The underground arena buzzed with noise.
After the second exam, the number of candidates had dropped sharply—only a little over twenty remained. They would fight one-on-one here.
Proctor Gekkō Hayate walked to the center, covered his mouth, and coughed a few stifled times. Behind him, the electronic board lit up; names whirred past at high speed.
A moment later, the scroll of names stopped.
Two names shone clearly:
[Hyuga Hinata vs. Hyuga Neji]
At that instant the chatter paused—then exploded even louder.
"Hyuga's infighting?"
"Main House versus Branch House—this'll be something."
"I heard that Hyuga Neji is the greatest prodigy in a hundred years."
"The Main House young lady… the reviews aren't great. Supposedly very weak."
"This outcome's already decided."
Hinata heard her name and her body started trembling on its own. She raised her head; across the crowd her gaze landed on the boy in white.
Hyuga Neji.
Her cousin, the Branch House prodigy of the Hyuga.
Neji's eyes met hers. In those pure white pupils, no emotion stirred—only a lofty scrutiny that seemed to see through everything. Beneath it was undisguised disdain.
They descended from opposite sides of the stands and stopped at the center.
Gekkō Hayate glanced at them and, by the book, asked, "Before we start, anything you want to say to your opponent?"
Neji spoke first.
His voice was even, but carried the weight of a verdict.
"Lady Hinata, I advise you to forfeit. You are not suited to be a shinobi."
Every syllable reached her ears with absolute clarity.
"Your eyes are full of confusion and retreat. Your heart is too soft. Fighting will only bring you pain; it will give you nothing."
He paused.
"A person's fate is decided the moment they are born, and it cannot be changed. You are Main House; I am Branch House. I was born shackled by the Caged Bird seal, and you are merely a failure who cannot bear the Main House name. That is our fate, and no one can alter it."
Failure.
The word crashed down and sent cold through her limbs.
Each of his words overlapped with her father's appraisals and the elders' sighs—voices she tried so hard to forget, yet which rang endlessly in her ears—now pronounced as an indisputable sentence by her cousin.
Her trembling worsened. She couldn't control it; the shudder crawled from spine to all four limbs. Her vision blurred; she lowered her head and saw only the tips of her shoes. Her fingers twisted together at random; nails dug into skin and she felt nothing.
He's right about everything.
She really is a failure.
Neji watched her reaction—the tremor, the lowered head. He knew his words had struck the precise weak point. Surrender of the spirit cut deeper than any taijutsu.
He waited—for those three words: "I forfeit."
It should end here.
But she didn't speak.
Seconds ticked by. The surrender he expected never came.
In that darkness of shame and despair, something else flickered.
An image barged into her mind without warning: in a courtyard, a woman with long red hair stood before her, golden chains unfurling behind to block out all danger.
Another image surfaced: in the Namikaze residence, a boy fastened a protective charm around her neck. He said he'd look out for her. His voice was quiet, but it made people feel safe.
Warmth she'd forgotten began flowing through her again.
It wasn't pity.
It wasn't sympathy.
It was recognition.
Her knotted fingers loosened. A pinprick of pain returned to her fingertips, and the fog in her mind cleared.
She lifted her head.
Her body still shook, but she forced herself to meet Neji's eyes. In her own white pupils, something had begun to burn, scattering the old confusion and retreat.
"Neji-niisan…"
Her throat was dry; the words came out small and rasped, carrying an obvious quaver.
"You're wrong."
The voice wasn't loud, but it was uncommonly firm—each word dragged up from a mire of despair.
For the first time, Neji's face shifted.
He hadn't expected Hinata to refute him.
"Fate… can be changed!" Hinata gathered every scrap of courage; her voice rose. "Like Shinju-sama said—true strength is creating an ending where no one has to be sacrificed!"
Shinju-sama?
Neji's brows knit slightly. He had, of course, heard the name: the Namikaze heir who had wrought miracles in Konoha.
He snorted.
"Seems you've been bewitched by unrealistic fantasies. Very well—then I'll show you with facts that the rules of fate cannot be broken by anyone."
