Ino entered Ren’s apartment while happily humming. She was here to water his plants since he was on another mission. Not that he had a lot of them. She huffed. He was such a typical man. Even the collection of poisonous herbs she gave him for his birthday would wither in a week if Ino didn’t take it upon herself to properly care for it.

With a small fond sigh, Ino walked into Ren’s living room, only to freeze when she saw its contents. The furniture was pushed to the side all the way near the wall, and in the middle of the room was a single chair where Hinata sat while her clone was looming over her body.

Ino let out a horrified gasp. The real Hinata had a senbon sticking out of her temple, no doubt going all the way to the brain, which made Ino shudder at the realization.

Her wide open eye sockets were empty as thin streaks of blood trailed down her face, akin to bloody tears. From the corner of her eyes, Ino saw that Hinata’s Byakugan eyes were stored in a jar of liquid on the table near the wall.

“Oh, hello, Ino. You were not supposed to be here today.” Hinata airily said, not moving her head or ‘looking’ in Ino’s direction as her clone with activated Byakugan stuck its fingers deep into her empty left eye socket and was doing something…

Ino cringed so hard her head spun. Was she really operating on herself with her clone? Without notifying anybody? While she was fully conscious?

What the hell, Hinata!?

“Sage! What the hell are you doing!?” Ino shrieked, only her training preventing her from hyperventilating.

Her mind offhandedly registered that, yes, today was Hinata’s turn to water the plants, and Ino should not have been here. But that wasn’t important! What kind of madman just plucks out their eyes?

“Don’t worry, Ino.” Hinata’s calm voice interrupted Ino’s internal panic. “The senbon is blocking the pain. I don’t feel a thing.” She said, and Ino would believe her. Really. If only her freaking clone had not pulled out a… was that optic nerve in between her thumb and pointing finger? Oh, sage! Ino felt nauseous.

“That’s not…” She said while averting her eyes and taking a deep, calming breath. Okay, she can do this. She was smart enough to know she should never interrupt a medical ninja mid-operation. There was not much she could do here. She could only hope Hinata was skilled enough to not cripple herself.

“Alright. Fine. Whatever, you lunatic.” Ino muttered, loudly enough for Hinata to hear, as she walked toward chairs on the right side of the room and sat down.

It was the perfect vantage point to observe the ongoing operation, too. Not that Ino focused on it. She tried to look at Hinata’s hands in her lap. Her stomach was already turning from just side glances, and if she properly watched how Hinata’s clone’s fingers mucked around in the real Hinata’s eye sockets, she would probably puke.

“But tell me, why? Why are you even doing this?” Of course, she was a Yamanaka, and her curiosity didn’t let her just sit silently on the side.

“…” Hinata mumbled something under her nose, a small frown appearing on her lips.

It was quite a disquieting sight, and Ino’s mind instantly jumped to thinking how to incorporate it into genjutsu. Maybe a horde of eye-less girls chasing the victim, wanting to claw their eyes out for themselves?

Hmm, that would most likely not work for anybody chunin and higher. Still, food for thought. But later.

“What? I didn’t hear you.” Ino insistently asked, narrowing her eyes at Hinata. Surely, she had a proper reason to risk going blind.

“A kid told me that my Byakugan eyes were ugly.” Hinata sulkily said, and Ino’s brain almost froze as her eye started to twitch from annoyance.

“That’s it?” She asked in disbelief, giving Hinata, or rather, her clone who could actually see it, an intense ‘what the hell. Are you fucking crazy!?’ look. “Wait. Really? THAT’S IT!?”

“But what if Ren thinks the same?” Both Hinata and her clone said at the same time as they both cutely pouted while still focusing on the ongoing surgery.

“He doesn’t!” Ino erupted.

“He does!” Hinata said firmly, without raising her voice into a yell.

“How would you know!?” Ino exclaimed.

“I can see it with my eyes, duh!” The clone Hinata deadpanned.

“…” Ino had nothing to say to that. Her mouth opened, but only a short “Ah.” left it before she closed it and leaned back on the chair. Really, what was she supposed to say to that?

Silence spread through the room for a few seconds, only interrupted by wet crunchy noises as the clone… no. Ino decided she was not going to think about what the clone was doing. She looked away as the clone pulled out a senbon from her pouch and neared Hinata’s eye socket with it.

Nu-uh. Ino shivered.

