133 The Chunin Exams - 59

The commotion they were making drew quite a few disgruntled or angry looks. Specifically from the sand team….even more specifically, Temari was giving him the evil eye once again.

Not that he was all that bothered with it. Or anyone giving him any angry looks for that matter.

Still, Hayate gave them a pointed look, their shenanigans were causing enough of a ruckus that it was holding up the next match.

So Daiki being the ever generous lad he was, sealed away the doodles once more.

It didn't stop Sasuke from glaring at him though.

"Hate you," he said, leaning over the railing, facing down at the arena below, but his attention was on him, eyes glaring through his peripherals, "Hate you so much."

"You know, they say there's a fine line between love and hate," Kakashi hummed and Daiki resisted the urge to snort as Sasuke wrinkled his nose in disgust, "Still, fun as this is, what brings you to our little corner of the railing?"

"We're standing right in the middle of it," Daiki deadpanned only for Kakashi to shrug, "I'm here for my payment, remember?"

"Oh, is that so?" Kakshi mused, before reaching into his pouch and pulling out a rolled up scroll and tossing it Daiki's way, "There you go."

"Wait, what payment, what's in the scroll?" Naruto asked as Daiki caught it.

"Training methods for training dogs." The tan genin shrugged, slipping it into his own pouch.

That just seemed to confuse Naruto and he wasn't alone, "Why?" Sakura asked, eyebrows raised and giving him an odd look, "I don't think how much of a dog you are factors into this kind of thing."

Sasuke snorted a smirk spreading across his face at Sakura's little dig at him.

"Woof woof." Daiki replied.

Sakura gave him a dry look.

His attention was taken by the two who had made their way downstairs while their little commotion was going on.

Specifically, his eyes were on the midnight blue haired girl, so different from her previous self who stood opposite Kankuro.

"Oh great," Kankuro huffed, "Not only do I need to fight a brat, but a little girl at that." he commented, arms crossed casually.

Hinata didn't respond at all to his words, instead she ignored him entirely and looked over her shoulder, her pale white eyes locking with Daiki's own.

Kankuro audibly growled at being ignored, as if slighted.

That was a good move on her part, both Kankuro and Temari were all up on their high horse over Konoha right now and looked down on them as if they were lesser just because they weren't struggling financially like the sand village.

Though he bet Hinata wasn't at all thinking of that.

She smiled lightly his way and he smiled back, before giving her a wink and a nod.

She had this.

Her smile twitched up a bit more, before she turned back to face her puppet using opponent.

The white eyed girl slid one foot back, both arms coming up, one slightly above the other fingers pointed outwards, the beginning stance of the Gentle Fist.

"Tch." Kankuro clicked his tongue.

Hayate looked between both of them, making sure they were both ready before lifting his hand and bringing it down, "Begin!" he declared.

As soon as declared the beginning of the match, Hinata's chakra pulsed, "Byakugan!" she voiced and he saw the tell-tale veins pulsing around her eyes before she promptly pushed off, rushing towards Kankuro who stayed standing still.

A smirk played across Kankuro's face as she rapidly approached him. Only, instead of attacking him straight out, Hinata jumped, flipping over his body and landing behind him before launching a rapid two fingered strike towards the bandaged object on his back.

'Heh, that little hiding trick is useless against the Byakugan.' Daiki smirked.

There was a grunt of pain as she made contact, before a puff of smoke overcame the bandaged object and suddenly in its place was Kankuro.

Only, not quite, Hinata's fingers smashed right through with shattering sound and Kankuro's visage fell away to show the bland pale dull eyed expression of a puppet beneath.

Behind the puppet, the bandaged object unveiled and Kankuro jumped out gaining distance, one hand clutching at his shoulder where Hinata's two fingers had impacted initially.

"…How did you know I was there?" the older boy grimaced and demanded.

"It was a very convincing disguise," Hinata commented as she spun on her foot and lashed out with a roundhouse kick that caught the puppet, Crow in the neck and decapitated it as well sending both head and body bouncing away, "But my Byakugan can see through solid objects." she added and rushed forward towards him.

"Is that right?" Kankuro ground his teeth and began backpedalling rapidly trying to gain distance.

The fingers of his free hand twitched, chakra strings in full view for Daiki thanks to his eyes and he saw the puppet Crow that had hit the ground, split apart into several different pitches, before blades erupted from the split ends of its parts and shot towards Hinata from behind.

He was intending to skewer her from behind while she rushed him.

Not that it would work.

Hinata tilted her head, letting one of the bladed parts shoot by her head then lashed out with a quick chop of two fingers, chakra coating the digits.

She severed the chakra string controlling it easily.

"What the hell!?" Kankuro gaped, eyes wide with shock.

Despite his shock, he wasn't idle though and let go of his shoulder and with both hands now controlled the puppet parts, each spreading out and shooting at Hinata from all angles like bullets.

She was forced to stop her pursuit of the older boy and spin out of the way of one, ducking under another, jumping the next. It almost looked like she was dancing as she wove between each of the bladed puppet parts without ever taking her gaze off of Kankuro.

"How the hell are you doing this!?" the boy grunted out in frustration.

