Chapter 76: A Breakthrough of the Mind

When Hinata woke up the next morning, she felt like she had never slept so well in her life. She still had her eyes closed while lazily shifting around in her bed when she suddenly touched something. Her eyes immediately opened in surprise and as soon as they did, Hinata saw Yuna’s face right in front of her. Yuna’s eyes were still closed and she was clearly still sleeping.

It took Hinata’s brain quite a while to reboot properly, but when it did, a goofy smile appeared on her face.

‘Hehe, Yuna said she loves me and we even kissed. Doesn’t that mean we are d-dating now? Hehe.’

Hinata observed Yuna’s sleeping face and her gaze involuntarily got stuck on her mouth. Hinata couldn’t help but lick her lips a little.

‘I-It’s fine, right? We are dating, after all. So, there is no problem, right?’

Hinata approached Yuna’s face with her own and gave her a light kiss on the lips.

‘Hehe, so nice~’

Hinata noticed that Yuna was slowly waking up, so she pretended to still be asleep. As soon as Hinata closed her eyes, Yuna’s eyes opened.

‘This little girl is quite bold. How curious.’

Yuna slightly shook Hinata awake and moments later, Hinata opened her eyes. She was just about to say something when Yuna approached her and gave a kiss.

“Good morning, Hinata.”

Although Hinata was slightly flustered, she still gave Yuna a happy smile and answered her.

“Good morning, Yuna.”

They spend a few more minutes simply lazing around in bed before they decided to get up. Yuna considered suggesting to shower together but decided against it.

‘I should save that suggestion for when there actually is a chance that she says yes.’

A few minutes later, Yuna and Hinata entered the living room. The moment they entered, Naruto, who was already sitting inside, immediately noticed that something was different.

“Good morning. Did something good happen, Hinata? You seem especially happy today.”

Although Hinata blushed slightly when Naruto saw through her so easily, she still held her head high and grabbed Yuna’s hand.

“Yuna and I are d-dating now.”

Hinata expected all kinds of reactions from Naruto, but what she didn’t expect, was for him to give her a happy smile.

“Haha, that’s good. So you finally confessed, Hinata.”

At first, Hinata was completely confused by Naruto’s reaction, but then she noticed something else.

‘Wait a moment. Naruto almost let it slip a few times that I like Yuna. If Naruto could find out about it, wouldn’t that mean…’

Hinata turned her head towards Yuna and completely froze up.

Yuna had a wide smile on her face that didn’t manage to hide the mischief that was blatantly visible on her face.

“N-no way you knew?”

Hinata couldn’t help but feel a little betrayed. Yuna, however, only shrugged her shoulders.

“I always excelled at reading people, Hinata. You know that yourself. I wanted you to make the first step for yourself. You always admired me, but I am not interested in a one-sided relationship like that, so I waited. Every day, your confidence grew and so did your feelings. You changed from “I admire her” to “I want to stand beside her”. Only after you made the first step in our relationship yourself could anything meaningful come out of it. If I made the first step, you would have always thought that I, yet again, took pity in you, wouldn’t you?’

Although Hinata wanted to deny it, she couldn’t. She imagined multiple times that Yuna was the one to approach her first, but every time she did, she felt like something was missing. Like something was wrong. Now that she was the one who made the first step, she knew what it was. Now that she was the one to approach Yuna on her own, she no longer felt like she was just following Yuna around like a lost puppy. She was finally standing beside her instead of just chasing after her. Although their respective strengths were still very far apart, Hinata couldn’t help but feel like they could finally stand together as equals.

Yuna also felt Hinata’s shift in mood and couldn’t help but be surprised.

‘I already expected it when I picked her up all those years ago and she learned a new combat style within weeks, but she is quite the monster, huh?’

[What do you mean? I can feel that something is different about her, but I can’t really tell what it is.]

‘A breakthrough of the mind. So far, Hinata has always been following my instructions no questions asked. If I told her to do something during training, she would do it exactly as I told her to. She would never experiment or try out different methods. The end result of that would be that she would become strong, but no matter what she did, her progress would have always been tied to my own.

Now, however, she discarded that mindset. She no longer wants to follow me. She wants to stand next to me as an equal. She realized that just following my instruction isn’t enough to reach that goal. In other words…’

For a split second, a crazy smile appeared on Yuna’s face just to disappear just as fast.

‘…Thinks are about to get interesting.’

Before Yuna could elaborate what she meant, Haku entered the room.

“Good morning, Yuna-sama, Naruto, and I assume Hinata-san.”

The moment Hinata saw a beautiful girl enter the room, she immediately raised her guard.

‘No way! Who is that? Has Yuna already picked up some members for her harem? Even if I am not the first to join it, I am still the one who knew Yuna first. I won’t lose to anyone!’

Hinata immediately grabbed Yuna’s arm and pressed it between her breast without noticing.

‘Oh, nice. They are quite soft. I approve!’

“Well, well, Hinata. Calm down for now. That is Haku. She is a mercenary that I hired that can use ice jutsu, which is pretty much the reason why I hired her. She usually pretends to be male in front of others to get rid of annoying individuals, but she is actually female.”

Although Haku was annoyed at Yuna for revealing her secret this easily, she simply decided to nod her head and answer.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Haku.”

“Nice to meet you as well…”

Hinata dragged Yuna even closer to herself.

“…I am Yuna’s girlfriend, Hinata”

Hinata put extra emphasis on “girlfriend”, but Haku only nodded in acknowledgment without any other reaction. Hinata was slightly relieved when she noticed that Haku didn’t show any reaction, but as soon as their introduction finished, someone banged on the door.

“Yuna, it’s me, Anko! You promised you would help me with “it”, so open up!”

The defenses that Hinata had just lowered rose up again.

‘No way! Another one!? But she is probably like Haku, right?’

“Come on, Yuna. After you seduced me like this, there is no way I cannot take your offer!”

Hinata, immediately, got ready to intervene when she heard that.

‘There might be more than one in the future, but I won’t lose my spot as number one easily!’

While witnessing the scene of carnage in front of her, Yuna couldn’t help but chuckle.

‘Isn’t this nice, Kurama? I really missed having my harem quarrel over me~’

“I won’t hand over my position as number one that easily!”

“Gahaha, little girl, who are you? I saw her first, get lost! She is mine!”

[I am not sure this can be considered a quarrel…]

‘Haha, don’t worry about it, Kurama. This is normal.’

“I won’t go down this easy: [Water Style: Water Spear Domain].”

“Hahaha, show me what you got: [Many Hidden Shadow Snake Hands]”

Powerful explosions echoed out again and again while Yuna had a fond smile on her face. It was good that Yuna has already placed all kinds of seals around the area, otherwise, this place would have probably been flooded with ANBU by now. Like this, Hinata and Anko could finish their argument in peace.

While all of that was happening, Naruto was sitting at the table inside the living room while calmly sipping his tea. He was currently practicing a secret technique Kurama taught him. At first, he was rather skeptical about it, but now he could see its worth.

[Male Progenitor Secret Art: Zoning Out While Nodding At The Right Time].

Even Yuna herself seemed to have forgotten about his presence while using this technique, so Naruto, naturally approved of it.