Sasuke was clearly doing better than Naruto—partly because he was naturally more cautious, and partly because something else entirely had caught his curiosity.
He brushed past Naruto and walked into the courtyard. When he got a proper look at that pillar, his pupils suddenly shrank. A wave of indescribable frustration surged through his chest.
"What's your problem, you arrogant jerk? Is staring at a wooden post supposed to be interesting or something?"
Arms crossed, Naruto scowled at Sasuke. He couldn't stand the guy's smug attitude. But before he could continue complaining, a sudden grinding sound of clenched teeth reached his ears.
"Shut up, you dead-last. Come here and take a look for yourself!"
Clenching his fists, Sasuke knew exactly where his frustration came from: the shame of realizing that a classmate who had always seemed quiet and insignificant had already surpassed him.
Naruto pouted and blinked, but begrudgingly got to his feet and walked over to Sasuke. "What are you even—ugh!"
The sight before him made Naruto's blue eyes freeze in shock.
It was the same pillar Hinata had struck earlier. The front side facing the house looked completely normal—but the back side, the one facing the courtyard, revealed a terrifying sight.
The sturdy pinewood pillar looked like it had been hit by a shotgun blast. A bowl-sized hole had blown open in a radial pattern, the edges smooth and clean—as if some explosive force had punched through from the other side and ripped this section apart.
No question about it—this was the true force behind Hinata's earlier finger strike. Despite the backlash having injured her own finger, the sheer power she'd unleashed was impossible to ignore.
"If she had landed that on your forehead… your head would be a pile of mush right now."
Sasuke stated the fact coldly, his voice flat. He instinctively touched the ribs on his left side—where she had hit him that morning. Clearly, she hadn't gone full strength then. If that strike had carried the same power as this one, his chest would've been blown apart.
"She's… really that strong?"
Even Naruto, careless as he often was, found his breath catching in his throat. He clenched his jaw.
The two boys exchanged a look—and in each other's eyes, they saw the same emotion: confusion, and the sting of being left behind.
When did it happen? When had that quiet girl who always sat in the back suddenly left them both in the dust?
Ah. When? Probably about seventy-five days and nineteen hours ago.
Walking through the village streets, Hinata glanced down at her right index finger, now wrapped in a bandage. The pain was nothing new—she was more than used to it by now.
Ever since she realized she had become a transmigrator—reborn into the body of this frail Hinata Hyūga, Former Heiress of Hyuga.
Unbelievable. That something so absurd had happened to her of all people. And not just any isekai role—this one.
Dark irritation flickered like fire in the shadows of her mind. The corners of her eyes twitched again. What upset her the most—what she still couldn't get over—was the biggest screw-up of this whole transmigration:
The gender.
Why her?! No one ever said he was going to end up in this world! And in a body like this?! (TL: This is intentional)
Her tightly clenched left hand stung sharply—her nails digging into her palm hard enough to draw blood. But Hinata didn't even flinch.
This kind of humiliating "isekai setup" had hit her mentally harder than anything else. That's why she had snapped when Naruto mouthed off earlier—why she had gone too far and hurt herself in the process.
Still, Hinata wasn't the kind of idiot who lost sight of priorities. She understood one thing very clearly: in this world, power was everything.
And as the old saying goes, "scholars are poor, warriors are rich"—meaning strength takes investment. Money was just as important as training.
Konoha's streets were bustling. As the most peaceful and stable of the Five Great Nations, the village was home to all kinds of goods and commerce. Hinata walked with purpose until she reached a specific storefront and knocked on the door.
"Yeah, yeah, coming. Welcome."
The response was sluggish, disinterested. Hinata raised an eyebrow—it matched her expectations.
"Good afternoon, Shikamaru. Looks like you're the one minding the shop today."
Behind the counter stood a black-haired boy with his hair tied up in a spiky ponytail. Compared to Naruto's energy and Sasuke's cold edge, this boy gave off a completely laid-back, lazy vibe. No doubt, this was another classmate of Hinata's—Nara Shikamaru.