Chakra ignited around Hinata's fingers as she got her timing down and she moved in a spiralling spinning blur, lashing out with both arms and slicing through the chakra strings of a puppet part each time she dodged.

Upon the last one, she swept her foot around to bring her back around to face Kankuro and pushed off, rushing towards him, "To quote a boy I know," Hinata replied, "Fuck you, that's how."

Kankuro wasn't a physical specialist, so despite Hinata not being the fastest out there of the Konoha genin, she was still faster than him and now with his ace in the hole taken care of, she had no reason from hesitating in rushing him.

"Bitch!" Kankuro spat.

Literally.

Just as she was upon him, he spat out a few senbon, each point dipped in a liquid substance at point blank range.

Too bad for him though.

Hinata ducked, skidding underneath them, feet grinding against the ground with chakra, "You are within my range." the girl declared.

He could see them clearly with his Shinkugan.

As could Hinata with her Byakugan.

"Two palms," Hinata declared softly as one palm smacked into his solar plexus, while the other caught him in the chin, before she spun again and smacked his shoulders with two strikes and continued on, "Four Palms, Eight Palms, Sixteen Palms, Eight Trigrams Thirty Two Palms!" Hinata's hands were a blur of motion as she struck Kankuro all over his body.

The last palm strike smashing into the core of his stomach and bodily lifting him up and sending him flying back a few feet to smash into the wall, where he promptly slumped to the ground unconscious.

'Hoh?' Daiki's eyebrows rose in interest.

That was new.

She could already use the thirty two palms? From what he remembered, Hinata didn't actually learn that before until the time skip.

She hadn't even shown that off while training with him. A recent thing, or was it something she wanted to surprise others with.

It wasn't quite the Eight Trigrams Sixty Four Palms or the Eight Trigrams One Hundred And Twenty Eight Palms that Neji could use already around this time, but it was progress nonetheless. Pretty good progress at that. The difference between the her of now and the her of the other timeline, was like that of night and day.

Unlike Sasuke, Hinata didn't take her eyes off of Kankuro, just in case he managed to get up, she stayed in her stance, ready to keep on attacking in case he made any move.

"Hinata Hyuga is the winner!" Hayate declared after a few seconds of the puppet user remaining limp on the ground.

Only then, after being declared the winner did Hinata relax, sliding out of her stance and letting out a noticeable sigh of relief.

"…When did Hinata get so strong?" Sakura commented.

"You can thank this idiot for that," Sasuke snorted, jabbing a thumb at Daiki, "She's been training with this doof almost as much as me."

Sakura blinked before looking at Daiki and her gaze turned dry, "…That makes sense, Hinata is cute…especially with that longer hair, and I remember someone going on about how he liked longer hair as well." the pink haired kunoichi commented.

Her gaze flickered down to her hands where the seals he placed on her for his jutsu was.

"Well, the results speak for themselves." he shrugged, before looking to his side, specifically where Team Gai was.

Lee was clapping happily, as was Gai.

His attention though was drawn to the other male member of their team.

Neji had his hands gripped around the railing so hard Daiki wouldn't be surprised if the metal was warped and he was visibly gritting his teeth angrily.

Dude needed to take a chill pill man.

'…That could be a problem though, Neji is pretty strong and a great ally to have, but with this, Naruto isn't exactly gonna get the motivation to kick his ass and remove that huge stick from it.' he mused.

…So would he have to take care of that then? But, Naruto's message had a much bigger impact because of how much of a failure Naruto himself was considered.

Despite never actually being one, just poorly trained and ignorant.

Well, it would be something he needed to look into at least.

His eyes drifted from Neji to Hinata who was making her way back up after being declared the winner.

Her eyes were on him as well.

He flashed her a thumbs up and and a nod. He could of course talk to her in her head thanks to his eyes and the jutsu he learned from Fu, but he was leaving it for now.

Better to congratulate her in private.

She smiled brightly at him, cheeks darkening a bit as she made her way back to her team.

Heh, guess not all of that shyness of hers had been dealt with. It was cute though when it wasn't her main trait.

He looked away as she reached her team and was congratulated by Kurenai and Shino, Kiba still being in the infirmary.

And he was just in time to see the huge electronic board light up once again and rapidly cycle through names before landing on two of the four left ready to fight.

Sakura Haruno Vs Neji Hyuga.

Huh.

'Well, she's fucked.' Daiki mused.

Then again, better Neji than Gaara. But, she would have been better off getting Lee. Lee while vastly stronger, would at least not hurt her too badly and would go easy on her, giving her the chance at least to display her skills.

…Wait.

Lee.

Lee and Gaara were the only two who hadn't fought yet. 'I guess some things are written in the stars.' he mused.

That could either be really good or really bad. 'If things go the way they did in the other timeline, then I should get ready to step in.'

Sure, Lee had a whole character growth thing with his broken limbs and risking his life in his operation and Gai showed how amazing of a sensei he was, for Lee at least, willing to die with him if it failed.

'But just in case things do go wrong, I'd rather have Gai around.' he thought.

If it came to it, he'd heal Lee's legs himself using life force, but, he'd really rather not waste any after emptying his reserves as he did before.