Kimimaro VS Ino-Shika-Cho

At the other end, Sasuke's eyes never left the dazzlingly fast clash between Rock Lee and Neji.

Even with the dynamic vision of his current Three-Tomoe Sharingan, he still had to focus completely to fully capture Rock Lee's top speed after opening the fourth gate, the Gate of Pain.

Every flash of leg shadows, every shriek of air being torn apart, displayed that utterly unreasonable, savage power.

Sasuke silently assessed it in his heart. If it were him, without using high-powered ninjutsu and relying only on taijutsu and swordsmanship to fight Rock Lee at close range in his current state, the odds would probably be fifty-fifty.

What made Sasuke feel an even sharper chill was the way Neji Hyuga handled it.

That boy was only a year older than them. Back at Konoha's Ninja Academy, he had once been hailed as "a genius the Hyuga Clan only saw once every few decades" and "the undisputed top student of his year." When Sasuke had first enrolled, surpassing Neji Hyuga had once been one of his short-term goals.

However, Neji had only stayed at the academy for a single year before disappearing along with his father, Hizashi Hyuga, after Hizashi's defection. Sasuke's impression of him had gradually grown blurry as well.

When they met again, it had already been during the Chunin Exams, when the other party had come to Konoha as a member of the Land of Stars delegation. His temperament had been calm and restrained, already different from the boy in Sasuke's memories who, despite being a genius, had inevitably carried the heavy sense of the Branch House's shackles.

Now that he was seeing it with his own eyes, Neji moved leisurely through Rock Lee's stormlike assault, using the exquisite subtleties of Gentle Fist to dissolve the ultimate violence of