Within the Hyuga Clan compound, in one of the sparring arenas, Hyuga Keiko stood in combat gear, her face focused. Chakra gathered in her hands, forming Eight Trigrams Palms as she struck again and again.
Across from her stood a boy around thirteen or fourteen years old, his long black hair tied behind him.
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
The two exchanged blows nonstop. Every collision of chakra against chakra set off a heavy boom.
Both of them moved with sharp, ruthless precision, trading several rounds in the span of a few breaths.
"Eight Trigrams, Twenty-Two Palms!"
The thirteen- or fourteen-year-old boy kept striking with the Eight Trigrams Palms of the Gentle Fist. Opposite him, Hyuga Keiko calmly blocked every attack without the slightest panic.
"How is that possible?"
The boy was stunned. He had used one of the trump cards he kept at the bottom of his box, yet he still could not take down Hyuga Keiko.
With his talent, he was considered one of the very best in the entire Hyuga Clan. Even among the direct descendants of the Hyuga Main House, not a single one was his match.
And yet here he was, being stifled by this older cousin from the Branch House.
Every attack he launched was blocked by her.
Hyuga Keiko was just as shocked. She had never imagined that one day, the younger cousin she had once needed to look up to would no longer be her opponent.
He was publicly recognized as the kind of genius the Hyuga Clan only saw once every ten years. In this age group, whether from the Main House or the Branch House, no one was his match.
Even the proud Main House had no choice but to admit that much.
She had heard that a few years ago, after he defeated one of the Main House's direct descendants and made that person lose face, a Main House Elder had flown into a rage. The Elder had accused him of failing to understand rank and hierarchy and insisted that he had to be taught a proper lesson. For some unknown reason, however, the matter had later been quietly suppressed.
That was how little status the Branch House had before the Main House. Even if the other party was the son of the former Clan Head of the Hyuga Branch House, in front of the Main House, his standing was not much higher than that of a dog. The gap between the Main House and the Branch House of the Hyuga Clan was that massive.
Because the Hyuga Main House held the lives and deaths of every Branch House member in their hands. If you did not want to die, then you had to obediently listen.
That was right. The one sparring with Hyuga Keiko was none other than the genius of the Hyuga Clan, Hyuga Neji.
Even so, Hyuga Neji's talent had even received praise from the Hokage. Ever since entering the Ninja Academy, he had been first in his year and had never once fallen to second place.
By comparison, the current Clan Heiress of the Hyuga Clan, Hyuga Hinata, looked far too ordinary. And the more ordinary she seemed, the more dazzling Hyuga Neji appeared.
It was not as if Hyuga Keiko had never sparred with Hyuga Neji before. Although she was two years older than him, from the time she had memories, she had basically lost every single sparring match against him. Under normal circumstances, she could not even last twenty moves before being defeated by this genius younger cousin.
But now, facing Hyuga Neji's attacks, she could handle them with ease. There was no difficulty at all.
In the past, she had thought Hyuga Neji's attacks were fast and fierce. Just blocking them had demanded every ounce of her strength and focus. Yet now, in her eyes, Hyuga Neji's movements had actually become slow for the first time.
No, it was not that Hyuga Neji had become slow. It was that she had become faster.
Compared with Kaede Kitahara's movements, Hyuga Neji's were nothing worth mentioning. Forget comparing him to Kaede Kitahara. Even compared to her teammate Amakusa Ryuji, he was still quite a bit behind.
Hyuga Neji was definitely at Chunin level, and even among Chunin, he could not be considered weak. In a real fight, relying on his Byakugan, he could even contest an ordinary Elite Chunin.
After all, the Byakugan was one of the Shinobi World's top-tier Kekkei Genkai. Even if it did not possess abilities as exaggerated as the Sharingan, allowing a Chunin to fight an Elite Chunin was still easy enough.
Unfortunately, Hyuga Keiko also had a Byakugan. In terms of insight, she was not inferior to Hyuga Neji. Every single tactical intention of his was completely exposed in front of her, with not the slightest secret to speak of.
Hyuga Keiko even felt an unreal sensation. When she fought Kaede Kitahara, the two of them communicated purely through Taijutsu. Even when Kaede Kitahara deliberately suppressed his physical ability to Chunin level, she was still pinned down from beginning to end.
Her insight was beaten so badly by Kaede Kitahara that every tactical intention she had was seen through. In contrast, Kaede Kitahara could rely on his rich experience to deceive her perception.
So although Kaede Kitahara said he had only used Chunin-level strength, his actual combat power was completely at the level of a Tokubetsu Jonin.
Every day, she sparred with someone like that. Even the next best, Amakusa Ryuji on her team, was an Elite Chunin. The richness of Hyuga Keiko's battle experience was simply not something Hyuga Neji could compare with.
In terms of talent, Hyuga Neji was definitely far above Hyuga Keiko. But even a genius needed someone to teach him. The Branch House's educational resources were already inferior to the Main House's to begin with, not to mention that Hyuga Hizashi had died very early. As a result, Hyuga Neji could only rely on himself for many things, learning on his own and figuring out the later forms of the Gentle Fist by himself.
