"Damn it!"
"This chakra is insane! Is she cheating or what?!"
Naruto, getting thoroughly beaten by Hinata, couldn't help but shout his complaints. Cornered and overwhelmed, he gritted his teeth.
"I've got no choice… I'll have to use that."
Whoosh!!
Using Shadow Clones to narrowly dodge Hinata's blow, Naruto bit his finger and slammed his hand to the ground.
A black summoning formula instantly spread out beneath him.
"Summoning Jutsu!"
Boom!
But what appeared wasn't the Toad Boss.
Instead, a visible swirl of grayish-white wind, about half the height of a person, began spiraling in place.
Seeing this, nearly every Konoha jonin in the audience widened their eyes in shock. Ordinary people might not recognize it, but they knew exactly what Naruto had summoned.
It was one of the Five Great Founders of the Elemental Valley, the Hurricane Sage, a being ranked alongside Thunder and Heavy Water Sages.
"Why the hell are you summoning me out of nowhere, brat?!"
The barely half-human-sized Hurricane Sage erupted in anger, glaring at Naruto. Clearly, it was annoyed at being summoned so abruptly.
Kaede wasn't surprised in the slightest.
The last thing Kakashi had done before the exams was take Naruto to the Elemental Valley and help him sign a summoning contract with the Hurricane Sage.
"You're way too much, Kakashi."
Kaede said casually as he looked over.
Kakashi appeared beside Kaede in the VIP stands, a dark line twitching on his forehead.
"That should be my line! What did you do to Hinata?! How the hell did she master the Sage's Body in six days?!"
The Sage's Body, something that had taken him months just to get started, Hinata had seemingly mastered in under a week? Either Kaede had put her in a time-accelerated space or… he'd done something outrageous.
Nara Shikaku silently bowed his head beside them, resisting the urge to say: Both of you are completely unreasonable.
Most nearby ninja had similar looks on their faces.
=============
In the arena…
With the Hurricane Sage's reluctant help, Naruto finally managed to form a Rasengan infused with wind chakra.
"Senjutsu"
"Wind Release: Giant Rasenshuriken!!"
He hurled the enormous spinning shuriken at Hinata.
Hinata took a deep breath, her chakra surging to her fist as she struck forward with a single devastating punch.
"Eight Trigrams: Divine Air Strike!"
RUMBLE!!!
The entire stadium exploded.
The collision of Hinata's Divine Air Strike and Naruto's Rasenshuriken obliterated the arena floor. Cracks spiderwebbed out in every direction, rapidly expanding toward the spectator stands.
Panic immediately swept through the crowd.
But just then, both Kaede and Kakashi made their moves.
Two waves of chakra surged downward, blanketing the ground and forcefully suppressing the aftermath.
The immense shockwave, resembling a tidal wave, was suddenly halted and redirected skyward, shooting into the heavens before dispersing with a thunderous boom.
Silence.
The entire stadium was dead quiet.
Time seemed frozen.
Eventually, the dust settled.
The battlefield had been completely destroyed, the ground fractured like a shattered spiderweb.
Hinata stood among the wreckage, breathing slightly, her chakra beginning to recede as she deactivated her Byakugan.
Dozens of meters ahead of her, Naruto lay face-first on the ground, bruised and battered, barely conscious, his chakra nearly depleted.
"Sorry…"
Hinata looked at him apologetically, then turned toward the stands, just in time to meet Kaede's gaze.
Kaede smiled and gave her a nod of approval.
Seeing his expression, Hinata let out a breath and smiled back sweetly.
"The final match… winner: Hinata Hyuga."
Kakashi appeared in the arena and weakly announced the result.
As expected, big brother will always be big brother, Kakashi thought. He even forced the Sage's Body out of Hinata… Maybe I'm the fake little brother here. Or maybe Hinata's actually the real sibling now.
As Kakashi's voice echoed out, the stadium remained frozen in stunned silence.
Everyone sat blankly, still reeling from the overwhelming spectacle they had just witnessed.
=============
At that moment, Kakashi's expression suddenly shifted.
As if sensing something, he abruptly looked up at the sky.
The lethargy in his body vanished instantly, replaced by a heavy and oppressive seriousness.
"That is…"
In the skies above, a dark rift tore through space. Two figures stepped out, each radiating an ominous and completely foreign chakra.
Otsutsuki Kinshiki.
Otsutsuki Momoshiki.
After arriving in the ninja world and failing to sense Kaguya's chakra, the two had instead detected the immense clash of chakra from Naruto and Hinata's fight and had tracked it here.
"A strong chakra signature…"
"It's not the traitor's… but it feels vaguely familiar. Could they be her descendants?"
Momoshiki looked at Hinata with indifference. Hinata, sensing his presence, looked up at him in turn.
Their eyes met.
Hinata immediately felt an overwhelming pressure, an instinctive terror, as if a lower lifeform were facing a higher being.
That was the power gap between her Byakugan and Momoshiki's elevated bloodline.
Whoosh!!
Kakashi blurred into the air, standing before the two invaders, his gaze sharp and heavy.
That appearance, that chakra… there was no doubt in his mind.
These were the ones even Kaguya feared.
"Two of them, huh…"
Kakashi's eyes narrowed, focusing on Kinshiki. He could tell that Kinshiki's aura was slightly weaker than Momoshiki's.
As Kaede flew up to join him, Kakashi said,
"I'll hold off the big guy."
Kaede gave him a sidelong glance.
You really believe they're that terrifying just because Kaguya feared them? Silly little brother… That was just something I said to scare you back then.
=============
"Rinnegan… and Tenseigan?"
Momoshiki looked at Kaede and Kakashi with detached curiosity.
"So, you're descendants of the traitor as well. Still members of our bloodline, I suppose. The mission didn't specify what to do with you, so I'll just take your ch, "
BOOM!!!
Momoshiki exploded.
His entire upper body shattered into glowing dust, leaving only his legs standing in midair.
Kaede silently retracted his fist.
Then slowly turned to look at Kinshiki.