It's the Heart, Right? I Get It. Friendship! Love! Bonds!

Qingyu was stunned for a moment, then nodded heavily: "I understand."

Idealism, right? I get it—friendship! Love! Bonds!

Sharingan! Open for me!!!

He turned and walked toward the entrance tunnel.

Behind him, Shisui said softly: "Good luck."

Itachi didn't speak, only gave a slight nod.

Qingyu walked into the tunnel, and the light dimmed.

Ahead, at the end of the tunnel, was a bright exit where the mountain-shaking cheers of the crowd could be heard.

In his mind, Izuna suddenly laughed: "Kid, are you afraid?"

"I am," Qingyu admitted honestly.

"Being afraid is correct," Izuna said.

"But the fear of the Uchiha isn't the fear that makes you run away; it's the fear of being 'so excited you're trembling.' Back in my day, I was scared to death before every battle, but the moment I gripped my blade, I wasn't afraid of anything anymore."

At eight years old, when Kobe touched his first basketball, he said, "I want to play basketball for the rest of my life..."

"Physiologically, the physical reactions to fear and excitement are similar—both involve the secretion of adrenaline.

The only difference lies in psychological cognition; you can choose to define your current feeling as 'pre-battle excitement,'" Tobirama added calmly.

As a transmigrator, how could I possibly be excited!

Qingyu gave a wry smile: "Teachers, the chicken soup you're feeding me... it's quite complementary."

He reached the end of the tunnel and stopped.

Outside, the referee's voice came through an amplification jutsu:

"The third match is about to begin! Will both contestants please enter the arena!"

"Konoha's Neji Hyuga,"

A massive roar of cheers.

"Konoha's Uchiha Qingyu,"

The cheering was a bit quieter, but still substantial.

After all, he was an Uchiha; his looks reached the average reader's standard, so naturally, there would be people cheering!

Qingyu took a deep breath and stepped out of the tunnel.

The blinding sunlight, the deafening waves of sound, the gaze of ten thousand eyes.

Across the arena, Neji Hyuga was already standing there, dressed in white, his eyes as calm as water.

Qingyu walked to his position and stood still.

The two were fifty meters apart.

The referee stood on a high platform at the edge of the arena and raised his hand:

"Match rules: No-holds-barred combat. Use of any ninjutsu, taijutsu, or ninja tools is permitted, but intentional lethal attacks are forbidden.

A match is lost if one party concedes, stays down for ten seconds, or loses consciousness."

"Both sides, prepare,"

Neji assumed the Gentle Fist stance, his Byakugan activated, blue veins bulging at his temples.

Qingyu pulled three custom shuriken from his ninja tool pouch, his other hand beginning to weave signs.

"Begin!"

If I'm going down, we're all going down!

The moment the referee uttered the word "Begin," Neji moved.

He was as fast as a bolt of white lightning, charging straight forward!

No, "moving" wasn't enough to describe it!

It was practically teleportation!

Qingyu's pupils constricted.

Here it comes.

Damn it, is it too late to surrender now!

In the fifty-meter distance, Neji closed the gap to within twenty meters in just one and a half seconds.

With his Byakugan activated, his entire aura had changed.

There was no emotion in his white pupils, only absolute coldness and... the oppressive feeling of seeing through everything.

Holy crap! What kind of speed is this! It takes me over seven seconds just to run fifty meters in the school physical fitness test!

Qingyu's internal monologue was racing uncontrollably, but his body had already reacted, lunging backward while his left hand whipped out three shuriken!

Not in a straight line, but in an arc!

The three shuriken carved three treacherous curves through the air, sealing off Neji's path of advance.

"Useless." Neji's voice was terrifyingly calm.

He didn't even slow down, his hands moving in a rapid blur before him.

Pa! Pa! Pa!

With three soft sounds, all three shuriken were swatted away by his palms.

It wasn't a block; he had precisely struck the weak side of each shuriken, using minimal force to deflect their trajectories.

[Swatting shuriken away with bare hands?! Are the Hyuga's hands made of titanium?!]

"Gentle Fist: Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm!"

The very instant Neji swatted the shuriken away, he thrust his right palm forward.

Hum.

An invisible shockwave of chakra tore through the air, heading straight for Qingyu's face!

"Dodge!" Izuna and Tobirama roared in his mind simultaneously.

Relying on the instincts honed by days of being brutalized, Qingyu threw himself into a clumsy roll toward the front right.

Boom!

The spot where he had been standing was blasted into a bowl-sized crater.

[I thought the Hyuga Branch House only used melee?! This script is all wrong!]

Before Qingyu could scramble to his feet, Neji had already closed the distance to within ten meters.

The 360-degree vision of the Byakugan meant that every subtle adjustment Qingyu made was laid bare.

"Gentle Fist: Two Palms!"

Neji's hands darted out like butterflies weaving through flowers, aiming directly for two chakra points on Qingyu's chest.

"Water-Fire Style: Rotation Barrier!"

Qingyu didn't have time to complete the full hand seals; he practically roared as he forced his chakra to erupt.

Hum!

A translucent, dual-colored sphere of water and fire hastily expanded, barely forming an arc-shaped shield in front of him.

Bang!

Neji's palms struck the barrier, causing it to vibrate violently and spiderweb with cracks, but it held.

Neji raised an eyebrow slightly. "Oh?"

He clearly hadn't expected Qingyu to react so quickly, nor for his defensive ninjutsu to manifest faster than that of an average genin.

[Blocked it! That was close... wait, is he smiling?]

Qingyu clearly saw a faint, almost excited smirk tug at the corner of Neji's mouth.

"Interesting," Neji said softly, and then, the force behind his palms surged!

"Gentle Fist: Four Palms!"

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Four consecutive strikes, landing on the exact same spot in nearly the same instant!

Crack!

The barrier shattered completely, dissolving into specks of chakra light.

Qingyu was shoved back five or six meters by the recoil, his chest feeling tight and his throat tasting of copper.

[Four-palm combo?! What kind of hand speed is that! How many years of being single did it take to train that?!]

"Don't lose focus!" Izuna cursed in his mind.

"He's testing you! Use my footwork to create distance!"

"No!" Tobirama countered.

"Retreating now will let him predict your trajectory! Use the Substitution Technique to bait him, then counter with Water Style!"

The two of them started arguing again.

Qingyu felt a massive headache coming on, but his body had already made its own choice.

He didn't use the Uchiha Style footwork, nor did he use the Substitution Technique; instead, he performed an action that caught everyone off guard.

He charged forward!

Not toward Neji, but toward Neji's left, where the three shuriken he had swatted away were now embedded in the ground.

"Trying to retrieve your tools?" Neji saw through the intent instantly, his figure flickering to block the path.

But Qingyu suddenly changed direction when he was five meters away, forming hand seals with his right hand:

"Fire Style: Great Fireball Technique!"

A basic version that had been improved, a fireball the size of a basketball spewed out, heading straight for Neji's face.

Neji didn't even blink his Byakugan, waving his right hand: "Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm."

The fireball was scattered in mid-air by the invisible palm force, sending sparks flying everywhere.

Taking advantage of this brief visual interference, Qingyu had already rushed to the three shuriken, flicking them up with his toe so he could catch them in mid-air.

At the same time, his left hand reached into his ninja tool pouch and pulled out three more.

He now held three shuriken in each hand.

"He's going to throw six at once?" Ino said in surprise from the stands. "Can he even control that?"

"No." Shikamaru narrowed his eyes.

"He probably... doesn't intend to control them at all."