On the field,
Ao of the Mist and the sensory Jonin in his squad coldly stared at the cloud of smoke that had suddenly risen.
Hyuga Genko was clever. He had almost instantly understood the situation--
Hyuga Natsu's plan had no problems.
Only by shaking off the enemy's sensory ninja could they find a sliver of hope of escaping this situation.
But the question was, how could he ensure that the enemy would definitely send a sensory ninja after Hyuga Natsu?
Or rather,
Would Hyuga Natsu truly hold back the enemy's sensory ninja for him?
Hyuga Genko did not dare gamble, so he made the safest choice--
He used the Transformation Jutsu, deliberately expanding the smoke produced by it to obscure the enemy's vision.
Then, within that smoke, whether the first "Hyuga Natsu" to escape was real or fake, the enemy would send people after her.
Meanwhile, he would use this chance to flee in the direction Hyuga Natsu had indicated!
At that moment,
Threatened by the Caged Bird, Hyuga Natsu had no choice but to follow Hyuga Genko's orders. She broke out of the smoke first and began to run, while Hyuga Genko followed close behind before fleeing in another direction.
Faced with this situation,
Without Kurenai beside him and unable to quickly distinguish the real one from a Transformation Jutsu through Red Eye vision, Ao decisively gave the order:
"Kensuke, follow the first one."
"Yes!"
The sensory Jonin named Kensuke dashed out from Ao's side and pursued Hyuga Natsu.
At a time like this, a decisive order was more important than a correct judgment made after hesitation. Though Ao had roughly figured out what kind of person this Hyuga Main Family member was from their previous encounter, and had guessed that the "Hyuga Natsu" who ran later was the Main House member in disguise,
he could not gamble.
And just as Hyuga Genko secretly rejoiced, believing his plan had worked, he did not know that--
there was another hunter on the field who had set his sights on him.
After confirming that the enemy's sensory ninja had gone after Hyuga Natsu, Hyuga Genko did not fear the remaining Ao of the Mist, but he also knew that now was not the time to get entangled with the enemy.
At last, he activated the pair of dead-angle-free Byakugan that belonged to the Main House, consuming chakra without hesitation!
However,
before he had fled very far in the direction Hyuga Natsu had pointed, just as his Byakugan opened and he was still taking in the battlefield from a godlike bird's-eye view--
"Crunch."
Hyuga Genko seemed to step on something.
Immediately after,
"--BOOM!!!"
A massive fiery tornado erupted beneath Hyuga Genko's feet!
The gale swept through the area, and a deafening blast rose alongside a mushroom cloud!
The light and heat unleashed by no fewer than a hundred Explosive Tags in an instant swallowed the vision of everyone on the field!
The expression on the Main House member's face shifted in an instant from secret delight to blankness, then shock. Finally, "her" pale face looked as though all blood had been drained from it, and her wide eyes filled with uncontrollable terror!
Hyuga Genko was blasted into the air!
The sudden upheaval
made the three people pursuing their respective targets all stop at once.
Then, Hyuga Natsu, who was on the other side, abruptly spun around. A ruthless glint flashed through her beautiful eyes as she charged without hesitation toward Hyuga Genko, who had been blasted away!
As she raced at full speed, her expression changed as swiftly as a face-changing performance. She showed worry, fear, and panic as she cried out herself hoarse:
"Young Master Genko!!!"
Even though she had set this trap in advance, that did not stop Hyuga Natsu from looking like an innocent bystander with nothing to do with it.
Along this road leading to the Grass Wave Coast,
she had set up six identical traps.
Hyuga Natsu rapidly closed in on Hyuga Genko!
Ao stood frozen in place for several seconds, watching Hyuga Natsu turn back and rush toward Genko.
Instinctively, he sensed something strange enough to send a chill down his spine!
But only for an instant, he reflexively ordered the Jonin Kensuke on the other end:
"Kensuke, get out of the way!"