"Oh, it's you. Yeah, well, it's the family shop. My dad went off drinking with someone, so I got stuck minding the store."
Shikamaru tilted his head as he looked at Hinata, his half-lidded "dead fish" eyes narrowing slightly. "Got hurt again, huh?"
"Obvious, isn't it? Give me the same herbs as last time—deer antler, red sage, tiger bone, and a few others. Grind them and pack them for me."
Hinata pulled out a stack of bills from her pocket and laid it on the counter. Clearly, this wasn't her first time buying high-grade wound-recovery herbs. And as the clan in charge of breeding medicinal deer and cultivating herbs in Konoha, the Nara family's pharmacy had the best supplies around.
"You always go for the ridiculously expensive, high-potency stuff. This is already the fifth time in two months. I gotta say, your training regimen is kind of... excessive."
Shikamaru puckered his lips as he counted the money, then turned to start gathering the ingredients.
It was true—Konoha had medical ninjutsu and hospitals to treat injuries. But those techniques were gentle, healing wounds without enhancing the body or eliminating hidden damage.
However, decoctions made from rare herbs could have intense tempering effects on the body. Even in a world with chakra, physical strengthening through medicine was still valid.
Of course, "tempering" came with its own cost—like plunging your body into molten lava and reforging it again and again. Combined with the steep prices, most people avoided these old-fashioned methods.
Naturally, the higher the grade of herbs, the stronger the effect—and the higher the price.
"Relax. According to my calculations, I'm about to hit the next stage. Besides, I recently found a pretty good money-making gig."
As she picked up the bag of selected herbs, Hinata gave a smiling glance to the bored-looking Shikamaru resting his chin in his hand.
"Maybe I'll need to rely on you too, Shikamaru-kun."
The Difficulty of Gentle Fist
The Hyūga clan was one of the most well-known and powerful ninja families in the shinobi world. Their precise and deadly Gentle Fist, combined with their unparalleled Byakugan vision, placed them among the very top in both offense and reconnaissance.
So after the Uchiha clan faded into history, the Hyūga didn't hesitate to proclaim themselves as "Konoha's strongest clan." And to be fair, it wasn't an empty boast.
But as with all things, there were exceptions—and even the strongest bloodline could produce the occasional weakling.
Hinata Hyūga, this generation's heiress, was exactly that kind of exception. Born into a clan obsessed with strength and status, her bloodline and position were beyond reproach. But her lack of combat aptitude and slow progress in Gentle Fist training marked her as weak in every measurable way.
Especially after her younger sister, Hanabi—five years her junior—was born with exceptional talent. Praised by the elders, Hanabi even defeated Hinata in a sparring match despite the age gap.
After that loss, their father Hiashi Hyūga gave up on Hinata and shifted all his attention to training Hanabi instead.
After all, a noble family couldn't afford a powerless heir.
This was why Hinata ended up attending the village's ninja academy. Normally, the main house children didn't need to. They had the right to go straight into the Chūnin Exams. Only the abandoned ones—those no longer guided by the clan elders—were left to receive standard education with the rest.
If nothing unexpected had happened, Hinata would have gone on to graduate like a normal ninja, become a low-level Chūnin, and due to her lack of talent compared to Hanabi, be marked for the branch family. She would've married someone ordinary and lived a quiet, uneventful life.
That was the future her father—and the clan elders who believed "people are born with unchangeable destinies"—had written for her.
And if we ignored the original plot and followed that reasoning, maybe that really was how things should have gone...
Until seventy-five days ago—when one training accident changed everything.
CRACK!!!
The sound of the wooden stump splitting rang sharply in the air. Dressed in a fitted training outfit, the white-eyed girl stared coldly at the broken training dummy before her. A thick log the size of a person's torso now had a bowl-sized hole torn through it, snapped clean in two.
There was no doubt—that was the result of her strike.
"Hmph. In the original story, that dumb girl was always using these things for Gentle Fist practice, right?"