"You must be dying to know which of us three is the strongest right now—aren't you? Today's our chance. The area around us happens to be nice and clear. Shall we settle it?"
Hinata opened her Byakugan to its maximum range and swept the training ground. Confirmed: no surveillance. Kakashi had kept his patrol radius focused on the perimeter of the Uchiha compound—and one person, however elite, couldn't cover everything. The white-haired jōnin had no eyes on what was about to unfold here.
"Eager. Aren't we."
Sasuke's dark eyes contracted slightly, but something kindled in their depths—a thin thread of intensity. The Uchiha second son couldn't argue with her. Ever since she'd floored him with a single blow back at the family shrine, that humiliation had gnawed at him without rest. Today was the day to wipe it clean.
"Tch! I'm not losing to either of you!"
Naruto declared it with the conviction of someone who'd already won. Hinata answered with a cold smirk, dipping her chin as her hands slipped discreetly behind her back into her weapons pouch. "Pretty words come easy. But the ones with real power—they don't talk. They act!!"
She snapped her arms forward. Two shuriken cut through the air like blazing meteors, streaking straight for Sasuke's and Naruto's throats. The flames clinging to her gauntlets had already burned both projectiles to a searing, incandescent red.
Thwip—thwip!
Two chilling impacts—blades burying into flesh. Both boys reeled backward. But not a single drop of blood. Then, a breath later, both bodies burst into twin plumes of smoke. The shuriken had found logs, not necks. Hinata raised an eyebrow. Apparently, all those hours spent in her company had taught them at least one lesson: never drop your guard around someone who hides a knife behind her smile.
"Lightning Release—Starflower Claw Storm!!"
Sasuke's voice rang out sharp and clear. Five shuriken tore from the tree line to Hinata's left, spinning hard, each one crackling with a corona of electric blue light. Enough charge to paralyze on contact.
"Oh, look at that. You have been busy."
A quick Byakugan scan confirmed the lightning-laced coating. Hinata didn't bother standing her ground. She was already moving—a clean sidestep, cutting in the opposite direction entirely.
Setting aside the Uchiha clan's Kekkei Genkai, their shuriken work and Fire Release were what they were famous for. That Sasuke had quietly developed a technique to coat his shuriken in lightning chakra said everything about the gap between his ninja-tool instincts and hers. Standing still to match him at that game would backfire badly.
"Tch."
From the trees, Sasuke bit off a curse. Just as she'd anticipated: as the shuriken closed on where Hinata had been standing, the trailing two suddenly changed trajectory—slamming into the lead pair's flight path, accelerating them past their original speed. The front two rocketed forward at different angles, flanking left and right, while the center one drove straight ahead. A perfect three-point encirclement.
One cut was all it would've taken. Lightning-charged metal meant instant paralysis, then follow-up strikes before she could recover. Lightning chakra and metal tools were the most natural combination in the shinobi world—and Uchiha shuriken technique made it deadlier still.
So Hinata crossed the Uchiha's entire specialty off her plan entirely. Chasing him into the traps he'd certainly laid for close-range fighters would be a gift. Instead, she turned to the more manageable problem.
"Naruto. Don't bother hiding. Under my eyes, every disguise you put on is pointless."
Dealing with Sasuke required focus. Naruto needed to be removed from the board first. Compared to the trap-laying Uchiha, Naruto's advantage was sheer durability and stamina—the lowest ceiling on the threat scale of the three.
"Don't underestimate me!!"
Stung by being picked as the easier target, Naruto leapt from cover with a grin. He yanked a shuriken from his pouch, drew a quick hand seal mid-throw, and launched it with a gleam in his eye. "Take this—Reverse Sexy Technique: Skyfall Version!!"
The shuriken detonated in a puff of smoke. A gorgeous, utterly naked blonde man materialized in its place, mid-dive, arms outstretched, eyes soft and adoring. For the average kunoichi, the effect would have been devastating.
Boom!!
Without sparing a glance, Hinata's foot snapped straight up. A textbook rising kick connected squarely between the beautiful man's legs. The transformed figure detonated into white smoke, and the original shuriken careened off-course—clattering to the ground somewhere off to the side.
