Chapter 573: Morning
The next morning, while Sasuke was on his morning run, he coincidentally met two girls—Haruno Sakura and Hinata, who were also jogging in small tank tops and shorts.
"Morning, Hinata, Sakura-kun." He caught up and greeted them.
"Good morning, Sasuke." The Byakugan girl replied full of energy.
"Morning~" Haruno Sakura's response seemed a bit lacking in breath. "We are on our sixteenth lap, did you just start?"
"Yeah." Sasuke nodded, glancing at the slightly panting girl. Seeing the tiny beads of sweat already seeping out under her nose, and contrasting it with Hinata, who looked like she hadn't even warmed up and couldn't even break a sweat, he understood in his heart. Ninja who specialize in Taijutsu truly have extraordinary stamina.
However, Sakura-kun's physical fitness was also considered pretty good. A ninja's morning run is not the slow, leisurely kind of morning exercise, but running at high speed. A Taijutsu expert like Lee-kun could run twenty laps around Konoha at Usain Bolt's speed without even panting. Ninja, whose bodies are constantly strengthened by chakra year-round, are basically a group of supermen in the eyes of ordinary people.
"By the way, Sakura-kun, have you finished writing your mission report? The three-thousand-word one."
"Hehe," Mentioning this made Sakura feel a pain in her... ovaries, and she let out an awkward laugh, "Barely finished it. I haven't picked up a pen in so many years, I don't even know how to write anymore!"
Soaking in the hot springs last night was too enjoyable. She played until very late before remembering the matter of writing the report.
The key point was that later, when they talked about Hinata covering Haruno Sakura's shift, Ino said one sentence: a punch is just a punch, does such a simple thing take days to teach? I really don't understand you people who practice Taijutsu.
For a long-range secret technique type ninja like Ino, the profound meaning of Taijutsu was that a punch required the integration of waist and stance, clean and neat movements, while adding a bit of chakra to increase the power of the fist. There was nothing more profound remaining. If a perfect score for Taijutsu was one hundred points, Ino would be around seventy points at most, belonging to the lower-middle level among female ninja. Compared to Hinata, she was undeniably a poor student, she couldn't score any higher.
Being mocked by a poor student, Hinata was very unconvinced and insisted on explaining the essence of Taijutsu movements to Ino—and then she pulled a stark-naked Ino onto the shore to spar and demonstrate.
"I say, can you put on your clothes before talking?" Haruno Sakura was truly quite speechless. Although the scene was not an eyesore—on the contrary, the scene of two girls with fair skin, beautiful faces, slender waists, beautiful eyes, and perfect figures generously posing in front of you was truly breathtakingly beautiful, and there were only the four of them here—Haruno Sakura still felt a massive visual impact...
"If we put on clothes, you won't be able to see the movement of the muscles clearly." Hinata waved her hand nonchalantly, and then said to Ino, "The true profound meaning of Taijutsu is not as shallow as you imagine! The difficulty of Taijutsu lies in precisely controlling the movement of every muscle, making them form a combined force, thereby making punches and kicks faster, stronger, and more accurate!"
"I better give you a proper makeup lesson. Listen well, Ino-pig! The human body has a total of 639 muscles and 6 billion muscle fibers. A basic straight punch movement might just be a simple waist twist and throwing a fist for you, but when a brilliant Taijutsu expert throws a punch, they will use more than eighty percent of the muscles throughout their entire body to assist in exerting force, from the toes and arches to the calves, thighs, then the buttocks, waist, shoulders, and finally the arm delivering the punch! Such a fist can easily produce several times the power of your simple punch!"
Hinata spoke while demonstrating the two ways of punching.
In comparison, Ino's way of punching obviously looked soft and powerless. On the contrary, when Hinata punched seriously, the wind from her fist whistled. When punching at high speed, the air seemed to become a wall that was pierced through by the girl's fist, the howling sound piercingly cold and quite imposing.
