"She'll be fine," Anko assured Kurenai as she looked over the injured limb. "Now, if this were a snake, it would be dead, but since it's just a limb..."
"All right," Kurenai said with a nod. "I guess we'll do Hinata next. Gai, if you could ask Lee t..."
"If neither of you would mind," Hiashi said. "I would like to see how my daughter fares against some of my own clan."
"Then I'll ask Neji," Kurenai said.
"I'm afraid that will be insufficient," the head of the Hyuga clan noted. "And I do have some influence over this decision as she is my daughter and I thus can have some say in how she is to be treated."
Neji frowned and looked across toward his uncle with a glower. Did the man not trust him to be able to take the main family failure? Was even he sidelined, or did he just not want the main family so severely embarrassed that he, of similar age to her, could defeat her easily. Did he have to set up a match against multiple older and higher ranked ninja?
Hiashi looked over his shoulder toward the three bodyguards who stepped forward.
There was a distasteful look on their face as they did, however.
"Father," Hinata said. "I would rather not do this..."
"Of course, I would expect that," Hiashi said. "Still you were the one who indicated that the 'pure' jyuken was in some cases 'useless'. I would like to see you prove your point."
Kurenai looked to her newly assigned student, a clear question in her look.
Go ahead and show him, Hinata-chan, Naruto said. What's the matter? I think you can take these guys.
It isn't these that are the problem, Hinata returned quietly.
Whatever is the problem, we'll deal with it, Naruto said. I mean we're finally home, so...so did you want to come home?
She thought that she wanted to be with Naruto regardless, but she was already missing Mid-Childa and Earth.
Tsh, if you can take them, get on with it and stop the angsting, Ino snapped in loudly.
"Are you okay with this, Hinata?" Kurenai asked quietly, harboring more than a suspicion that Hinata was able to handle this level of combat easily.
Hinata stood up and walked out onto the training field, one hand on Kleinhoffen and nodding towards Kurenai quietly.
"We apologize for this, Hinata-sama," one of the three bodyguards said.
The four Hyuuga all activated their byakugan simultaneously and then Hinata drew forth the short, wide-bladed sword at her side.
"No, I apologize," she said. "Kleinhoffen, let's begin."
[Einrichten. Ritter Jacke. Jäger Form]
In a near blinding flash of visible chakra, Hinata swung her sword up into the air.
It was hard to tell, but for a moment it looked like several outlines of herself, or maybe just her clothes radiated out to either side as her form was blurred out by sheer light. And then it crashed together again, replacing her normal clothes was a white tunic and breeches with the symbols of the leaf emblazoned in prominent orange and gloves and boots in black lined with white.
Anko, Ino and Tenten all looked at the orange tracery of the designs and then back toward Naruto in his orange clothing.
"Naruto?" Tenten asked. "Have you noticed anything about Hinata's uniform henge?"
"You mean her Knight Clothing spell?" Naruto asked. "Yeah, it's awesome isn't it? Though it's weird, she usually wears lavender."
"Hopeless," Ino said.
"Male," Anko corrected with a knowing smirk.
"Huh?" Naruto responded.
The three Hyuga meanwhile each took a step back from her, suddenly confused how to proceed.
Kurenai frowned, recognizing the uniform she'd seen Hinata wearing in the videos they'd been given, but wondering why a simple henge transformation would give the Hyuga bodyguards pause. The answer was, it wouldn't.
Hiashi frowned as his bodyguards turned uncertain and reached up to activate his own byakugan. As soon as he did, the emotion on his face was clear for just long enough for Neji to frown and activate his own eyes again.
He wasn't seeing a simple henge and that was clear.
Chakra leaked out of all of Hinata's chakra points at a steady maintained rate, forming the uniform she was wearing out of pure chakra, filtered through the hilt of her weapon. It was as if she had extended her chakra network to the outside of her body. There was some loss of power, but slow and easily maintainable. A clear, basic defense against any attack.
Any attack including the jyuken.
He felt himself shaking some what and immediately took control of himself before Hiashi could notice.
Gai looked over toward the Hyuga, as did Anko and Kurenai and then back toward Hinata. The feeling of active chakra was still clear in the air, even though it had looked like whatever jutsu or spell she'd used was complete.
"Shall we begin?" Hinata asked, sounding as if she'd really rather not do this.
Hiashi nodded toward his uncertain bodyguards and they firmed up their attitudes into the typical stony Hyuga look.
"Begin," Kurenai said, interested in seeing where this would go.
"Immediately the Hyuga bodyguards moved in forward and went on the attack. They were all at least chunin, but like most Hyuga, they only practiced the family jutsu beyond the basics all ninja used, feeling it was enough. They had the absolute worst match up against her.
One came in with a jyuken palm strike chambered and she swung the sword down to intercept. The Hyuga blinked as chakra poured out of the hand holding the sword and formed into a triangular shield that accepted his chakra discharge with a cracking sound.
At the same moment, Hinata flashed around him in a burst of speed that took out of the pocket that the three had planned to put her into. Finishing that brief moment by slamming her own hand into the small of the first man's back, sending him into a collapse as her jyuken burst into his body.
