Chapter 48: A Twist in the Road
The third round of the battle was even more brutal than the cautious probing of the first round or the evenly matched second.
The pressure point strike to her right arm had severely blocked the flow of chakra in her right hand. For a nin-taijutsu that relied on the precise circulation of chakra for explosive power, this was a fatal flaw.
However, the girl's offensive, far from slowing down because of this fatal flaw, became even more ferocious, even more savage!
The nin-taijutsu that Sakura used was a combination of precisely controlling chakra to enhance her body and using ultrapure water to drive it. Enhancing the body with chakra could make the muscles more explosive, strengthening the body's power, speed, and endurance to damage. Driving the body with ultrapure water, on the other hand, was using chakra with the extremely resilient ultrapure water as a medium to apply an external force to the body's movements, equivalent to a flexible powered exoskeleton.
Neji's pressure point strike could block the flow of chakra, making it impossible for the girl's right hand to use chakra to enhance her body. The nin-taijutsu, which should have been supported by both chakra and ultrapure water, was now driven only by the latter. She could no longer control it with the same ease and freedom as before.
However, this did not affect the power of the nin-taijutsu.
For ninjutsu that could create scenes of mountains crumbling, earth shaking, and floods raging, simply generating a few dozen tons of force to drive the body of a mere teenage girl was no difficult feat. Therefore, even without the enhancement of chakra, the power of her nin-taijutsu would absolutely not decrease.
In fact, to compensate for the decrease in control, the girl had deliberately increased the power of her nin-taijutsu, making it even more forceful and powerful!
Her fists like a fierce tiger, her kicks like a hidden dragon!
Swish, swish, swish—!
With each punch and kick, the girl's strikes cut through the air, actually drawing faint whistling sounds from the formless air!
Boom, boom—!
The floor tiles, twenty to thirty centimeters thick, were as fragile as tofu under her heavy fists, being blasted into one large crater after another!
Thud, thud! Fist met palm, emitting dull sounds! Neji struggled to receive the girl's attacks. The unique force-deflecting technique of the Gentle Fist was utilized to one hundred and twenty percent of its capacity in his hands, yet he still felt his palms go numb!
Neji's heart was filled with bitterness.
He had thought that after hitting Sakura with the pressure point strike, he had already gained the upper hand. He never expected to be beaten into a corner by the girl's strong assault, retreating step by step!
The girl's steps were powerful, her offensive like flowing clouds and water, with unstoppable momentum, as if she intended to defeat Neji within a dozen or so moves!
The girl's sudden change in style caught Neji off guard, and he fell into a disadvantage. For a moment, he had no other choice but to hold on for dear life!
At this moment, Neji was like a lone boat in a storm, swaying precariously amidst the girl's tempestuous rain of fists and feet, in imminent danger!
Facing the girl's aggressive offensive, Neji had already shifted from fifty percent offense and fifty percent defense to ten percent offense and ninety percent defense! His skills in dodging and weaving were pushed to the extreme. For what he absolutely could not dodge, he used Rotation to block!
On the viewing platform.
Most people had thought Sakura's defeat was certain. They never expected such a twist in the road. Sakura, after being hit by the pressure point strike, fought with increasing valor, actually completely suppressing Neji, as if she had never been hit by his tenketsu at all!
Looking at the battered Neji below, the audience understood—
Neji's defeat was already apparent!
"Neji is going to win!" Lee said seriously, looking at the situation on the floor with a grave expression.
Having fought Neji countless times, Lee knew very well that in the current situation, Neji was at most at a disadvantage. His eyes were still as calm as ever, his movements still fluid and free. It was far from being a certain defeat!
Although the girl's offensive was like a tide, she was still unable to catch the slippery Neji, who was folding and shifting, dodging left and right. Even if her offensive could swallow mountains and rivers, it was useless against an opponent as slippery as an eel!
That which is too rigid is easily broken.
Lee intuitively felt that an offensive like Sakura's could not be sustained for long, just like when he opened the Eight Gates. Therefore, unless Sakura could take Neji down in one go, as long as Neji held on until the moment Sakura transitioned from offense to defense, that would be the moment of Neji's victory!
And on the floor below, although Neji was in a sorry state, on the verge of collapsing, he was still holding on tenaciously, not revealing any fatal openings, not giving the girl any opportunities!
Lee's intuition was correct.
Simply using ultrapure water to drive the body without using chakra enhancement to strengthen the physical body, although it could allow the nin-taijutsu to erupt with greater power in a short period of time, had one serious problem—her right hand could no longer withstand such continuous bursts!
Imagine a race car engine installed on a wooden chassis. And Sakura's right hand, without chakra enhancement, was exactly that wooden chassis!
