Shy Venom

The mist, broken and thinning, clung to the forest in ragged shrouds, the last vestiges of Zabuza's oppressive presence dissolving into the damp air. The silence that followed the high-level battle was profound, broken only by the dripping of water from the leaves and the ragged, adrenaline-fueled panting of six genin who couldn't quite believe they were still alive. The immediate, suffocating threat was gone, but the echo of it remained, a humming vibration in the very soil beneath their feet.

Slowly, as if coming out of a trance, the two teams began to regroup in the small, puddle-strewn clearing. Kakashi and Kurenai stood side-by-side, their expressions a grim mixture of relief and deep, professional concern. They were alive, and their students were alive. That was the only victory that mattered in the moment, but the cost and the implications of the fight were already piling up.

The tension broke, as it often did, with a loud, exuberant whoop from Naruto.

"WE DID IT! WE TOTALLY DID IT!" he roared, pumping a fist in the air, his earlier terror completely forgotten and replaced by a tidal wave of pure, triumphant adrenaline. "Did you see that?! He was all like 'I'm the Demon of the Mist!' and we were all like 'No way, jerk!' and then BAM! Hah! We kicked his butt!"

"Heck yeah, we did!" Kiba chimed in instantly, his own fear burned away by the exhilarating high of battle. He scooped Akamaru from his jacket and held him up. "Did you see us, Akamaru?! Fang over Fang! Those water clones didn't know what hit 'em! We were a whirlwind of furry death!"

Sakura, her hands still trembling slightly, managed a shaky but genuine smile. "Sasuke-kun, you were amazing! That fireball jutsu… it was incredible!"

Sasuke, for his part, simple gave a curt "Hn," turning away to wipe a smear of dirt from his- cheek. But there was a new, dangerous light in his eyes. He had faced a legendary opponent, had been paralyzed by fear, and had overcome it. It was a benchmark, a taste of the power he needed to acquire, and he was already dissecting every second of the fight in his mind, analyzing his own performance with a cold, critical eye. Shino, ever the stoic, simply pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, his kikaichu bugs buzzing softly under his collar as they returned to him, a silent testament to his own quiet, effective contribution.

Then Naruto, in his victory-fueled excitement, spun around, his bright blue eyes landing on the one person who had been the linchpin of their entire improbable victory.

"And Hinata!" he yelled, pointing at her with so much energy it was a miracle his finger didn't fly off. "Hinata, you were… WHOA! You were like, something else! You were so quiet and then all of a sudden it was like, FWOOSH! And these black pointy things came out, and you were just BAM! And then with Zabuza, you went right up to him and—and—POW! What was that?! Was that your new summon?! It's the coolest thing I've ever seen! Can it talk?! Does it like ramen?!"

His barrage of loud, goofy, and utterly sincere questions struck Hinata with more force than any of Zabuza's attacks. Her combat focus, the cold serenity Venom provided, evaporated instantly, replaced by the familiar, mortifying heat of a full-body blush. All eyes were on her. She instinctively looked down, her fingers twisting together in a gesture of classic, flustered panic.

"I-it… um… th-thank you, Naruto-kun," she stammered, her voice barely a whisper. "It w-was…"

...It was magnificent! Venom's voice boomed in her head, a symphony of smug, predatory pride. ...Tell the orange one his assessment is correct. Tell him we are, indeed, the coolest thing he has ever seen. Demand tribute! More chocolate is required to fuel this level of awesome! Speak up, partner! Let them hear the voice of their savior!...

Prodded by the symbiote's insistent ego, and by the simple, earnest expectation in Naruto's eyes, she tried to speak again, to give a proper answer. "It's my… my partner. And he…"

As she spoke, she felt a strange, deep vibration in her chest and vocal cords, a resonant thrum that was not her own. The symbiote, wanting its host to be heard and respected, gave her voice a little… boost. The words came out not as her usual timid whisper, but with an unnerving, resonant depth, a harmonized echo of her own voice and something ancient and powerful.

