Chapter 57: The Grind Continues - 2

Chapter 57: The Grind Continues - 2

This time, she went for a full out offense.

She wasn't even close to mastering the Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms, but individual tenketsu were well within her ability to close one by one.

Chakra surging from two fingertips atop each hand, Hinata launched into a flurry of blows, aiming for his lower body, with his more muscular build, it was the hardest place for him to defend.

Yet...

With each strike, speeding, blurring strikes she could barely keep track of herself, she came up short.

Daiki backpedalled, dodged and deflected each and every strike, the most she managed, was a few glancing blows that never even came close to his tenketsu.

'This...' Hinata didn't know what to think.

But, she wasn't about to give up, she just had to-

Daiki caught her wrist on her next strike, apparently he was done just avoiding her blows.

She tried to break his grip and jump back, but he was much too strong for that and instead, with a jerk of his own wrist, pulled her bodily through the air towards him, a rising knee aiming for her stomach.

Two options flared instantly in her mind, defend, or attack.

She attacked.

She thrust out with her other hand, meeting the knee, two fingers hitting the tenketsu in his knee.

She heard bone crunch.

Agony flared through her fingers as the knee continued on, breaking her fingers on impact, before gagging as it slammed into her stomach.

Hinata was launched backwards through the air and slammed into a large tree, the blow winded her twice over, making it hard to breath, and the tree snapped from how hard she slammed into it and tumbled to the ground.

For a second, she lay there against the snapped tree trunk, slumped over it in a daze, trying to regain her ability to breath.

She shook herself from it quickly, ignoring the pain in her fingers and stomach, Hinata jabbed the pressure points over her airways, opening them up and allowing her to suck in more breath.

She gasped in great big lungful's of air and looked blearily at Daiki, he was rubbing at his knee where she cut off the flow of his chakra, and eyeing it with interest.

...The way he was staring at his knee though.

It was almost as if-

"So that's how the Gentle Fist works, I see." Daiki's eyes widened in some apparent realisation, and her eyes widened as a rushing, salmon coloured chakra seemed to rush from a point in his chest, spreading through his body briefly before disappearing entirely almost as if it was never there...

And suddenly, his chakra was flowing through the tenketsu on his knee once again.

What.

She was utterly exhausted and could barely move a muscle.

"You done much better today," Daiki praised her, stretching out his arms in front of her. Despite his praise, and his clothing being ruffled a bit and ripped in some parts, he looked completely fine and not exhausted at all, "And that's saying a lot considering how much stronger I've got since we last sparred and my new upgrades."

She managed a faint smile at his praise, "...It's thanks to you," Hinata admitted, "I wouldn't have improved this much if you didn't help me out before."

She was ever so grateful he had taken the time to do so. She was, almost astounded at her own progress, she actually managed to land a few hits on him, even with his new eyes.

And since then, she'd won much more spars against Kiba and Shino, and her losses to them were getting more rare as the days went on.

"You've not improved that much," Daiki shook his head, refuting her words, "You've always been this skilled more or less."

"No, I've not," Hinata refuted back, frowning lightly, that didn't make sense, "I wouldn't be doing this much better if I was-"

"It's not that," Daiki cut her off and sat down beside her, "You are getting better no doubt about it babe, but you've never been weak like you think you were. You're just applying what you've got better now that you have the confidence to do so."

"What do you mean?" Hinata's brows furrowed. That, didn't seem like it would make that big a difference.

Daiki shrugged, "Honestly, it's like, no amount of training will make you strong if you don't believe you can be strong, you need to believe you can actually do it, you just set yourself up for failure by letting your own doubts weigh you down," he explained, before waving his hand at her, "It's like your new look."

"...My look?" Hinata tilted her head. She was beginning to get a general gist of what he meant there, before he suddenly changed topics.

"Yeah, like, despite how hot you are, you were hiding away and shy about yourself, didn't believe in your own looks," he continued, then his eyes raked over her body and she found herself almost instinctively pressing her chest out, "See, like that. Now that you know how absurdly attractive you are and how dynamite your body is, you're not shying away and stepping right in. It's the same in a fight, if you don't believe in your ability to win, you shy away, flinch more, give up without giving your all. Because you're not doing that anymore, you feel like you've grown massively, when really you've been strong all along."

...So it was like that? It was the exact same. She hadn't gotten more beautiful, she was just not hiding anymore because she didn't feel the need to now that she knew.

So in the end, it really did all just come down to believing in herself and her worth.

She felt suddenly, as if a weight was lifting from her shoulders that she hadn't realised had been there. Despite her progress, she'd regretted it, how much time she'd wasted being weak...

But as it turned out, she'd never wasted her time at all. Her efforts actually meant something in the end.

"Anyway, enough about that," Daiki said, before suddenly grasping her by the shoulders and bodily turning her around, a yelp of surprise leaving her throat from the bold move, "Let me fix you up a bit, especially those fingers."

The boy reached out and gently grasped her hand, before lifting it up and making a single hand seal, green chakra flaring to life around his hands and being directed into her hand, focused around her fingers.

It was warm, and the pain began to numb away almost instantly. It was funny in a way, that someone like Daiki, who was so headstrong and bold, knew something as delicate as medical ninjutsu.

She then noticed where his eyes were directed and a small smile spread across her lips in amusement, her cheeks warming ever so slightly.

"Did...you need to turn me around like this?" Hinata asked, she was curious if he would try to hide it.

"Nope," he shrugged, not looking away from her chest, "I just wanted to have a look at your cleavage, none of the other girls in our class come close to having tits like these. Might not be for me in the end, but I can admire my own handiwork. right?"

As always, he was so very upfront.

"I don't mind." Hinata admitted, and she didn't at all. She actually quite liked his attention. Shallow it might have been, but Daiki was a strong, handsome boy himself.