Chapter 96: Hinata Mama~
"Hmph, I've won 4 matches in a row today... The score is now 75 to 26!" Stopping his hand seals, Sasuke walked over to Naruto with his hands in his pockets and looked down at him. "How about it? Are you convinced yet?"
Naruto pouted and said, still unconvinced, "Damn it, it's the Sharingan again!"
He scratched his hair, suddenly flipped up, and the boy who had looked exhausted just now was full of life again after lying down for a while. He shouted, "Hey, Sasuke, let's go again! I'll definitely beat you this time!"
"Tsk, how many 'one more times' is that for today, you dead-last?" Sasuke felt a black line appear on his head, forcefully suppressing the urge to roll his eyes. "I'm not fighting you anymore. You'll just lose again anyway!"
No, no, no, the real reason is that after four matches, he has already consumed a lot of stamina. If they fight again, he'll be worn down and lose to this idiot with infinite stamina...
"Aaargh, that stuck-up Sasuke is talking big again!" Hearing "dead-last" and "you'll just lose again anyway," Naruto was a little frantic. "One more time! Let's fight until it's dark! I have to beat you to a pulp this time!"
"Get out of the way, I'm going to challenge Sakura now!" Looking at the flailing Naruto, Sasuke quickly found a reason to get away from him. He wasn't going to fight Naruto. A few more matches and the one who lost would really be him. He couldn't leave a flaw on his perfect winning streak for today! It was better to challenge a weak girl...
Hmm, what a clever Sasuke.
This guy's record against a certain weak girl was 58 to 35, with Sasuke's score coming second. However, of the 35 matches he had won, more than half were after he had awakened his three-tomoe Sharingan. As mentioned before, after awakening the three-tomoe Sharingan, Sasuke's strength had been progressing by leaps and bounds recently.
Whether it was taijutsu, ninjutsu, genjutsu, or doujutsu, or even his calm thinking and clever tactics, Sasuke was one of the best among his peers, undoubtedly a favored son of heaven.
Just after the end of the Chunin Exams, Sasuke had only just awakened his three-tomoe and had not yet fully adapted to its powerful abilities. At that time, Sakura could still slightly suppress him. Now, some time had passed, and Sasuke had gradually and completely mastered the abilities of the three-tomoe, able to integrate its powerful kinetic vision into high-speed combat. Sakura, on the other hand, had been focusing her main energy on chewing through books recently. Although her Ice Style and physical development were both enhancing her abilities, there were obviously no very noticeable effects in the short term, and her strength had not grown much. In their spars, she was often suppressed by Sasuke.
In their recent battles, she had lost more than she had won.
This had made Sasuke's self-confidence rise a lot, to the point where he was even eager to challenge a full-power Haruno Sakura—
"Hey, Sakura, have a real, serious fight with me this time! I want to see how much of a gap there is between us!" Sasuke said, turning his head. His serious tone indicated that he wasn't just trying to get away from Naruto's annoying challenge, but that he genuinely hoped for a duel with Sakura. "Come on, Saku...ra? Huh, where did she go?"
"She's gone. She was still here when I was talking just now..." Naruto was also confused. He turned his head to look. There was no one at the edge of the field, but just a few seconds ago, he had clearly seen Sakura standing there watching them fight. This dumb fox's brain was suddenly not enough.
"I see ice..." Sasuke's eye twitched, as if he had thought of something.
Naruto didn't understand what Sasuke meant and turned his head back with a blank look. "What's wrong with the ice?"
"...An ice clone!" Sasuke gritted out these few words through his teeth. He was certain that the pile of ice was the remains of Sakura's ice clone after it had dispersed. A feeling of being teased welled up in him.
Naruto finally reacted and shouted indignantly, "Huh? What the hell! Didn't we agree to train together? She actually used a clone to brush us off!"
"Let's go, Naruto, we'll find her," Sasuke said, rolling his eyes at the sky. Naruto's agitation had, on the contrary, calmed him down.
"Find Sakura-chan and teach her a lesson?" Naruto was stunned for a moment, then became troubled. "But... can we beat her?"
"...Are you an idiot?" Sasuke was so choked by this fool that a black line appeared on his head. Are the red Sharingan of our Uchiha clan just for rolling our eyes?! "That girl's clones don't disappear that easily. Let's go see if something has happened to her!"
"Oh, oh! You're right, let's go quickly!"
Let's shift the perspective back to the laboratory.
Haruno Sakura, who had just messed up, after enduring the intense pain fed back from the clone, came to her senses and found that she had not fallen to the ground, but was lying in Hinata's arms.
At this time, the weather was still a bit hot. The casual clothes Hinata was wearing were quite light and breathable. Through the clothes, Sakura's cheek was in the girl's warm and soft embrace, sinking into a patch of softness. A pleasant smell of shampoo fragrance wafted over. It was only then that Sakura discovered that the Hinata of this age already had some of her future charm.