“You don’t have to change yourself because of him. You know he likes you.” She faintly spoke, “Maybe even more than me.” She muttered under her nose in displeasure but quickly got back on track. “The look of active Byakugan is just freaky.” She briefly glanced at the clone and the veins around its eyes. “That’s normal. This… isn’t required, Hinata.”

Hinata obediently listened to Ino’s lecture, but when it was obvious that the blonde girl was done with the sermon, she huffed in amusement, only to get smacked on the shoulder by her scowling clone with a hiss of, “Stay still!”

Hinata gave her an apologetic smile before speaking to Ino again, “Right. That’s rich coming from you, Miss I no longer wear my hair in a ponytail because Ren prefers it unbound.” She would have rolled her eyes if she had them.

“That’s not the same, and you know it!”

“Isn’t it?”

“Hinata…” Ino whined. Did the pigheaded bitch really have to be so difficult? She knew that the medical ninjas were nutjobs. She had heard her father say it many times. They were the craziest bunch in the village.

But now she had witnessed it, and for the first time, she understood her father’s complaints. He wasn’t overstating it. If anything, he was downplaying their craziness!

Hinata sighed. “Don’t worry, Ino. I have everything under control. I’ll be done in a second.”

Realizing that Hinata was the expert here, Ino unhappily nodded before changing the topic. “How does it even work? This surgery?”

Clearly, conversing was not a hindrance to the surgery, or Hinata would have told her to shut up already. So, Ino didn’t intend to just observe in silence.

“It’s just adjusting my chakra pathways around my eyes.” Hinata said, as if she was describing something simple like one plus one to a particularly dumb kid.

Her clone distractedly continued, “I am not changing the eyes themselves. The reason why the veins bulge is that the natural pathways can’t handle the chakra flow pressure, so I am toughening them up.”

“Training helps with that,” The original Hinata admitted, “but no matter how much a Hyuga trains, the pathways are not built in a way to withstand the technique. There will always be bulging veins. I don’t like that, so I decided my pathways need some hands-on touch-up.”

Hearing them, Ino couldn’t help but give them a weirded-out expression, “Just how good are you at the medical ninjutsu, really? I doubt doing this is simple. If it was, every Hyuga would go for it.”

Byakugan eyes without the veins? Wouldn’t that be a game changer? Ino could already see it. The villages would start executing blind people with white eyes in fear of them being Hyuga spies.

But Hinata’s clone only scoffed, “As if any self-respecting Hyuga would let a medical ninja touch their precious eyes.”

The original Hinata hummed, “But yeah. I might lack experience, but I am reasonably sure I could compete with some of the best in Konoha. But only because I am cheating. I can actually see what I am doing to my body in extreme detail.”

“Seriously?”

Since the original had to stay still, the clone Hinata shrugged in her stead, “You have your elemental ninjutsu, and we have my medical ninjutsu.”

“Now, could you finally shut up? I don’t want to mess this next part up.” Hinata asked, not angrily but in a plain matter-of-fact tone that told Ino that the bluenette needed to focus right now.

Five more minutes passed in silence as Ino watched Hinata’s clone butcher the shit out of the original’s eye sockets before inserting her eyes back into their place and haphazardly pulling the senbon out of Hinata’s temple before healing the damage.

When it was finally over, Ino was pale white, and Hinata stood up with a refreshed smile on her face that slowly turned into a smug one full of pride while her eyes roamed the room wih wonder.

Ino blinked as a realization hit her. “Wait. Is your Byakugan…?”

Hinata looked at Ino, no veins bulging around her eyes. “Active. Yes. And my eyes no longer feel as if something was squeezing them.” She happily nodded, “Mhm. It only takes around a quarter of the chakra it did previously. That’s really good! I didn’t expect such a big improvement!”

She felt so overjoyed that she couldn’t help but to express it. She took her clone into an embrace, lifted her up from the floor, and spun around in sheer joy as the clone let out a girlish shriek before they both started heartily laughing as they collapsed on the ground while still hugging.

It was a surreal sight for Ino, how easily Hinata could switch from mad doctor to innocent girl. Sure, every ninja had their mental issues. She didn’t feel much about killing, for example.

But she thought Hinata’s mental hang-up would be something innocuous like dressing up puppies in sweaters or taking in stray cats.

Not… self-surgery that even the maddest medical ninjas would not have the balls to attempt.

Where did they go wrong with the girl?

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep