Neji Hyuga.
The son of Hizashi Hyuga from the Branch House.
Though born into the Branch House, he had displayed extraordinary talent from the very first moment his hands touched the Gentle Fist.
Every elder in the clan, including Clan Head Hiashi Hyuga, harbored immense expectations for his future.
Until one fateful day, a tiny, pint-sized terror stormed into his peaceful life.
“Brother Neji, please instruct me.”
He could still vividly recall how Hinata had looked when she first began learning the Gentle Fist.
And now…
The blurring figures shifting across the wooden floorboards were reflected perfectly within his pure white eyes.
Every movement was blindingly fast, every strike laced with terrifying momentum.
Not just Hinata, but also this newcomer, Toneri, whom he was meeting for the very first time.
Every palm strike was clean, decisive, and packed with lethal intent.
Neji had always believed his younger cousin was already the absolute peak among their peers.
He had never imagined encountering another child who could stand on equal footing with her.
Yes, equal footing.
Hinata was locked in a fierce, high-speed clash with Toneri.
Every direct collision between their hands triggered a sharp burst of chakra, creating localized sonic booms that rattled the air in the training hall.
On paper, Toneri and Hinata shared the same foundational heritage; though one branch resided on the moon and the other on Earth, and their specific martial styles differed, the underlying principle of utilizing the Byakugan to map meridian pathways and strike tenketsu was fundamentally identical.
Thus, while it looked like an intense taijutsu bout on the surface, it was in truth a high-stakes war of chakra control.
If a tenketsu was forcibly sealed by an opponent, one had to use raw chakra to blast the pathway open again while simultaneously attempting to shut down the enemy’s vital points.
Having lived in this world for six years, Hinata was acutely aware that during her daily sparring with Neji and her other peers, she was essentially an adult soul picking on young kids.
After all, her mental development operated on an entirely different plane—that was the root reason why she could easily suppress Neji and every other child in the clan.
Ordinary six-year-olds struggled to grasp the complex theories, tenketsu points, and meridian systems described by the clan elders; many of them hadn’t even fully learned how to read.
Hinata’s mature mind allowed her to comprehend those abstract concepts at lightning speed.
However, that advantage only worked to a point against normal people.
The boy standing across from her, Toneri, was a genuine top-tier monster in terms of innate talent.
A mature mind offered only a slight edge against a prodigy of his caliber; it could never create an insurmountable gap.
Therefore, Hinata wasn’t just trying to beat out whatever weird, nascent feelings he had toward her; she wanted to measure the true gap between herself and a real, god-given genius.
Hinata possessed no cheat systems, no mysterious shop interfaces, no unexplainable golden fingers.
She had only her own mind and her inherited bloodline.
If she truly intended to step into the shoes of her future son, Boruto Uzumaki, relying solely on standard talent was woefully insufficient.
After all, the Divine Tree manifestations were merely mid-tier obstacles in the grand scheme of things.
The ultimate enemy lurking at the end of the line was likely the transcendent entity that had ascended beyond dimensions—the Otsutsuki God, Shibai Otsutsuki, known as the omnipotent and omniscient.
BANG!
The sharp wind generated by an open-palm strike rushed past, blowing the hair back from Toneri’s forehead.
A trace of genuine shock flickered across his pale eyes—the very eyes he had inherited from his father.
A delicate hand had come to a dead stop a hair’s breadth from his face.
It was Hinata’s palm.
Had it moved forward another half-inch, it would have slammed square into the center of his forehead.
He had lost.
After a fierce, grueling five-minute exchange, Toneri had ultimately fallen short.
“Hinata is truly extraordinary,” Toneri offered a reserved smile, his pure white eyes gazing at her with intrigue.
“Are you…
actually bad at close-quarters taijutsu?” Hinata didn’t feel a shred of joy over her victory.
Instead, she knit her brows, staring at him with a look of deep suspicion.
“Ah…
yes,” Toneri admitted, looking somewhat embarrassed.
Born sightless, his martial movements had been taught to him piece by piece by his father, Kammoku, in total darkness.
Up until receiving his father’s eyes, Toneri had spent almost all his time practicing raw chakra manipulation and remote puppet control rather than hand-to-hand combat.