"...Is not to be trifled with."

The doubled voice, though quiet, cut through the clearing with absolute authority. It startled everyone, including Hinata herself. She clapped a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide with shock. Kiba jumped back. Naruto's jaw dropped. Sakura's eyes widened. Even Sasuke's carefully constructed indifference cracked, his head snapping around to stare at her with naked disbelief.

Kurenai and Kakashi exchanged a long, meaningful look over the heads of their students. This was far more than a simple summoning contract. What was residing within their quietest, most unassuming genin was something else entirely. Something alien. Something that was actively, physically merging with its host.

Sasuke's mind was racing. That voice. That power. He had watched her move. It wasn't just the Gentle Fist. It was something more, something faster, more brutal. She had absorbed and redirected attacks with an ease that defied physics. She hadn't just defeated Zabuza's clones; she had annihilated them. And her final attack on the man himself… Sasuke had seen the shockwave. He had felt the impact from twenty feet away. The shy, stammering girl he had dismissed as irrelevant was now, without question, a rival. A benchmark. And that was both infuriating and… invigorating.

Sakura watched Sasuke watching Hinata, and a complicated knot of emotions tightened in her stomach. Awe, at Hinata's undeniable power. Gratitude, because that power had almost certainly saved them all. And a hot, sharp pang of jealousy that was as potent as any poison. Hinata had become strong, confident… and she had captured the attention of the two boys Sakura cared about most, for entirely different reasons.

Unaware of the complex political and emotional shockwaves she was causing, Hinata simply wished the ground would swallow her whole. The walk to Tazuna's home was an exercise in awkward silence. The earlier bravado was gone, replaced by a new, uncertain dynamic. Naruto kept opening his mouth to ask Hinata another thousand questions, then closing it again, intimidated for perhaps the first time in his life. Kiba walked with a new, much quieter respect. And Sasuke and Sakura were lost in their own conflicted thoughts.

Finally, they emerged from the woods into a village shrouded in poverty and fear. The houses were dilapidated, the people gaunt and hollow-eyed, scurrying into their homes as they saw the shinobi approaching. The sight of their despair was a sobering reminder of what was truly at stake.

Tazuna, his face etched with a deep weariness, led them to his modest but well-kept home. "It's not much, but it's safe," he said, his voice heavy. His daughter, Tsunami, a kind-faced woman with worry in her eyes, greeted them at the door. And behind her, peeking from the doorway, was a small, defiant-looking boy with a cap. His eyes, full of a cynical anger that was too old for his young face, glared at the shinobi as if they were another symptom of the disease that plagued his home. This was Inari, Tazuna's grandson.

As Tsunami ushered them inside, offering them tea and what little food she had, the adrenaline of the battle finally wore off, leaving behind a profound, bone-deep exhaustion. The genin collapsed onto the floor, the aches and bruises from the fight making themselves known. The immediate threat of Zabuza was gone. But as they sat in the quiet, humble home of the bridge builder, surrounded by the crushing poverty of his village and the silent, accusatory glare of his grandson, they knew the real battle for the Land of Waves had only just begun.

The large, low table in the main room was laden with steaming bowls of rice and a simple, yet fragrant, fish stew. For a village on the brink of starvation, it was a generous feast, and the genin, their own formidable appetites stoked by battle, fell upon it with a unified fervor. Naruto, predictably, inhaled his first bowl in a matter of seconds, loudly demanding another. Kiba was a whirlwind of motion, somehow managing to eat and boast at the same time. Even Sasuke ate with a quiet, focused intensity, replenishing the energy he had expended.

But none of them could compare to Hinata.

She sat, her posture still impeccably straight, and consumed food with an efficiency that was both terrifying and mesmerizing. Her first bowl of rice and stew vanished. Then a second. A third. She ate everything Tsunami offered, from the last of the pickled vegetables to an extra portion of grilled fish, her chopsticks moving with a steady, relentless rhythm. There was no sign of bloating, no slowing down, just a quiet, methodical fueling of the raging furnace within her.

