As the Four Purple Fla Formation isolated the arena, Neji and Atsui stood silently, locked in a tense standoff, each analyzing the other. Neither seed eager to make the first move as if they had silently agreed that whoever struck first would likely lose the fight.
Staring at Neji, Atsui thought, ‘A Hyuga… using smoke or dust as cover is pointless against him, considering those Byakugan of his. He’ll see right through it. And since he's a Hyuga, I can’t let him touch my body—he'd definitely use that chance to block my Tenketsu. But I have to get close if I want to defeat him… since that’s the case…’
With that in mind, Atsui leaned forward, gripping the hilt of his Shinobi Sword in his right hand. He quickly drew several shurikens from his Shinobi Bag and hurled them at Neji. "Ha!"
Whiish! Whiish! Whiish! Whiish! Whiish!
“These shuriken…” Neji mumbled as he narrowed his eyes at the approaching projectiles.
The peculiar thing about the shuriken was that they were enveloped in flas. While shuriken covered in the fire wasn’t unusual, what stood out was that Atsui hadn’t breathed fire onto them as most shinobi do; instead, the shuriken ignited naturally as soon as they left Atsui's hand.
'It appears he's highly skilled with Fire Style…' Neji thought as he adjusted his stance, dodging each flaming shuriken one by one.
By the ti Neji had evaded the fiery projectiles, Atsui had already closed the distance between them and was on the attack. But Neji didn’t panic. He had anticipated this result the mont Atsui threw the shuriken and had also detected Atsui's rapid approach through his Byakugan. As Atsui slashed at him with his Shinobi Sword, Neji smoothly leaned to the side to dodge and imdiately aid a finger strike at Atsui’s elbow. 'The perfect opportunity… I can seal the Tenketsu of his dominant hand,' he thought, preparing to execute the strike.
Atsui smirked, ‘Cloud-Style Fla Beheading!’
And then it happened. Although Neji had skillfully dodged the sword slash, a fiery slash followed, forcing him to retreat. He had to abandon the strike at Atsui’s elbow and lean backward to avoid the fla that extended far beyond the blade, covering a significant range.
‘Tch!’ Seeing Hyuga Neji easily dodge the surprise elent of his attack—the fire slash that followed the initial sword slash—Atsui clicked his tongue in annoyance. Determined, he unleashed a flurry of Fire Sword Slashes in quick succession.
“Ora! Ora! Ora! Ora! Ora! Ora! Ora! Ora! Ora! Ora! How long do you think you can keep dodging my hot-spirited attack?” Atsui shouted, increasing the intensity of his assault and putting more pressure on Neji.
Thanks to his Byakugan, Neji could read most of Atsui’s attacks, but evading them all was challenging, even for him. Atsui occasionally altered the range of his fire slashes, extending their reach, which resulted in several scorch marks appearing on Neji’s clothes.
Despite the damage to his clothing, Neji showed no signs of injury, which frustrated Atsui. “Damn it, are you immune to fire or sothing?”
Neji remained silent, focusing on adapting to Atsui’s speed and varied attack patterns while searching for an opening to counter. The reason Atsui’s attacks only left scorch marks on Neji’s clothes without causing any injury was that Neji had been strategically releasing chakra from his Tenketsu, creating a protective layer that made it difficult for the fire to harm him.
‘Here it is!’ Neji thought as he finally found an opening. Without hesitation, he closed the distance with a swift forward step and aid his Tenketsu-sealing strikes at Atsui’s waist. ‘Gentle Fist: Eight Trigrams—Fou—! Crap!’
But once again, he was forced to stop mid-attack and lean back. Atsui’s waist suddenly beca engulfed in flas, and Neji knew that if he continued his strike, he risked sustaining a serious injury.
This ti, Atsui didn’t rush forward to attack Neji with his Fire Sword Slash. Instead, he sheathed his Shinobi Sword and began weaving hand signs with both hands. Then, he unleashed six small fireballs from his mouth. ‘Fire Style: Six Explosive Fla Shots!’
Sha! Sha! Sha! Sha! Sha! Sha!
Using the Body Flicker Jutsu, Neji swiftly dodged the six Explosive Fla Shots heading toward him.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
As he escaped their trajectory, he breathed a sigh of relief—only to notice a smirk on Atsui’s face. Realizing too late, Neji saw that the fireballs were homing in on him like guided missiles, following him even after he had dodged them.
“What?” Neji was taken aback. He jumped to dodge one of the Explosive Fla Shots that had almost closed in on him from his blind spot because of montary carelessness, but due to its homing nature, it still continued to pursue him along with the other five fire explosive shots.
