Hinata let go of her stance and glanced once at Sakura, who was still curled in Iruka's arms and rubbing her wrist, unable to rise. After a brief pause, Hinata apologized softly, "Sorry — I didn't control my strength."
She did not wait for Sakura's reply, did not seal the Reconciliation sign, and turned toward Naruto and the others.
Iruka didn't fuss about the missing seal. Seeing Sakura's painful face made him anxious; he reached to check her wrist. "Such force… could it be broken?" he worried inwardly. He hadn't expected a Hyūga girl to hit with so much power. In hindsight, he felt guilty for matching an almost untrained child like Sakura with Hinata.
When Iruka touched Sakura's wrist, she cried out, but after careful palpation, he discovered the bones were intact. He was no medical-nin, but years on battlefields had taught him to judge injuries fairly well. "It's fine — no broken bones," he told her. "You're training to be a ninja. Be strong."
Sakura's tears didn't change anything. Iruka put her down and let her stand on her own — the academy was not a nursery. Kids had to learn to handle themselves. Sakura's crying faded; she slowly returned to Ino's side, wincing but trying to be brave. The comfort of a friend can do a lot.
With the bell, Iruka used the remaining time to test a few more pairs. When class ended and the students returned to their classroom, Iruka stayed on — he would teach most of their subjects this year: reading, Konoha history, chakra theory, shuriken practice, and so on.
During the break, Iruka recorded his impressions of the new class while watching small cliques form. Out of thirty-plus kids, not everyone could befriend everyone.
The usual patterns formed: peers together, childhood friends together. Naruto, Choji, Shikamaru, and Hinata formed one tight group; Kiba found fast friends; Sasuke mostly kept to himself. Iruka noticed Sasuke's solitude — he didn't mingle much and answered girls coldly; even those bold enough to approach felt the pressure and pulled back.
The Third had chosen Iruka as homeroom because he trusted Iruka's kindness and responsibility — and because Iruka embodied the Third's wish to influence the next generation.
Time moved slowly for the new students, but for Shinichi — whose days were filled with training and duty — it flew. After the ceremony, he buried himself in the dojo. At lunch, he returned sweating with a few guards; after a short rest, he came back to train — but this time he wasn't training himself. He was training young Hyūga Neji.
Unlike Hinata, Neji did not attend the Academy — his literacy and chakra control were taught at home by his parents, while Hyūga Hizashi and Shinichi trained his taijutsu. Neji showed exceptional promise; Hizashi thought the Academy wouldn't greatly help him.
Training under Shinichi accelerated his progress and let him remain close to the brother he admired. For Shinichi, teaching his cousin was a welcome distraction from a monotonous life, and he quietly passed on some branch-house secret techniques to Neji. Shinichi hoped Neji would become a bulwark of the Hyūga family.
As Shinichi grew, he noticed changes in himself. His eyes were turning bluer — the blue was deepening around the iris, and white-like lines were appearing, haloing outward like a sun's rays. He clearly felt his Byakugan changing.
At the same time, his chakra was changing too. Over the years, his chakra pool had swelled until even he didn't know its limit. Training left him seemingly tireless; he could cast ninjutsu without worrying about chakra.
Shinichi suspected he was experiencing atavism — ancestral traits reappearing. The Hyūga records mentioned an early-era ancestor, Hyūga Tenjin, who showed unusual traits, but even Tenjin had not had chakra like Shinichi's.
Shinichi wondered which ancestor he was reverting toward — perhaps an Ōtsutsuki: Kaguya or Hamura. The uncertainty made him nervous: if the end of this change became Ōtsutsuki, that would be terrifying.
Still, he steadied himself: unknown futures meant little if he couldn't wield the power now. So he focused on converting the new ocular power into concrete combat ability.
He also detected two new chakra natures arising in his body: the "original" nature — the Yin–Yang (Onmyō) blend. After experiments, he realized this was the root of the change: Yin–Yang Release. With it, he could already craft miniature Tailed Beast Orbs without a special prefix — by adjusting the Yin and Yang ratio, he could reproduce a bijū-dama.
Two years before, he had secretly gone to the Fire Country border and tested a Yin-Yang-infused bijū-dama at sea; satisfied with the result, he still felt great potential remained. He'd been attempting to create a "questing orb" using Yin–Yang but progress was slow. Nevertheless, learning new Yin–Yang techniques had strengthened him.
The Hyūga house constrained him; his rank kept him from showing this in open battles, so his talents stayed private.
Meanwhile, the war with the Mist was winding down. Recently, the Kaguya clan within the Mist tried a coup — their leader planned to assassinate the current Mizukage, but the plan was exposed. The ringleaders walked into an ambush, and the Kaguya clan was annihilated; the Mist suffered heavy losses, too.
Exhausted, the Mist could no longer push its war against Konoha. Orochimaru had tried to stoke the fires, but once the Mist decided to stop, even he could not openly defy the Hokage.
With the lull, Orochimaru—sensing fewer front-line constraints—accelerated his experiments. He harvested huge amounts of test subjects; coincidentally, the timing of the Kaguya revolt supplied him with new material.
Orochimaru's work on Hashirama cells advanced, and he even began adding gene fragments into white-snake cells to create human-tolerable variants — a forbidden line of research that led to his "Orochimaru-style" forbidden techniques.
Danzo received Orochimaru's proposals regarding Hashirama cells but withheld an immediate reply. That particular project stalled. Orochimaru, undaunted, pushed other programs onward; his impetuous experimentation consumed many lives.
Konoha did not stand idle. Minato kept training, exploring ways to extend his Rasengan with nature transformation, and he studied senjutsu in fits and starts. He was only in his early thirties and still improving.
Wary of the Nine-Tails' danger, Minato worried about Kushina's training time, so he invited Jiraiya back to the village to help instruct her.
He also secured Yamato from the ANBU and persuaded Shisui to return from the Mist front. Minato planned a layered support team—Jiraiya, Yamato, Shisui—to aid Kushina's control over the Nine-Tails.
On the same evening, Minato sent a formal letter to Shinichi requesting help: to assist in Kushina's beast-control training.
Because the matter involved a jinchūriki and the Hyūga house's position, Minato tactfully sent the request to Shinichi (not directly to Hiashi) to avoid involving the main-house elders prematurely.
Shinichi, after a brief thought, accepted. Helping Kushina would benefit both Konoha and the Hyūga, and the mission leader would be Jiraiya — a figure Shinichi trusted. He also hoped the cooperation would deepen ties with Minato and perhaps open the door to learning senjutsu himself.
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