Without chakra to strengthen her body, every time the girl threw a punch, she could feel her right hand groaning in agony under the unbearable load!
Although she had the absolute advantage on the surface, it was at the cost of overloading her body by damaging her right hand!
The turning point in the situation came without any warning.
Just as the girl was gradually forcing Neji into a desperate situation, the people on the viewing platform suddenly noticed that she abruptly stopped her punches, clutching her right arm and letting out a muffled groan!
"A comeback!" Lee's eyes lit up, and he couldn't help but shout.
Neji did not miss this golden opportunity. Seeing a major mistake in his opponent, he used his ultimate move without hesitation!
"Gentle Fist Art: Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms!"
The wind stirred.
The agitated chakra swirled in the air, creating ripples like those in water, constantly circling, rippling, and intertwining, turning into seemingly cute but actually dangerous vortexes, converging into an invisible storm!
The storm grew with the wind, and in the blink of an eye, it expanded into a storm ring with a diameter of over ten meters!
—The Eight Trigrams Field was formed!
And Sakura's position was the very eye of the Eight Trigrams, but unlike the eye of a storm, this was the most violent part of it!
Sakura suddenly understood why the Naruto in the original story had watched helplessly as he was hit by Neji's sixty-four palms without any power to fight back. It was because every swirling, entangled vortex in the air contained a soft and lingering Gentle Fist energy. Anyone in the storm would be constantly pushed and slowed by these dense vortexes, entangled by this viscous Gentle Fist energy until they couldn't move!
"It's over!" On the viewing platform, Lee and Gai couldn't help but say.
"It's over!" Below, Neji said calmly and confidently!
Neji's storm-like offensive was thus unleashed!
Sometimes forming a two-finger strike, sometimes a palm strike, Neji's fists and palms attacked as fast as thunder and lightning, creating a series of afterimages that were dazzling to the eye!
"Two palms!" "Four palms!" "Eight palms!"... "Sixty-four palms!"
In just two short seconds, Neji had delivered an astonishing sixty-four palms, and each palm had accurately struck a pressure point on the girl's body!
The final palm struck the Tanzhong point on the girl's chest. The girl's head was bowed, her right hand gently placed on Neji's wrist, trying to stop this palm, but she was powerless.
Neji understood in his heart that she, who had been hit by the Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms, no longer had the strength to resist.
I've won. Neji panted heavily. After finishing this set of Eight Trigrams Palms, he was already exhausted. His whole body was trembling slightly, and he was almost too weak to stand!
He won. The audience on the viewing platforms looked in disbelief at the scene of Neji's desperate comeback!
Yes, I've won. On the viewing platform, Kakashi suddenly smiled!
"Caught you!" the girl's clear and cold voice sounded!
The smile on Neji's face suddenly turned into astonishment! The Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms had clearly sealed most of her pressure points, so why did she still have the strength to fight back!
"Damn it... Rotation!" However, the remaining chakra Neji had was already insufficient to use a full-powered Rotation!
Neji was sent flying by a fierce punch from the girl. He fell to the ground, unable to get up again!
"I never thought your best skill would actually be taijutsu... but why was the Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms ineffective against you?" Neji asked, lying on the ground and struggling to raise his head.
"Because your Gentle Fist can't pierce my Water Style." A pale blue, transparent water shield floated quietly in Sakura's hand. "If I had used this to fight you from the beginning, the match would have been over long ago."
"Taijutsu... is my weakest skill. I only chose this kind of battle to temper it," the girl said faintly. "Without my nin-taijutsu, I wouldn't have been able to block a single one of your moves."
"You were right about one thing. I don't have a Kekkei Genkai, no inherited secret jutsu, no naturally vast chakra reserves. Perhaps in the original destiny, it would be impossible for me to become a strong person, or even to get here, to stand in this hall and fight you."
The girl thought of the Sakura from the original story. At least before the start of Shippuden, she had existed as a flower-vase-like character.
According to the destiny in the original story, Sakura was just a love-struck girl powerless to change anything.
The arrival of the transmigrator had not given her any cheats. The only thing stronger than the original was her stronger spiritual power.
But, so what?
"But, if that is destiny, then I will shatter destiny!" The girl would not accept such a fate.
"If Water Style ninjutsu requires a huge amount of chakra, then I'll create powerful water jutsu that doesn't! If I have no talent for taijutsu, then I'll create nin-taijutsu that strengthens it!" With the knowledge and imagination from another system, with the unyielding heart of a strong person, the girl had walked this fanciful path and was going further and further down it.
"Once a goal is set and a decision is made, one must walk forward without fear or hesitation! Because I will never submit to a so-called destiny!"
Yes, the current Sakura was already a strong person who had changed her own destiny.
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