"Well... sure enough, you're still a little different from Hinata."
With a Kunai pressed to his neck, Naruto helplessly raised his hands. But before Hanabi could celebrate, the Naruto in front of her vanished into smoke with a pop, and a hand landed on her shoulder from behind. Naruto had successfully broken through Hanabi's final deception with a combination of the Shadow Clone Jutsu and Body Replacement Technique.
"Well? Still want to fight?"
Naruto grinned at the incredulous Byakugan girl, clearly in an excellent mood. Then again... considering that his current strength had come from all those brutally difficult training sessions in the past, this feeling of satisfaction seemed entirely natural.
"...That's right. I lost."
With a sigh, Hanabi dropped the Kunai in her hand. She had even resorted to a cheap trick that exploited his concern for her, yet she still could not do anything to him. At that point, there was no point in dragging the match out any further.
"Still, your speed really startled me for a kid. I definitely wasn't that strong when I was your age."
Naruto easily pulled Hanabi up from the ground without thinking anything of it, but his words made her turn her head away unhappily. "I don't need you to comfort me. A win is a win and a loss is a loss. You were stronger this time. I'll keep my promise and take you to see Onee-sama now."
"Oh~! Then I'm counting on you."
As the eldest daughter of the Hyuga Clan, especially after founding the Hinata Group and bringing Konohagakure enormous profits time and again, Hinata's prestige and status had risen throughout the village. Naturally, people had finally begun tending to her courtyard as well. However, because of the "deviant" image Hinata had cultivated, that attention remained extremely cautious. At most, when Hinata was away, someone would come by to clear weeds and dust from the courtyard.
"Onee-sama hardly comes back anymore. And whenever she does, she stays in her room and goes nowhere else. Father and the elders don't interfere either. They just take money from the shares Onee-sama gave them as though it were perfectly natural. I don't really know how to describe it, but... I really hate that feeling."
Walking in front, Hanabi clearly had no intention of hiding her opinion. Wanting to inherit the Hyuga Clan did not conflict with her own thoughts on the matter. Normally there was no outsider around the Hyuga Clan she could talk to about such things, so meeting Naruto today gave her a rare chance to speak her mind.
"Huh? You care about Hinata more than I expected. And, how should I put it? I don't really see anything wrong with it. Hinata is a member of the Hyuga Clan, after all. She earns money and supports her parents and elders. I think that's only natural."
Naruto looked at Hanabi walking ahead of him with some surprise. His words were obviously a faithful reflection of what he truly thought.
That made the Byakugan girl frown slightly. "You're seriously optimistic. Do you actually understand what I'm saying?"
"I didn't say anything wrong. What, do you want Hinata to completely ignore the Hyuga Clan, or cut ties with Uncle Hyuga like people do in novels?"
Naruto waved a hand and said smugly. "Give it up~ That kind of childish behavior is totally lame, isn't it?"
"Listen to you. You're only five years older than me at most. Who are you calling childish?"
Hanabi sighed helplessly and shook her head, yet the Byakugan girl had no real argument against him. It was true. As she saw it, after the cold treatment Onee-sama had suffered before, even if she simply ignored the Hyuga Clan, that would at least be an understandable way of paying them back for how they had treated her. Yet Hinata still provided the Hyuga Clan with money without the slightest hesitation. That feeling...
"Sigh... I do feel a little indignant on Onee-sama's behalf, but you're right. My way of thinking really is too childish. Maybe that's why I keep getting farther and farther away from her..."
Dejected, Hanabi led Naruto to the door of Hinata's bedroom and cleared her throat. "All right. Wait here. I'll go wake Onee-sama. I heard the servants say she wanted to get some proper rest and told them not to let ordinary people disturb her."
"Oh~ I see. I guess even Hinata gets tired normally."
Naruto nodded and obediently stepped back. Standing in front of the sliding door, Hanabi gently knocked. "Onee-sama? Are you there? It's Hanabi."
"Hanabi? Is that you?"
A soft girl's voice came from inside the tatami room. Gentle footsteps approached, and the sliding door opened from within. The Byakugan girl appeared before Hanabi and Naruto, but unlike usual, she was not wearing that revealing fishnet outfit. Instead, she wore an extremely conservative indoor kimono. There was no trace of her usual ferocity in her expression either, only a faint, almost imperceptible sadness.
"Hanabi, it's you... huh?"
The Byakugan girl who opened the door clearly had not realized anyone else was standing behind Hanabi. The moment she saw the blond boy's unmistakably foolish face, her entire body froze as if she had turned to stone.
"Yo~ Hinata~! I brought the Takoyaki you wanted~~"
Without a care, Naruto lifted his shirt and pulled the box of Takoyaki out from underneath it. Naturally, that bold motion also put the blond boy's six-pack abs on full display.
Hanabi, on the other hand, was remarkably unfazed. She only spoke with disgust. "What the heck~ There's sauce all over you. Can that Takoyaki even be eaten anymore?"
"Huh? But I did this so the Takoyaki wouldn't get cold... and—owowowow~~ It hurts, it hurts, it hurts!"