"Whoa, Hinata, you're eating even more than I am!" Naruto exclaimed, his mouth full of rice, gesturing with his chopsticks. "That's amazing! Where does it all go? You're like a bottomless pit! Are all Hyuuga like that, or is it just your summon being super hungry?"

"It's just her," Kiba grunted, eyeing her performance with a mixture of awe and professional respect for her sheer eating prowess. "I've never seen anything like it."

Sakura watched with a thinly veiled look of distaste and envy. How could one girl eat so much and still have a figure like… that? It was unnatural. Sasuke merely shot a quick, analytical glance her way, another piece of data to be added to the growing file on the enigma that was Hinata Hyuuga.

Hinata's cheeks flushed a bright crimson at the attention. "The fight… it took a lot of energy," she mumbled, her gaze fixed on her bowl. "I need to replenish it."

...Indeed. And this meager offering is barely an appetizer. The fish is adequate, rich in oils, but the true prize would be the fat old man himself. So much blubber. So much potential energy... Venom grumbled in her mind.

It was as she was meticulously cleaning her fourth bowl of rice that she felt it again, a sensation she had been trying to ignore for days. Her tongue. While her teammates were distracted by Naruto trying to steal a piece of Sasuke's fish, Hinata subtly ran her tongue over the roof of her mouth. The feeling was bizarre. It felt… larger. Thicker. And the surface was all wrong. It wasn't the familiar, soft texture she had known her whole life. It felt impossibly complex, lined with microscopic, shifting ridges and grooves that seemed to map the inside of her mouth with a shocking, alien detail. It was like having a highly advanced sensory organ where a simple tongue should be.

She swallowed hard, the lump of rice suddenly feeling like gravel in her throat. While no one was looking, she extended the very tip of her tongue to touch her lips, and a jolt of shock went through her. It was longer. Not grotesquely so, not yet, but undeniably longer than it had been before the mission. She could feel the texture of her own lips with a clarity that was unnerving.

...A necessary upgrade, Venom stated calmly in her mind, noticing her alarm. ...Enhanced gustatory sensors for improved nutritional analysis. And the added length and dexterity will have... other applications. For intimidation. And... communication.

Hinata nearly choked. The sheer, unadulterated audacity of the creature living inside her was sometimes more shocking than any physical transformation. She quickly finished her bowl, her appetite suddenly spoiled by a fresh wave of horrified self-awareness. She needed to see. She needed to look in a mirror, to confirm what she was feeling, to understand the true extent of this latest, intimate violation.

As Tsunami began clearing the table, Hinata saw her chance. She stood, giving a polite, stiff bow. "Thank you very much for the meal, Tsunami-san. It was delicious. If you'll excuse me… I need to… meditate on the day's events."

It was a plausible excuse for a Hyuuga, and no one questioned it. As the others began to settle in for the night, their conversations turning to guard rotations and the looming threat of Zabuza's return, Hinata slipped away down a short hallway, her heart hammering in her chest. She found what she was looking for: a small, washroom with a tiny, cracked mirror hanging over a basin of water. It wasn't much, but it would be enough. She slid the door shut, plunging the small room into near darkness, and took a deep, shuddering breath, preparing herself for what she was about to see.

The small room was cramped and smelled of damp wood and antiseptic soap. The mirror was old, the silvering flaked away at the edges, offering a distorted, fractured reflection. It was fitting. She felt like a fractured person. Taking a shaky breath that fogged the glass for a moment, she leaned in closer, her heart hammering against her ribs. With a profound sense of dread, she slowly, hesitantly, opened her mouth.

At first, it just looked… normal. But as her eyes adjusted to the dim light filtering under the door, the changes became horrifyingly apparent. Her tongue was a deeper, healthier pink than she remembered, but it was the length that made her stomach clench. It was undeniably longer, resting further back in her mouth than should be physically possible. Trembling, she dared to extend it.