"Face wash?" Miss Sakura blurted out. Her just-recovered brain was obviously still a bit dizzy, and she had directly said the shameful word that had automatically surfaced in her mind.
Fortunately, Lady Hinata was, after all, the eldest daughter of a powerful clan and had never learned such vulgar things, let alone been polluted by the filth-filled ocean of the internet like a certain someone. She still maintained a heart as pure as a white lotus. "Hmm? What did you say?"
"Nothing, nothing," Sakura's face was being warmed by the girl's body heat. Hearing Hinata's question, she quickly denied it and struggled out of her embrace.
Her legs were still a bit weak. She supported herself on the table with both hands and forced herself to stand up. The air in her nose and mouth still seemed to retain a faint fragrance. She took a deep breath, and her spirits were instantly lifted. Her chaotic mind calmed down a lot, and she stood firm. She was bent over, and at this angle, when she looked up, she was a head shorter than Hinata, directly facing the girl's delicate chin and beautiful collarbones.
Seeing that Sakura was just a little dizzy and not seriously hurt, the worry in Hinata's heart passed, and another emotion welled up. Seeing Sakura a head shorter than her, looking up at her with lowered eyebrows, she couldn't help but feel a surge of anger.
"Ha-ru-no... Sa-ku-ra!" she said, one hand on her hip, the other pointing an index finger at Sakura's smooth forehead, poking it again and again. "You really are an idiot!"
"You clearly developed this jutsu yourself. You know the risks of the ninjutsu best, yet you can still make such a mistake! You're too reckless. Why can't you just be a little less worry-some! You almost got yourself killed just now. If you were really injured, I wouldn't have been able to save you!"
Sakura shrank her head, lowering it like a quail, her heart full of regret—not for being a bit reckless, but for having triggered Hinata's lecture mode.
Well, Sakura was really taking her good fortune for granted. In fact, the reason Hinata would start her lecture mode with her was at least because she subconsciously regarded their relationship as very close, so close that she had the right to lecture her. After all, Hinata was still a girl with a gentle nature, not the type who liked to boss others around.
But then again, most people would be impatient when faced with a lecture, especially a motherly one, letting it go in one ear and out the other.
"Yes, yes, yes~" Sakura could only listen patiently to Hinata's earnest teachings (while pretending to).
After giving Sakura a good lecture, Hinata finally quieted down, her expression changing from cloudy to clear. Sakura secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
"In short, you have to take care of your own body. Don't just casually do some dangerous experiments!"
"As you command, Hinata Mama~" Sakura had already completely recovered from her dizziness by now and said with a smile. When she smiled, she liked to squint her eyes, her smile blooming like a sunflower, the complete opposite of the ice clone's cold indifference, warm and brilliant. When she said this, she dragged out the last few words, and her teasing tone did not give people a feeling of mockery or annoyance, but instead had a slight upward lilt like a gentle coquettishness, just the right amount of sweetness, as pleasant as a wind chime, and not cloying.
Her spirit was many times stronger than an ordinary person's. After getting through that, the lingering fear was just a fleeting moment. She immediately returned to her normal state and started joking with Hinata.
Hinata glared at her and said irritably, "Tch, you're always grinning... no seriousness! Anyway, what's next?"
"You can leave the rest to me. I've already memorized the hand seals and chakra circulation of this ice clone," Sakura thought for a moment, making sure everything was under control according to the plan, and then said, "Now I can use it directly for experiments."
When she spoke, she smiled very naturally. It was a very confident smile, the corners of her mouth slightly raised with a hint of self-satisfaction and excitement, as if the small mistake just now hadn't affected her at all.
"What are you going to do?" Hinata asked curiously.
—Strictly speaking, asking this was already prying into others' privacy, and a rather sensitive one at that, a ninjutsu secret. But these two good friends had never been shy about such questions. They often exchanged their ideas for developing ninjutsu, and sometimes even developed new ninjutsu together. In short, as long as you didn't ask for the specific hand seals—that was the real taboo of prying into others' ninjutsu secrets.
And even for the specific hand seals, Sakura didn't think it was an absolute secret that had to be silenced with death if exposed, as long as it didn't fall into the hands of the enemy.
In fact, the ultimate principles of the Water Gun series had already been submitted by Sakura to the Third Hokage and were now recorded in Konoha's Scroll of Seals, listed alongside S-rank ninjutsu like the Wood Style and the Flying Raijin. Konoha ninja, as long as they met the conditions, could also look up this information.
Rights and obligations are always equal. The reason those high-level secret archives were open to her was not just because she was the Fifth's disciple, but more as a reward for her contributions. The successful development of this high-fidelity ice clone ninjutsu was also largely due to the information on clone jutsu that the Third and Tsunade had given her, which included the ultimate principles of the First Hokage's use of the Wood Clone.
Sakura answered Hinata's question readily.
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