The next day.
Wind-Style Konome and Water-Style Konome headed out for their usual training. After several days away, Konome returned to the academy.
"Morning, Konome."
"Morning."
Naruto was bright as ever, his voice booming. One by one the others came to say hello. Thanks to Academy Konome's deliberate bridge building, her relationships had warmed noticeably. The unfamiliarity and wariness Shikamaru and the rest once felt had eased, and they even tossed her the occasional lighthearted joke.
On ordinary days Konome would chat with them about the basics of Yin and Yang Release.
The moment secret techniques came up, she kept her mouth shut.
But when it was pure nature transformation, they often offered surprisingly sharp insights. The problem was how scattered it all was. The knowledge lacked any coherent system, so Konome was still patiently sorting it out.
Tok tok…
Her blind cane tapped softly along the floor.
Passing Hinata's row with her bag over one shoulder, Konome let the Byakugan kindle from its low-power state.
Invisible sight washed over Hinata where she sat, turning the girl into a mannequin in a glass case. Nothing from head to toe remained hidden.
Skin and clothes went translucent. A tender, crimson heart hammered in her chest.
Heart rate spiking, sweat beading, muscles wound tight. That state left no doubt.
Returning to her own seat, Konome let the last of her wishful thinking die. Her cold gaze locked on Hinata's trembling frame like a hawk stooping on a rabbit.
Bang, bang, bang.
Iruka rapped the board with his pointer when everyone had arrived.
"Take out your ninjutsu formula texts and turn to page thirty-six.
"Today we are breaking down the meaning behind each of the twelve basic hand signs used to cast jutsu.
"Single signs and paired signs, how they differ and overlap. Binary and ternary sign sequences. Order of operation, and the meridian flow diagrams that correspond to every sign pattern.
"This is very important."
The kids all rolled their eyes.
Iruka said that every class, and none of his classes had turned out unimportant yet.
Hinata opened her book and set it on her desk.
She sat rigid on her stool, shaking.
The monster had been near her for two days straight, even speaking to her. She was so frightened she could not sit still, could not string a sentence together.
Maybe she already knows.
She knows I found her secret, and now she is deciding how to eat me, bit by bit.
Hinata's eyes misted.
She turned as if to dig in her bag for a pencil case, and with the corner of her activated vision stole a glance at the silver-haired girl beside Naruto.
Naruto was copying furiously from the board.
The monster at his side had her face aimed straight at Hinata.
She is looking at me.
A shrill hum filled Hinata's skull.
If the classroom had not been so quiet, she would have screamed.
She jerked upright.
Iruka's mouth opened and closed at the front of the room, but Hinata could no longer hear a word.
She knew exactly what the Byakugan could do.
That monster could not fool her eyes, and her own panic would not escape the monster's notice either.
The stare on her back was hotter than sunlight. Hinata curled her toes, and her skin crawled from scalp to soles, itchy, miserable, nowhere to hide.
The worse she felt, the more she forced herself to act normal.
Hoo… hoo…
She tried to steady her breathing and rein in her racing heart.
The sharper breaths only quickened her pulse. Her chest thudding so loud even Ino noticed.
"Hinata, are you okay?"
"Uh, I… I am fine."
Hinata bit her lip and turned away from her friend's concern.
Time dragged.
Konome kept her eyes on Hinata, pressing down with nothing but a look.
If she could not kill Hinata outright, she would work on the weak point.
Afraid of me?
Then I will scare her to pieces so badly she never dares to talk. She will not even dare to think it.
Along with the killing gaze, Konome drew the moisture in the air and thickened it around Hinata.
Heat and humidity stoked anxiety, magnifying the pressure inside the chest.
Water-laden air thinned the oxygen, and Hinata had to breathe faster to feed her brain, which only made her body more frantic.
Mind fed body, body fed mind.
Together they wound Hinata's fear tighter and tighter.
Break down or run away.
"Do not dismiss hand signs as fussy or slow. Casting with signs is simple, stable, and less prone to error. Battle is not child's play. One mistake in the casting process means death.
"Be fast because you are stable, not stable after you try to be fast."
"Sensei, m… may I go to the restroom?"
A timid voice cut Iruka off.
Hinata had her hand raised, face chalk white, lips bloodless.
Iruka nodded and went on chalking the board.
Given permission, Hinata forced herself to stand.
Her legs felt as tight and stiff as if she had just finished a five-kilometer run.
She did not dare look back.
She fled the suffocating classroom. She never saw Konome's mouth curve as she went.
Click.
She slid the door shut.
Out in the empty corridor, Hinata leaned on the wall and gulped air.
The cold stone blocked the hot, wet breath of the room, and it blocked that knife-edged stare.
She could finally let her guard down a fraction.
Pressing a hand to her chest, she tried to smooth its jolts.
She drank in the hall's sweet air, and the drowned weight inside her ribs eased at last.
Only as the terror ebbed did she realize something else.
Her whole body was drenched, sticky and clammy, as if someone had hauled her out of a water jar.
Her hands and feet were soft and shaky. Even her lower belly throbbed with an ache.
I should wash my face.
She brushed the sweat-tacked fringe from her temple and tucked it behind her ear.
Steadier now, Hinata kept to the wall and inched toward the public restroom.
Behind her.
At the corner of the hall.
The silver-haired blind girl leaned her shoulder to the wall and watched Hinata's stumbling steps. Hidden beneath her cloak, muscle and bone made a faint, creaking chatter.
Academy Konome had prepared the perfect moment alone.
She had even dialed Hinata's mental state down to the worst point. The final scare belonged to Konome herself.
Pop.
Her lips split sideways toward both cheeks. Raw red flesh rolled outward, veined with blood, and crept back toward her ears.
The mouth opened.
Inside, teeth jutted in jagged rows.
Konome checked herself with the Byakugan and found it lacking.
She grew another ring of fangs within.
Two nested circles of needles. A mouth packed tight with points, enough to kill any trypophobe on sight, like a xenomorph from an alien craft.
Konome nodded.
She was very pleased with how terrifying she looked.
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