Chapter 24: When Does a Chess Player Need to Consider the Feelings of a Piece?
The Hokage's faction and the Hyūga clan had deliberately covered up the fact that a Byakugan child had been stolen by the Hidden Cloud. Even within Konoha, only a few high-ranking officials still remembered Neji's name.
A small village like the Hidden Grass, therefore, knew nothing about him. So, when the Grass Jōnin saw the Byakugan, he immediately assumed Neji was from Konoha, and a sense of unease settled in his heart. He had never imagined the infiltrator would be a Konoha shinobi.
The situation was tricky. Letting him go was clearly not an option. A Hyūga ninja sneaking into their village... they had to find out his purpose. Only then could they decide on their next move.
A glint of cunning flashed in the Grass Jōnin's eyes. "The Hidden Grass and the Hidden Leaf are allies," he said, testing the waters. "Is this how the Fourth Hokage treats an ally?"
"Ally?" Neji's raspy voice was filled with scorn. "It seems you Grass-nin don't understand your own position. You are not Konoha's ally. You are merely... a pawn, used to keep the Hidden Stone in check. A piece that can be discarded at any time."
"And when does a chess player ever need to consider the feelings of a chess piece?"
The contempt in his words made the veins on the Grass Jōnin's forehead bulge.
Neji paid him no mind, continuing his performance. "I am here on the orders of the Hokage-sama to find something."
The Grass Jōnin, his heart already ablaze with anger, drew in a sharp breath. If there was anything in the Hidden Grass that Konoha would covet, it could only be the Box of Ultimate Bliss, left behind by their ancestors.
He suppressed his rage, his face a mask of calm. But in Neji's Byakugan vision, the man's chakra was boiling, ready to erupt at any moment.
"You're surrounded, yet you continue to spout such nonsense. Do you really think we don't dare to kill you?"
"I see that is your answer, then."
Neji spread his feet slightly, assuming a Gentle Fist stance. They had already known someone would be infiltrating tonight and had set an ambush. In other words, these few dozen shinobi were all the strength the Grass could muster.
I have a chance.
The surrounding Grass-nin exchanged glances. The boy was surrounded, yet instead of surrendering, he was preparing to attack.
The Grass Jōnin's anger turned into a humorless laugh. He was a sensory-type. He had already gauged the amount of chakra in Neji's body. It was at the level of a Tokubetsu Jōnin, or a regular Jōnin at most. The Hyūga were a famous clan, but their individual combat prowess was not on the level of the Uchiha. They were only a cut above the average shinobi.
The boy's assessment was correct. The men around them were all he could deploy. One elite Jōnin, three Tokubetsu Jōnin, and the rest were Chūnin. Against a single Hyūga, victory was all but assured.
Realizing that the only way out of this was to kill the intruder and silence him forever, the Grass Jōnin said no more. He gave a subtle signal to his men.
"To look down on us so... he's too arrogant."
"Let's show this proud Konoha-nin the power of the Hidden Grass."
"A Byakugan, delivered right to our doorstep. We'll gladly accept it."
Receiving their orders, the Grass shinobi charged at Neji as one.
Neji took a deep breath and unleashed the Gentle Fist style that had made the Hyūga famous throughout the world. In his mind's eye, an Eight Trigrams pattern slowly unfolded, rapidly expanding outwards. The pattern was not a physical object; it existed only in the minds of those who had mastered the Gentle Fist's secrets. The size of the pattern represented the user's attack range. For an ordinary Hyūga, it was about twice their arm span. A powerful Hyūga could use the Vacuum Palm within the pattern, extending their range even further.
Neji's Eight Trigrams pattern had a diameter of about ten meters, the same as the range of his Divine Air Strike.
These Grass-nin were the elite of their village. They fought bravely, charging headfirst into his domain. But before they could even get within three meters of him, they were sent flying by one Divine Air Strike after another, their internal organs shattered.
Neji's defense was impenetrable. No matter how many charged, they were all blasted away before they could get close.
In the first wave of the attack, one Tokubetsu Jōnin was severely wounded, and more than ten Chūnin were killed outright.
Neji still had eighty percent of his chakra remaining.
Realizing that taijutsu was ineffective, the Grass shinobi immediately changed tactics and began to use long-range ninjutsu.
"Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!"
"Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!"
Two Tokubetsu Jōnin exchanged a look and unleashed their jutsu in perfect sync. The wind tore through the fireball, creating dozens of flaming wind bullets that rained down on Neji.
He took a deep breath, instantly opening all the tenketsu in his body and releasing a fifth of his chakra, forming a dense protective sphere that spun like a top.
This was the Hyūga Main Family's secret technique, the Revolving Heaven, hailed as an absolute defense. Its power was determined by the strength of the user's chakra.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The flaming wind bullets slammed into the spinning dome of chakra.
After more than ten seconds, when the smoke and dust settled, Neji was gone.
The Grass elite Jōnin's brow furrowed. He then looked at one of his Tokubetsu Jōnin and shouted, "Watch out! He's below you!"
Fzzt!
The ground beneath the man's feet exploded. With a crackle of lightning, a Chidori smashed into his jaw, and his head exploded like a watermelon.
The grotesque scene of blood and brain matter splattering everywhere shocked the remaining shinobi to their core.
"You bastard!"
Seeing this, the other Tokubetsu Jōnin's eyes turned blood-red. He surged with chakra and leaped into the air, charging at Neji.
Neji dodged nimbly, and the two of them became a blur of motion, flashing back and forth across the open ground.
The Village Hidden in the Grass was known for selling information on its allies, profiting from the information gap, and for "learning" the jutsu of other nations. But the taijutsu this Tokubetsu Jōnin was using was a unique style of the Grass, called the Ripping Palm. It was a combination of palm strikes and fluid footwork, allowing the user to move as fast as the wind.
Neji, intending to incorporate the Grass style into his own Divine Air Strike system, watched for a moment with his Byakugan, memorizing the flow of chakra in the man's body.
At that moment, the elite Jōnin charged toward him, shouting, "Kobayashi, get back! You're no match for him!"
Hearing this, a violent bolt of lightning suddenly erupted from Neji's empty palm and struck the Tokubetsu Jōnin's shoulder.
The next moment, Neji heard the piercing sound of something slicing through the air behind him, like the shriek of a ghost.
"Wind Release: Wind Cutter Technique!"
The hair on Neji's body stood on end. He instantly activated his Lightning Release Chakra Mode and threw himself to the side. A half-meter long, crescent-shaped blade of wind sliced through the spot where he had just been.