But Naruto had never expected the clone to do the work. The moment Hinata's leg went up, he was already vaulting—high, right hand clenched in its Sacred Fist Gauntlet, driving down toward her position with every gram of force he had.
No time to dodge. Kohou would still cost her if she triggered it now. She blocked.
Hinata crossed both forearms over her head. Metal met metal with a dull, bone-jarring crash. Naruto's right fist hammered down into her raised arms, driving crushing pressure straight through. Then came the secondary damage: a volley of slicing pain across her arms and cheek, like blades drawn by a gale. The Sacred Fist Gauntlet had done its job—his wind chakra, channeled outward through the glove's pathways, had become actual cutting edges. They didn't care about a block.
The pain sharpened Hinata's eyes.
Her right elbow drove forward like a piston. Naruto doubled over from the shot to his gut. Before he could even register the impact, Hinata's left hand was already there—snapping shut around his throat and hoisting him clean off the ground.
"That's a clever original jutsu—your work on the Transformation Technique has gone up another level, Naruto." Her voice was level. Cold. "But parlor tricks like this—you thought they'd be enough to beat me?"
Fire chakra erupted in her left palm. Zero distance. Zero warning.
The detonation hit point-blank at his throat. Naruto screamed once—then the blast hurled him backward like a ragdoll, bouncing and tumbling across the dirt until he finally stopped moving, a ring of scorched black where his neck had been held. He didn't get up.
Hinata flexed her left hand with quiet satisfaction. Every sequence from the Kusanagi Ancient Martial Arts style had slotted in without a single hesitation. That much was now confirmed.
One left.
She turned to face Sasuke, who had rushed from the tree line just barely too late. "Just us now," she said, malice curving the corners of her mouth.
"Damn you—!"
Watching Naruto drop in an instant had sent a cold crawl up the back of Sasuke's neck. He'd anticipated a gap between himself and Hinata—but the gap he was seeing now was larger than he'd reckoned. Every move she made was necessary and nothing more. One-hit finishers, zero waste. Could he absorb one of those strikes if it landed? He wasn't confident.
Hinata's white eyes curved with malice. She had confirmed everything she'd wanted to today—and now, perhaps, there was one more interesting test to run.
"You should have noticed by now—there's no such thing as the South Dipper Seven Sacred Fists. Not in this world. Not anywhere."
"What?!"
Sasuke's eyes snapped wide. His whole body shook, involuntary. "Then—the training you made us do—all of it—"
"A lie, obviously. What else would get you two to sit still and help me film and fill my pockets? The Hyuga Clan has been clutching their traditions since the beginning—do you honestly think anyone in that family had the insight to push past Gentle Fist's limits and reach something higher? Please."
Hinata spread both hands open. Orange-red fire answered, vivid and hungry in her palms. "Only me. I am the one who built this school from nothing. What you trained in was not some ancient secret passed down from your elders—it was my creation, proven by my own eyes and my own experiments. I looked at what existed, ran my own tests, and proved the South Dipper Seven Sacred Fists' right to exist. And you two—" she laughed, a wide, unhinged sound—"you should feel honored. As test subjects, you witnessed the birth of something great. Ahahahaha~! Yahahahahahaha!!"
Her laughter rang out, bright and merciless. Standing in place, Sasuke bit down hard on his lip—and a thin thread of blood traced its way down from the corner of his mouth.
Something built behind his eyes—not any single emotion he had words for, but all of them converging at once. His hands crackled. The lightning chakra pouring into his Sacred Fist Gauntlets flared a blinding blue, matching the violence of what was happening in his chest.
"Are you done talking?!"
He threw his head up.
His eyes were red.
In the left: one tomoe. In the right: two. The twisted black commas spiraled against crimson irises—unmistakably, irrevocably the Sharingan of the Uchiha Clan's Kekkei Genkai.
Hinata looked at him without surprise. A slow, ugly smile spread across her face—and her tone shifted with it.
"Of course. Just one last thing."
"Everything I just said—all of it—was a lie."