It uncoiled with an unnatural, almost prehensile grace. It slid past her lips, then past her chin, the tip flickering in the air with a reptilian quickness. It wasn't a grotesque, monstrous appendage, but it was fundamentally, shockingly wrong. She pulled it back in and, with a morbid curiosity she couldn't suppress, ran it over her teeth. The surface, the part that had felt so strange before, was covered in a complex, almost fractal pattern of tiny taste buds and pressure sensors, a living landscape of sensory input. It was a predator's tongue. A tool built for analysis and manipulation.

...The upgrades are functioning within optimal parameters, Venom's voice stated in her mind, its tone that of a proud engineer admiring his handiwork. ...The increased length and dexterity provide a 73% improvement in reach for nutrient acquisition and close-quarters intimidation. And, of course, a 98% increase in potential for stimulating a mate's nerve endings. We are very… thorough… in our design.

A hot flush of pure mortification shot through Hinata, so intense it made her dizzy. She stumbled back from the mirror, her hand flying to her mouth as if to keep the offending organ contained. "Be-be quiet!" she hissed into the empty room, her voice trembling.

It was then she noticed the other change. Her own whispered words hung in the air for a fraction of a second too long, imbued with that same, subtle resonance she'd heard before. It was a faint, almost imperceptible echo, as if two voices were speaking at once, perfectly synchronized. It was the sound of her own voice, but richer, deeper, with an undertone of impossible ancientness.

Forgetting her horror over her tongue for a moment, she leaned back towards the mirror, intrigued despite herself. "A… Ah…" she tested, letting the sound out. It was her voice, but it had a new quality, a fullness and command that it had always lacked. She tried humming a simple scale. Each note was perfect, resonant, and held a strange power. She found, to her surprise, that she… liked it. Her voice had always been a source of shame—too quiet, too hesitant. Now, it had presence. It had… weight.

A wave of alien confidence, a bleed-over from her partner's unshakeable ego, washed through her. What else could it do? She closed her eyes, focusing on the feeling of the vibrations in her chest. She let out a low, humming sound, and then, without consciously deciding to, she added a slight guttural catch to it. The result was a sound that she had never made before, a low, rumbling, perfectly modulated purr that seemed to vibrate in the very air of the tiny room. It was deeply, shockingly sensual.

The sound was so foreign, yet so… satisfying. A flicker of pleasure, raw and primal, shot through her. Where did that come from? Emboldened, she pushed it further. She let out a soft, breathy gasp, and the sound that emerged was not one of fear, but of pure, unadulterated pleasure, amplified and enriched by that strange, resonant quality. It was a sound that could captivate. A sound that could… arouse.

The boldness was a drug. She felt a reckless urge to see how far it could go. She leaned forward, her eyes fluttering shut, her lips parting slightly. She imagined a feeling—a touch, a caress—and let the corresponding sound escape.

"Ahhhnnn…~"

The moan was low, long, and resonant, a sound of absolute, soul-deep ecstasy, imbued with an impossible, supernatural allure. It was the most beautiful and obscene sound she had ever heard.

And it shattered her confidence like glass. Her eyes snapped open, wide with pure, undiluted horror at what she had just done, at the sound that had just come from her own throat. The heat of her blush was so intense it was painful. Her boldness evaporated, leaving her trembling and utterly, completely humiliated.

…Vocal cord enhancements are also functioning perfectly, Venom commented, its tone dripping with smug approval. ...A most successful test. We will have to practice the higher frequencies later.

That was it. With a strangled squeak of sheer panic, Hinata yanked the door open and fled from the washroom as if the devil himself were on her heels, leaving the echo of her own monstrous, beautiful voice lingering in the dark.