Ino watched seriously and was speechless for a moment. She realized she had indeed underestimated the profundity of Taijutsu. As a traditional girl with little interest in power and fighting, Ino had never cared much about training. At most, she would earnestly complete the training of her clan's secret techniques. She avoided sweaty Taijutsu exercises whenever possible, which was why she made a fool of herself in front of Hinata.
Of course, on the other hand, it was because the knowledge Hinata explained, although not a guarded secret of the Hyuga clan, was not basic knowledge that could be learned in the Ninja Academy either. In fact, the Yamanaka clan specialized heavily in Yin Release secret techniques; their understanding of Taijutsu might genuinely not be as much as a young girl like Hinata knew. As for why Ino had so many formidable friends but didn't learn a few moves from them, that was her own problem.
"Whether it is Strong Fist or Gentle Fist, both stress that power generates from the roots. The exertion of force from the soles of the feet is very important. I'll start talking from the exertion of force from the feet." Hinata raised the sole of her foot to show everyone. She assumed an awkward posture and continued, "The little toe generally doesn't participate in exerting force. The muscles connected to it and the fourth toe belong to involuntary muscles, which are difficult to control by will, so beginners don't need to worry about them."
"So you only need to learn the exertion of force from the first three toes. This mainly involves the movement of two muscles, scientifically named the extensor digitorum brevis and the extensor hallucis brevis. Watch my movement..."
Haruno Sakura could no longer hear clearly what Hinata said next. Because although Hinata's posture was a bit impolite, that indecent movement instead attracted more attention... Uh, cough cough... Anyway, her attention could no longer focus on Hinata's words...
In short, by the time she remembered she still had a report to write, it was already midnight with bright stars and a high-hanging full moon.
Then, by the time she hurriedly rushed home and finished writing the report overnight, it was almost dawn—you have to know she was no longer that man from her previous life who updated fifteen thousand words a day!
Fortunately, staying up for half the night was nothing to Haruno Sakura.
Sasuke didn't think much of it. He had also struggled quite a bit to write his three thousand words. Seeing Sakura-kun, who usually acted like a top student, with the same pained expression, he suddenly felt much more balanced psychologically.
Haruno Sakura and Hinata finished their morning exercise after running a few laps. The pink-haired girl went home, took a shower, casually tied up her wet hair, and headed straight to the Hokage building.
When she rushed to the Hokage's office, Sasuke happened to be handing in his mission report as well.
Tsunade took Sakura's report scroll, not in a hurry to read it, and casually placed it on a nearby shelf: "You came at just the right time, Sakura-kun, I just received a letter for you."
"A letter for me?" Haruno Sakura was stunned for a moment, but quickly realized that nowadays only Naruto would write to her. She took it and looked; sure enough, it was a letter from Naruto, filling several pages. Accompanying the letter was a very precious and powerful sealing scroll.
Haruno Sakura smiled faintly. She unfolded the letter and was about to read it when Sasuke leaned over, craning his neck to peek: "What did Naruto say to you? He wrote a whole three pages?"
"Mind your own business..." Sakura glared at him in annoyance, elbowing his chest away. Then, from the corner of her eye, she caught sight of the letter paper in Sasuke's hand being only a short single page, and instantly let out a "hehe" laugh—yes, exactly the meaning of that "hehe".
That's right, he must be jealous that she received more concern from Naruto!
Tsk tsk, what a dangerous sign, Sasuke.
Sasuke felt a chill in his heart from Haruno Sakura's inexplicable gaze.
"Alright, you two, don't block the office and hinder others. If you want to read your letters, go outside." Tsunade waved her hand, signaling for the two to beat it. "Just a reminder, Sakura-kun, be careful to take protective measures when opening the scroll."
"Hm?" Haruno Sakura was momentarily stunned.
As she walked out of the office, she had already guessed a bit about what was inside the scroll.
"I'm off to train, see ya!" The girl said eagerly, disappearing outside the Hokage building the moment she waved her hand.
"In such a hurry, could it be..." Sasuke looked thoughtfully in the direction she disappeared.