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Chapter 215 Hinata Vs Hiashi
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The statement stopped Hiashi cold.
For a long moment, he simply stared at her, searching her face for irony. For exaggeration. For the clumsy bravado of a child who did not yet understand the weight of her words.
There was only certainty.
"The world does not bend simply because you wish it to," Hiashi said, his voice measured and even. "Desire alone has never reshaped history, Hinata."
"I know. That's why I don't intend to rely on desire. I'll become strong enough to force it to change."
His brow tightened. "Then tell me this. Why bring these thoughts to me?" His gaze sharpened. "Do you believe I will stand beside you? If the elders so much as catch wind of this, they will turn on you without mercy. Favor is fleeting. You would be discarded the moment you become inconvenient."
"I told you because you're my father."
Hiashi's tone cooled further. "And I am the head of this clan."
"Then answer me honestly. Will you oppose me?"
He did not respond immediately. His eyes drifted away, toward the open doors, toward the compound beyond. When he spoke again, his words were precise, almost dismissive.
"I do not need to oppose what holds no weight," he said. "Ambition without power is noise. And noise fades."
Hinata's fingers curled into fists. "So that's all I am to you? A disappointment? A failure you've already written off?"
Hiashi looked back at her, composed, unyielding.
"You have changed," he acknowledged. "But a shift in attitude does not dismantle centuries of law. The system you condemn is not cruelty for cruelty's sake. It is the framework that preserved this clan long before Konoha existed. You alone will not overturn it."
"Then answer this," Hinata said, lifting her chin. "If that system exists to protect the Byakugan, why does a shinobi from the Hidden Mist possess one right now?"
For the first time, Hiashi faltered.
It was only a breath. Only the slightest pause. But Hinata saw it.
"You know," she pressed. "You and the elders knew an eye was stolen. And you chose silence. Because admitting the truth would have shattered the myth... the lie that justifies everything."
Hiashi said nothing.
His silence was confirmation enough.
"How many members of the main house actually step onto the battlefield? How many risk their lives beyond the village walls?"
Hinata released a deep breath. "It's the branch family who bleed. They're the ones sent on missions, exposed to ambush, assassination, and death, all while carrying the seal that can destroy them at a thought. You call that protection, but it's rot. That seal doesn't preserve the Hyūga. It poisons it."
She steadied her heart. "A system that survives by sacrificing half its people isn't strong, Father. It's already dying. And when it collapses, it won't be because of outsiders. It'll be because we destroyed ourselves from the inside."
Hiashi studied her as though seeing her anew.
"If you persist in this path, understand what awaits you. The elders will oppose you. The main family will fight you."
"Will you fight me?"
"..."
"Well, the main family can cling to their titles all they want," Hinata replied calmly. "The storm's already forming regardless of if you will oppose me or not."
Something stirred in Hiashi's chest.
An old memory. A vision he once held before duty crushed it beneath tradition and fear.
Perhaps... perhaps she could succeed where he had failed.
For the first time in many years, Hiashi Hyūga allowed himself the faintest smile, so small it was almost indistinguishable from resignation.
A sharp knock broke the moment.
"Enter," Hiashi said, his voice returning to its usual calm authority.
An ANBU operative stepped inside, knelt, and presented a sealed scroll bearing the Hokage's mark. The message was delivered, acknowledged, and the ANBU vanished in a flicker of motion, as silent as they had arrived.
Hiashi broke the seal.
As he read, his composure cracked.
His eyes widened, just slightly at first, then more, to the point Hinata wondered if she was imagining it. He reread the scroll once. Then again, slower this time, as if committing every word to memory.
Finally, he looked up.
"Activate it," he said quietly. "Show me this new Byakugan."
Hinata's chakra surged, and her eyes shifted.
Hiashi stared with a haunted look, one that dragged old ghosts to the surface. A look Hinata had never seen on her father's face before.
"...He was telling the truth," Hiashi murmured under his breath.
"What?"
Hiashi did not answer immediately. But the silence told her enough. He knew what he was seeing. And he knew exactly what it meant.
"Father, do you know of a connection between the Hyūga and the Uchiha?"
Hiashi closed his eyes for a brief moment, then opened them again, resolve settling over his features. "Information is power, Hinata. But power without the strength to protect it is merely an invitation for it to be taken. Some truths are buried not because they are false, but because revealing them too soon invites disaster."
He studied her closely. "If you wish to uncover such truths, you must first prove you can survive the consequences."
Hinata straightened. "Then I request a spar," she said firmly. "With you."
Hiashi snorted softly. "Very well. Let us see whether the real world has given you more than an attitude adjustment."
Hinata smiled.
