop these characters? Haha, no.” Because Kishimoto certainly didn’t care about Taka. Heck, the only reason we saw them fighting at all was because Shueisha forced Kishimoto’s hand: Refer to question 7

If Kishimoto had his way, then Taka would have been nothing more than replacement goldfish for Team Seven that would be promptly thrown aside once Sasuke was ready to accept the real Team Seven back in his life, and in the end, that’s how they were ultimately treated by the narrative regardless, despite the connections Taka had with the series’ mythos from their very conceptions (including to Team Seven itself!) and all the exposure they got just by being close to Sasuke. From start to finish Taka was dealt one of the worst lots in the whole cast, being given a big place in the series’ myth arc and lots of screen time, yet also being destined from day one to get ignored by the ending and have their whole presence in the story amount to virtually nothing.

Also, I don’t know if I’m reading too much into this, but Kishimoto’s first editor, Kosuke Yahagi, left at a really bad time for Taka. Specifically, Yahagi left after Sasuke first awakened the Mangekyo Sharingan: Bottom of page six

That means Yahagi left after Kishimoto was given the order to show Taka fighting, but before he actually got around to showing them fight (the battle with Killer B). Right when Kishimoto had to think about Taka the most, his first editor, the one he’d been working with since before Naruto even began, was swapped out for another one, and the creative differences the new editor would bring wouldn’t help his cause. No doubt the new editor’s ideas for Taka clashed with what Yahagi thought about them. It might have had something to do with Taka’s suffering, but again, I could be reading too much into it.

Nonetheless, Kishimoto’s lack of care with regards to Taka, as well as the ramifications the ending has for the world as a whole, helped shape my fanfiction into what it is today, and provided me with incentive that was coming from somewhere other than hatred. It began as simply a way for me to write Gaiden out of existence because I didn’t like it and thought it could have been avoided many different ways. It started out as a just a fix fic, but rather than continue down that route and become a purely cathartic spite fic, it evolved into an affectionate criticism and satire of Kishimoto’s work as a whole, highlighting and exploring all the Fridge Logic and Fridge Horror I saw with the series, and giving Karin, Suigetsu, and Jugo the development and respect they could have and should have got in canon but didn’t, while still remaining true to Naruto’s themes and most of the canon material. Even parts of the work that I initially said I would mostly ignore ended up being payed homage to. The Desert Maelstrom arc was partially inspired by Gaara Hiden, the Shimeri Suna Estate arc borrowed elements of The Last, and the epilogue takes some cues from Boruto the Movie, the Mitsuki one-shot, and even, despite my original intentions, Naruto Gaiden itself with the joke where Sarada asks Karin if she’s her real mother. I’m very happy with how my fic turned out, all things considered. It could have very easily turned into just another “I hate the ending let’s change it” story, but I feel that Hawk’s Final Hunt managed to be more respectful with its alterations compared to your usual fix fic.

What else is there? ... Oh yeah. I might continue with the universe I developed over the past year with a few more stories. The ones I have in mind are a story about how Suigetsu got his hands on the Kiba swords, Karin going on a trip home to the Hidden Grass Village (because it’s the only part of her past I didn’t really explore), and maybe an expansion on Sasuke and Karin’s trial, since I only glossed over that in chapter 78 and it was kind of a big deal. But for now, I’m content to end Hawk’s Final Hunt here, get some rest, and go back to riffing on Twilight on a regular basis. With all that said, I appreciate everyone that bothered to stick with me and read Hawk’s Final Hunt to the very end. Until next time, see ya.

#kosuke yahagi

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