In the end, the audience's broadcast captured little of what passed between Hanabi and Neji. Just a brief shot of the two of them meeting—a conversation—and then Neji's departure.
With that, the "breather episode" came to a close.
Hanabi had banked a solid gain in popularity. With her accumulated total, her count was back up to roughly 15,000 points.
[Negotiations with the production team concluded.]
[Please select one item as your episode compensation:]
[1. Acting Training (random: action/combat scenes): 3-star, 3 sessions. You will temporarily leave this world and report to the training facility for randomized action scene coaching. World time will pause during training.]
[2. Acting Training (random: romance scenes): 3-star, 3 sessions. You will temporarily leave this world and report to the training facility for randomized romance scene coaching. World time will pause during training.]
Since the advancement exam hadn't begun yet, this breather episode had resolved with per-episode compensation rather than the end-of-season payout.
The downside of daily settlement was that the rewards were smaller. The upside was that she could strengthen herself quickly—ideal for someone still functioning as a bit part.
"Both options are acting training... did the Stage pick these on purpose?"
Since she had an exam coming up, the compensation pool was calibrated accordingly?
Hanabi had noticed before that the Dimensional Popularity Stage wasn't fully mechanized. It had a surprisingly tailored quality to it—as though it was building a foundation for her career one step at a time, anticipating what she'd need next.
"Though compared to the etiquette course I saw in the Popularity Points Shop, these are considerably weaker."
The Japanese-style etiquette course that had shown up in the shop refresh was listed as "Special"—no star rating assigned.
These current options were "3-star" blue-tier courses. Fewer sessions, and the content was randomized.
In short: luck-based.
"I'll take the first option."
Action scenes, at least, had practical value. So action scenes were the only thing she could learn to get by.
Romance scenes... were not going to happen. Not even if she became an A-list star.
The only way romance scenes were acceptable was if the co-star happened to be a soft, sweet girl like her sister Hinata.
Having claimed the compensation, Hanabi turned her attention to her Popularity Points.
This time, she chose to upgrade the Sparkle character card from Honkai: Star Rail to LV3—15,000 points, spent in full.
[Character Inheritance Card]
[Thousand-Faced Actor: Sparkle — LV3]
[Rarity: 5-Star]
[Talents / Skills: Fire affinity, Quantum affinity, Illusion affinity]
[Bonus: When wearing red-toned Japanese-style attire, +10% attention rate]
[Memento: Fool's Thousand Faces — Mask]
[Memento Effect: When worn, allows the user to assume any appearance, physique, or state as needed. Cannot be seen through.]
[LV3 Unlocked Talent: Riddler Doll, Temporary Star]
[Riddler Doll (0/3): Craft explosive puppet dolls. Maximum 3 dolls can exist simultaneously; count scales with character card level. Dolls detonate on command. Explosion type varies by user intent: harmless fireworks, Fire-attribute damage, or Quantum-attribute damage (unavailable in current world).]
[Temporary Star: Allows stylistic reworking of equipment, skills, and abilities (without altering effects or stat bonuses). In certain highlight moments, earn popularity at protagonist-tier rates.]
The Sparkle card's individual bonuses were weaker than Jingliu's, but at LV3 it unlocked two effects at once—a pleasant surprise.
Riddler Doll was straightforward. The moment the upgrade completed, Hanabi felt the card's inheritance settle into her—she understood how to construct the dolls almost instinctively.
"Something like this?"
Riddler Dolls, it turned out, could be made from almost any medium and any source of energy.
Using chakra and some scraps of cloth as the base, Hanabi produced her first one.
It wasn't modeled after Star Rail's Sparkle, though. The default form was a chibi version of Hyuga Hanabi.
Apparently that was the baseline.
She could change the shape, but it seemed like doing so would cost extra chakra—and might reduce effectiveness—so she'd leave it as-is for now.
"Interesting. As long as I don't manually trigger the detonation, it seems like it can take just about any amount of abuse without going off."
"The blast type... yes, I think I can control it."
The explosion's output scaled with the amount of chakra she'd loaded in.
"...Wait."
Hanabi produced a stack of exploding tags.
"If I carve a multiplicative detonation seal onto this Riddler Doll..."
Would something interesting happen?
"Probably better not to test that now. Maybe set off some fireworks sometime."
If it actually blew sky-high, that wouldn't be funny at all.
Saving the New Year's fireworks idea for later, though—that had merit.
"And then there's Temporary Star. What does 'stylistic reworking' actually mean?"
Even with the inheritance transferred, the concept remained a little vague.
"It seems like... the idea is to make skills and equipment look more at home in the current world's aesthetic?"
For instance—in a ninja world, skills she used would naturally come to resemble ninjutsu, taijutsu, and the like, minimizing the "King Guan fighting King Arthur" style of absurdity.
Effective for reducing character OOC.
In practical terms: fewer deductions.
"Unfortunately it's hard to test that here."
Jingliu's card was already localized. Sparkle's card had been localized from the start. Mai Shiranui was herself a ninja. Her own performance outfit was a Japanese-style kimono. Even the course she'd just enrolled in was a perfectly period-appropriate Japanese etiquette class.
There genuinely wasn't a use case at the moment.
"Though this action scene course is random. No telling what it'll be."
Maybe it would finally provide a test case.
[Acting Training (random: action/combat scenes): 3-star, 3 sessions. You will temporarily leave this world and report to the training facility for randomized action scene coaching. World time will pause during training.]
[Session consumed.]
[Training facility preparing...]
[Negotiating discount with contracting party...]
[Taking them out for drinks...]
[3D Maneuver Gear course scheduled.]
[Please focus. Find an unoccupied space, then open the door.]
No requirement to dress appropriately this time?
Everyone else had gone to sleep. Hyuga Natsu was off making the bed and wasn't nearby.
With no one around, Hanabi pushed open the adjacent door.
"Hm."
The room beyond was styled like something out of the medieval era. A set of clothes lay folded on a stand.
[Please stow all equipment and change into the training uniform.]
"This uniform..."
Hanabi looked at it.
It was familiar.
More than familiar.
"Isn't this the Training Corps uniform from Attack on Titan?"
Between that and the Stage's prompt a moment ago, the picture snapped into focus.
"—So the action course is ODM gear training."
The 3D Maneuver Gear was undeniably cool. Just—in a ninja world, it'd be pretty useless.
She'd gotten the short end of the draw.
"Skills don't go to waste."
It might look like a loss on paper, but this was her skill now. Even if it didn't fit the Naruto world, there was always another set.
Nobody complains about having too many skills—useless now just means useful later.
"And this is a perfect opportunity to see what Temporary Star's stylistic reworking actually does in practice."
She set aside the yukata, stored the mask and eyepatch, pulled her hair into a ponytail, and changed into the training uniform. Then she stepped out of the changing room...