"La la la~ la la la "
Compared to Neji and Hinata, Hanabi looked nothing like a ninja on a mission.
With a traditional red paper parasol in hand, dressed in an elaborate colorful kimono, she looked more like a young lady out for a spring stroll than anything else.
Ahead of her, Neji sighed.
The subject of his concern had not a single worry in the world. He, meanwhile, was carrying enough worry for all three of them.
Hinata had been dragged along.
Though Neji knew why.
Of the three of them, Hinata was the weakest. She was giving everything she had to close the gap, but her current ceiling was what it was.
Neji remembered something Hanabi had once said—that her elder sister possessed the purest Byakugan of any of them. He himself couldn't verify it; perhaps it was something only the main house was privy to. But why did everyone else seem unclear about it? Whatever the case, Hanabi seemed to know things. And when it came to Hanabi's choices, Neji had learned to trust them.
He understood why she'd brought Hinata.
Hinata needed special training. And the one person who could give it to her in the field was him.
That had been his thinking before they left the village.
Now, after watching the past hour unfold, Neji had serious doubts. He was strongly beginning to suspect that Hanabi's entire reason for bringing Hinata along was simply to press herself against her sister.
"You two—we're already moving too slowly!" Neji reached his limit.
Even with Hanabi, he needed to put his foot down.
"Hanabi—stop clinging to Hinata. And Hinata—stop enabling her, and stop looking like you're enjoying it!"
"Mm—wait, huh?!"
Hinata, pressed warmly against Hanabi's side, had been drifting in what looked like drunken contentment. In truth it was the brain's self-defense response to dizziness—though perhaps not entirely free of something else. After Neji's outburst snapped her back, she finally came to.
"H-Hanabi. That's enough." Hinata patted Hanabi gently.
"But I can barely walk Let me absorb a little more Big Sister energy"
Teasing Hinata was fun.
Teasing Hinata in front of a visibly suffering Neji was even better.
This mission was Hanabi's doing, yes—but "deepening family bonds" was a genuine secondary objective.
Hyuga family's internal affairs, after all.
"The mission comes first, Hanabi."
Once Hinata recovered from her daze, a flush of shyness swept over her in its wake. She never had any resistance to Hanabi's wheedling.
She had been thoroughly Hanabi-shaped.
"Fair. Besides, once we reach the area we'll have more time to cover ground." Hanabi relented.
The current arrangement wasn't sustainable regardless—the extra weight made prolonged movement taxing. So Hanabi activated [Zhuixia] and shifted into ODM gear mode, picking up the pace.
Neji exhaled, and he and Hinata leapt up into the canopy, accelerating through the trees.
The Land of Fire, and most of Konoha's territory, was blanketed in forest—tall trees everywhere, and plenty of old-growth stretches that had never been cleared. ODM gear's mobility practically maxed out here.
Different story entirely in the Land of Wind's dunes. Sand was a graveyard for that kind of movement.
"Is there a less exhausting approach?" Hanabi wondered idly.
The thought had drifted to Gaara's brother, Kankuro—a puppet user.
The Land of Wind was no country for ODM gear. But it had always produced exceptional puppeteers.
What she was doing now with ODM—using chakra as fuel for high-speed movement—wasn't so different in principle from how a puppeteer channeled chakra to drive their constructs. Kankuro had even once disguised himself as a puppet, then controlled a separate puppet disguised as himself to move around in his place.
Not bad at all, actually.
"Not that I'd ever have a puppet carry me around. And it would look terrible. No aesthetic whatsoever."
Puppeteer… puppeteer… puppeteer…
"Oh. There actually is someone incredible?"
She might not be able to get in contact with them—but Hanabi did know of one genuinely exceptional puppeteer.
Correction: an extraordinarily exceptional puppeteer.
The problem was that this person wasn't in this world.
Hanabi's etiquette instructor—Shiki Ryōgi—had once worked under this person. Her name was Aozaki Touko, the Grand Puppeteer.
"Though the puppetry of the Naruto world and the puppetry of the Nasuverse are probably very different."
Maybe there were transferable principles. The Nasuverse was vast—Hanabi thought she might want to do a shoot there someday. Might be worth learning more.
"I'll ask about it later."
The three continued on, and by nightfall they had reached their destination.
"Do we start searching now?" Hinata looked out ahead. In the distance: a wide expanse of mountain forest.
Finding a single small gold ornament somewhere in that wilderness was a needle-in-a-haystack problem of the first order.
"Not yet. It's almost dark. Night doesn't impair the Byakugan, but it's not safe to operate out there regardless," Neji said. "Tonight—Hinata, let me look at your Gentle Fist."
"Yes!"
Hinata's Gentle Fist was better than in the original—but not by much. No fundamental change had occurred.
At the Chūnin Exams with that current level, she would walk the same path as the original.
Hanabi slipped away to set up the area and prepare for the "accidental encounter." Neji didn't understand why Hanabi had to make everything so elaborate—but she had once told him that life needed a certain sense of ritual. He didn't quite get it, but the earnestness with which she'd said it was oddly convincing.
After renting a room at an inn in the nearest village, Neji brought Hinata outside for special training.
"One palm… two palms… four palms!"
"Too slow!"
Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms—the cornerstone of the Hyuga clan's Gentle Fist. Rapid, consecutive strikes to seal an enemy's chakra points. In most techniques, greater speed meant lower damage; but Gentle Fist's penetrating nature compensated for that. Taken to its limit, the ultimate evolution of the Eight Trigrams Empty Palm—the Eighty Gods Vacuum Attack—represented the apex of that principle.
"Hah… hah…"
Hinata was breathing hard. She was giving it everything—but something was still just out of reach.
"Hanabi was right. You need to develop a Gentle Fist of your own." Neji watched her steadily. Hinata wasn't lacking in intelligence—it was simply that people couldn't be measured by the same standard. A style tailored to her, rather than the pure Hyuga tradition, would likely suit her far better.
It was around then that Hanabi came back.
"Hanabi—what happened to you?" Hinata asked immediately.
Hanabi stood there—mask on, kimono hem hitched, something like sweat at her temples.
"Nothing. Just took a walk around the perimeter~" she said, smiling as she wiped the sweat away.
Neji knew better. She'd done some kind of preparation out there. But she seemed fine, so the two of them let it go and returned to training.
After a night's rest, the mission began in earnest.