In a Kekkei Genkai clan, that kind of behavior was originally a capital offense. Coveting secret techniques you were not supposed to learn was a death sentence in any Kekkei Genkai clan. Especially in a clan as strictly hierarchical as the Hyuga Clan, secretly learning forbidden techniques truly meant a dead end. There was no chance of survival at all.
But Hyuga Neji just so happened to be an exception. After all, the current Clan Head of the Hyuga Clan was his uncle.
Using connections had been ordinary since ancient times. There was nothing special about it.
After suppressing Hyuga Neji, Hyuga Keiko's confidence soared, and she launched a series of attacks.
"So fast!"
Hyuga Neji had his Byakugan open and watched helplessly as Hyuga Keiko's attack landed on him.
His eyes had astonishing perception, so of course he could see it clearly. But seeing it clearly did not mean his body could keep up. It was the same as when Uchiha Sasuke could clearly see Rock Lee's movements with his eyes back then, but his body could not follow.
Bang!
With a dull impact, Hyuga Keiko's fist slammed into Hyuga Neji's chest and sent him flying.
Hyuga Neji struggled to climb back up. He did not attack again, because his remarkable eyesight had already seen that, at the crucial moment, Hyuga Keiko had clearly held back.
"That wasn't a Gentle Fist technique."
Hyuga Neji spoke.
That punch just now had clearly not been a Gentle Fist technique, but its effect was astonishing. If she had truly gone all out, that one punch would have been enough to leave him unable to get back up.
"Mm. That wasn't Gentle Fist. That move is called Point-Blank Chakra Strike."
For the first time in her life, Hyuga Keiko had defeated her genius younger cousin, and she was in an excellent mood. She could not help explaining.
The move just now really was not a Gentle Fist technique. It was a force-generation technique Kaede Kitahara had taught her, named Point-Blank Chakra Strike.
At the instant of contact, it could unleash an unimaginably tremendous amount of power.
When Kaede Kitahara had demonstrated it for her back then, one punch had shattered a huge boulder taller than a person, leaving her stunned on the spot.
If someone got hit by that punch, would they not be beaten black and blue?
That was right. This was a fist technique Kaede Kitahara had pulled from the memories of his previous life. It was also one of the ancient martial arts of ancient China. In his previous life, Kaede Kitahara had seen the method of training it, but it had only been a matter of interest, and he had not paid too much attention to it.
Now that he had brought it back out, it was merely to teach Hyuga Keiko and Amakusa Ryuji, his two teammates, a move that could help them protect themselves.
With Kaede Kitahara's current strength, he had never stopped training in Taijutsu. Slightly modifying this Point-Blank Chakra Strike so that it suited the Shinobi World was nothing more than a simple task.
As for shattering a huge boulder taller than a person with one punch, that was simply thanks to this world's supernatural energy, Chakra.
It was just like the original Thunder Breathing. It absolutely could not have possessed such ridiculous power, but once Chakra was added, everything became different.
Kaede Kitahara himself did not think much of the Hyuga Clan's Gentle Fist. This style of fist was complex and demanding by nature, requiring extremely high aptitude to learn. And even if one truly mastered it, its power was still limited, reaching at most the level of an Elite Jonin.
Against experts who had reached Kage Level, the power of the Gentle Fist was honestly limited.
For example, Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms looked powerful. Once someone entered the user's attack range, they would suffer continuous strikes until all sixty-four palms were completed. The number could even be stacked higher. It sounded pretty good.
But at its core, it lacked a method capable of killing in one blow. If there were a move that could finish off an opponent instantly, where would there be a need to strike them sixty-four times in a row?
In theory, it could seal the opponent's Tenketsu. However, Kaede Kitahara had once had Hyuga Keiko test it. For an expert at his level, sealing Tenketsu only worked for an instant. His Chakra would immediately break through the restriction on his Tenketsu.
It was the same logic as Uzumaki Naruto using the Nine-Tails' Chakra to force open his Tenketsu.
The explosive power and lethality of Point-Blank Chakra Strike were both very strong, completely making up for the Eight Trigrams Palms' weakness in offensive output. If it was mixed into the movements of Eight Trigrams Palms, it would be truly deadly.
Hyuga Neji stared blankly at Hyuga Keiko. For members of the Hyuga Clan, aside from some basic skills taught at the Ninja Academy, they basically did not even glance at anything else. Their training was completely carried out according to the advancement path of the Gentle Fist.
As long as they practiced the Gentle Fist well, it was basically enough to deal with more than ninety-nine percent of the enemies in the Shinobi World.
As for Kaede Kitahara looking down on it, that was because he belonged to the one percent.
Hyuga Neji simply had never imagined that this older cousin of his would grow so strong so quickly. They had only gone a period of time without seeing each other. How had she suddenly become so much stronger?
He had an intuition that Hyuga Keiko's tremendous improvement in strength was definitely directly related to the person who had taught her Point-Blank Chakra Strike. Instinctively, a longing stirred inside him, because he wanted to become stronger.
But before he could say anything else, a middle-aged man came from a distance, carrying Clan Head Hyuga Hiashi's order to invite Hyuga Keiko over.
"Let's end today's sparring here, Neji. Remember to go home for dinner, okay?"
Hyuga Keiko patted Hyuga Neji on the head in satisfaction.