Why Hinata can easily defeat Sakura
“Sakura can punch the ground and the mountains will kill her like it did to the Juubi Clones”
Nope. This attack is not as sure-fire as people want to believe. We saw that Sakura first needs to build momentum by jumping super high and then falling down to punch the ground.
Last I recall, Ninjas can only increase the height of their jumps with Chakra, while they simply end up falling at normal, real-life speed. Shown above, Naruto was left completely defenseless when falling, needing to be saved by Sasuke. As is the case, this would give Hinata ample enough time to intercept Sakura while she is falling down and blast her with an Air Palm in mid-air, ending the momentum she’d need to create this technique and damaging her organs.
Not only that, but plenty, PLENTY of Juubi Clones survived the attack, nearly killing Sakura due to her not being able to see through the dust cloud that followed. Considering Hinata survived a point-black Almighty Push, a few rocks and stones will not be enough to knock her out completely.
Hinata also has the alternative option of simply avoiding the attack like any sane ninja would by jumping. Here, we see the Juubi fire its Juubi Bomb at Naruto, Bee, Gai and Kakashi. We see that Naruto is front-center, Kakasho/Gai behind and to his right, and Bee behind to his left, and all are facing towards the Juubi.
Here, we see the dust cloud created by the attack is to the right of Naruto, evidenced by Kakashi and Gai’s presence.
As such, the panel below means that the red is Naruto, the blue is Kakashi/Gai, and the yellow is Bee.
And what we see next is Hinata, Ino, and other shinobi falling down from the sky, despite not being present in the previous panel at all, meaning that they were at least some 40 to 50 M in the air. Then there’s the fact that Ino took control of the Juubi for some 2 seconds, so that’s likely an addition 10 m or so considering they’d still be falling while she was doing so. Meaning her mountain crushing attack can be avoided by literally ANYONE.
Take into consideration her Byakugan, which will allow her to see through the dust cloud, and Sakura will only be putting herself in a bad situation with this technique as it does nothing but work to Hinata’s advantage.
“Yin Seal can open Chakra Points”
Then there’s the question of whether or not the Yin Seal can actually undo chakra points being blocked, and given how we’ve never seen the Yin Seal do this, I’m not inclined to believe it can, especially with plenty of evidence against it.
But let’s say Sakura CAN unblock chakra points, for arguments sake, I still find this an irrelevant point. The whole method to the 64 Palms is that, once the user lands one hit, they attack with such rapid jabs that they manage to land 64 precise strikes within a second or 2. So once Hinata has blocked 64 of her points, she’ll be fatigued.
One has to remember that during the Chunnin Exams, Neji was not fighting with the intent to kill Naruto, as he was constantly telling him to forfeit (much like how he did with Hinata). If Neji was fighting with the intent to kill Naruto, he would have finished him off right after he used the 64 palms on him, as Naruto still needed actual time to form the hand seals and have Nine Tails Chakra start flowing through his body to release the points, which was only made possible by Neji going easy on him.
Assuming a blood lusted battle, Hinata would be far more wary with Sakura and not give her an opportunity to undo the points unlike how Neji did with Naruto out of ignorance. The events of the Chunnin Exams will not repeat with Hinata. She WON’T wait around like Neji did with Naruto and allow Sakura time to release her Yin Seal, and with 64 of her points blocked, she won’t be able to use chakra to make some distance between them, she won’t be able to run away or smash the ground to buy time, so Hinata can just inject Chakra into her brain while she’s momentarily had her Chakra restricted and finish her off.
But the truth is, there is far more evidence to suggest Yin Seal would be unable to undo the Chakra Points being blocked. First off, during his training to control the Kyuubi’s chakra, Jiriaya specifically points out that Naruto has two different “types” of Chakra in him, with Naruto, Hiruzen, and Hiashi also all pointing out the TYPE of chakra Naruto was using rather than it being a sealed Chakra source.
Lastly, the biggest proof of all that the Yin Seal can’t open Chakra Points is nothing but manga scans.
