Sasuke and Naruto's fight ultimately failed to produce a winner before breakfast. In Hinata's assessment, the matchup had been somewhat unfair to Sasuke.
After all, Sasuke's strengths lay in Fire Style ninjutsu and shuriken techniques—not stamina or endurance.
Naruto, on the other hand, was hopeless with ninjutsu and weapons but boasted absurd stamina thanks to being a Jinchūriki.
So in a pure taijutsu bout, Sasuke appeared to have the upper hand throughout yet could never put Naruto down for good. By the time breakfast was ready, Hinata had to step in and call a halt, shelving further hostilities until after they'd eaten.
Utterly unseemly. The Sacred Fists training regimen was solid, but without actual combat techniques to channel that power, it still couldn't serve as an effective path to getting stronger. By the end, Sasuke and Naruto's grappling had devolved into something resembling a Shin-Nippori wrestling match. Hinata found it mortifying.
No helping it. Since she'd already bluffed her way through the Sacred Fists training methodology, she apparently needed to fabricate some techniques to go with it—before the whole thing became a punchline.
Swallowing a sticky rice ball, Hinata quickly formed a plan for the day. The remaining production work was just audio recording and printing, and she could leave that to Shikamaru and Shino.
"Mm, Sasuke—how is it? Is the rice ball to your liking?"
Sakura, sitting beside Sasuke, asked her crush with a blush. The dark-haired boy had originally planned to ignore her, but the scene—a group of people eating together—stirred something in his memory. After a beat of hesitation, he gave a small nod. "Ah... it's fine. Though... a few more tomatoes in the miso soup next time would be even better."
"Yes! Sasuke, I'll remember that!"
From the other side, Ino swooped in without missing a beat. Both girls sensed a genuine breakthrough: the normally cold and untouchable Sasuke had not only commented on the food, but voluntarily mentioned what he liked to eat! This was practically a victory lap.
"Come on! Ino, Sakura, you could at least ask how we feel about the food..."
Choji stuffed another rice ball into his mouth, grumbling about the girls' blatant favoritism. Beside him, Shikamaru chewed his own rice ball with lazy resignation. "Give it up, Choji. The fact that they remembered to make food for us at all is something I'm grateful for."
"Dammit! Next time I'm definitely taking you down, Sasuke!"
Naruto chugged his miso soup with furious energy, utterly bitter about the preferential treatment Sasuke received on the basis of looks alone. Shino, unfazed as ever, offered his measured analysis. "Naruto, personally, I don't think your current ability has reached the level required to challenge Sasuke. Academy records show Sasuke's strengths are weapons and ninjutsu—meaning that earlier bout was actually quite disadvantageous for him."
"Damn it! Shino, what kind of thing is that to say? Hinata? Do you agree with this?"
Having his reality so ruthlessly dissected, Naruto looked up to Hinata for a second opinion. Without raising her head, she swallowed her food and replied coolly. "That's true, but not entirely."
The ambiguous statement drew the attention of both Sasuke and Naruto. After training with this pale-eyed girl for so long, they'd at least learned to read between her lines.
"The Sacred Fists we've been practicing are strictly internal cultivation methods. I haven't taught you any combat techniques yet. But based on today's fight, I think we're ready to start."
Hinata looked up, cleared her dishes, and stood. "I need to go back and copy some technique forms from the manual. The rest of you are free to do as you like. Oh—a photo shop owner should be coming by soon. Shino, Shikamaru, handle the negotiations. Once you've agreed on a price, pay them the deposit directly without waiting for me. And don't forget to deliver our completed episodes to the bookshop that's been buying them. The contact is the shop owner at Konoha Books—Squirrel."
Ino and Sakura, who had been glued to Sasuke's side, straightened up involuntarily as they listened to Hinata rattle off instructions. It felt uncomfortably like being assigned tasks by a boss.
"Huh? Everything she said sounds like such a drag..."
Shikamaru groaned, looking physically pained. But Shino adjusted his sunglasses with deadly seriousness. "Understood! Everything will be completed by this afternoon."
"Good. Once you've collected payment, distribute 100,000 ryō per person as individual wages. Hold the rest until I'm back."
With a satisfied nod, Hinata strode out of the Uchiha compound. Her delegation might seem irresponsible, but she trusted that both Shikamaru and Shino were the cool-headed, meticulous type. Even an adult would have trouble pulling a fast one on either of them.