Their surprise put aside for the moment, the remaining two of the bodyguards moved in on Hinata from both sides, striking out at her furiously as she countered with her sword in a series of parries augmented by thin triangular shields meant to shatter on first impact.
Gai and Kurenai both noted as she used the gladius primarily defensively and turned the rest of her body into her offensive weapon. Neji, Hiashi and the other Hyuga noticed, to their chagrin, that she was managing jyuken strikes even through her feet.
Anko probably noticed a lot of that as well, but was having more fun watching the traditional Hyuga having trouble with a fourteen year old girl.
Hinata returned attacks, whenever possible, with chakra charged kicks and jyuken palms. She initiated another flash of speed, causing her opponents to fly through the substitution to completely change position. When Hinata slowed down, a swarm of kunai swept in at her.
The young knight-ninja stood up straight and held her sword out toward the incoming weapons.
"Eisenfeld," she said.
[Natürlich, mein Meister] the sword chimed.
A crackling barely visible field of electricity appeared in front of her and the incoming kunai hit it and slowed down to an almost immediate stop, hanging in the air.
"That's en..." Kurenai started to say.
"Keep testing the girl," Hiashi shouted over her voice.
"Hyuga-sama!" Kurenai shouted. "This is my assessment, not yours!"
But the last elements of the fight were already progressing as the exchange happened.
Focusing through her byakugan enhanced vision, she took the captured kunai and focused the field into something smaller. Anyone could magnetically stop metal projectiles
with the right training and elemental nature. And even repulse them away. With enough effort, they could turn the caught objects into guided missiles of their own.
However, for most people, the "Homing Bullet" spell and its relatives were more efficient for that purpose.
Most did not possess the byakugan.
Besides which, since her training was mostly the Ancient Belkan system in addition to her years of Jyuken study, it also meant it was one of her few ranged attack options.
Though Signum and Fate had indicated that Kleinhoffen's level three would give her ranged ability.
"Nadelkissen," Hinata whispered.
And the swarm of kunai lashed out to strike at the two that had thrown them at her.
One of the two found himself nailed a nearby tree, but the last vanished into smoke, revealing a log.
He appeared in Hinata's vision behind her almost immediately, already in position to slam a jyuken strike into her back. Hinata grimaced as she tried to get out of the way.
This is what she'd been trying to avoid the entire fight.
The palm strike landed and the chakra dispersed into her Knight Clothing. She felt the impact and the minute tearing, but the protective construct held solid, only faint signs of damage were visible as Hinata turned about and slashed through the last Hyuga bodyguard with Kleinhoffen.
The last bodyguard shuddered and fell forward.
"Hinata, this is just a practice!" Kurenai gasped as Gai rushed forward to check the man.
"He is fine," Gai said, turning the bodyguard over to reveal that though the clothing was torn, the flesh seemed only somewhat bruised.
"Devices and spells will only kill if the intent is there," Hinata explained as she sheathed Kleinhoffen and her Knight Clothing dissipated to reveal her normal lavender jacket and blue pants. "It is like a switch you can turn on or off, no more effort needed. Fighting to exhaustion is still dangerous, but it at least minimizes danger."
"That's useful for practice," Kurenai said, calming down. "You can go full out without worrying about serious injury. But you could have told me ahead of time."
"I'm sorry, sensei," Hinata nodded before focusing, with the byakugan she didn't need to turn her head, nervously toward her father.
He betrayed no visible emotion, but his chakra network and other slight signals told her byakugan that he was on the verge of a fury. He'd seen that she'd taken a jyuken blow to a normally vital spot and that it had done nothing of significant interest to her.
And barrier jackets were only the beginning, the most basic of protective spells available to mages and knights, even if most had weaker barrier jackets than she did.
In fact, she was sure a civilian mage would have been seriously injured by that jyuken, though not outright sent unconscious like she had the first bodyguard.
There were people like Sein and Subaru, the combat cyborgs whose chakra networks and internal organs had been enhanced and sometimes entirely replaced, making pure jyuken unreliable.
Or the Wolkenritter, who seemed somewhat unusual in their chakra network as well.
And that didn't begin to go into the other non-human things out there.
Then there was Captain Nanoha Takamachi, the White Devil.
Hinata's byakugan told her the woman was purely human, but sometimes she wondered if she was missing something.
No, jyuken and its principles were useful, wonderfully so, and formed the basis of several of her spells and tactics, but every opponent needed to be re-evaluated and the barrier jackets had to be broken or bypassed in many cases.
Pure jyuken was intended primarily for human to human combat not accounting for protective magics.
She should have told her father this herself, in private. But she'd been too...cowardly. And now she'd made it public.
Her father gestured angrily as his bodyguards were starting to be roused or freed and they quickly followed him as best as possible as he turned to walk away from the training field.
Hanging her head, Hinata started to turn back to where Naruto sat.
"You did awesome! Hinata-chan!" Naruto declared. "That was great."
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(Posted Tue, 31 May 2011 17:52)
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