The sensory Jonin Kensuke immediately obeyed Ao's command, moving aside from Hyuga Natsu's path.
The next instant,
"Whoosh!"
A fierce palm blast grazed past Kensuke's face, flew onward, and struck a large tree in the distance.
In an instant, a tree twenty meters away, thick enough for one person to wrap both arms around, was snapped cleanly in half by Hyuga Natsu's Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm and crashed down!
Kensuke's face immediately filled with terror. He retreated several steps in succession, widening the distance between himself and Hyuga Natsu.
Having missed with her strike, Hyuga Natsu lightly bit her teeth together and raised her eyes, her Byakugan bulging as she swept her gaze toward the obstructive Ao. Intense, undisguised killing intent rose in her eyes!
Ao once again gave an order to the sensory Jonin Kensuke in his squad.
"You keep an eye on the Main House member."
"I'll deal with this woman myself!"
Then, he stared gravely at the charging Hyuga Natsu, flicked his wrist, and drew the ninja sword at his waist, gripping it in one hand.
To ordinary ninja, members of the Hyuga Clan were exceptionally troublesome opponents.
At close range, they had the Gentle Fist, which could seal chakra and restrain ninjutsu. Defensively, they had the absurdly powerful Rotation. At mid-range, they had the seal-less Nintaijutsu, Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm. At long range, their Byakugan granted them extreme-distance detection, allowing them to simply retreat beforehand whenever they sensed trouble.
They were like hedgehogs curled into a ball, with no blind spots or weaknesses from any direction.
Even with all their information known, it was extremely difficult to counter or suppress Hyuga ninja. In the end, battles inevitably became the simplest and most straightforward contests of chakra expenditure.
Under these circumstances,
the Hyuga Main Family could not be countered,
but the Branch House could!
Ao formed the Seal of the Tiger upright before his chest with one hand while gripping his ninja sword with the other. His entire body suddenly transformed into a puddle of water and fell to the ground.
"Splash!"
Water Style: Water Body Flicker!
Ao's figure immediately vanished from Hyuga Natsu's 359-degree field of vision.
But she knew very clearly that Ao was hidden within the one degree blocked by the Caged Bird.
Hyuga Natsu immediately gathered a large amount of chakra in her palms, ground her toes against the earth, and spun gracefully as she thrust out both palms!
BOOM!
The palm blast burst from her body, forming a compressed-air shell that shot toward her back!
At the same time, her rotating Byakugan vision locked onto the enemy's position once again.
But at that moment,
Hyuga Natsu's pupils abruptly contracted!
The Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm fired behind her had struck Ao precisely, yet in the very next instant, that "Ao" exploded into a puddle of water.
Behind it,
Ao's true body held his ninja sword in one hand, drawing it back sideways before his chest. His other hand remained upright before him, continually changing through hand seals!
Rabbit--Ram--Snake.
Water Style: Water Fang Blade!
A violently spinning vortex spiraled around his ninja sword, rotating and converging at a single point!
Hyuga Natsu immediately recognized it as the exceedingly rare technique of forming hand seals with one hand!
While holding his blade in one hand and forming seals with the other, Ao had consecutively cast Water Style: Water Body Flicker, Water Style: Water Clone Jutsu, and Water Style: Water Fang Blade, neutralizing Hyuga Natsu's counterattack and creating an opening to defeat her in one strike!
Ao stared coldly at Hyuga Natsu and pronounced impassively:
"It's over!"
The next moment, after several running steps, he sprang forward like a rabbit. Enhanced by chakra, he thrust at Hyuga Natsu's throat at nearly instantaneous speed!
However,
at that moment--
not far away, the sensory ninja Kensuke seemed to sense something. He sharply turned his head toward the western side of the battlefield.
Then,
he whipped his head back around. His flushed face turned pale, and terror tinged his suddenly widened eyes as he shouted at Ao:
"Lord Ao!"
"Watch out!"
"It seems... something is flying this way!"
Before you continue