Chapter 416: Morning Exercise
The next morning, when Sasuke went for his morning run, he coincidentally met two girls—Haruno Sakura and Hinata, both wearing small tank tops and shorts, also on their morning run.
"Morning, Hinata, Sakura." He caught up and greeted them.
"Good morning, Sasuke." The Byakugan girl replied energetically.
"Morning." Haruno Sakura's response seemed a bit lacking in energy. "We are on the sixteenth lap. Did you just start?"
"Hn." Sasuke nodded and glanced at the girl who was panting slightly. Seeing the tiny beads of sweat oozing out from under her nose, and contrasting it with Hinata who looked like she hadn't even warmed up and couldn't sweat yet, he understood. Ninja specializing in taijutsu indeed had extraordinary stamina.
However, Sakura's physical fitness was also considered quite good. A ninja's morning run wasn't a leisurely morning exercise; it was high-speed running with long strides. A taijutsu expert like Lee could run twenty laps around Konoha at Usain Bolt's speed without panting. Ninja who were constantly strengthened by chakra all year round were a group of supermen in the eyes of ordinary people.
"By the way, Sakura, did you finish your mission report? The three-thousand-word one."
"Hehe," mentioning this made Sakura feel... phantom pains in non-existent balls. She laughed awkwardly, "Barely finished. Haven't written anything for so many years, I don't know how to write anymore!"
She had too much fun soaking in the hot spring last night and only remembered about the report very late.
The key point was that later when chatting about Hinata substituting for Haruno Sakura's class, Ino said something like, "A punch is just a punch, does such a simple thing need to be taught for days? I don't really understand you taijutsu users."
For a long-range secret technique ninja like Ino, the secret of taijutsu was combining waist and stance, clean movements, and adding some chakra to increase the power of the fist. There was nothing profound left. If taijutsu was scored out of one hundred, Ino would get at most seventy points, which was a lower-middle level among female ninja. Compared to Hinata, she was definitely a poor student, couldn't be rated higher.
Hinata, who was mocked by the poor student, was very unconvinced and insisted on explaining the essence of taijutsu movements to Ino—and then she pulled Ino ashore stark naked to demonstrate.
"I say, can you guys put on clothes before talking?" Haruno Sakura was really quite speechless. Although the scene wasn't unsightly—on the contrary, the scene of two girls with fair skin, beautiful faces, slender waists, beautiful eyes, and perfect figures posing generously in front of you was truly beautiful, and there were only the four of them here—Haruno Sakura still felt a huge visual impact...
"If we wear clothes, you can't see the muscle movements clearly." Hinata waved her hand nonchalantly, then said to Ino, "The true secret of taijutsu is not as superficial as you think! The difficulty of taijutsu lies in precisely controlling the movement of every muscle, making them form a combined force, thereby making punches and kicks faster, stronger, and more accurate!"
"Let me give you a good remedial lesson. Listen well, Ino-Pig! The human body has a total of 639 muscles and 6 billion muscle fibers. A basic straight punch might just be a simple waist twist and fist extension for you, but when a brilliant taijutsu expert punches, they will mobilize more than 80% of the muscles in the whole body to assist in generating force! From toes, arches to calves, thighs, then hips, waist, shoulders, and finally the arm punches! Such a fist can easily produce several times the power of your simple punch!"
While speaking, Hinata demonstrated two punching methods.
In contrast, Ino's punching method was obviously soft and lacking power; on the contrary, when Hinata punched seriously, the fist wind roared. When punching at high speed, the air seemed to turn into a wall punched through by the girl, with a sharp whistling sound, quite imposing.
Ino watched seriously, speechless for a moment. She realized she had really underestimated the profoundness of taijutsu; as a traditional girl with little interest in strength and fighting, Ino had never cared much about training. At most, she seriously completed the cultivation of the family secret techniques. As for taijutsu training that would cause a smelly sweat, she avoided it if possible, which was why she made a fool of herself in front of Hinata.
Of course, on the other hand, although the knowledge Hinata explained was not the Hyuga family's untransmittable secret, it was not elementary knowledge that could be learned in the Ninja Academy; in fact, the Yamanaka clan specialized in Yin Release secret techniques, so their understanding of taijutsu might really not be as much as a little girl like Hinata. As for Ino clearly having so many powerful friends but not learning a few moves from them, that was her own problem.
"Whether it's Strong Fist or Gentle Fist, both emphasize force originating from the root. Generating force from the sole of the foot is very important, so let me start from foot force generation." Hinata lifted the sole of her foot to show everyone. She assumed an awkward posture and continued, "The little toe generally doesn't participate in generating force. The muscles involved with it and the fourth toe are involuntary muscles, hard to control by will, so beginners don't need to worry about it."
"So you only need to learn to generate force with the first three toes. This mainly involves the movement of two muscles, scientifically named extensor digitorum brevis and extensor hallucis brevis. Watch my movement..."
Haruno Sakura couldn't hear clearly what Hinata said next. Although Hinata's posture was a bit impolite, the inelegant movement attracted more attention... uh, cough cough... anyway, her attention could no longer focus on Hinata's words...
In short, when she remembered she still had a report to write, it was already midnight with bright stars and a high hanging full moon.
Then when she rushed home and finished writing the report overnight, it was almost dawn—you know, she was no longer the man who updated fifteen thousand words a day in her previous life!
Fortunately, staying up for a small part of the night was nothing to Haruno Sakura.
Sasuke didn't think much about it. He also struggled quite a bit writing those three thousand words. Seeing Sakura, who always acted like a top student, with the same toothache expression, he instantly felt much more psychologically balanced.
Haruno Sakura finished her morning exercise after running a few more laps with Hinata. The pink-haired girl went home to take a shower, casually tied up her wet hair, and went straight to the Hokage Building.
When she arrived at the Hokage's office, Sasuke happened to be handing in his mission report too.
Tsunade took Sakura's report scroll, not in a hurry to read it, and casually placed it on the shelf aside: "Just in time, Sakura. I just received a letter for you."
"My letter?" Haruno Sakura was stunned, but soon realized that only Naruto would write to her these days. She took it and saw it was indeed a letter from Naruto, written on several full pages, accompanied by a very valuable powerful sealing scroll.
Haruno Sakura smiled faintly. Just as she unfolded the letter to read, Sasuke leaned over, craning his neck to peek: "What did Naruto say to you? Written on three whole pages?"
"None of your business..." Sakura glared at him grumpily, elbowing his chest away; then she caught a glimpse of the letter in Sasuke's hand being only one short page, and immediately chuckled—yes, the "hehe" kind of chuckle.
That's right, he must be jealous that she received more concern from Naruto!
Tsk tsk, what a dangerous sign, Sasuke.
Sasuke felt creeped out by Haruno Sakura's inexplicable gaze.
"Alright, you two, don't block the office and hinder others. Go outside if you want to read letters." Tsunade waved her hand to signal the two to scram, "By the way, a reminder, Sakura, pay attention to protective measures when opening the scroll."
"Huh?" Haruno Sakura was stunned for a moment.
When walking out of the office, she had already guessed a bit about what was in the scroll.
"I'm going to train, see you later!" The girl said eagerly, disappearing outside the Hokage Building's door the moment she waved.
"Such a hurry, could it be..." Sasuke looked in the direction she disappeared, lost in thought.
Congratulations to the French team for winning the championship!
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