Night had fallen completely, a brilliant moon hanging high in the dark sky.
Her hair falling loosely past her shoulders, Hinata sat barefoot on the raised wooden veranda beneath the eaves of her room.
Scattered across the floorboards beside her were several loose, messy scrolls.
The Flying Raijin scroll contained not only the foundational notes left by Tobirama Senju, but also the personal insights recorded by Minato Namikaze.
Both offered incredible value, expanding her understanding of spatial mechanics.
Yet the core barrier to mastering the Flying Raijin remained unchanged: perceiving spatial fluctuations in real time.
At present, Hinata had zero natural instinct for those invisible waves.
Still, turning it over in her mind, the most common technique in the shinobi world that operated on a similar spatial principle was the Summoning Technique—bringing a contracted creature across thousands of miles in a single instant.
Hinata couldn’t help but wonder if Tobirama Senju had drawn his original inspiration for the Flying Raijin from reverse-summoning magic.
Rubbing her temples, she leaned back, flopping flat onto the polished floor to stare blankly at the moon above.
The known mechanics of the Flying Raijin involved sensing spatial coordinates, acting like a hyper-accelerated reverse-summoning spell that dragged the user straight to a designated seal.
Didn’t that mean the Flying Raijin was essentially just a ridiculously fast summoning jutsu?
And if that held true, wasn’t a Flying Raijin Guiding Thunder Array simply a short-duration, defensive summoning field?
A sudden, absurd smile spread across Hinata’s face as the thought took root.
If that was how it worked, why couldn’t she just carve a massive Guiding Thunder Array onto a gigantic steel plate, haul it out into the ocean, and sink it straight to the bottom of the sea?
Then, whenever she ran into a tough enemy, she could just yell “Water Release!” and activate the array.
A instantaneous tsunami summoned straight from the ocean floor to drown her opponent?
What would she even call a move like that?
Ocean Burial?
Hinata let out a soft snicker, thoroughly amused by her own ridiculous imagination.
“Wait a minute…”
As she chuckled, the grin on her face slowly faded.
Who said it couldn’t actually work?
Hinata sat up slowly.
The amused look on her face melted away, replaced by a expression of intense, calculating thought.
Dropping a steel plate marked with a Guiding Thunder Array into the deep ocean and triggering it during a fight would instantly summon millions of gallons of pressurized seawater right onto an enemy’s head.
The only real technical hurdle was finding a way to keep the summoned deluge from washing her away alongside her target.
A surge of genuine excitement flushed through her.
If she pulled this off, she would effectively possess a god-tier Water Release jutsu capable of summoning the full weight of nature itself—all without possessing a natural affinity for Water Release!
Provided, of course, she could actually master the Flying Raijin and its derivative Guiding Thunder Array first.
…
The excitement that had flushed through her seconds ago evaporated in an instant, leaving her thoroughly deflated.
She had just conceptualized an absolute masterpiece of a strategy, only to hit a brick wall because she lacked the basic prerequisites to cast it.
A long way to go, and a heavy burden to carry…
Hinata patted her forehead in exasperation, picked up the Flying Raijin scroll once more, and forced her eyes back onto the text.
She refused to believe a single spatial formula could keep her stumped forever.
The following morning.
The Ninja Academy.
“Morning, Ino…”
With two faint dark circles rimming her pale eyes, Hinata dragged her feet into the classroom, greeting Ino with a complete lack of energy.
“Good morning!” Ino called out cheerfully, though her smile faltered the moment she caught sight of Hinata’s obvious sleep deprivation.
“Hinata?
What happened to you?”
“Stayed up way too late last night,” Hinata yawned, slumping into her seat and tapping a finger against the dark smudges under her eyes.
“Then what are you going to do during class?” Ino asked, looking genuinely concerned.
“Doesn’t matter.
It’s not like the guy behind us doesn’t sleep through every single lesson anyway,” Hinata pointed a thumb over her shoulder toward Shikamaru Nara, who was leaning his pineapple-haired head back, sound asleep.
“Hey, hey, hey!
Just because I sleep in class doesn’t mean I’m not listening,” Shikamaru cracked one eye open, offering a lazy grin to defend his academic reputation.