For the next few seconds, Neji focused on dodging the relentless fla shots. As he evaded, he quickly analyzed the attack and noticed that the fireballs were following the movents of Atsui’s fingers. Upon closer inspection, he saw thread-like structures connecting the fla shots with Atsui’s fingers, and surprisingly these thread-like structures were quite likely also made up of fire Chakra!
Realizing this, Neji thought, ‘Continuing to dodge these attacks is useless,’ and then began gathering chakra in his right palm. Once Neji was certain that he had the right amount of Chakra gathered, he rapidly thrust his palm forward, releasing multiple Vacuum Palm shots at the fireballs, causing them to explode mid-air, boom! Boom! Boom!
‘Tch! Even that didn’t work?’ Atsui thought, clicking his tongue in annoyance once again. He was also a bit surprised, ‘Aren’t Hyuga purely taijutsu-based ninjas? How did he make the fireball explode in mid-air? Was it Wind Style? But I didn’t see him weave the hand signs!’ Because he doesn’t have Dōjutsu, Atsui can’t see Chakra as such he doesn’t realize that Neji had fired Chakra Shockwave using his palms to make the Fire Ball explode. But knowing or not knowing this piece of information didn’t have much impact on Atsui as he quickly recovered, thinking, ‘Well, that’s to be expected. He is the disciple of the Godai Hokage; defeating him won’t be easy.’
With renewed determination, Atsui wove more hand signs and this ti unleashed a powerful Fire Style Jutsu, ‘Fire Style: Fire Dragon Fla Bullet!’
As the Fire Dragon Fla Bullet rushed toward him, Neji made a surprising decision—not to dodge. Instead, he stood his ground, gathering chakra in his palms. As the Fire Dragon closed in, Neji could feel the imnse heat it emitted. His skin began to dry out from the heat, but he remained unfazed and unmoved.
Neji’s decision not to dodge or use the Gentle Fist stance to employ Revolving Heaven puzzled Atsui and the onlookers in the stands and VIP seating area. Remaining standing in front of the Ninjutsu seed to send the ssage that he had given up, but nobody believed he had given up, which could only an he had sothing up his sleeve. However, what that sothing was remained a mystery to everyone, leaving them in suspense.
The Raikage glanced at ‘Kuroto’ out of the corner of his eye and noticed his neutral, unfazed expression. This further assured him that the Hyuga boy indeed had a plan. Redirecting his gaze to Neji in the arena, the Raikage, along with others, focused intently on the unfolding scene.
Just as the Fire Dragon closed in, Neji, with chakra gathered in his palms, raised his hands and struck the dragon.
Striking fire ninjutsu with bare hands seed absurd and foolish to most onlookers, as they expected it to result in severe burn injury or probably death. They couldn’t fathom why the Hokage’s disciple would do sothing so reckless. But in the next mont, they realized the true reason behind Neji’s actions—or perhaps they should call it sothing incredible. As Neji’s chakra-covered palms struck the Fire Dragon, it completely collapsed, its shape disintegrating, and the fire and heat it carried dispersed into the surroundings in the blink of an eye.
It was as if no Fire Dragon had been attacking him at all. No, rather it would be better to say that there was no fire dragon at all, and what everyone saw was only a hologram!
But Atsui knew that he had used a Ninjutsu. So seeing his ninjutsu disperse like that, Atsui was taken aback. “What? What happened to my ninjutsu?”
In response to Atsui’s bewildered question, Neji replied calmly, “I broke it using my Gentle Fist.”
“You broke it?” Atsui exclaid, his expression dumbfounded. “What do you an you broke it? How can a ninjutsu be broken?” Atsui had never seen anything like this before. Dodging a ninjutsu would have been one thing, and countering or blocking it with another chakra nature would have made sense. Even absorbing it would have been fine since the shinobi world is already quite familiar with ninjas who can absorb ninjutsu. But to ‘destroy’ the ninjutsu? What did that even an?
“Ninjutsu is essentially chakra, and it has a specific structure in which that chakra is shaped and ford,” Neji explained, recalling the lessons he learned under Koshinata Mukai in the past month. “If I can see the structure, shape, and form of the chakra, I can also disrupt them, rendering the jutsu void—completely useless, regardless of its nature or form.”
“What the hell do you an by that?” Atsui asked, struggling to process what Neji had just said.
“It ans that ninjutsu is no longer effective against ,” Neji answered.
“You’re kidding, right?” Atsui muttered in disbelief.
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