The next morning found the eight shinobi gathered in a sun-dappled clearing a short distance from Tazuna's home. The mood was somber, the boisterous energy of the previous day replaced by the grim reality of their situation. Kakashi, leaning against a tree with Zabuza's massive blade slung across his back, addressed the genin, his single visible eye sharp and serious.

"Zabuza is almost certainly alive," he stated bluntly, leaving no room for false hope. "The shinobi who carried him away was a Hunter-nin from the Hidden Mist, likely one of his own accomplices. Their specialty is disposing of bodies on-site to protect village secrets. The fact that he took Zabuza's body means he was trying to save him, not destroy him. He'll need at least a week to recover. But he'll be back. And he won't be alone."

Kurenai stepped forward, her expression equally stern. "Your performance yesterday was admirable, but you relied on adrenaline and brute force. Zabuza now knows what you can do. He will adapt. To face him again, you can't just be stronger; you need to be smarter. You need better control. Which is why your training begins now."

She and Kakashi led them deeper into the forest, stopping in a grove of colossal, ancient trees that scraped the sky. Kakashi walked up to one of the giant trunks without breaking stride. He took a step onto it, then another, and then simply kept walking, his feet sticking to the bark as he climbed parallel to the ground, his hands casually tucked in his pockets. He walked all the way up to a thick branch fifty feet above them and then hung upside down from it, giving them a lazy wave.

"The exercise is simple," he called down, his voice muffled by his mask. "You're going to learn to walk up trees."

Naruto and Kiba stared, their jaws hanging open. Sakura's eyes widened with understanding, while Sasuke's narrowed in intense concentration.

"This is an exercise in advanced chakra control," Kurenai explained from the ground. "The principle is to focus a small, constant amount of chakra to the soles of your feet. Too little, and you'll fall. Too much," she gestured to a deep gouge in the tree trunk next to her, "and you blast the tree away, and yourself with it. You need to find the perfect, continuous balance. It is the foundation for many more powerful jutsu."

"So we just… walk?" Naruto asked, looking unconvinced.

"We just walk," Kakashi confirmed. He dropped from the branch, landing silently on his feet. "Now, take a kunai and mark your highest point. Ready? Go."

The clearing instantly became a chaotic scene of competitive energy. Naruto, Sasuke, and Kiba charged at their chosen trees with reckless abandon.

"YEAH! First one to the top is the strongest!" Naruto yelled. He took two steps up the trunk, then a third, before an explosive burst of chakra sent him flying backward to land in an undignified heap.

"Idiot," Sasuke muttered. He focused, channeling his chakra, and made it a respectable ten feet up before his concentration wavered, and he too slid back down, leaving a trail of scratched bark.

Kiba was even less successful, his aggressive nature causing him to pump far too much power into his feet. He took one step, which blasted a chunk of bark clean off the tree, and was thrown into a nearby bush.

Shino, in his typical fashion, approached the task with methodical calm. He stood at the base of his tree, his hand pressed against it, his eyes closed as his insects likely gave him feedback on the chakra distribution. He took a single, careful step, then another, making slow but steady progress.

Then there was Sakura. With her precise, book-smart understanding of chakra, she found the balance almost immediately. She took a breath, focused, and walked calmly up the tree, passing Sasuke's mark, then Naruto's, until she was standing triumphantly on a branch twenty feet up. "So, this is all it is?" she called down, trying and failing to hide the smug satisfaction in her voice.

"Excellent, Sakura," Kakashi praised. "It seems you have the best chakra control in the group."

But they were all wrong. Hinata had stood back, watching the others. She felt Venom analyzing the flow of chakra, cross-referencing it with the physical data of the tree's surface.

...This is trivial, the symbiote commented. ...It is a simple matter of modulating energy output in response to gravitational pull and surface adhesion. We can calculate the precise requirement. Allow me...

