Tsunade-san gives her a couple of books on medical ninjutsu on the strict basis that they're for reading only. Medical ninjutsu can be dangerous, so no 'experimenting' on herself or, gods forbid, her friends.
Her sensei is apparently good at it, so—if she really wants to learn—Tsunade-san tells her she should bother him for lessons. Tsunade-san would help, but she's already teaching twenty dunderheads how to do it.
Like usual, her sensei is busy, so she hangs out with her friends at the empty plot next to Uchiha-ku.
She's teaching them tuishō—pushing hands. Or, she's teaching Rin tuishō and Obito and Guy are butchering it.
"You're not rooting or yielding, Obito—you're just trying to shove Guy around."
"I'm winning, aren't I?"
"You have to be playing the same game to be winning."
Obito scowls at her. She breaks away from Rin and signs for her to continue on her own. Rin continues as though nothing has changed with grace and poise. Rin gets it.
"Guy, yield."
Guy steps away from Obito mid push and Obito careens past him and nearly face plants in the trodden grass.
She steps in and stops him with an open palm over his stomach, guiding him upright. He goes red in the face. He's embarrassed, and when he's embarrassed he gets mad—and he's very easily embarrassed, so usually very, very angry. It's a headache inducing cycle.
She roots herself to the spot and points to her extended right foot. "Take a balanced stance and put your right foot next to mine."
"This is so stupid…"
She waits. He puts his foot next to hers.
"Go ahead. Shove me."
"Wha?"
"Come on, shove me like you were shoving Guy."
"But, Honōka… aren't you supposed to be taking it easy? What if your eye—breaks—again?"
He's concerned, but she's getting tired of people being overly cautious about it. She crosses her eyes and Obito cringes.
For a dōjutsu bearing clan, the Uchiha are awfully squeamish about everything eye related.
"Okay, jeez…! Just stop crossing your eyes already. They'll get stuck that way, you know?"
She raises an eyebrow at him.
He shoves her half-heartedly, with one hand only. She doesn't move; she doesn't even bother redirecting him. He retreats.
"Come on, Obito. Try."
He bites his lip. He really doesn't want to—afraid that he'll hurt her/afraid that he won't. Obito's weird sometimes.
"I'm not going to keel over from a little shove."
He shoves harder this time, and she redirects him, pushing him left and right. He's not rooted or yielding to her force and loses his footing, stumbling away.
Frustration reddens his face.
"This is so stupid—shinobi don't even fight like this!"
"Obito, tuishō isn't about fighting, it's about economy of movement and balance." Rin chides.
"Rin is right," Guy agrees. "I'm learning tuishō to be more aware of my body and its inner balance."
It doesn't matter what they say to Obito. He's convinced it's pointless and would rather force his way through a fight. And maybe it would work—the first couple of times. But eventually, someone with more finesse will come along and tear his sloppy form apart.
She takes a kunai from her armguard and tosses it. Everyone cringes, but it digs harmlessly into the ground, handle up.
"Honōka-chan—"
"Come at me with that then."
Varying levels of concern from her three friends. Then they're all talking at once.
"Honōka, my esteemed rival—don't you think you're being a bit… too youthful?"
"Honōka-chan, I think you're taking this too far. If Obito doesn't want to learn tuishō or tai chi, that's totally up to him."
"…"
"…"
She won't make eye contact and Obito is too stubborn to back down, so they both stare at the kunai sticking out of the ground—the point of conflict.
"I don't care if he doesn't want to learn it—but it is not stupid. It's not a performative art, either. It's taijutsu. And I'll prove it to anyone who says otherwise."
Rin and Guy wince. Partly because they're still not used to her rougher side, and also because they feel a little guilty for not properly considering it a fighting technique.
She flicks her wrist and the kunai zips back to her open palm. She secrets it back into her sleeve the moment the pommel touches her skin. It took her a lot of practice and a lot of bandages to learn it, and even more to relearn it.
"Let's spar. If I win, you learn tai chi."
Obito crosses his arms.
"And if I win?"
"You won't."
Steam practically comes out of his ears. He's red right down to his neck.
"Honōka, rival, buddy, my pal!" Guy tries. Sometimes he just can't match his father's candor. "I'm not sure if you're being fair here—your teacher is a Sannin and Obito is still just an Academy student."
"Yeah, and Sensei hasn't taught me anything yet." Yes, she's complaining.
Obito cracks his knuckles. "If I win, you have to call me Obito-sama."
She shrugs. "You won't."
That makes him barking mad, and he finally comes at her with the intention of fighting her.
The first punch he throws scrapes by her left ear. She snaps her left arm up and locks their wrists together.
She cheats. With just a little chakra, they're stuck together like powerful magnets; her chakra and Obito's chakra rotate in opposite directions, so it makes sense that matching his rotation from the opposite direction would lock them together. Obito can't pull away.
He throws a left hook, and she guides it away with her right, then locks those hands in place as well. Her right hand has been panging near constantly since supposedly being healed—but it doesn't hurt right now.
"What the heck! I can't…! I can't move?!"
He pulls and strains, and she stays exactly where she is. He pushes and she yields, releasing and throwing him almost five meters away.