“Oh?
Then answer this for me right now.” Hinata turned around in her chair, her dead-fish eyes locking onto him.
“What is fifty thousand times fifty thousand?”
“Two hundred and fifty thousand,” Shikamaru blurted out without a split second of hesitation.
“You’re fine.
Go back to sleep,” Hinata waved a hand dismissively, a tiny smirk touching the corner of her lips.
“???”
“Wait!
I wasn’t ready!” Shikamaru snapped back to reality, realizing what he had just said.
A wave of instant annoyance washed over him.
She had thrown such a bizarre math question at him out of nowhere that his half-asleep brain hadn’t even processed the extra zeros!
Had he been fully awake, he never would have tripped up on a basic calculation like twenty-five hundred million!
“Who’s listening to you?” Hinata didn’t bother giving him a second chance, turning back around to face the front.
Though young Shikamaru was exceptionally sharp, his real-world experience was still lacking.
Being able to trip up the village’s future master strategist with a simple mental trap was more than enough entertainment for the morning.
“Haha!
Even Shikamaru got caught off guard!” Next to them, Choji Akimichi paused mid-chew, unable to stop a loud laugh from escaping as he crunched on his potato chips.
“…” Shikamaru covered his face with one hand, thoroughly speechless at Hinata’s twisted sense of humor.
This Hinata Hyuga was way too annoying!
At this exact moment, he finally experienced a fraction of the utter helplessness Naruto felt whenever he dealt with her.
“Quiet, everyone!” Iruka Umino stepped into the classroom, clapping his hands to signal the start of the lesson.
Yawn~~
When the final bell echoed through the hallways, Hinata rubbed her tired eyes, stood up from her desk, and let out a long, satisfying stretch.
“Hinata Hyuga!”
A figure stepped directly in front of her desk, blocking the sunlight filtering through the window.
“I challenge you!”
The dark-haired, dark-eyed boy stared intently at the girl rubbing her eyes, his voice cold and firm.
The sudden declaration instantly cut through the post-class noise.
The entire classroom went dead quiet, every eye locking onto the pair.
The second young master of the Uchiha Clan issuing a formal challenge to the heiress of the Hyuga Clan!
An Uchiha versus a Hyuga!
Two grand, noble lineages colliding right inside the classroom!
“?”
“Oh, it’s you…” Hinata looked at Sasuke Uchiha with a deadpan gaze, her face painted with pure exhaustion.
“Awesome!”
“Arrogant Sasuke, you’ve finally come to your senses!”
“This girl is an absolute monster!
You need to give her a proper thrashing!”
Amid the tense silence, a bright yellow head burst forward like a whirlwind.
Naruto clapped a heavy hand onto Sasuke’s shoulder, laughing with intense relief, looking for all the world as though his stubborn friend had finally been saved from a villain’s clutches.
Sasuke completely ignored the noisy blonde kid bouncing beside him.
His dark eyes lingered on Hinata’s tired face for a long second, his strict sense of pride making him hesitate.
“If you want to accept, we can wait until tomorrow,” Sasuke offered, his tone stoic.
After all, Hinata was clearly exhausted.
If he challenged her right now and won, it wouldn’t be a fair victory—and winning like that would only bring shame to the Uchiha name.
How could you say something like that?!
You should be beating her up right now!
Naruto screamed internally, his eyes bulging in frustration.
“Hey!
Violent monster girl, hurry up and accept the challenge!”
“Oh.” Hinata tilted her head, pointing a lazy finger straight at Naruto.
“Beat up Naruto first, then I’ll fight you.”
“EH???”
Naruto froze, his jaw hitting the floor.
Wait a minute!
Arrogant Sasuke challenging the violent monster girl is one thing—what the hell does any of this have to do with ME?!
“Deal!
You’re right!” Sasuke nodded heavily, taking her condition with dead seriousness.
“Sasuke, you can’t do this!
We’re on the same team!” Naruto yelled in pure horror, scrambling backward in a desperate bid to escape out the back door.
Several troublemaking classmates in the back row cheerfully slammed the classroom door shut, cutting off his escape route entirely.
“HELP!”