Hinata could not bring herself to accept this ninja world.
Even as a transmigrator who happened to have watched the anime, even with near-encyclopedic knowledge of the original characters' personalities, she still couldn't find her place in it.
So she regarded everything in this world—every blade of grass, every tree, every single person—with an undisguisable sense of rejection.
She could keep up the act on the surface, mimicking the old Hinata. But in front of Naruto and Sasuke—the two who'd already seen her true colors—the mask was far harder to maintain. Because deep down, the very need to pretend made her furious.
This garbage worldbuilding! This asinine power structure! This melodramatic cast of characters!
And that record-setting parade of flashbacks within flashbacks, reminiscences within reminiscences—dragging on for over a decade with the main plot barely half-finished!
These grievances had been festering nonstop since her arrival in this world.
She'd been a spectator watching from the outside—and now she'd been dragged onto the stage of this ridiculous play! The whole thing was a goddamn joke!!
The branch groaned beneath Hinata's feet as she launched herself forward. Slightly winded, she finally slowed her pace. At her current top sprint speed, she'd covered the considerable distance from the Ninja Academy to the remote waterfall in just under ten minutes.
And as if on cue, an arm burst from the pool below, clawing at the rocky bank to haul its owner ashore.
Naruto's body shook uncontrollably. Being hammered into the pool from a hundred-meter waterfall was a full-body beating—visible swelling puffed out his frame in every direction, with livid bruises standing out clearly on his arms and cheeks.
This idiot! He actually went and did it—!
One look at the scene and Naruto's battered state, and Hinata understood exactly what had happened. The blond moron she despised so thoroughly had actually jumped the waterfall. He'd simply chosen this location instead of a bare cliff. And the result was self-evident: inevitable failure, leaving him with at minimum mild internal injuries plus full-body swelling. There wasn't a spot on him that didn't hurt.
But just as Hinata moved to leap down and demand an explanation from the fool, her feet locked in place.
Right. She had no grounds to scold him. Because that was simply who he was. No matter how many people laughed at him, shunned him, or outright despised him, he refused to stop—grinding forward with clenched teeth until, in the end, he truly became the greatest shinobi this village had ever produced.
"Tch!!"
She spat in disgust, wheeled around, and sprinted toward a different destination. Somewhere in the Uchiha compound, there was another idiot cut from the exact same cloth.
She found Sasuke soon enough. Through the Byakugan's penetrating vision, the interior of the room lay bare—the ramshackle battery-bank electric chair, and Sasuke himself gasping in great heaving breaths. The agony of the electrical shock had left the Uchiha clan's second son feeling as though even his bones were on fire.
An electric chair on this end, huh? The method looks ridiculous, but the commitment is just as insane.
Hinata was no longer surprised by Sasuke's determination. If that blond moron Naruto had gone to near-suicidal lengths, then it was hardly shocking that his rival—his counterpart—would match him stride for stride.
But that uncomfortable gnawing in her chest sharpened once again.
Yes, Hinata had deceived Sasuke and Naruto. But that wasn't what angered her.
What enraged her was this: these two had pushed harder than she'd predicted. Or rather—harder than she herself had pushed.
It was as if: she, the almighty transmigrator from the real world, had actually been outdone in sheer effort by two pixel-rendered characters from a secondary dimension??
Hinata had believed her own efforts were beyond what anyone else could achieve. Just as she'd said—over these two and a half months, her life had been the word "pain" made manifest.
Her ten fingers—connected to the heart by nerves that made every fracture agony—broken over and over under her brutal training, then boiled and restored in scalding medicinal baths. That kind of suffering couldn't be captured in words. It was precisely because she bore this pain that her heart could maintain its current strength and coldness.
Pain did bring unimaginable torment. But it also conferred unimaginable power.
Because she believed her suffering exceeded everyone else's, she could stand taller and more unyielding before them. And the effort required to earn that suffering was what demonstrated a person's value and strength.
Now, Hinata saw it with perfect clarity: Naruto and Sasuke were surpassing her in effort, blazing forward on the path of pain and growth.
"What a joke... You think I'll lose to the two of you?"
She let out a cold laugh under her breath and turned away from the Uchiha district. The fury inside her was almost uncontrollable. Was this hateful world trying to prove that her suffering and effort weren't unique—that they were something anyone could match? That her pain and her struggle amounted to nothing?
Interesting! Let's see if these so-called protagonists can actually keep it up!
The raging fire within didn't rob Hinata of her reason—it sharpened her thinking. Instead of returning to the Ninja Academy, she headed straight for the Nara Pharmacy where she always bought her ingredients. With Shikamaru still in class, the one minding the shop was his father, Nara Shikaku.
"Oh my~ If it isn't Miss Hinata. What are you doing out at this hour? Shouldn't you be in class?"
Shikaku, a toothpick dangling from his lips, was obviously well acquainted with Hinata by now. Despite the pointed remark, he followed up attentively: "Hurt yourself again and need medicine?"
"Ah~ Sorry, Mr. Shikaku. I need to place an order for some herbal preparations."
Producing her wallet, Hinata got straight to business: "One set of medicine for electrical burns, one for promoting blood circulation and reducing bruising, and lastly... one for treating regular burns."
Like most pharmacies, the Nara shop offered a compounding service—preparing finished medicinal decoctions from raw ingredients. Not everyone had the time or patience to brew their own herbs, so the shop could prepare ready-made decoctions for a fee.
"Huh? Miss Hinata, did someone in your family get hurt? These three decoctions are doable, but..."
Shikaku was visibly surprised. In the past, Hinata's purchases had always been for her own use. Now she was ordering three different preparations at once—unusual, to say the least.
"As long as you can prepare them, that's all I need. I'm leaving the money here. I'll pick them up tonight."
In no mood for small talk, Hinata left the pharmacy. What she needed to do now was something else entirely.
With adequate funds, everything became simpler. Within half an hour, she had what she needed—nothing extravagant. Just a large furnace and a cartload of charcoal.
"Hmph~ Let's see who can keep up the longest."
Reaching into the ninja tool pouch at the small of her back, Hinata produced a scroll. The characters on it read "Nanto Flame Slaughter Fist"—without question, the third Nanto Holy Fist scroll she'd bullshitted into existence, the one she'd kept for herself.
At the time, she'd had zero intention of actually practicing something she knew was fabricated. But now... she wanted very much to see which of the three of them—her, Naruto, Sasuke—would be the first to break under these training methods she'd pulled out of thin air.
She poured the glowing coals from the furnace onto the grass before her, then casually tossed the scroll into the still-blazing furnace. The manual was something she'd made up; the method was already burned into her memory.
"Nanto Flame Slaughter Fist Training Method: Walk in a handstand across red-hot coals until your palms can no longer be burned."
Staring at the roughly five-meter stretch of glowing coals laid out before her, Hinata's lip curled in a contemptuous sneer. "Interesting. This looks like it might be even more fun than the Explosive Point."
She shrugged off her jacket and tossed it aside. One deep breath. Then she planted her hands on the ground and kicked up into a handstand. The scorching heat radiating from the coals was palpable—hot enough to cook raw meat, hot enough to serve as the heat source for a grill. Putting human hands on that would be the cruelest form of burning torture ever devised.
"Let's try it! This pain!"
Biting down on her lip, Hinata concentrated every scrap of chakra she had into her palms—and slammed them down onto the burning coals.
The sun dipped slowly below the horizon. It had been a peaceful day in Konoha; the villagers hadn't noticed anything unusual. If pressed, they might have said it felt slightly warmer than usual.
Naruto hobbled home leaning on a stick, barely able to put one foot in front of the other. After a full day of attempts at the waterfall, he'd never once cleared the gap. After being battered into the pool over and over, he could barely feel his body anymore—just a pervasive numbness.
"Phew... Man, but I'm not giving up..."
Muttering encouragement to himself, Naruto rounded a corner—and stopped. Someone was waiting.
Hinata leaned against the utility pole outside Naruto's building, her expression frigid. Her face had a faintly ashen tinge, and both hands were wrapped tightly in bandages. At her feet sat three paper bags, giving off the bitter scent of herbal medicine.
"Hinata? What are you doing here?"
Scratching his head sheepishly, Naruto was genuinely embarrassed. He'd boasted about being the first to master the Holy Fist, and now Hinata had caught him looking like this—beat to hell after training.
Hinata pushed off the pole, arms uncrossing, and walked up to Naruto with cold deliberation. Just as the blond boy stood there at a loss, the pale-eyed girl drove her right knee upward—hard—straight into Naruto's gut. Already barely on his feet, Naruto let out a pained grunt and crumpled. He tried to get up but couldn't manage it right away.
"What the hell, Hinata!"
Watching Naruto glare up at her from the ground, Hinata's eyes glinted with unmistakable contempt. Did this question even need asking?
"Hitting you, obviously. Can't you tell?"
She crouched down and seized Naruto's head with a bandaged hand, her voice grinding between clenched teeth: "Look at my hands!! These are the scars from training the Flame Slaughter Fist!! You think you can outdo me in effort?!"
"Shut up~! I've been busting my ass training the Wind Martyrdom Fist too! I'll definitely master it! And become Hokage!"
Roaring back at the pale-eyed girl, Naruto's defiance was exactly what Hinata had expected. The blond dead-last was like that—too stubborn to quit until he'd hit rock bottom and then some.
"Hmph! Fine!"
Releasing his hair, Hinata walked back to the three paper bags and picked one up. The decoctions were the ones she'd ordered from the Nara Pharmacy. Premium base ingredients meant the medicinal potency was guaranteed.
"This is internal medicine for promoting blood flow and reducing bruising. Drink every drop tonight! The effect will guarantee you can resume training tomorrow!"
She tossed the bag at Naruto's feet. Still staring blankly, the boy watched as Hinata turned on her heel and added one vicious parting shot:
"So that when you lose to me, you can't blame it on me not playing fair!"
Without a backward glance at Naruto's stunned expression, Hinata snatched up the remaining two bags and left. Besides her own burn medicine, there was still a bag of electrical-burn treatment to deliver to that blockhead Sasuke.
Yes. This was exactly how it would be.
She would keep the playing field level. And then she'd make them understand, crystal clear:
No one's effort could surpass hers.
From start to finish, the two of them were nothing but cowards propped up by birthright and plot armor.
With that conviction blazing in her mind, Hinata bared a savage grin.
Staking her pride and her dignity—she would settle this with those two brats once and for all!
To see who could reach the top on effort alone!