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Hiashi walked to the center of the sparring dojo. The room was a polished expanse of pale hardwood. Shoji panels filtered in golden sunlight, casting shifting grid like patterns across the floor. A raised tatami mat rested at the back, meant for observation, but today it was empty.
Across the floor, Hinata stood stretching.
Hiashi watched her in silence, his face a calm mask. But inside, regret simmered.
Dear Tsubaki, I failed our daughter. I believed severity would harden her. That distance would temper her into something strong enough to endure this world. Instead, all I did was break what should never have been touched. And now… now she stands before me reforged. Not by my hand, but by pain. By resolve born in places I never reached. I cannot undo what I've done. But I can choose not to stand in her way.
I owe her at least that.
Hiashi Hyūga said none of this aloud.
He was not a man who gave voice to regret. He carried it silently, with composure, dignity, and the quiet understanding that some apologies could never be spoken, only proven.
Instead, he stepped forward.
He raised his arms and settled into a Gentle Fist stance, posture immaculate and balance flawless. The stance of a clan head of the Hyūga.
"I will not be using my Byakugan. You, however, are expected to hold nothing back. Use every technique at your disposal."
"And if I force you to activate your eyes, Father?"
"Then, you will have proven yourself worthy of learning more about your new pair of eyes."
"Hajime!"
Hinata's hands flashed through a seal Hiashi did not expect, and his brow creased in genuine surprise.
Ninja Art: Smokescreen Jutsu!
White smoke erupted outward, thick and fast, swallowing the dojo in an instant. The clean wooden floor vanished. The walls disappeared. Sound became muffled and distance distorted.
Hiashi narrowed his eyes.
Under normal circumstances, the smoke would have been meaningless to the Byakugan. But with Hiashi's self imposed restriction, it changed the fight entirely.
Hinata had learned the technique from Kakashi, as a way to exploit the Byakugan. The smoke blinded everyone else, stripping them of depth, distance, and direction, while the Byakugan user remained untouched.
"A Hyūga using ninjutsu?" Hiashi said calmly, his voice cutting through the haze.
"It worked on you, didn't it?"
Her voice echoed from all directions, distorted and misleading. She had copied the technique from Zabuza, breaking the sense of direction and forcing the enemy to doubt every instinct.
"A Hyūga is expected to master the Gentle Fist," Hiashi said, turning slowly, listening.
"Why? We're shinobi, aren't we? Why should our tools be so limited?"
"Because the Gentle Fist is absolute," Hiashi answered. "It is a discipline refined over centuries. A true master does not merely strike the body. They sever chakra itself. Ninjutsu becomes meaningless when its flow is disrupted at the source."
This was doctrine of the Hyūga.
This was their history.
Hinata snorted softly, her thoughts flickering back to the battle between Guren, Naruto, and Zabuza. To the moment she understood, with chilling clarity, that the Hyūga's pride meant nothing in the face of true monsters of the shinobi world. Even the head of the Hyūga was only a jōnin. Powerful, yes, but jōnin were not rare. They existed in every village, in every nation.
Talking it through later with Kakashi sensei had only cemented the realization. Strength in the real world did not come from clinging to tradition. It came from adaptation. From widening one's path, not narrowing it.
And Hinata knew then that if she followed only what the Hyūga had always taught her, she would never reach the level she needed to stand where Naruto stood.
The smoke shifted.
She burst forward, palm glowing faintly as she drove straight for his chest.
Hiashi reacted instantly, intercepting the strike with perfect timing.
But his hand passed straight through her.
Ninja Art: Clone Jutsu.
A simple D rank technique. Something no seasoned jōnin should ever fall for. Under normal conditions, the lack of a shadow would have given it away immediately. But in the smoke, it was barely noticeable.
Hiashi went on the defensive, wondering, what is your plan here?
Twang.
The older Hyūga caught the arrow as it was about to hit his eye.
Another twang.
A palm strike splintered the arrow.
Then another.
Dodge.
Then another.
Each one from a new direction. She was moving in a semi circle around him, firing while staying mobile. From within the smoke, Hinata's voice echoed. "Father. Give up. Every arrow embedded near your feet is rigged with explosive tags."
Hiashi almost smiled.
So she's gone that far, he thought with quiet approval. She really has embraced what it means to be a shinobi.
"Do you truly think I was born yesterday, Hinata? None of those arrows carry seals. And if they did, they would have detonated the moment I shattered them with chakra."
There was a pause.
"…Wow," Hinata said dryly. "What a way to ruin your daughter's plan. Do you have no shame, Father?"
Hiashi went white as a sheet at her taunt.
Suddenly the smoke thinned just enough for him to see her silhouette.
Then it split.
Three Hinatas stood before him.