Bad at…
taijutsu?!
Standing nearby, Neji remained completely speechless.
A guy who was “bad at taijutsu” had just gone toe-to-toe with Hinata for five full minutes before barely losing.
As for himself…?
Facing Hinata head-on, Neji felt that familiar, suffocating sense of helplessness wash over him once more.
Genius?
What a joke.
Though Neji kept his expression entirely calm, a tempest raged in his chest.
If someone like Toneri was considered “bad at taijutsu,” then what on earth was he?
“Boring,” Hinata dismissed with a wave of her hand, looking thoroughly disappointed.
She had miscalculated from the start.
She had assumed that even if a top-tier powerhouse sucked at ninjutsu or genjutsu, there was no way they could be weak in basic physical combat.
She hadn’t expected to run into an anomaly like Toneri, who had been born without eyes.
Thinking back to The Last, Toneri had relied almost entirely on the Tenseigan Chakra Mode to fight Naruto; he had essentially smashed his way through using the raw power of the Giant Tenseigan and endless chakra reserves.
There had been virtually zero refined hand-to-hand martial art involved.
On top of that, Toneri had only just received his father’s eyes hours ago.
He was still in the middle of adapting to actual sight.
She had simply been far too impatient.
“Keep practicing.
I need a real sparring partner,” Hinata tugged at her collar, turning to walk out of the hall on her own.
“Bullying you isn’t fun at all.”
“Does Hinata need an opponent?” Toneri called out, looking after her.
“Yeah.
So don’t make me wait too long.” Hinata offered a lazy wave of her hand, her figure vanishing around the corner of the corridor.
Toneri was left standing alone in the quiet hall, deep in thought.
Truth be told, Hinata had zero desire to waste her energy mastering a million different ninjutsu.
A person’s time and focus were strictly limited.
Twenty years sounded long, but in the grand scheme of things, it was barely a flash.
In the future, almost every single high-tier member of the Otsutsuki Clan would possess the innate ability to absorb and nullify ninjutsu at will.
Learning two or three utility spells was more than enough.
Hinata held equally little interest in sealing jutsu.
The absolute strongest sealing technique known to date was the Six Paths — Chibaku Tensei, which had been used to seal Kaguya Otsutsuki, a technique originating from the Otsutsuki themselves.
Using Otsutsuki sealing magic against higher-tier Otsutsuki?
It might hold some niche utility, but relying on it was foolish.
If an opponent pulled out something akin to Momoshiki’s spatial disruptions, a seal would just get absorbed or tossed right back in her face.
In Hinata’s eyes, the ultimate battles of the future against the Otsutsuki would inevitably devolve into pure, brutal, unadulterated taijutsu—the most primal form of combat.
It was exactly like Naruto activating Baryon Mode after sacrificing the Nine-Tails to physically beat Isshiki Otsutsuki into the dirt.
The ultimate safety of the shinobi world hung entirely on who could deliver the harder physical blow in close quarters.
That was why, even though Hinata knew combining ninjutsu with the Byakugan could theoretically yield absurd long-range artillery strikes, she never entertained the idea for a second.
Standard ninjutsu was ultimately designed by shinobi to fight other normal shinobi; it was completely useless for taking down godlike Otsutsuki entities.
The future history of war against the Otsutsuki proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt.
The only “jutsu” Hinata truly valued were spatial mechanics like the Flying Raijin Jutsu, and auxiliary enhancements capable of pushing physical limits to the absolute extreme.
In fact, if the Eight Gates System didn’t run completely counter to the precision chakra pathway mechanics of the Byakugan, Hinata would have long since marched over to take Might Guy as her master, becoming a passionate, youth-obsessed Hyuga girl.
Though the Hyuga Clan’s Gentle Fist wasn’t absurdly overpowered on its own, its kit—the Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm for mid-range pressure, the Revolving Heaven for absolute defense, and the Gentle Fist for close-quarters tenketsu destruction—required zero hand seals whatsoever.
All in all, it was an exceptionally well-rounded foundation.
She didn’t necessarily have to limit herself to traditional Gentle Fist, but mastering pure physical combat was the only true way forward.