Hinata didn't feel like she was doing anything. She just willed herself to walk, and her partner handled the rest. A perfect, microscopic, continuous stream of chakra flowed to her feet, adjusted a thousand times a second by the alien supercomputer living in her cells. She took a step. Then another. She walked past Kiba's blast mark, past Sasuke's scratch, past Sakura's triumphant perch. She kept going, her steps as calm and steady as if she were walking on a flat road, all the way to the very top of the colossal tree. She stood on the highest branch, the wind gently rustling her hair, and looked down at the shocked faces of her teammates hundreds of feet below.

The boys stared up, their mouths agape. Their frantic competition had been rendered utterly meaningless in the face of her quiet, absolute success.

"No… WAY!" Naruto yelled, his voice a mixture of awe and outrage. "How'd you do that, Hinata?! You were even faster than Sakura!"

Kakashi and Kurenai stared, equally stunned. They knew she was powerful, but this level of control was… unprecedented. It was flawless.

"Well," Kurenai said, recovering first, a proud smile on her face. "It seems we have two prodigies. Sakura, Hinata, good work. But don't get complacent. Mastering it means you can do it without thinking. I want both of you to keep climbing up and down until it's second nature."

Back on the ground, the boys' frustration was palpable. Naruto, his competitive spirit burning brighter than ever, stomped over to where Sakura had just landed. "Okay, Sakura-chan, what's the secret? You gotta tell me!"

"Me too!" Kiba chimed in, jogging over, his pride taking a backseat to his desire to win. "How are you girls doing it?!"

Hinata landed a moment later, as silent as a falling leaf. Naruto and Kiba immediately rounded on her, their faces a mixture of awe and desperate curiosity.

Sakura, happy to be the expert, puffed out her chest. "It's about precise control," she explained, lecturing them like a sensei. "You have to concentrate and push a steady amount of chakra out. Not too much, not too little. You have to maintain the flow perfectly."

Naruto scratched his head, looking more confused than ever. "Yeah, but how?" He turned to Hinata. "What about you, Hinata? What's your tip?"

All eyes were on her again. She couldn't tell them she had a hyper-advanced alien symbiote doing all the math for her. She had to translate what she felt into words. "I… It's not about… pushing," she said, her voice quiet but carrying that new, faint resonance. "You don't… force it. You have to… listen. Feel the tree. Feel your chakra. And then… you ask them to hold onto each other."

Her explanation was more poetry than instruction, and it left Naruto and Kiba looking completely baffled. But Sasuke, leaning against his own tree and listening from a distance, felt a flicker of understanding. It wasn't about mechanics. It was about instinct. And as he looked at Hinata, at the quiet calm in her lilac eyes, he realized she possessed an instinct he couldn't yet comprehend.

The sun began its slow descent, painting the sky in fiery strokes of orange and purple. The forest floor grew darker, the long shadows of the giant trees stretching like grasping fingers. For hours, Sakura and Hinata had been running drills, their movements becoming fluid and automatic. They raced up and down the massive trunks, sometimes passing each other with a nod of shared, weary accomplishment. The initial smugness on Sakura's part had faded, replaced by a grudging respect for Hinata's seemingly limitless stamina. The boys, meanwhile, had continued their own stubborn assault on the laws of physics.

Finally, with the sky turning a deep indigo, Kakashi's voice cut through the evening air. "Alright, that's enough for today."

Sakura and Hinata gracefully descended their trees for the last time. They found Kakashi and Kurenai standing with Tazuna's crew as they packed up their tools from the base of the massive, half-finished bridge. The two jounin had been standing guard, their senses extended, watching for any sign of Zabuza's return.

"Good work, you two," Kurenai said with an approving smile. "You've more than earned your rest. Head back to Tazuna's. We'll be along shortly."

As the two girls walked back towards the small village, the sounds of frustrated grunts and the occasional explosive thud from the training clearing faded behind them. At the house, they found Tsunami preparing a simple dinner. Without needing to be asked, they both pitched in. Sakura used her knowledge of herbs to help season the stew, while Hinata, with a quiet efficiency that was becoming her trademark, helped chop vegetables and set the table. It was a moment of calm, domestic teamwork, a stark contrast to the high-stakes tension of their mission.