One dropped into the stance of the Eight Trigrams Sixty Four Palms. Another stood slightly behind, bow drawn, arrow aimed steady and unflinching. The third raised a compact crossbow, its bolt already loaded.
Hiashi's eyes narrowed.
Eight Trigrams: Palm Rotation.
Chakra erupted from every tenketsu in his body as he spun, forming a whirling dome of compressed force. The arrows struck first, phasing harmlessly against the rotating barrier. The palms followed, their strikes dispersing against the spinning shield like mist against a storm.
Both were regular clones, Hiashi thought, as the bolt hit.
The explosive tag detonated on contact.
Fire and pressure blossomed outward, the blast roaring against the rotation, but Hiashi remained unmoved. The chakra shield flared brighter for an instant, dispersing the force evenly. When the smoke cleared, his robes were untouched and his stance unbroken.
Before the echo of the explosion could fade, Hiashi moved.
Eight Trigrams: Air Palm!
He thrust his palm forward, releasing a compressed shell of chakra. The invisible force crossed the distance instantly, slamming into Hinata's real form. The crossbow in her hands shattered under the impact as she flipped backward, boots skidding across the floor as she barely redirected the blow.
Her Byakugan flared.
The closed bud pattern within her eyes began to unfurl, reacting instinctively to the pressure.
She twisted midair, landed, and struck back.
Eight Trigrams: Air Palm!
The blast tore through the thinning smoke.
Hiashi sidestepped, the force passing close enough to ripple his robes.
With undeniable proof now laid bare, that Hinata's Byakugan carried the Eye of Insight, Hiashi's expression finally shifted. "You've proven the strength of those eyes."
"And have I proven I'm more than the failure you once saw me as?"
"You have," Hiashi replied, and there was no mistaking the pride in his voice.
He could have ended the spar there. Any reasonable clan head would have. But reason gave way to curiosity.
How far has she truly come?
Hinata answered that question herself.
Eight Trigrams: Sixteen Palms!
With her near complete field of vision, Hinata centered herself within the invisible Eight Trigrams diagram, chakra flaring along her arms as she surged forward. Her strikes came in controlled bursts, each aimed at a tenketsu, each faster than the last.
Two Palms!
Her pace accelerated sharply as she pushed into the final sets, resolve hardening as she stepped forward for the sixteen strike sequence.
Hiashi redirected, deflected, and disrupted her flow without breaking stance, his counters precise enough to halt each strike inches from its target.
"Your timing is sound," he said calmly as he blocked another flurry. "But your weight shifts too early."
Four Palms!
Strike. Block.
"You're committing your hips before the strike lands. Against lesser opponents, it would work. Against someone who knows the form, it telegraphs your intent."
Eight Palms!
Strike. Block.
"You're also overreaching on the final sequence. Sixteen Palms isn't about speed alone. It's about control. You're rushing to prove something."
Her final strike stopped just short of his chest.
Hiashi stepped back.
"Let me show you the true 64 Palms."
His presence changed instantly. The dojo seemed to shrink as his chakra surged, every movement refined by decades of mastery. The strikes came faster than before, relentless and suffocating.
Hinata reacted on instinct.
Eight Trigrams: Palm Rotation!
Chakra erupted from her tenketsu as she spun, forming a rotating barrier just as the strikes landed. The force battered against her rotation, pressure mounting, her feet digging into the floor as she held the technique together through sheer will.
The attacks dispersed.
The rotation slowed.
Hinata slid back a step, breathing hard but still standing.
Hiashi stared at her, genuinely stunned. "…Technique thieving eyes."
"What?"
"You didn't learn that. You copied it." Hiashi exhaled, the sound caught somewhere between irritation and reluctant awe. "To replicate a form mid combat, without instruction… that ability is why the Uchiha were feared, respected, and hated."
His gaze lingered on her eyes.
"And now, that ability rests within the Hyūga."
Hinata felt a twist in her chest. For a fleeting moment, she wondered how her father would react if he knew that Sasuke's Sharingan now carried traits of the Byakugan as well. The thought passed just as quickly.
What did not pass was the irritation.
Even now, after everything she'd done, after everything she'd shown him, it was still her eyes he was focused on. Not her resolve, choices, or will.
Her jaw tightened.
Hinata channeled chakra into her thumb as she hit her chakra points, recreating a technique she'd copied from Guren, one she had not intended to reveal yet.
"Chakra Points: Life and Death."
The release was explosive.
Chakra burst outward from her body in a violent surge, dense enough to be seen, felt, heard. The force slammed into Hiashi and drove him back a step before he could fully brace.
For the first time, Hiashi's composure cracked. "Why are you doing this?" he demanded. "You've already proven yourself. You've shown more than enough to stand as the Hyūga heiress."