Obito rolls and finds his feet, charging head first at her—like a raging bull. She sidesteps and catches his arm with one hand, his shoulder with the other. She flips him on his back and kneels on his chest.
"Yield."
He hollows his cheeks and spits in her eyes. Her good eye takes the brunt. She rears back, rubbing her eyes. It stings—! He used the soapy quality of their bubble blowing jutsu to blind her temporarily!
He knees her in the gut and she does down.
"You're down!" he crows, feeling assured of his victory.
She can't see him well anymore, but she can feel him. And he was down first.
She shoves against the ground with her shoulder and pinwheels her legs, kicking his feet out from under him. He hits the ground, and she rolls on top of him. She aims for his nose and misses, and the ground yields to her fist. Probably a good thing it didn't land.
He rolls them again, and they go kicking and screaming across the grass. He bites her at one point and she knees him in the groin at another. Eventually, they split apart and find their feet again before resuming the all-out brawl.
She can barely see through the dry sting, but she more or less knows where he is. He projects his feelings even more during a fight—it makes him easier to 'see'. She aims for every weak point, every opening in his stance. He goes down, and gets up, and fits in as many hits as he can when he does. She doesn't know how many times she's flipped him already.
"Guys! Please stop! Someone's going to get seriously hurt!"
"This spar is most un-youthful!"
She's got Obito in a double armbar, squashing his shoulders together with her thighs and calf muscles. He won't stop struggling, so she nips just a bit harder.
POP!
She freezes. Obito howls.
Honōka goes lax and Guy hauls her off Obito. Rin kneels at his side, trying to coach him into staying still rather than squirming on the ground like a broken firework.
"What the hell is going on here?!" a gruff voice demands.
She blinks. Everything is still blurry.
"I dislocated his shoulder."
The man snorts. "I'd say you did more than that. Oi, you're Granny Fūbuki's boy, Obito, right? Come on, get up. Walk it off. You'll make it to the hospital on your own two feet or not at all."
Obito groans and gets up with Rin's help.
"And what'd he do to you? Are your eyes supposed to be red like that?"
She flinches. Rin and Guy tense. That particular sentence is taboo. She forces herself to swallow and answer.
"He spat in my eyes."
The (presumably) Uchiha man turns the full brunt of his disgust on Obito.
"Kid—I hate to say it, but you deserved everything you got. You do that to another kunoichi in a couple years and you'll be lucky to walk away with your balls intact."
No one laughs. They know he's being serious.
"Right, guess I'll be escorting you lot to the hospital." He addresses Rin and Guy next. "You two can be my witnesses."
They move and Honōka hurries to keep up, and runs dead center into the stool sized stump. She goes head over heels and somehow manages to not land on her face.
"Damn, kid. You got a concussion or something?"
"Ah," Rin jumps in. "Obito… spat in her only good eye? With a bubble blowing… jutsu?"
"Kid—Obito—what the fuck? Fūbuki-obā-sama is gonna string you up by your toes when she finds out. And trust me, she will find out."
Obito groans, less about the pain he's in and more about the metaphorical shit he's going to be in later.
Rin and Guy double back to take her by either hand. She hopes Tsunade-san is busy.
Tsunade-san is not busy. She even personally treats Obito's dislocated shoulder and his other bumps and bruises with the Mystical Palm Technique. She flushes Honōka's eyes with water and soothing eye drops that are the most amazing she's ever used.
All while projecting the most pungent sense of angry disappointment Honōka's ever had the pleasure of experiencing.
"I won," Obito declares, and Honōka forgets about Tsunade-san for a minute.
"No, you didn't!" she hisses. "I beat the crap out of you! I dislocated your shoulder! You spat in my eyes and nearly blinded me, and I still kicked the shit out of you! I am not calling you Obito-sama, you little shit!"
"Hey! I'm taller than you! You're the… the little shit!"
Rin and Guy facepalm.
"I won, you lost—you're learning tai chi whether you like it or not. You suck at fighting. All you've got are good reflexes… and quick thinking!"
"Just admit it, Honōka! I'm a way better fighter than you are! I'm a natural!"
"You're sloppy! You don't even try to avoid taking hits—"
"Taking hits won't matter once I get my Sharingan—I'll see them coming from a mile away!"
"Sharingan, Sharingan—! You'll get yourself killed before you can even awaken it!"
The room goes silent. Those aren't words you toss around lightly.
Tsunade-san knocks their head together—hard enough to hurt, but not enough to cause any further harm. She would know.
"Got that out of your systems?"
"No," she admits. Tsunade-san shoots her a startled look.
"Kid, I thought you were supposed to be ultra calm and collected, or something. The aloof genius type?"
Rin and Guy share a look. That's Kakashi, not Honōka. Obito grins.
"That's what she wants you to think, lady—but let me tell you; I am the master of pushing Honōka's buttons!"
Guy groans and Rin facepalms, again.
"…that's not something to be proud of…" they whisper.
She rolls her sleeve up and over her armguard. She makes a mental note to wear her mesh armor next time she fights Obito.
"Tsunade-san, Obito bit me. Do I need a rabies shot?"
Obito shoots her a dirty look and Tsunade-san tsks. Without missing a beat, she sprays the red and just barely broken skin with a stingy disinfectant.
"Sorry kid, you're up to date on all your immunizations."
She pouts.