"Cannon Fist!!!"
Naruto burst out of the dust, his right fist whistling through the air as he drove it toward Neji's back.
He had packed nearly thirty percent of his chakra into that punch. As Qingwu had put it, "Even an iron wall would come crashing down."
Qingwu merely smiled. A chakra burst—with so much chakra that you can throw it around however you like, brute force alone can work wonders.
"Useless. Your chakra fluctuations are too strong."
Neji's reaction was impeccable.
Although he had not fully tracked its trajectory, the Byakugan's keen sensitivity to chakra let him turn sideways at the last instant—
Rumble!
Naruto's fist grazed his shoulder and slammed into the ground, instantly cracking the hard paving stones into a spiderweb of fractures.
"Good speed and power."
Neji steadied himself and turned to Naruto, genuine approval entering his eyes for the first time. "But your attack's trajectory is still too obvious. Once I sense the chakra burst, I can dodge in advance."
Naruto pouted. Wow, way to rain on my parade.
Sakura and the others silently lamented his missed chance. If he had not shouted, he might have caught Neji off guard.
"You've had your turn. Now it's mine."
With that, Neji suddenly went on the offensive. He stamped his foot, and his Eight Trigrams Field spread across the entire arena.
After activating the technique,
he closed in on Naruto like a phantom, his hands held flat and the chakra at his fingertips condensed into fine blades. "Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms!"
Pale blue gusts from his palms rained down, every strike aimed precisely at a node in Naruto's chakra pathway system.
Thud, thud, thud!
Naruto hurriedly raised his arms to block, but he could not keep up with Neji's palms. In just two seconds, more than a