As for herself—time to hit the library and research some taijutsu materials. Maybe she could cobble together some usable techniques.
Watching Hinata leave, Sakura and Ino simultaneously exhaled, patting their chests and murmuring. "Hinata's presence is seriously intimidating... Is this the power of a great clan's eldest daughter? She was never like this before..."
"People change. Given Hinata's background and upbringing, I'd say her current behavior is nothing surprising."
Shino maintained his role as resident commentator. Shikamaru, meanwhile, pressed his fingers to his temples. "Alright, everything she told us to do sounds like a massive hassle. Shino, got a plan?"
"Based on how she phrased her instructions, the photo shop owner should be arriving soon. So that negotiation is the top priority. But delivering the new volume to the bookshop for revenue is equally important. My recommendation: split into two teams. One stays here to meet the visitors; the other goes to the bookshop to deliver the picture collection."
This was easy enough for Shikamaru to follow. He cocked his pineapple head in thought and tapped his chin. "Works for me. I'm too lazy to move, so I'll stay and handle the negotiations. Shino, can you take the bookshop run?"
"No problem. But since money is involved, I'd like Naruto and Choji as escorts."
"Fair. On my end, I'll need Sakura and Ino to prepare refreshments for our guests, and Sasuke to sit in with us."
Having divided the manpower and tasks with crisp efficiency, Shikamaru tilted his head with a flicker of interest. "Huh. Talking things through with you is actually pretty painless, Shino."
"Agreed. Perhaps we simply think alike."
While Shikamaru and Shino were busy showcasing the upper limits of their respective IQs, Choji and Naruto stood by in a state of complete bewilderment. After exchanging a glance, the two boys who couldn't keep up shrugged in unison: fine, if they couldn't follow the logic, they'd just do as they were told.
Meanwhile, Hinata had arrived alone at the Konoha Library. Ever since she'd dropped a fortune on expensive medical scrolls without even asking the price, the librarian at the door treated her with the utmost deference.
"All our taijutsu texts are in this section. Mostly Strong Fist styles—we have some Gentle Fist material too, though nothing particularly rare. If there are any scrolls you'd like to consult, please don't hesitate to call for us."
The portly librarian bowed Hinata to the taijutsu section, then withdrew. Surveying the towering shelves around her, Hinata's brow furrowed.
Techniques, in plain terms, were methods of drawing power from the body and applying it to the outside world.
In taijutsu terms, that meant maximizing the output of one's physical strength.
So to truly understand "techniques," one had to grasp the principles behind how each part of the human body generated force.
She pulled a book titled On the Secrets of Striking Power from the shelf and quickly found her thread: since the South Dipper Sacred Fists were something she'd made up wholesale, the corresponding techniques didn't need to be copied from any existing style. They just needed to suit each fist style.
In other words, as long as a technique could draw out the latent power of each Sacred Fist variant, it would work.
Opening the book, Hinata found exactly the theory she needed. Striking power was, at its core, a process of maximizing power transfer through the limbs. For a punch to achieve maximum force, you had to give the fist the longest possible acceleration chain. And that chain differed depending on the body part involved.
Take a simple straight punch. The arm's contribution was straightforward: pull it back as far as possible, then use muscular explosiveness to drive it forward. Maximum output from the arm alone.
But since the human body pivots on the spine, you could also pull back the punching side of the torso during the wind-up, then step forward as you threw—effectively extending the fist's acceleration chain.
A seemingly simple straight punch actually involved the wrist, forearm, shoulder, pectorals, waist, thigh, calf, ankle, and sole of the foot. Coordinating all those parts to funnel their collective force into a single punch was the entire purpose of technique.
The same principle applied to any physical action. Stripped to its simplest form, technique was this: how to engage as many body parts as possible in a single strike's power transfer.
Which meant technique construction could actually be reduced to simple addition. For example: wind-up = right arm pulled back + right shoulder retracted + right hip twisted back + right leg drawn back. Release = right arm driven forward + right shoulder pushed forward + right hip twisted forward + right leg stepping forward. That gave you a straight punch powered by four body segments.
The more segments you could add to the equation, the stronger the blow—but coordinating that many body parts simultaneously was no easy feat.
"Still... at this rate, I should have the techniques ready by nightfall."
Unrolling a blank scroll for notes, Hinata's lips curled into a peculiar smile.
"Guess I should thank those childhood hours spent at the arcade."