Bang!
The impact echoed across the training ground.
Daichi cried out as Ren's heel slammed into his back. His body pitched forward, feet scraping desperately across the dirt as he fought to stop himself from tumbling out of the combat ring.
He reached the boundary with one foot already over the line.
At the last possible moment, Daichi twisted his body and dropped one hand to the ground. His fingers dug into the earth, allowing him to halt his momentum before he fell completely outside the ring.
A burning pain spread across his back.
The Hyūga clan possessed powerful defensive methods. The Eight Trigrams Palms Revolving Heaven could repel attacks from every direction, while more advanced shinobi could use extraordinary chakra control to reinforce their bodies.
Daichi knew neither method.
Revolving Heaven was a secret art guarded by the main family, and maintaining a protective layer of chakra was far beyond an academy student.
The only thing that saved him from being knocked unconscious was the Byakugan. He had sensed Ren appear behind him a fraction of a second before the kick landed and instinctively tightened his muscles.
Even so, the attack had nearly driven all the air from his lungs.
"Ren!"
Rin covered her mouth, her eyes wide with astonishment.
"That was incredible!"
Obito punched the air.
"Yes! Get him again!"
His relationship with Ren was complicated. They trained together occasionally, spoke as classmates, and shared several mutual friends, but Obito could never completely ignore how close Ren was to Rin.
A small, irrational sense of rivalry always remained.
However, Obito's clan pride was even stronger.
The Uchiha and Hyūga had competed for generations over which possessed Konoha's greatest dōjutsu. Seeing a Hyūga knocked across the ring was enough for Obito to temporarily forget every personal concern.
"The enemy of my enemy is my ally," he muttered with satisfaction.
Genma glanced at him. "Ren was never your enemy."
"That's not the important part."
Around them, the other students erupted into excited conversation.
Almost no one had understood what happened.
One instant, Daichi's palm had been about to strike Ren's chest. The next, Ren became a wooden shuriken and appeared behind him.
Even students familiar with the Substitution Technique had never seen it activated at such speed.
Beside the demonstration platform, Instructor Oki and Instructor Himura turned toward the ring simultaneously.
Oki's face changed.
"That movement…"
His mind flashed back to another shinobi.
Blond hair.
A calm smile.
A marked kunai flashing across the battlefield.
Oki had witnessed Minato Namikaze use the Flying Thunder God Technique only once, but the sight had been carved into his memory. Minato disappeared and reappeared without crossing the distance between, moving so quickly that ordinary perception became meaningless.
What Ren had done looked disturbingly similar.
"Space–time ninjutsu?" Oki whispered.
Instructor Himura's eyes narrowed.
"That's impossible."
"I know what I saw."
"A space–time technique requires advanced formula construction, exceptional chakra control, and knowledge that no academy student could possess."
Oki pointed toward the wooden shuriken spinning near Daichi's feet.
"Then explain that."
Himura replayed the exchange in his mind.
The shuriken Ren had thrown.
The smoke.
The replacement at the instant of impact.
Realization appeared on his face.
"It was the Substitution Technique."
Oki stared at him.
"Look at their positions," Himura continued. "Ren exchanged places with one of the training shuriken he had already thrown. He waited until Daichi committed to his attack, then activated the substitution at the last possible instant."
"That quickly?"
"It only resembled space–time ninjutsu because his timing was nearly perfect."
Instructor Oki looked back toward Ren.
"But an ordinary Substitution Technique requires preparation. Even an experienced Chūnin couldn't activate it in a fraction of a second without seals."
"I didn't say it was ordinary."
Neither instructor spoke for a moment.
On the surface, Himura's explanation made sense.
The truth it implied was almost as unbelievable.
An eight-year-old civilian student had refined an E-rank Substitution Technique until it briefly resembled the Flying Thunder God.
Inside the ring, the battle was not over.
Daichi slammed both hands against the ground and used his core strength to throw his legs upward. His recovery was clumsy, but he managed to flip back inside the boundary and land on one knee.
He remained there for several seconds, drawing painful breaths.
Humiliation burned hotter than the injury across his back.
"Damn you…"
Daichi raised his head.
"You attacked from behind."
Ren watched him calmly from the opposite side of the ring.
"We're in a shinobi assessment."
"That was a trick."
"It was a substitution."
Daichi's teeth clenched.
Before he could answer, Ren's hands came together.
"Clone Technique."
Smoke burst across the center of the ring.
Four identical Rens emerged and spread out, surrounding Daichi from multiple directions.
Daichi forced himself upright.
He was injured, but he remained a Hyūga trained since early childhood. One successful strike would not break his composure.
The veins around his eyes thickened.
"Do you really think that will work twice?"
His Byakugan swept across the four figures.
Then Daichi froze.
Each Ren possessed the faint, incomplete chakra pattern of an ordinary illusionary clone.
None of them was the original.
"What?"
He checked again.
All four were false.
Daichi's gaze darted across the ring. He inspected the platform, the boundary posts, and even the ground beneath the clones.
Ren's real body was nowhere to be seen.
The Byakugan had not failed.
Its vision could still identify the chakra within each clone. It could still see the students surrounding the ring and the instructors observing from a distance.
The problem was that Daichi did not know where to look.