Kidomaru is hit by Neji’s Gentle Fist attack, right after which he points out that he can’t channel his chakra anymore, hence his Chakra was stopped by Gentle Fist, and in turn, we see his Curse Seal fade away as a result of this. Yin Seal would work the same way, being sealed off as soon as even ONE of Sakura’s Chakra points is closed.
“Sakura is faster, she dodged Kaguya’s Arm”
Dodging something massive from multiple meters away isn’t the same as dodging multiple small strikes (64 Palms) at point blank. In a hand to hand fight, the former would not be relevant at all. A person dodging a car wouldn’t prove that that their reaction to close-range punches in a fist fight would be better.
As I said above, the arm that attacked Sakura is many meters away. When one of Naruto’s clones is hit by it, we can see that he is roughly the same size as the finger’s first part, and considering that scale, it is very VERY apparent that Sakura is at least some 30 m away from the hand when it moves towards her, yet even with such a great distance, she barely manages to react instead needing to be saved.
One shouldn’t bank on this Kaguya Chakra Arm argument anyways. May I remind you that Kyuubi got blitzed by Form 1 Juubi, saying that it was super fast.
Yet Hinata and the Akamichi were all able to react to the Form 2 Juubi’s arms just fine.
What does this tell us? It re-enforces what I said above; that reacting to an attack from a distance is not the same as reacting to a close-ranged barrage of 64 strikes. Of course, the Form 2 Juubi is not as strong as The 10 Tailed Rabbit Form, but that is not relevant, since I am not comparing power levels, and just the fact that dodging distant attacks=/= dodging point blank attacks. And before anyone pipes in, no Kyuubi Cloaks don’t enhance reflexes, only power.
So who really IS faster? Sakura or Hinata. The answer is obviously Hinata, based on the following.
More Chakra = Better Reflexes & Speed
With Sakura, we see that, when she is attempting to revive the fallen Naruto, she specifically points out her Chakra levels are super low, despite already having the Yin Seal, forcing her to go from using the Mystic Palm Technique to simply attempting CPR.
Yet, later, we still see her use a massive amount of Chakra to help save Sasuke. This means that, despite her Chakra levels being greater than a Rikudo Naruto Shadow Clone’s levels, Sakura does not have access to ALL of the Chakra in her seal whenever she pleases, akin to how Naruto does not have access to all the Chakra of the Nine Tails in Part 1, though she can still transfer it to others, likely because, like Madara with Kaguya, her body is unable to handle so much Chakra actually being in her system and instead she must rely on extracting small amounts from the seal, amounts that she herself can actually handle.
Thus, Yin Seal does not affect her speed.
Also, Sakura and Hinata ended up running out of Chakra at the exact same time, yet Hinata was on the battle field for 48 hours straight, in arguably the most chaotic area of the war due to the Zetsus, while Sakura was chilling in the medic corps tents. This is also another indication of her superior Chakra levels.
Of course, there is a far better and more direct comparison of Sakura and Hinata’s Chakra levels in The Last. We see Hinata recover Naruto’s drained Chakra pool within an instant, not even showing any signs of fatigue either, while Sakura takes three whole days to do so with every ounce of her Chakra, whereupon she is so exhausted to the point that she’s forced to lie down herself. Sure, you can argue that Naruto was completely unconscious with Sakura while he was merely on his knees with Hinata, but that doesn’t change the MASSIVE difference in the time and the resulting fatigue of both girls, which is non-existent in Hinata’s case.
nd Hinata has Rikudo Chakra at her disposal now, and we know that stuff is highly potent and powerful, so there would be a massive boost to her power and speed. Of course, one may argue that we never see Hinata actually use this Chakra for anything beyond mixing it with Twin Lion Fists, but here is where the beautiful concept of common sense kicks in.
We don’t need proof for Fugaku’s Sharingan being able to use precognition, because we know all Sharingans can do this. We don’t need proof that Hinata’s Byakugan has a blind spot because we know all Byakugan have it. We don’t need proof that Dai can use all the other Gates below the 8th, because we know anyone who can use the 8th can use all the others. We don’t need proof that Sasuke’s Rennigan can use the Six Paths techniques, because we know all Rennigan can do this.
