Chapter 20: Return To The Grind 11

Chapter 20: Return To The Grind 11

Two of her fingers lashed out, aiming for his shoulder, but were easily avoided, he stepped into her guard and Hinata's eyes widened as his knee flashed up.

She tried to jump back, but he was too fast for her to retreat from, and could only bring one of her arms up to block it feebly.

Her arm bone rattled from the force and Hinata grimaced as she was sent flying back through the air. She slammed into the ground hard on her back and lay there for a moment, panting deeply and staring up at the sun that had properly risen now.

...He was so strong.

'Daiki-san is absolutely ruthless.' she thought idly. Was he different back in the academy? She remembered he kept to himself mostly, but he fought tooth and nail during spars, though she couldn't remember him having this same...edge to him.

It wasn't really a bother, her father was rougher on her when he forced her to spar with him anyway. The debut release of this chapter happened at Ñòv€l-B1n.

'What am I even doing here?' Hinata wondered. It had all happened so fast, Daiki had found her watching over Naruto-kun, he'd caught on to her feelings...easily, as if they were as plain as day, hammered in that she wasn't good enough for Naruto-kun, a fact she already well knew, and then just dragged her off to train with him.

That was three hours ago.

For a full two and a half hours, Daiki had ran through physical conditioning, and she'd noticed he was wearing weights of some kind. He'd made her join in as well...but not before making her take off her jacket, leaving her in just her mesh shirt, and forcing her to keep her byakugan activated constantly.

She'd only managed a fraction of the amount of exercises Daiki did and that was without weights.

Though, she still didn't understand fully what he meant by 'the grind'. She assumed it had something to do with training, especially because he kept paraphrasing the words 'gains', which obviously was some form of slang for gaining more strength.

"Looks like you're done now though," he mused, and sat down beside her, "Well, three hours of conditioning and sparring isn't bad, I doubt Sakura or Ino could last even a third as long as you, so good on you I suppose."

...Yet, despite the fact that he was sweating quite noticeably, Daiki looked like he was still raring to go, and that was while wearing those weights of his.

Still, a small rush of pride ran through her at his light praise. It may have been petty of her, but she felt good at being praised at being better at something than Sakura-san, the girl who held all of Naruto-kun's attention.

Too bad, his plan would never work. He was missing one crucial thing that seemed to fly over his head in regards to her.

"...I...understand what you're trying to do," Hinata pushed herself up into a sitting position beside him, "But it won't work."

"Pretty sure it will." he refuted confidently, without hesitation.

How she wished she could have that same confidence he seemed to have. She envied that.

She giggled lightly, "...It won't," she still had to insist, "Thank you for trying, it does mean a lot, but, you can't be confident in something that has no worth. My body isn't as attractive as Sakura-san's, so there's no way I can compete with her for Naruto-kun's affection." she had made her peace with that back in the Academy, she knew she would never get Naruto-kun to herself, but she still couldn't resist watching over him training, never giving up and trying to emulate that, he inspired her to keep going.

Still, it meant a lot that Daiki was trying to help her regardless, even though he blatantly pointed out himself how impossible it was for her to achieve what she wanted.