Four - Defeat

They looked at each other while walking in circles inside the arena.

Every movement was being considered, every chance and opportunity accounted for.

None of them wanted to be hasty, be it Hinata or Sakura, they both felt like there was a great stake in this spar, even bigger than the activity itself represented.

"Is this really Sakura?!" Naruto stared in awe as he recalled that powerful kick that started this battle.

Ino who had long been losing to Sakura in the last year couldn't even blink her eyes at this point. How could this be real? Since when was she such a heavy hitter? Could she even compete with her? Ino doubted herself as the thoughts popped up in her head, even with her special Ninjutsu, nothing was sure. If she made one mistake and got hit, it would be impossible to retaliate.

The silence was deafening and it made everyone anxious, what will be the next move?

Hinata stared intensely, grasping every movement of her opponent. The twitch of an eye, a breath, anything that could give way for an opportunity to attack and that moment finally came.

When Sakura blinked her eyes, Hinata exploded with strength, she rushed forward and struck with her open palms.

Sakura felt the air approaching and was caught by surprise, she relied on her instincts to sidestep and lift her right arm to parry.

A burst of pressurized air scratched her arm as it shot behind her.

The area around her arm started hurting a bit as if it had been struck in many areas in an instant.

The Hyuga fighting style was designed in a way that in case both people had similar close-combat capabilities, the enemy's strength would be constantly shipped away under their attacks that could cause small injuries even when defended or parried.

Against a Hyuga, a fight of attrition was merely asking to be defeated.

She defended another strike and pulled back with a kick forcing Hinata to retreat as well.

Their gazes locked on each other again while the crowd cheered excitedly.

"C'mon! You can do it! Sakura-chan!"

Naruto was the loudest of the bunch, he cheered Sakura from the sidelines, causing her to blush a little in shame as she stared daggers at him.

'Damn you! Stop saying those embarrassing stuff! I'm definitely forcing you to eat chayote next time I cook lunch for you!' Sakura remembered the greens that Naruto hated the most and promised herself to make him suffer a bit.

On the other hand, Hinata felt a bit misplaced and down. She stared weekly at him, ignoring the rest of the crowd that was cheering either at her or Sakura. 'Naruto-kun...'

"Hey, Naruto! Stop! Can't you be a little less loud?!" Sakura cried out from the side and Naruto grinned like an idiot as he laughed in his childish voice.

This caused Hinata's body to shake as she bit her lip and turned her eyes toward Sakura again.

Why? Why are they so close?

Thinking back on her efforts, on how much she suffered to become stronger. Hinata felt that it was unfair somehow.

Her cousin Neji hated her, her father looked down on her for not being able to keep up with her cousin... and now... now this...

Sakura who was feeling a little annoyed by Naruto's behavior suddenly felt a chill going up her spine. Looking at Hinata, she could see a determination that wasn't there before.

At this moment, Hinata's Chakra seemed to have been injected with steroids and started flowing around her body extremely fast.

Her speed seemed to raise a notch as she closed in on Sakura in an instant. The open palms gave way to finger strikes that seemed to be coated in airwaves.

A strike to the upper side of the arm, one to the corner beneath her lung, another next to the leg... from three to eight and then to sixteen.

Sakura was lifted off the air as the attacks hit, with the last one blowing her away so far that she almost reached the limits of the arena.

Coughing up blood, Sakura raised herself slowly with trembling muscles as she felt her insides churning as if they were burning from the inside out.

Naruto was shocked and so was Sasuke.

'So this is the Hyuga's Gentle Fist?!' Even he couldn't help but frown as he gave Hinata a deep stare. When she prepared to attack with this art, he had already activated his clan's ability which he had kept a secret from everyone to burn the Hyuga's fighting style in his memories. Although others couldn't see it, he had the ability to perceive Chakra although in a limited form compared to the Byakugan, and he knew that those blows had greatly injured Sakura from the inside.

It was like being pierced by a sword that made no cuts, nobody would know that your insides had become a mangled mess.

"Sakura! Don't give up! You can do it!" Naruto shouted worriedly as he stared at Sakura's trembling body, although he was worried, he didn't rush in yet as he believed in her.

Although it took a while, Sakura managed to stand up wobbly and stare at Hinata with a frown.

There was no way she would be able to defeat this upfront, if she wanted to defeat Hinata, she would need to use her brain to bait her.

Neither Mizuki nor Iruka did anything or stop the match. Looking upwards, they could both see a crowd of thirteen Jonins watching everything from the ceiling of the Hokage's office. This wasn't a simple assessment, after all, they had all been choosing the kids for a few months now.

"She is quite ruthless huh." Kurenai, a kunoichi with untamed black hair and red lipstick spoke.

"Hm... I don't like her style." Asuma shook his head with a slight frown as he took a puff of his cigar.

The one with a black face mask and a headband covering the left eye observed the girl with pink hair in wonder. "Hinata seems interested in that kid. She only exploded because she felt jealous."

Everyone nodded at his words as they looked at the battle with a frown. "She is not good at controlling her feelings, but this was also something I struggled with in the path, I've decided now, she will be part of my team together with Aburame Shino and Inuzuka Kiba."

