"We're the first ones here!" After nightfall, Team 8 finally reached the Central Tower.
Team 8 had been fast, but they'd also been thoroughly rattled along the way.
First it was Gaara's bloody massacre, then for some reason terrifying tremors started ripping through the forest.
The three of them were like startled birds—heads down, bolting straight through.
And now, at last, they'd made it to the Central Tower.
"But someone's already here," Shino said, having picked up another presence in the area.
"Mm, Hanabi's already here!"
Hinata took off toward the front without waiting.
"Ah, it's Hanabi—the one who saved us. Well, that explains it," Kiba said, the realization dawning.
If it was someone who could trade blows with a monster like that, and even snatch something right from the jaws of danger—then yeah, of course Hanabi would've made it.
"Hanabi!"
Hinata used her Byakugan and located Hanabi instantly.
"Ah, big sister! Good evening~"
Hanabi greeted her cheerfully.
"Thanks for earlier, Hanabi." Hinata was technically the older sister, but right now she came across more like the younger one. In this set, though, they were "twins," so the distinction was honestly pretty fuzzy anyway.
"Hanabi!" Kiba and Shino came over as well.
"Thanks for what you did back there. Wait—is that Naruto?" Kiba thanked her, then noticed Naruto in the background, who had split into a dozen-plus shadow clones, each pinching a balloon, doing… something.
"Ah, Naruto and Sasuke are both training. Let's not bother them—we'll move somewhere else. How about dinner first? Wild game barbecue. Sounds amazing, right~"
The Central Tower was actually pretty spacious.
A barbecue was completely doable.
[Do. Not. Try. This.]
[You really can't just grab random stuff out of the wild]
[Everything out there's a protected species, hard to even eat wild game these days]
[Wild game isn't even that good, the meat's gamey and tough]
[Lmao that's just you refusing to use proper seasoning]
[With enough seasoning, what doesn't taste good?]
[Freshness is what matters, behold my Cantonese cuisine!]
[Are you kidding, Cantonese food has zero flavor, not even a hair on my Sichuan cuisine]
[Excuse me, Shandong cuisine hasn't even spoken yet]
[Hmph, authentic Northeastern cuisine right here!]
[Authentic? Prison-style, you mean?]
[Lmao, telling a joke—authentic dìsānxiān]
The chaos-gremlin audience had kicked off an argument in a place even Hanabi hadn't expected.
But the viewers seemed to really enjoy the topic.
Hanabi flipped over to the Japanese and English channels.
Over there, nobody was arguing about cuisines—everyone was instead discussing how to cook in the wilderness. Well then: one channel was a foodie roundtable, the other was wilderness survival.
Either way, it didn't really affect Hanabi.
Because the view on the broadcast soon cut back to Sasuke.
Like Naruto, Sasuke was training with everything he had.
But compared to Naruto, Sasuke was on his own—it looked a lot lonelier over there.
"You call that training?" A voice came out of nowhere behind Sasuke.
"Huh—?! It's you?"
Sasuke jolted, then relaxed when he realized it was Hikari.
"Did you get him out of here?" Sasuke asked.
"Yeah. But by the time I got back, Hanabi and her sister had already gone out for a late-night meal. I didn't want to interrupt them."
Hikari had come over for two reasons: one, to school Sasuke a bit, and two, because she didn't feel right intruding on Hanabi.
"You said there was something wrong with my training?"
She looked the same age as him, but this "Hikari" was the kind of person who could run laps around the Forest of Death several times a day. Ridiculous.
"Mm. It's hard to put into words. Let's just spar—I'll show you."
Perfect. She was in a foul mood. She needed a punching bag.
Without another word, Hikari charged straight at Sasuke.
"That's nothing!"
Her fist wasn't heavy—only about as strong as an ordinary person's.
Sasuke thought he had this in the bag.
But after a couple of exchanges, mid-attack Hikari suddenly raised a hand to her mouth: "Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu!"
"Nani?! When did she finish the seals?!"
Only then did Sasuke catch on—Hikari had been weaving the hand seals during the taijutsu exchange, finishing them inside her combo, and now she capped the sequence with a Fireball!
[The correct use of Fireball]
[That little combo was so smooth]
[Whoa, you can chain seals like that?]
[666]
The Fireball forced Sasuke backward, but Hikari smoothly chained into a Phoenix Sage Fire—and this time, Sasuke couldn't dodge. He went down.
Lucky for him, the Phoenix Sage Fire snuffed out in time, so he didn't actually take real damage.
"A shinobi's seals aren't meant to make you stand there like a wooden post weaving signs—like a stationary target. You finish the seals in the gaps between motions, and you launch the jutsu when your enemy isn't expecting it. That's how you get full effect. Understand?"
In their earlier exchanges, Hikari had been losing patience—every time Sasuke launched a jutsu, he stood there like a log.
[She's not wrong, every time Sasuke fired off Phoenix Sage or any other jutsu, he just rooted in place and let it rip]
[No wonder Hikari snapped, I would too]
[The standing-still seal-weaving thing is actually a serious problem, even Kakashi roots himself sometimes]
[Shinobi from peacetime vs. shinobi who came up during a war—not even comparable]
"Seals can be woven anywhere, anytime," Hikari said. "Not just with your hands. With your feet, your eyes, or anything else. And on top of that, there are seal-less jutsu as an option."
"Seal-less jutsu, huh?"
He could already do that.
"All right—come at me again!"
Sasuke charged once more.
"Hm?!"
Hikari noticed something was off.
Because every one of Sasuke's punches was bursting into flame.
Sasuke couldn't weave seals mid-melee the way Hikari could, but he'd picked up one of Hanabi's seal-less jutsu—Enten.
Every punch he threw carried a vortex of chakra with the fire-nature transformation laced into it.
When those chakra vortices touched anyone else, they detonated, producing something like explosive bursts.
Even Hikari, caught off guard, got knocked off her rhythm for a moment.
"Hm, not bad. You picked that up fast," Hikari said with a nod. "But it's not enough!"
Hikari vanished from in front of Sasuke—and reappeared behind him the next instant.
Sasuke tried to defend, but he couldn't pivot easily; the chakra vortex was now dragging his own momentum along with it, making him harder to redirect.
"This move of yours still has a lot of holes!"
After one combo, Sasuke was knocked flat again.
Getting taught by a real expert was, of course, something he should be glad about.
But…
"Why does this fist also feel so weirdly familiar?"