Night had completely fallen by the time the boys returned. They stumbled through the door, one after another, looking like they had been simultaneously mauled by a bear and dragged through a thorny hedge. They were covered in scrapes, bruises, and dirt, their clothes were torn, and they were panting with an exhaustion that went bone-deep. But on each of their faces was a wide, triumphant, ear-to-ear grin.

"We… did it…" Naruto gasped, before collapsing onto the floor in a heap. "Every… single one of us… made it to the top."

Kiba flopped down next to him, equally spent but just as jubilant. "My tree… had more splinters than yours," he declared, as if it were a badge of honor. Sasuke leaned against the doorframe, trying to look cool and unaffected, but the triumphant gleam in his eyes and the faint smile playing on his lips betrayed his pride.

A few moments later, Kakashi and Kurenai entered, their guard shift over. They took in the scene—the two exhausted girls resting after a day of diligent practice, the three victorious but battered boys sprawled on the floor, and the quiet, unassuming Shino, who looked as if he had merely gone for a pleasant evening stroll.

Congratulations," Kakashi said, his eye curving into a smile. "You pushed yourselves, and you all succeeded. You're one step closer to being ready for what's coming."

"Get some rest," Kurenai added, her tone warm but with an underlying firmness. "Because tomorrow, the training gets harder."

The air had a sharp, salty bite to it the following morning. The sky was a vast, clear blue, but the water of the channel was a deep, cold grey, chopping with a brisk wind. The eight shinobi stood on the shore near the base of the bridge, the immense, skeletal structure looming over them. The genin, still sore from the previous day's exertions, looked at the frigid, turbulent water with a sense of trepidation.

"Alright," Kakashi began, his tone deceptively cheerful. "Yesterday, you learned to control a constant flow of chakra to a single point. Today, we're going to take it a step further. You're not just going to control the flow; you're going to control it on a constantly shifting surface."

He and Kurenai walked to the edge of the water. Without a word, they both stepped onto the choppy surface and simply… stood there, bobbing gently with the waves as if they were standing on solid ground.

"Your next exercise," Kurenai announced, crossing her arms, "is water walking."

"ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!" Naruto and Kiba yelled in unison, their voices echoing across the water.

"The principle is the same as tree walking," Kakashi explained, ignoring their outburst. "But the execution is much more difficult. The water is constantly moving, so you have to continuously readjust your chakra output to match it. It requires a higher level of concentration and a much finer degree of control. Fall in, and you'll know your balance was off." He gestured to the icy-looking water. "And trust me, you don't want to fall in. It's freezing."

The challenge was set. Driven by a competitive fire that even the prospect of hypothermia couldn't extinguish, the genin lined up at the water's edge.

"Last one to walk on water is a rotten egg!" Naruto declared, and charged forward. He took one wobbly, miraculous step on the surface, then promptly shrieked as his foot plunged through, the rest of his body following into the bone-chilling depths with a loud splash.

One by one, they tried and failed spectacularly. Kiba, overconfident, tried to power through it and sank like a stone, coming up sputtering and cursing. Sasuke, ever the prodigy, managed three steps before a wave shifted beneath him, breaking his focus and sending him into the frigid water. Sakura, despite her good control, found the constantly changing surface too difficult to manage and fell in with a surprised yelp. Shino simply walked forward, sank immediately, and then calmly waded back to shore, his expression unreadable.

They emerged, shivering and drenched, their teeth chattering, glaring at the water as if it had personally betrayed them.

Hinata took a deep breath. She could feel the icy spray on her face. She took a step. And fell in.

The cold was a physical shock, a gasp-inducing slap that stole the air from her lungs. She scrambled back to shore, her body trembling uncontrollably.

...The surface tension is unstable. The required energy output fluctuates by a factor of twelve every second... Venom's voice was a calm stream of data in her mind, completely unfazed by the miserable cold. ...We have completed the calculations. The host's attempt was flawed due to a miscalculation of thermal dynamics affecting chakra flow. This time, we will compensate. Try again.