Hinata breathed hard, teeth clenched as she forced the torrent of chakra to stabilize for one more moment. "Because…" she said, voice strained but unyielding, "…just enough isn't enough for my dreams."
She lifted her head and met his gaze head on.
"So even if I fall, I'll show you, Father, that your daughter isn't just talking about changing this clan. I'll act."
She shifted her footing as she took her stance of the Eight Trigrams: Sixty Four Palms.
When suddenly something changed.
The Hornet Ring on Hinata's finger pulsed, reacting to the overwhelming chakra pouring through her system, as if answering her resolve.
The magic of the Hornet Ring flowed into Hinata, guiding her movements as if unseen hands were refining every flaw in her form.
Her right foot stepped forward and planted hard, the toe grinding into the wooden floorboards until hairline cracks spidered outward from the pressure. Her back heel rotated just enough to anchor her stance, granting full rotational force without sacrificing balance.
The front leg absorbed and redirected force while the rear carried her weight like a coiled spring, ready to release everything in a single instant. Her torso leaned forward just a fraction, body aligned from shoulder to foot in one seamless chain of stored momentum.
Her right arm extended.
Three fingers forward.
One intent.
A spear aimed directly at Hiashi's throat.
The world seemed to go quiet around her.
Hiashi's breath caught.
He had seen thousands of stances. Corrected forms refined over generations.
This was different.
His Byakugan flared instinctively, and what he saw made his heart skip a beat. Between Hinata's fingers, chakra condensed into a dense, focused needle, concentrated at the middle joint, flickering like a living ember on the verge of ignition.
Then something far worse happened.
Hinata's left hand crackled as lightning chakra arced along her fingers. At the same time, fire chakra shimmered around her right hand.
Hiashi swallowed.
She was adding elemental chakra into the Gentle Fist. And from the unfocused glaze in her eyes, he realized with cold clarity that she was not doing it deliberately. She was doing it instinctively.
In a single breath, she vanished the distance between them.
Eight Trigrams: Sixty Four Palms!
Hiashi moved on pure survival.
He knew, with absolute certainty, that if even one elemental infused Gentle Fist strike landed cleanly, it would not cripple him.
It would most certainly kill him.
Painfully.
Gentle Step: Black Turtle Shield.
Hiashi moved at the same instant Hinata did.
The technique was a variant of the Gentle Step Twin Lion Fists, a high level secret of the Gentle Fist taught only to the Hyūga main branch. Unlike the roaring chakra lions favored by others, this was Hiashi's own creation, meant for defense rather than offense. Chakra surged from his palms and shaped itself into overlapping, shell like rings that wrapped around his forearms, layered like iron rings.
Two strikes came first.
Hiashi's Byakugan locked onto Hinata's body, its x ray vision piercing flesh to track the minute contraction of muscle fibers and the subtle shift of tendons before motion even began. He stepped aside with effortless precision, his body flowing out of danger like a leaf carried by the wind.
Two more strikes, totaling four.
Four consecutive strikes, totaling eight.
Hinata's speed increased. Her palms blurred, chakra flaring brighter with each blow.
Eight consecutive strikes, totaling sixteen.
Sixteen consecutive strikes, totaling thirty two.
The dojo groaned under the pressure of her advance. Floorboards cracked where her feet landed. The air itself seemed to shudder as her chakra surged higher, hotter, and more volatile.
Thirty two consecutive strikes, totaling sixty four.
Hiashi raised the Black Turtle Shield.
The shell like chakra constructs met her palms head on. Some strikes were deflected cleanly, redirected with practiced ease. Others slipped through, grazing past his guard. Each one that connected sent a violent jolt through his arms, elemental chakra scraping against his defense like grinding steel.
He grunted, forced to give ground for the first time.
Then he moved.
Thud.
His fingers struck a chakra point at the base of Hinata's neck. The surge of power collapsed instantly, her body going slack as she crumpled forward.
Hiashi caught her before she hit the floor.
He stood there for a long moment, breathing deeply, eyes fixed on the faintly glowing Hornet Ring still pulsing on her finger.
"…What is this strange item?"
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[ Personal Note: First off, thanks a ton to all of you for sticking with this story. Seriously, you guys are awesome. Now, if you're interested in supporting me on P@treon, let me just say that over there, I post these massive 15k-word chapters. But heads up, if you're jumping to P@treon, you'll need to start from Chapter 97, since that's where this chapter lines up with the content there.
To everyone here just reading along, please don't forget to leave a comment! Honestly, your comments make my day, and they let me know you're as invested in this story as I am. So yeah, thanks again, and I hope you have an amazing rest of your day!