During the smoke created by the Clone Technique, Ren had used Perfect Form to transform into one of the scattered wooden shuriken.
He had placed himself directly within the narrow blind angle extending from the back of Daichi's upper body.
The Byakugan granted almost complete vision, but almost was not the same as absolute.
Every eye possessed a weakness.
Ren remembered that weakness from his former life.
As Daichi shifted, Ren used Sealless Instant Release to exchange places between the wooden shuriken scattered across the ring, remaining within that moving gap in Daichi's awareness.
Each exchange took only two-tenths of a second.
The sounds were hidden beneath the movement of the clones and the noise of the watching students.
To Daichi, Ren had vanished.
Cold sweat slid down his cheek.
He knew the figures around him were illusions. Yet that knowledge offered no comfort because the real Ren could appear from anywhere.
"Why are you standing there?" Obito shouted from outside the ring. "Did that kick knock all the confidence out of you?"
Daichi's jaw tightened.
"Shut up, dead last!"
Several students laughed.
Daichi's shame grew.
He could feel everyone watching him—an elite child of the Hyūga clan, standing motionless before four academy-level clones.
If he continued hesitating, he would become a joke.
"Fine," he growled.
His gaze locked onto the nearest Ren.
"If I can't find your real body, I'll destroy every clone and force you to reveal yourself!"
Daichi lunged.
His palm passed through the first clone's chest.
Poof!
The illusion collapsed into white smoke.
Daichi pivoted immediately and attacked the second. His fingertips tore through its shoulder, dispersing it just as easily.
Two remained.
He rushed toward the third.
Another palm.
Another burst of smoke.
But with every clone he destroyed, his unease deepened.
Ren did not appear.
There was no counterattack.
No sound of breathing.
No sudden movement within the ring.
The last clone waited near the opposite boundary with a calm expression.
Daichi's chakra was draining rapidly. Maintaining the Byakugan while repeatedly using Gentle Fist placed far more strain on him than he wanted to admit.
Pain continued radiating from his back.
He could not allow the match to drag on.
Daichi drove his feet against the ground and charged toward the final clone.
His Byakugan continued searching the edges of the ring. He expected Ren to emerge the moment the last illusion disappeared.
That expectation became another trap.
Daichi reached striking range.
The last clone raised its hands as though preparing to defend.
Daichi ignored the movement. He already knew the figure had no substance.
His palm swept toward its chest.
At that exact moment, a wooden shuriken lying behind him exploded into smoke.
Ren emerged from the transformation in a low crouch.
Daichi's Byakugan registered the sudden burst of chakra—but his body was already moving in the wrong direction.
"What?!"
Ren stepped into his blind side.
His right palm shot forward and struck beneath Daichi's ribs.
The attack contained no secret chakra art. It was a precise taijutsu strike aimed at a vulnerable point, delivered while Daichi's body was extended and unable to brace.
Pain detonated through Daichi's side.
His breath vanished.
The strength drained from his legs.
Before he could recover, Ren caught his wrist, turned beneath the extended arm, and pressed his back against Daichi's chest.
Then Ren pulled.
Daichi's own momentum worked against him.
His feet left the ground.
The world rotated violently.
Ren completed the shoulder throw and sent him over the boundary of the ring.
Thud!
Dust erupted.
Daichi struck the earth outside the platform and rolled once before stopping on his back. A pained groan escaped him.
The final clone disappeared.
Ren remained alone inside the ring.
He released Daichi's wrist, straightened his clothes, and exhaled slowly.
The entire training ground fell silent.
Instructor Oki stared at Daichi's position beyond the boundary, then raised one hand.
"The match is over. The winner is Ren."
For a moment, no one reacted.
Then the waiting students exploded into noise.
"A civilian defeated a Hyūga!"
"He only used the Three Basic Techniques!"
"What was that substitution?"
"Did he transform into a shuriken?"
"That was incredible!"
Obito shouted louder than anyone.
Rin looked at Ren with undisguised relief and amazement. Guy's eyes filled with tears as he declared the battle a perfect expression of youthful determination.
Asuma said nothing.
His earlier indifference was gone. He stared at Ren with a seriousness he had never shown him before.
Beside the platform, Oki and Himura exchanged a glance.
They both understood what the other was thinking.
Ren's performance had far exceeded the level of an ordinary academy student.
Inside the ring, sunlight fell across Ren's silver-white hair.
At his feet, Daichi struggled onto one elbow.
The Hyūga boy's face was pale. Dust covered his clothes, and the activated veins around his eyes slowly faded as he released the Byakugan.
Ren looked down at him.
"The match is over," he said. "You lost."
Daichi's fingers dug into the dirt.
Ren's voice remained calm.
"Now, apologize to the Three Basic Techniques."
The cheers faded.
Every eye turned toward Daichi.
He had entered the ring certain that his bloodline and clan training placed him beyond Ren's reach. Instead, a civilian student had defeated his Byakugan and Gentle Fist using the same E-rank techniques Daichi had mocked.
His pride felt as if it had shattered in front of the entire academy.
The surrounding gazes pierced him like needles.
Daichi opened his mouth.
No words emerged.
A system notification appeared before Ren.
[Limited-Time Mission Status: Victory achieved.]
[Final requirement: Obtain Hyūga Daichi's apology.]
[Warning: The mission is not yet complete.]