"Begin!"
Almost as soon as the word fell, Hinata Hyūga formed hand signs, and the veins around her eyes instantly bulged.
Her normally pure white eyes became sharp and intimidating. Her feet shifted, and she assumed the starting stance of the Gentle Fist.
Gentle Fist Art: Eight Trigrams Thirty-Two Palms.
The next moment, her figure shot toward Sasuke Uchiha like an arrow from a bow, moving so fast it kicked up a fierce gust of wind!
Sensing the hostile aura rushing at him, Sasuke Uchiha's eyes narrowed sharply. His dark pupils instantly turned scarlet, and three Tomoe clearly emerged.
One Palm!
Four Palms!
Eight Palms!
Hinata's assault was like a raging storm. Her palms, carrying Chakra capable of bypassing defenses and directly attacking the opponent's Tenketsu (Chakra points), transformed into a dizzying flurry of strikes.
Vicious and swift, completely devoid of her usual gentleness and hesitation, they were instead filled with a determined ferocity, aimed at Sasuke's vital points from various tricky angles!
Ten Palms!
Fourteen Palms!
Nineteen Palms!
"I can't let her hit me, or this Shadow Clone..."
Thinking this, Sasuke's brow furrowed, and his Sharingan spun rapidly.
Relying on the Sharingan's powerful insight, his figure was like a phantom, twisting and turning within the dense palm strikes. His movements were concise and highly efficient, always evading the fatal blows by a hair's breadth.
Hinata's attack grew even more relentless, with only Sasuke's figure remaining in her sight.
The students on the sidelines were already holding their breath, astonished by the intensity of the fight, which far exceeded their usual sparring level.
"Hinata..." Iruka's palms were sweating. He stared intensely at the situation in the arena, ready to intervene at any moment.
Sasuke calmly dodged the palm strikes while analyzing and predicting Hinata's movements.
Finally, he caught a fleeting opening.
The moment Hinata's palm missed, her previous momentum spent and new strength yet to build, Sasuke spun and leaped into the air.
He not only avoided the follow-up strike but, while airborne, used his core strength to deliver a fierce whip kick that swept toward Hinata's side ribs like a steel rod!
Clang!
Hinata Hyūga reacted quickly, bending her other arm to barely block the heavy whip kick, resulting in a dull thud!
However, the immense impact still caused a sharp pain in her arm. The veins around her eyes became even more distinct and menacing from the pain and anger!
This pain did not make her retreat. Instead, it fully ignited the repressed hostility within her. She glared fiercely at the airborne Sasuke Uchiha.
The figure before her overlapped with the one who had betrayed the clan and whose hands were stained with the blood of her relatives. The對方's bone-chilling mockery echoed in her ears again.
"You are still so timid, so weak, without any progress. How pathetic..."
"Like this, even facing your father's tragic death, even facing me who stands right before you, you are just a useless trash that can only cry and tremble!" he had said.
Instantly, the accumulated anger and pain erupted uncontrollably.
The veins of Hinata's Byakugan violently bulged. All her Chakra converged into her palm.
She raised her palm, fingers pressed together. Highly compressed Chakra focused into a single point, and she slammed it out into the air at the airborne Sasuke!
Whoosh!
Her sleeve cut through the air with a piercing screech. An invisible but terrifyingly powerful surge of Chakra tore through the air like a cannonball, blasting towards Sasuke's chest!
Eight Trigrams Air Palm!
Seeing this, Sasuke Uchiha, still in the air with no leverage to move, immediately changed his expression.
He couldn't dodge. He had to block it, or the students behind him...
Thinking this, his hands quickly formed signs, moving so fast they left afterimages. He took a deep breath, puffing out his cheeks.
Fire Release Chakra condensed deep in his throat, then was forcefully expelled forward.
Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!
"At this distance!"
Naruto, who had been keenly watching the arena, sensing that Hinata's state was off, instantly narrowed his pupils.
Although Sasuke instinctively held back, at such close range, both of them would inevitably be caught in the blast...
Crack! Crack!
Without hesitation, Chakra surged within Naruto's body. Two golden lights shot out from behind him, accompanied by the crisp sound of metal clashing.
"Stop!" At that moment, Iruka's sharp shout cut through the air, and his figure instantly vanished from the sidelines, rushing into the arena.
The next moment, a fireball violently collided with the invisible wind pressure!
BOOM!!
The collision triggered a deafening explosion.
The searing flames and wind tore at each other, creating a powerful shockwave that spread in all directions, kicking up dust and making it difficult for the surrounding students to open their eyes. Shouts of alarm erupted!
Poof! Poof!
The figures of Hinata Hyūga and Sasuke Uchiha simultaneously broke through the smoke and dust, yanked out of the blast radius.
As the smoke slightly dispersed, Iruka was half-crouched on the ground, his face still etched with shock and anger. Sasuke Uchiha was pinned beneath his armpit.
He looked down at Sasuke but saw a golden chain wrapped around his arm, and he paused.
He then instinctively looked up at the distant Hinata Hyūga and also saw a chain wrapped around her waist.
Just now, Iruka had made an instant decision. He realized that the explosion would be closer to Sasuke, and Hinata would mostly only suffer the shockwave, so he prioritized saving Sasuke.
Unexpectedly, Hinata was also fine.
Iruka followed the two golden chains with his gaze. At the end of his sight stood Naruto Uzumaki in the distance. Clearly, he was the one who had used the chains.
"Naruto..."
Iruka spoke automatically, but before he could finish.
Poof!
A faint sound was heard. "Sasuke Uchiha," pinned under Iruka's armpit, suddenly turned into a cloud of white smoke and dissipated into the air.
Iruka's arm was suddenly empty. He remained in his half-crouched posture, staring at the empty crook of his arm, completely stunned. His brain couldn't process it for a moment.
This... this is a Shadow Clone?
After a brief moment of shock, immense anger and belated fear surged into Iruka's heart.
These two students! One used such dangerous taijutsu in a classroom spar, and the other actually used a Shadow Clone to attend class!
Nonsense!
This is completely unacceptable!
Veins instantly popped out on his forehead. His teeth ground together with a harsh clatter as he suddenly stood up and roared: "Hinata Hyūga! And, Sasuke Uchiha! You two..."
Meanwhile, deep within a secluded forest on the outskirts of Konoha, near a river.
"Lightning Release: Lightning Strike Spear!"
Accompanied by a low shout, a dazzling white stream of light, like lightning tearing through the air, shot out from the shadows of the forest!
Its speed was so fast the naked eye could barely track its trajectory. It left a faint afterimage in its wake, piercing through every leaf and tree trunk in its path.
Zzzt! Bang!!
The white light accurately plunged into the center of the river and instantly exploded!
The surging lightning enveloped by rampant electricity quickly spread through the water, making a grinding zzzz sound and violently blasting the river open, creating a momentary depression.
The high temperature generated by the Lightning Release vaporized a large amount of river water, causing a cloud of white mist to rise, with fine electric arcs occasionally flickering within it.
A few unfortunate fish floated up, their bellies turned white.
"It worked!"
Accompanied by a cry of pleasant surprise, two figures leaped gracefully out of the forest, landing by the riverbank.
It was none other than Sasuke Uchiha and Naruto Uzumaki, who were supposed to be attending class.
Clearly, both had, by coincidence, used the Shadow Clone Jutsu to skip class and came here to develop and train higher-level Ninjutsu.
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