Seeing that neither wished to talk further, Gekkō Hayate raised his hand.
"Chūnin Exam Preliminaries, Match Three—begin!"
His hand chopped down.
Neji moved.
His footwork exploded forward; in the blink of an eye he was on Hinata. No hand signs, no feelers—he entered with the most orthodox Hyuga stance of Jūken (Gentle Fist).
"Byakugan (White Eye)!"
Veins bulged at the corners of his eyes as his 360-degree field bloomed. Within that sight, Hinata's chakra network and every tenketsu lay bared.
He thrust a palm.
Target: a key point on Hinata's left shoulder.
It was blindingly fast and wickedly angled. Any normal genin struck there would lose most of their combat ability on the spot.
Yet just as Neji's fingertips were about to brush Hinata's sleeve, her body tilted the tiniest fraction to the right.
Half an inch.
His palm sliced past—through empty air.
A miss.
He jolted, but his hands didn't stop. Fingers turned to a blade and stabbed backhand toward another vital point at Hinata's waist.
Hinata didn't retreat. She stepped half a pace forward, sank her hips, and let the strike pass by once more.
Another miss.
What…?
Neji's core rattled. Jūken prized precision and speed; with Byakugan, he shouldn't misread a tenketsu—ever. But Hinata's evasions predicted each point he chose, using the smallest motion to slip past—no more, no less.
This wasn't coincidence.
His pace quickened.
Hakke (Eight Trigrams) forms—both palms lanced out, phantoms of strikes sealing every path Hinata could take.
Tap, thrust, pierce, slap.
Each blow aimed at a different tenketsu.
And yet what followed left Neji stifled and shocked.
Hinata moved within his storm of palms. She looked like she would be hit at any instant, but every strike skimmed her—every one missing by that same breath.
Every dodge was exactly enough.
No extra motion. No wasted effort.
Neji finished the string—and hadn't so much as brushed her hem again.
The arena's noise vanished.
Every spectator stopped talking and stared. The Main House lady rumored to be soft and timid had just come through the Hyuga prodigy's assault without a scratch.
In the VIP seats—
Namikaze Minato was surprised. He turned to his son; Shinju's expression was calm.
"Shinju, Hinata…?"
"I gave her a little help," Shinju said, eyes never leaving the floor. "Special chakra-conducting ear studs—stimulate neural reflexes, and feed her a few tactical prompts."
Minato blinked.
"Hinata has potential. With a bit of guidance, she can figure out a lot on her own. I trust her," Shinju added with a small smile.
Minato's gaze returned to Hinata and finally noticed the inconspicuous studs on her ears, a faint chakra glow pulsing over them.
So that's it.
He looked back at his son. This child's methods were always unexpected—and astonishingly effective.
On the floor—
Neji broke off and sprang back to open distance. His breathing was rough—not from physical drain, but from anger he couldn't push down.
"Impossible… absolutely impossible!" He fixed on Hinata, voice cracking with agitation. "Your movements… how are you keeping up with my attacks? Someone like you—how could you have this level of skill!"
His cherished fatalism and his vaunted Jūken had, for the first time, failed completely in front of the person he looked down on most.
The frustration frayed his reason.
Hinata was breathing hard too, yet holding on; her gaze was steady. Warmth pulsed from the studs, clearing her head.
A calm voice in her mind guided each motion of her body.
"Neji-niisan, I told you—fate can be changed."
"Silence!"
That snapped the last thread of Neji's restraint. Judgment and pity vanished from his eyes, leaving only cold hostility.
"If you refuse to accept your fate, then I will personally… put a period at the end of your life!"
His feet set wide; hips sank as he took a stance wholly different from before. A surging tide of chakra boiled out of his body.
"Hakke Rokujūyon Shō (Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms)!"
Across the stands, Hyuga Hiashi's expression changed in an instant. He shot to his feet, gripping the railing with white knuckles.
He knew. Neji was going to go for the kill.
(End of Chapter)
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