Hinata, Stop Pretending

At that moment, Itachi Uchiha suddenly turned around, his blood-red Three-Tomoe Sharingan looking directly in Hinata's direction.

The instant before Itachi Uchiha turned his head, Hinata immediately deactivated her Byakugan.

Over there, Kisame Hoshigaki asked, "What is it, Itachi?"

Itachi Uchiha shook his head coolly. "Nothing."

Only after deactivating her Byakugan and reopening her eyes did Hinata say, "They should be Itachi Uchiha and Kisame Hoshigaki from the Akatsuki Organization."

Hinata could have continued observing them to confirm it, but her battle instincts were sharp. In that instant, she had clearly sensed something.

If she had been even a little slower, she might have fallen victim to Itachi's Genjutsu, Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu, or more likely, some profound Genjutsu unique to the Sharingan.

Demonic Illusion: Binding Prick Technique.

Clearly, she had no desire to experience what Kakashi once had.

Of course, she might not necessarily have been caught—there was even only a slim possibility of it happening—but Hinata would never gamble on uncertainty.

Kurama Mutsu said, "Oh, old enemies. This is awkward, though. The ninja world is so vast, yet we happened to run into them at the same inn today."

"Though they say fate brings people together from afar, Shuoyue, what do we do?"

Hinata shook her head. Who the hell knew what to do? Her mind was a mess too; the situation was simply too hard to read.

And she had no intention of pretending to be profound. She complained outright, "How should I know?!"

Everyone fell silent. Running into such a ridiculously fucked-up coincidence was hard to process all at once.

Of course, being confused did not mean they feared the other side. If they really fought now, Hinata was actually quite confident that she could keep both of them here.

But there was no need for