Likewise, we don’t need proof to argue that Hinata’s Rikudo Chakra increased her stats, because we know for a fact that Rikudo Chakra itself will increase the stats of however uses it, as we’ve seen with Naruto, Sasuke, and Kakashi. Common sense.
With this chakra, outside of higher stamina and speed, Hinata would easily be able to replicate the effects of her Kyuubi Air Palm, which sent a Tailed-Beast Sized hand flying instantly. If Hinata were to use such a powerful attack on Sakura, she would be knocked away, causing her to collide with whatever environmental objects or buildings that may be around, in turn causing her to get knocked out and pass out, as we see that Sakura is very poor at tanking blunt force like the Air Palm.
However, let’s assume that even with her canonical better reflexes (details below), Rikudo Chakra, and larger Chakra pool, Hinata is still somehow slower than Sakura. Will this allow Sakura to win? Still no, because the Byakugan can deal with speedy opponents just fine.
Here we see Kakashi with his Sharingan activated in order to keep up with Lee’s movements, and we also see Neji doing the same. Obviously, this means the reason he has his Byakugan activated is to also be able to keep up with Lee.
Later, we see another example of this with Hinata when Obito becomes the Ten Tails Jinchuriki. The transformation is seen twice, one normally, and one through Hinata’s eyes.
Notice how in Hinata’s vision, there are far more panels used to display Obito sealing the Juubi? This indicates that Hinata too was using the Byakugan’s ability to keep track of high-speed movement, allowing her to see the Juubi being sealed away in detail. Moreover, Hinata notes that there were at least two ways she was able to tell the Juubi was absorbed by Obito, as she says “Judging by the Chakra as well”, meaning there would have been another method to how she knew the Juubi was sealed, that being that she simply saw it happen.
This would mean that even in the case that Sakura is faster than her, which she isn’t due to the reasoning mentioned above, Hinata would still be able to keep track of her and not get blitzed. Combine this tracking ability with her speedy taijutsu (details below), and she can easily intercept any attacks Sakura throws at her.
“Sakura is better in taijutsu”
The databook scores already prove this wrong, but since they’re so old and inconsistent, we’ll need more evidence.
64 Palms is a true testament to Hinata’s amazing taijutsu prowess.
Notice what Kakashi says. REGARDLESS of having penetrative vision, to be able to hit the Chakra Points in the heat of battle is something this man finds amazing. And this is Kakashi simply speaking of the Gentle Fist itself, not even the 64 Palms, a combo attack that pushes the Gentle Fist to its limit.
With 64 Palms, Hinata needs to react, aim, and move fast enough to align the tiny chakra points at the edge of her fingers which are as small as the tip of a needle with the various equally tiny chakra points on an opponents body 64 times, all while maneuvering around in the heat of battle in a manner and speed so as to prevent her opponent from escaping her combo attack. Not only that, but the attack starts with 2 jabs and ultimately ends with 32 jabs, meaning Hinata is capable of dishing out 32 jabs in a matter of a second or two. Pretty sure that qualifies as better reflexes, precision, and skill than getting kicked by Omoi, a fodder in Taijutsu.
Then there is their short taijutsu feats in The Last.
With Sakura, it’s nothing impressive. She fights off a bunch of maiden puppets that were designed for service rather than combat, and her taijutsu itself doesn’t come off as that impressive when noticing that all the maiden puppets just fly towards her with no coherence.
With Hinata, she fights against the same puppets that gave Hiashi and Naruto trouble. During the fight, with no Byakugan abilities and pure taijutsu, she redirects the momentum of one of the puppets, sending it flying, dodges an attack from above before proceeding to double kick two other puppets and black flips off of one of them into the air. Landing, she then, without even seeing it, dodges a puppet who attacks her from behind, and finally proceeds to take on two other puppets before being stopped by Toneri.
Two quotes to note from here.