Trusting her partner implicitly, Hinata walked back to the edge of the water. She ignored the stares of her shivering teammates. She closed her eyes, took a breath, and stepped onto the waves. This time, her foot held. She took another step, then another. She opened her eyes and found herself standing calmly on the surface of the roiling water, her feet anchored by a perfect, constantly self-adjusting flow of chakra.

Once again, a stunned silence fell over the group. Naruto, who was in the middle of wringing out his jacket, just stopped and stared, his jaw on the ground. Sasuke's eyes widened, a flicker of pure disbelief crossing his face. Sakura simply couldn't comprehend it. Hinata had failed once, just like them, and then on her very next try, she had achieved perfection.

It was as she stood there, the center of everyone's shocked attention, that Hinata became acutely aware of something else. Her new, form-fitting combat clothes, now completely saturated with icy salt water, were clinging to every single one of her 'upgraded' curves. The thin, black fabric of her top was practically see-through, leaving absolutely nothing to the imagination. She was, for all intents and purposes, exposed.

Naruto's dumbfounded stare slowly drifted downwards, followed by Kiba's, then Sasuke's. Their expressions shifted from shock to a wide-eyed, hormonally-charged confusion. A blush of such epic, nuclear proportions erupted across Hinata's face that it practically generated its own heat, creating a small cloud of steam around her.

With a terrified squeak that was pure, classic Hinata, she did the only thing her panic-addled brain could think of. She ran.

She took off across the water, her feet a blur, kicking up a spray behind her like a high-speed motorboat. She didn't have a destination; she just ran, desperate to put as much distance as possible between herself and the eight pairs of staring eyes. In seconds, she was a distant speck on the horizon.

She returned ten minutes later, having run a full circuit around the bay. She walked meekly back to the shore, her face still a shade of deep crimson, refusing to meet anyone's eyes.

Kurenai was waiting for her, her lips pressed together to suppress a smile. "Congratulations on mastering the technique, Hinata," she said, her voice laced with amusement. Then she added, a bit more sternly, "But a shinobi never flees a training ground without permission."

"I-I'm sorry, Kurenai-sensei," Hinata mumbled to her feet.

"It's fine," Kurenai sighed, ruffling her student's damp hair. "Now that you have the basics, your task is to build stamina. I want you to keep running. Laps. Around the entire construction site. Do not stop until I tell you to."

As Hinata nodded and took off again, a blur of motion across the water's surface, the rest of the genin converged.

"Hinata, wait!" Naruto yelled, before realizing she couldn't hear him. He turned to Sakura, who had just waded out of the water again. "Okay, no offense, Sakura-chan, but your advice didn't work! We need the real secret!"

Kiba nodded vigorously, his teeth chattering. "Yeah! What did she say? 'Ask the tree?' This is water! We need better tips!"

Sakura, feeling her position as the resident chakra-control expert slipping away, looked both frustrated and curious. She turned to where Hinata was now a distant figure, gracefully striding across the waves. How was she doing it? What was her secret?

Hinata, sensing the shift in mood from her distant vantage point, paused in her laps and ran back toward them, stopping a dozen feet from shore. She looked at their eager, frustrated, shivering faces and felt a pang of sympathy.

"You… you can't just use your chakra to push down," she explained, her voice finding that new, steady resonance. "The water is… it's alive. It pushes back. You have to make your chakra like the water. Let it flow. Let it move with the waves, not against them. Don't… don't try to control the water. Just ask it to hold you up. And then… listen for its answer."

Her words were still more mystical than practical, but this time, framed by her impossible demonstration, they struck a different chord. Not as a riddle, but as a deeper kind of truth about the nature of chakra itself. And as the genin stood there, soaking wet and freezing, they began to try again, not with force, but with a new, grudging respect for the quiet poetry of control.