"The girl in the mirror had a shapely figure and skin as white as snow. Her butt wasn't particularly perky, but her chest was impressive enough to make up for it." Even she was captivated by the sight, and Hyuga Natsu smiled with renewed confidence.
"Hmph. I'm not angry. I was only assigned to a different team. Brother Gen is definitely mine." Hyuga Natsu clenched her fist and said this to her reflection.
When she saw Hyuga Gen and his two teammates eating together yesterday, Hyuga Natsu hadn't gone over to bother them. She'd guessed that the other two were probably his teammates.
After all, the class assignments had been made yesterday, and plenty of people had gone out to eat together. She'd eaten with Yu Zhihui and her friends, and then, as she was leaving, she'd spotted Hyuga Gen.
Hyuga Natsu had sharp eyes. Even Zhihui hadn't noticed Hyuga Gen and his companions eating hot pot in the dining hall, since it had been quite crowded.
Today, when she saw Hyuga Gen and his two teammates taking a running test on the training field, Hyuga Natsu was certain they were on the same team.
Seeing Uchiha Izumi on the same team as her Brother Gen made Hyuga Natsu feel uncomfortable. She didn't know why she felt such hostility toward Uchiha Izumi. Was it a woman's sixth sense?
"Forget it. I'll go to sleep. I'll check on Brother Gen tomorrow," Hyuga Natsu decided.
She had faith in Hyuga Gen and thought the test would be a piece of cake for him. After all, Hyuga Natsu knew his abilities better than anyone.
Meanwhile, after taking a bath, Hyuga Gen was already lying in bed. Thinking back on the test, everything had gone more or less as he'd expected: in the end, all three of them had passed.
Before noon, he and Uchiha Izumi had completed the task as planned, so they'd earned two lunches. Then each of them had given half their food to Tōyama.
In the afternoon, Hyuga Gen had stuck by Tōyama the whole time, constantly cheering him on. He'd thought Might Guy would announce that they'd passed after he shared his food with Tōyama, but Guy hadn't said a word and had simply told them to keep running.
Without any instructions from Might Guy, the three of them had kept running. Eventually, Tōyama was so exhausted that he couldn't go on, so Hyuga Gen had to drag him along.
Watching them, Might Guy felt his earlier assessment of Hyuga Gen hadn't been entirely accurate. What could be more youthful than struggling and persevering while supporting a teammate?
They still hadn't finished the eighty thousand meters when night fell, so Might Guy finally called a halt. In truth, he'd already accepted them when they shared their food with Tōyama, but he'd wanted to see how much perseverance Hyuga Gen and the others had.
The result had surprised him. He hadn't expected them to keep going together for so long, and he couldn't help looking at the three of them in a new light. Hyuga Gen and Uchiha Izumi in particular had far more stamina than ordinary Genin.
"I'm exhausted. Good thing we get tomorrow off." They'd run for nearly the entire day, and in the end, Hyuga Gen had even pulled Tōyama along. His stamina was decent, but he was nearing his limit.
It was a relief that they had a day to rest. If they'd started taking missions tomorrow, Hyuga Gen thought he might not have been able to resist cursing Might Guy's family.
As for the day after that, they'd probably get some D-rank missions, like finding lost cats or dogs, or hauling water and pulling weeds. The main point would be to get familiar with how missions worked.
Hyuga Gen was curious. From Shippuden, it seemed like the first mission was usually to find a cat or a dog. He wondered why Konoha had so many missions to find lost pets.
"Forget it. That's not important. I've become a Genin, and Natsu is at the Main House looking after Hanabi, so she shouldn't be in much danger. I wonder how Yu Zhihui is doing. I'll ask Natsu tomorrow," Hyuga Gen thought.
Hyuga Gen didn't know what to think about Yu Zhihui. He felt that it wasn't ideal for a girl to become a ninja and fight. Helping her mother with the family business would be perfectly fine.
But she seemed determined to become a ninja. She wanted to grow stronger and become a powerful ninja so she could protect her mother.
The first time he'd met her, she'd shielded her mother with her small body. Hyuga Gen had admired her for that.
He figured she might have blamed herself for being powerless back then, which was why she was so determined to become stronger. Perhaps she'd wanted to become a powerful ninja ever since.
Still, as a ninja, she didn't seem to have many advantages. She was just an average person, and Hyuga Gen didn't think she was suited to being a ninja.
Her genjutsu was decent, but achieving much in that field was difficult. Take Yuhi Kurenai, for example. She hadn't become a Jonin until she was twenty-six, and she'd had her clan's legacy to draw on.
Yuhi Kurenai's father, Yuhi Shinku, was a genjutsu master whose techniques were nearly impossible to break. The Yuhi Clan had a pair of red eyes. Although it had never been explicitly stated that they were a Kekkei Genkai, it was reasonable to assume they greatly aided the use of genjutsu.
But Yu Zhihui was an ordinary person, and it would be incredibly difficult for her to achieve anything. Those who excelled at genjutsu almost always relied on their bloodline, like the Uchiha Clan's Sharingan.
Then there was the Kurama Clan, known as Konoha's strongest genjutsu users. They also possessed a unique Kekkei Genkai. But, like Kimimaro, they seemed to suffer from a bloodline disease, and their clan had fallen into decline.
Hyuga Gen had never believed that hard work alone guaranteed success. Without some talent, even putting in ninety-nine percent effort wouldn't help. In the end, you'd still be mediocre.
Even Might Guy had inherited the Eight Inner Gates from his father. He was also gifted in Taijutsu, and he was one of a kind in Konoha.
So, in Hyuga Gen's view, Yu Zhihui would end up as an ordinary ninja at best. Eventually, Hyuga Natsu would leave her far behind. No, she was already far behind.
Hyuga Natsu wasn't especially talented either, but at least she had the Byakugan, a Kekkei Genkai. With Hyuga Gen's careful guidance, it wouldn't be hard for her to become a Jonin.
There wasn't much Hyuga Gen could do to help Yu Zhihui. She wasn't from the Hyuga Clan, so he couldn't teach her most of what he knew the way he could teach Natsu.
Come to think of it, Hyuga Gen had taught Yu Zhihui a few things before, such as how to practice chakra control. He had no idea how she'd been doing with it.
Good chakra control let you get the most out of the smallest amount of chakra. If you had little chakra to begin with and didn't know how to control it, you could easily run out of chakra and die.
Of course, Hyuga Gen didn't feel he could say much. She wanted to become a powerful ninja, and that was her choice. He couldn't force her to give up on being a ninja. That clearly wasn't realistic.
He was still a little worried about her. Since she wasn't strong, he feared Yu Zhihui might die on a mission. He didn't want to see such a gentle, strong, and beautiful girl meet an untimely end.
Natsu would be heartbroken, and her mother would be even worse off.
After all, Hyuga Gen's livelihood depended entirely on the money he earned from Yu Zhihui's mother, Shuishu Ling. The impact on both of them if Yu Zhihui died was easy to imagine.
"Forget it. There's no point thinking about it so much. I'll ask Natsu tomorrow. Time to sleep." With that, Hyuga Gen slowly drifted off to sleep.
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