“Even if you can see it, if your body can’t move, there’s nothing you can do”
“A straight forward attack makes it easy for the opponent to counter”
We know that not only can Hinata keep track of high speed, but her taijutsu is also very fast, evidenced by the 64 Palms, again, as noted above. Sakura herself is nothing more than a straightforward fighter, often doing nothing more than dishing out simple punches that hold very little value or worth in a legitimate taijutsu battle. Compare that to someone who can rapidly and accurately hit 64 tiny points in battle, and all the evidence is in favor of Hinata in a taijutsu fight, even IF Sakura’s foot speed is faster, simply because Hinata’s eyes would keep track of such speed and her superior, faster, and more dynamic taijutsu would allow her to counter such speed.
“How do you know 64 Palms will work? Sakura can dodge or counter it”
Understand that the 64 Palms is essentially a one-hit attack. Once the first strike hits, the other 63 are guaranteed every time, that’s why it’s such a difficult Taijutsu technique to master in the first place, and hence why Naruto/Kidomaru didn’t move out of the way when they were being hit.
If it was possible to fight back after getting hit by the first strike, Kidomaru would have done it. He wasn’t in pain, wasn’t having chakra points blocked, and had SIX ARMS to help him get the job done (EI grabbing Neji’s hands to stop him from attacking). Yet people want to argue Sakura who is negative in all three of those aspects would be able to fight back while being jabbed by Hinata. Sakura, who couldn’t even react to Omoi’s kick. While her chakra flow is being disrupted, thus getting rid of her Super Strength, what would she do? Even Hinata’s split second blunder wasn’t enough to allow the Mini Juubi time to escape the 64 Palms. That’s because it’s a combo attack; it’s meant to leave no room for an opening or opportunity for the enemy to fight back.
We see with Sasuke, that simply getting ONE of his Chakra Points hit caused him to be unable to control his Susano’O in order to manifest its wings, showing that even one closed point is enough to disturb an opponents technique. Fortunately for Sasuke, Kaguya used her hair needle, which Sasuke simply removed, whereas Hinata would be using her own fists. One hit from 64 Palms, no Super Strength. What then?
Not only that, but there is VERY clearly a sort of paraylsis effect whenever a person has their Chakra Points hit, as shown with both the hawk and Sasuke having “quiv quiv” sound effects written when they are hit and shake lines around them, indicating they are quivering due to being unable to move. This in fact explains even further why 64 Palms is an unavoidable tech when the first hit lands, since it causes temporary paralysis when hitting the Chakra Points, buying the Gentle Fist user enough time to continue to hit the 2nd, then 3rd, then 4th, and so on until the technique is done.
Also, Hinata’s reflexes far surpass Sakura’s. Not only is this evident by her Byakugan, her Gentle Fist, and expertise in the 64 Palms as previously pointed out, but we saw a blatant example of this in Chapter 614 when Hinata was able to react to and protect Naruto from a wooden spike while Sakura failed to dodge it and was instead saved by Kakashi. And keep in mind Hinata did this with her Byakugan inactivated, meaning no enhanced vision to track high speed movement.
“Hinata failed at 64 Palms and even tripped over a rock”
Irrelevant and failure to understand context. Sure, Hinata had a slight delay in her 64 Palms, but she still managed to complete it properly. As said above, the 64 Palms is a combo attack that relies on the user’s speed and accuracy to keep it going, so the fact that the Juubi Clone was unable to fight back even with that blunder of Hinata’s is proof of just how minuscule the mistake truly was.
As for her tripping, this is not a testament to her skills. It was outright stated that the alliance was running on fumes at that point, meaning everyone was at their limit, including Hinata , hence why they needed to be protected by Hiruzen. So her faltering when so low on Chakra is about as much of a testament to her skill as Naruto tripping in his fight with Sasuke; no relevance whatsoever. As pointed out in the scan with Deidara, low Chakra means worse reflexes.
CK: Well sheeeeeeeeeit somebody did their mufuggin homework. Now to get my popcorn cuz dis gon be gud….