Nobody complained at that, the trio with heavy emotions fit Kurenai's profile the best, she was the best Jonin to teach them. As for why they had already started deciding? Well, because those students' chances of being disapproved were less than 0 given their history so far.

"Hmm, well, I don't need to see them battling anymore to make my decision anyway. The Ino-Shika-Cho trio will come with me." Asuma's laid-back answer wasn't a surprise, it was the same as Kurenai's situation, he was the fittest to lead the three.

The last one with the priority to choose was Hatake Kakashi, but he kept quiet and the others didn't bother him. They just kept watching.

In the arena, Sakura was calculating in her mind, she had already formulated a plan but unfortunately, she was forced to accept that either way, this would end up in defeat. Her goal now was to mitigate as much damage as possible in this move as this had turned from a battle to win to a battle to learn. Would her plan succeed or would it be a pipe dream?

Hinata rushed in once more, since sixteen Tenketsus blocked weren't enough, she would block sixteen more until Sakura was defeated.

At this point though, Sakura seemed to flow with the movements. Every time Hinata struck, she would raise her arms to parry in an effort to mitigate the damage as she used the heavy exchange of moves to get closer bit by bit.

Sakura calculated in her mind, when she found that she had hit her limit, she closed her eyes and pretend to lean back with an open defense.

Hinata who was highly focused made use of the opportunity and gave a final palm strike with her Chakra-infused hands. The powerful blow launched a blast of highly pressured air through her, opening a hole in a tree seven meters away while blowing Sakura far away.

The crowd was astonished by this move and they could only stare with their jaws wide open at the figure of Sakura gliding all the way to the back of the fighting grounds. Her body slid so far that she almost hit the wall that separated the academy from the street.

What no one noticed was Hinata who was breathing heavily on the ground at the very limits of the other side of the arena. Blood seeped away from her mouth as she tried to catch her breath and struggled to see due to her eyes becoming blurry.

They couldn't see it, but the Jonins and the Chunin instructors had seen through it all.

Sakura had sneakily overcharged her foot with Chakra, making use of her opponents' lack of focus because of anger. Since Hinata wasn't paying enough attention, she failed to notice that Sakura's Chakra had mostly been directed towards her foot, and when she feinted an opening and used Hinata's strength to propel her body in a spinning movement... Hinata was unable to react in time due to Sakura's sudden outburst of speed and received the full brunt of her kick.

In the end, what Hinata experienced was having her own strength used against her plus the powerful strength that could sink the ground. It was nothing short of a miracle that she didn't faint right then and there.

Shaking all over, she raised her head to stare at Sakura, and only after Iruka announced that she had lost, did Hinata sigh in relief and faint as well.

"Mizuki! Bring Hinata with you, I'll take Sakura with me."

"Alright!" After using his healing technique once in both of them, they gave a warning to the students to not mess around and left in a hurry to bring them to the nearby hospital.

"S-shit, shit! I must see Sakura-chan! What if she was gravely injured!?" Naruto was like a pile of stress, he kept pacing back and forth and muttering to himself as he held his head anxiously.

Ino was worried too and was holding both her hands while praying for her friend.

Sasuke though was only frowning as he kept recalling the fight and wondering if there was a way to counter the gentle fist.

The jonins though were quite impressed. It was clear from this fight that Haruno Sakura and Hyuga Hinata were the most talented girls in all the previous four batches of graduated students. If they didn't know better, they would think that the two are seasoned Genins.

"Heh, quite the cold head... if she was a Nara, I would have wanted her on my team." Asuma joked from the side as he took a puff of his cigar.

Kakashi gave him a stare and calmly turned back towards the arena as he stared at his Sensei's child. 'Those two... they remind me of...'

"It's so weird, I feel like I have seen someone else just like this girl but I can't remember who..." Kurenai wondered on the side with a frown on her fair face.

Kakashi who had his thoughts interrupted sighed a little annoyed. 'Hmph, nobody remembers sensei's wife, but how could I forget? Kushina was just like that, cold headed in battle and intense outside of it. Otherwise, how would she come up with the idea of leaving behind strands of hair in the midst of her kidnapping many years ago? This Sakura sure has a lot of talent, a rough gem in need of polishing, although her potential is currently less than the other two, she could still become a great Jonin given enough training and time.'

"Sigh..." Kakashi's sigh made Kurenai and Asuma turn toward him. "Hopefully it won't be too troublesome. I'd rather read my book..."

Kurenai gave him a look with a tinge of disgust while Asuma snickered.

"Just don't get lost in it, a real woman is much better than words, you know?" Patting Kakashi's shoulder, he turned around and left, it was Thursday, his favorite day to eat barbeque and he didn't want to waste any more time here.

Kurenai also bid her farewell and left, she had to prepare the training regime for her new students.

(A/N: No new chapters tomorrow, probably. I'm stressed because of my job and want to take a rest, watch some Naruto, and play The Witcher 3 or 2, Idk, I just want to relax a little and think more about the plot before I continue writing.)