Author note:
This novel has now reached 1 million views. *Opens bottle of champagne*
End of Author note.
At nine in the morning of the next day, Hinata’s last test before becoming a genin began. Truth be told, it was a rather boring affair. Kurenai hid herself inside a nearby forest, while Hinata, Shino, and Kiba had to track her down. Unlike Kakashi’s test, there were no hidden conditions and no tricks to make the team fight each other, so the trio passed easily. The truly interesting part, however, happened after they passed the test.
“You were holding back, weren’t you, Hinata?”
This question was asked by Kurenai, who noticed that Hinata clearly wasn’t giving it her all while chasing Kurenai down.
“Indeed. We were supposed to work together as a team. It wouldn’t make sense for me to go all out.”
Kiba, naturally, was outraged by this.
“What!? Are you looking down on us? Do you think we are too weak to fight together with you?”
Hinata could only smile wryly while lifting her hands in a disarming manner.
“Please calm down, Kiba. This wasn’t meant as an insult. I went through a lot of harsh training to reach my current strength. I didn’t want to say that you two are weak, but that I am rather abnormal.”
Before Kiba could argue some more, Kurenai intervened.
“How about we put that to the test? Let’s have a little sparring match, Hinata. You against me. Like this, you can go all out without worrying about hurting someone.”
Hinata pondered for a while and then nodded in agreement.
“Sure, why not? So far Yuna is the only one I ever fought seriously, so this might be interesting.”
Kurenai felt that something was off about that sentence, but due to her own ignorance, she decided not to bother.
“Kiba, could you start our little match? Then we will see if what Hinata said was actually true or not.”
Kurenai, naturally, already knew that Hinata was much stronger than a normal academy graduate, her two teammates need to be made aware of that, as well. That is why she decided to have this little sparring match. She would fight Hinata for a while to show off her strength instead of defeating her instantly. That should probably make those two realize the difference and might even result in them putting more effort into training from now on.
Although Kiba wasn’t happy about being on the sidelines, he begrudgingly accepted his sensei’s suggestion. He walked between the two fighters, lifted his hand, and then slashed it downwards.
“BEGIN!!!”
The moment the battle started, Hinata’s face twisted into an aggressive smile, while her battle intent crashed into Kurenai. Before Kurenai could fully understand what was going on, the sword in Hinata’s hand that seems to have come out of nowhere was already about to pierce through Kurenai’s shoulder.
Kurenai’s eyes widened in shock. She quickly circulated chakra through her body and moved her shoulder backward, barely avoiding the first blow. Hinata, however, was far from done. Her left hand, which wasn’t holding her sword shot forwards as well. Her index finger was straight and blue chakra was glowing at its tip, while the other fingers were balled into a fist. The finger was aiming straight at Kurenai’s neck and if it hit, it would be a fatal strike no questions asked.
Kurenai’s eyes bulged when she saw Hinata actually aiming for the kill. She already was in an awkward position from the last dodge, but still somehow managed to dodge the second one by jumping backward. She was just about to yell at Hinata for attacking this seriously when her eyes widened yet again. Kurenai didn’t see every hand seal Hinata did, but considering she was taking a deep breath and was about to blow it towards her direction it was rather obvious she was using ninjutsu.
“[Water Style: Raging Waves]”
A torrent of water was shot towards Kurenai. Although this wasn’t as dangerous as the last two attacks, Kurenai would rather not be hit by it either. She put some chakra into the soles of her feet and jumped up while doing half a spin. The soles of her feet stuck to one of the tree branches above her, while Hinata’s jutsu passed through underneath Kurenai harmlessly. Kurenai thought she could finally take a breath and analyze the situation, but with a flick of Hinata’s sleeve, a volley of senbons was shot at Kurenai, forcing her to dodge, yet again.
‘What is wrong with her? She is absolutely relentless.’
Kurenai went through some hand signs in an attempt to stop Hinata with a genjutsu, but just a split-second after she was hit, she had already released herself from the genjutsu.
‘Isn’t she supposed to be a genin fresh out of the academy? How can she spot and dispel my genjutsu this easily? If I had the time to create something stronger, I could probably stop her, but her relentless attacks prevent me from amassing the necessary amount of chakra to do so.’
Kurenai had to, yet again, dodge Hinata’s sword. This time, instead of going for one lethal strike, Hinata chained her attacks together into a dangerous combination of broadly spread sword strikes and pinpoint precision finger attacks.
After Kurenai managed to get away from her, Hinata, for the first time in this fight, didn’t continue her attack. With a happy smile on her face, she started speaking.
“Haha, Yuna was right. Fighting different strong opponents really is fun. The way you react to my attacks is totally different from how Yuna would react. It is really hard to chain my attacks together properly when I can’t predict your movements.”
Kurenai, understandably, almost spat out blood when she heard that.
‘Hard to chain your attacks properly? You have spent the last five minutes relentlessly chasing me around the training ground without even giving me the time to proberly gather my thoughts and yet you claim you weren’t chaining your attacks properly? No! calm down Kurenai. There are more important questions to ask, now that you finally have the chance to speak.’
“Hinata, it seems like most of your attacks were either lethal or at least could cripple your enemies. Why did you use attacks this dangerous in a simple sparring match?”
Hinata, however, only tilted her head in confusion.
“Kurenai-sensei, you told me to go all out without worrying about hurting you, so I would naturally fight you in the most efficient way I know. The most efficient way to defeat someone is, obviously, to just kill him as soon as possible. That is what Yuna taught me.”
Kurenai made a mental note that she definitely should have a serious talk with Yuna before she could teach weirder things to Hinata. Kurenai was just about to stop the fight when Hinata clapped her hands together in front of her. A battle thirsty smile appeared on her face and her chakra flared out.
“Anyway, Kurenai-sensei, how about we continue? I still haven’t shown you the jutsu I personally created after all.”
Kurenai was, naturally, surprised that Hinata apparently created a jutsu on her own. After all, the creation of a new jutsu is usually something only an incredible genius could do. Yet again, Kurenai made the mistake of not thinking too much about Hinata’s words and nodded in agreement.
Hinata kneeled down and slammed both of her hands on the ground while closing her eyes. She hasn’t mastered this jutsu enough to use it in actual combat, but since Kurenai agreed that she wanted to see it, Hinata naturally went for it. A few seconds later the ground started to shake as massive amounts of water started to ooze out of it.
“[Water Style: Water Spear Domain]”
A few moments later, everything around Hinata in a radius of about 50 meters had around 10 centimeters deep pools of water almost everywhere. Kurenai was just about to ask what the use of such ninjutsu was when a massive amount of water moved and formed into dozens of spears that were pointing towards Kurenai from all directions. Right now, Kurenai really regretted suggesting this sparring match, but she was a newly appointed jonin sensei, so she decided to at least keep her dignity and not stop the match right here. Yet another decision, she would regret later on.