Naruto had barely started explaining himself when the movement pulled at the muscles of his abdomen and made him suck in a sharp breath from the pain. Hanabi immediately complained, "See? You really did burn yourself. You're an idiot. An absolute idiot~~"
At that point, both Naruto and Hanabi suddenly paused. Wait a second. Shouldn't there normally be one more person talking right now?
"Na... Naruto... Naruto-kun..."
Hinata stood in the doorway with her eyes wide open. Her face flushed vivid crimson in an instant, as though a thermometer's red column had shot straight upward, and exaggerated white steam practically seemed to rise from the top of her head. Then, as though trying to divert the overwhelming embarrassment in her heart, the Byakugan girl abruptly raised a hand. "You can't take off your clothes here!!!"
"Gwah~!!"
Completely unprepared, Naruto took a Shoryuken squarely on the chin. His entire body traced a perfect parabola through the air before dropping straight into the courtyard pond.
Holding the box of Takoyaki with a wooden expression, Hanabi shook her head. "Being that stupid... he really deserved it..."
"Huh? No... Naruto-kun, are you all right?"
Only then did the Byakugan girl come back to her senses and hurriedly run toward the pond. Naruto floated back to the surface and sat up angrily. "What was that for, Hinata?! I brought you Takoyaki because you told me to! Why did you hit me... huh?"
After roaring all of that in one breath, Naruto instinctively felt that something was strange. Wait... if this were the usual Hinata, and Naruto dared shout at her like that, he would probably have been roasted medium-rare by Ura 108 Shiki: Orochinagi (Orochinagi) by now. So why was Hinata completely silent today?
"Hmm..."
Naruto lowered his eyelids and stared at Hinata. Under his gaze, the Byakugan girl kneeling beside the pond instinctively turned her head away, then raised the broad sleeve of her kimono with her right hand to cover her reddened cheek. The strangely familiar gesture made Naruto smack a fist into his palm as realization dawned.
"Oh~! I get it! Hinata, you're trying to learn how a princess carries herself from Princess Suikyo, right? That move where you hide your face behind your sleeve is exactly the same as hers~!"
Naruto climbed out of the pond dripping wet, no longer angry at all. Instead, he looked teasingly at the stunned Byakugan girl. "I knew it~~ No wonder you seemed so weird today. You're trying to practice the manners of a real princess, right?"
"Huh?? Ah... y-yes... that's... that's right... so... Naruto-kun..."
The Byakugan girl standing there with a blank expression forced herself to nod. Then, as though finally breathing a sigh of relief, she said, "I didn't expect... Naruto-kun... to see through me..."
"Ahahaha~~ You really scared me. I didn't expect you to be able to act the part so convincingly, Hinata."
Naruto scratched the back of his head and laughed, clearly thinking nothing more of it. Standing beneath the corridor and chewing on a skewer of Takoyaki, Hanabi spoke irritably. "All right~~ How long are you two planning to keep soaking around by the pond?"
"Ah~! Right, Naruto-kun, your burn! Hanabi, hurry and look in my drawer for the burn medicine~!"
Her sister's words clearly reminded the Byakugan girl beside the pond. Though her face was still faintly embarrassed, the natural, decisive way she spoke made Hanabi beneath the corridor pause for a moment. Then, obediently and naturally, she put down the box of Takoyaki and ran into Hinata's room.
Strange... Onee-sama's way of speaking doesn't sound like she's imitating anyone at all. It sounds more like... before?
Hanabi absentmindedly rummaged through the drawers in Hinata's room. She was naturally far more familiar than Naruto with what Hinata had been like in the past. But... she could not be sure either. After all, as a seven-year-old girl who spent nearly every day training, there were not that many things she could remember with perfect clarity.
Soon, Naruto sat inside and lifted his shirt like a dog exposing its belly, revealing his abdomen. It was easy to see that a large patch of the blond boy's stomach was covered in blisters, unquestionably caused by that box of Takoyaki.
"Naruto-kun... all because of this box of Takoyaki... you had to suffer like this..."
Holding a cotton swab dipped in burn medicine, the Byakugan girl's voice had begun to choke slightly. Naruto immediately found himself unable to deal with it. "Ahhh~~ Hinata, come on. Your princess act is convincing enough already~ So don't imitate the crying part too~"
Watching Naruto, Hanabi leaned against the cabinet with intense exasperation. Sure enough, this guy really was a colossal idiot. She had no idea why Onee-sama happened to value someone like him so much.
At that moment, Hanabi accidentally shifted her arm against the edge of a drawer. The drawer had been pulled too far out and left open, so it immediately fell to the floor. The hollow bang startled the Byakugan girl, and a very new-looking scroll tumbled out with it, landing in front of Hanabi's feet. Curious, Hanabi reached down and picked up the scroll, then opened it without knowing what it was. What she saw made her eyes widen in astonishment.
It seemed to be a complicated contract. Two names and bloody handprints had been left on it. One belonged to her older sister, Hyuga Hinata. And the other was...
"Suigintou?"
"Who?"