"Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm is only one of our Hyuga Clan's techniques. My Hyuga Clan has many more powerful secret techniques. But it seems the Uchiha don't dare face us head-on!" Hyuga Ningbo withdrew from his Gentle Fist stance and shook his head with a sigh. WwWCOM
"Damn it! With the Senju of the Forest gone, the Uchiha Clan is Konoha's new top clan. The mere Hyuga Clan is laughable... Cough, cough!"
Uchiha Kenichi, supported by Inuzuka Jin, shouted furiously from the side. But as he struggled to rise with Inuzuka Jin's help, the sudden movement seemed to aggravate his injuries. He coughed violently twice, his face twisting in pain.
"Then, Uchiha Kenichi, can you tell me why you, as a member of the top clan, were defeated by my Hyuga Clan's Gentle Fist? It proves that the Uchiha Clan is far inferior to us in a head-on fight. That claim of being the top clan is nothing but a delusion your Uchiha Clan tells itself...!"
Hyuga Ningbo's calm tone only made Uchiha Kenichi angrier. He abruptly opened his blood-red eyes, murderous intent spilling from them as if he were ready to fight Hyuga Ningbo to the death. But his chakra points had been struck, leaving him unable to circulate chakra through his body or muster any strength.
He could only stagger forward a few steps before dropping to one knee, seemingly exhausted, and gasping for breath.
Uchiha Kaoru glanced at Uchiha Kenichi's wretched state. Her blood-red eyes remained utterly calm as she said with disdain, "If you're trying to force me into a Taijutsu match this way, you're going to be disappointed. The Uchiha Clan doesn't fight through Taijutsu, genjutsu, or ninjutsu contests. We use these eyes to find our opponents' weaknesses and defeat them..."
"Is that so? What a shame..."
Seeing that his provocation hadn't worked, Hyuga Ningbo bent his body slightly and resumed his Gentle Fist stance. His pale eyes stayed fixed on Uchiha Kaoru's movements. From their earlier fight, he could tell that the woman was extremely vigilant; getting close to her was nearly impossible. His only option now was to respond to each move and test whose stamina would last longer.
Men had greater stamina than women. Perhaps that was the key to winning!
"Then take this!"
Uchiha Kaoru cried out and pulled eight shuriken from the ninja pouches at her thighs. She flicked her wrists, sending them streaking toward Hyuga Ningbo in eight arcing paths. And she didn't stop after throwing them—she kept pulling out more shuriken...
Her hands moved so quickly that her arms seemed to turn into countless afterimages. She hurled shuriken after shuriken, making them collide with the ones she had thrown earlier. The impacts sparked furiously, throwing the shuriken off their original paths until they flew like a swarm of erratically bouncing glass marbles...
[Uchiha Shuriken Jutsu] was a shuriken technique that only those with the Sharingan could use. With exceptional dynamic vision, the user could precisely control every shuriken's point of impact, then throw more kunai to alter their original trajectories.
One collision became two, two became four, four became eight... The shuriken, which had initially followed orderly paths, turned chaotic. Their midair trajectories became utterly unpredictable. Yet with exceptional dynamic vision and a special throwing technique, they could all be directed at the same target.
Ordinary people couldn't track such erratic shuriken with their eyes, let alone dodge them!
Hyuga Ningbo's expression turned grim. Even his eyes could no longer follow their trajectories, so he had no choice but to keep firing Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palms from where he stood. Bursts of highly concentrated chakra blasted the shuriken out of the air, knocking them aside and sending them to the ground...
The shuriken that fell stuck into the earth, and their numbers kept growing until the ground was densely covered with them. There were so many that the sight alone could give someone trypophobia!
Uchiha Kaoru changed her technique again. Several shuriken Hyuga Ningbo had dodged were struck by the ones she threw afterward, curving around to attack from behind. They shot toward his lower back, heart, knees, and other vulnerable spots.
The skill of using a throwing technique to alter an attack's trajectory and strike from an opponent's blind spot was simply incredible!
However, for a member of the Hyuga Main Family, attacks from behind were just as easy to see with the Byakugan as attacks from the front. But now, shuriken were spinning rapidly through the space in front of him, behind him, and in every direction, all aimed at him!
In that case, there was only one technique left.
Hyuga Ningbo lowered his body slightly and spread his hands into a V, taking up a Gentle Fist stance. As the kunai attacked from every direction, he released a vast amount of Gentle Fist chakra through his chakra points, then spun in circles like a top, kicking up clouds of dust and fallen leaves...
A rapidly spinning whirlwind suddenly formed around him, sweeping everything nearby into a swift, orderly circular motion!
Before the countless shuriken could hit the top-like vortex, the rapidly moving Chakra Threads deflected them in every direction at even greater speed. They flew faster, struck harder, and traveled farther. The others present were caught in the attack's reach and had to retreat more than twenty meters before they could stop.
Uchiha Kaoru's Sharingan gave her exceptional dynamic vision, allowing her to easily dodge the handful of shuriken that flew her way. Even as she dodged, she continued throwing more. The shuriken she hurled were flung into the ground, where they piled up in ever-growing heaps...
Sato Hideaka took one look at the ground, densely studded with shuriken, and estimated there were already at least three hundred of them!
Yet Uchiha Kaoru kept going. The air was filled with clanging impacts and sparks as shuriken flew in every direction, blotting out the sky. She kept it up for four minutes, only stopping once she had reached a tree branch. Her chest rose and fell slightly as she began to pant.
By then, the shuriken Hyuga Ningbo had deflected with Rotation were densely embedded in the ground. A careful count would have put their number at well over two thousand.
The woman had thrown six shuriken per second for six minutes straight.
She was terrifying!
Hidden in the grass, Sato Hideaka swallowed nervously. It seemed he'd need to develop a ninjutsu that could defend against attacks from all 360 degrees. Otherwise, he doubted he could last even ten seconds against such shuriken-throwing skills.
Uchiha Kaoru stopped attacking. After spinning around several times, Hyuga Ningbo finally managed to steady himself and stop using Rotation...
But his condition was even worse than Uchiha Kaoru's. He was panting heavily, beads of sweat covering his fair skin and soaking through his gray-and-white kimono. His smooth hair had also become rather disheveled.
Clearly, Rotation was an extremely exhausting technique for the Hyuga Clan. If they kept dragging out the fight, Hyuga Ningbo might be the first to run out of stamina. He decided to change tactics, put his hands behind his back, and dashed toward Uchiha Kaoru, hoping to engage her in close-quarters combat.
This time, Uchiha Kaoru didn't keep her distance as she had before while harassing him with kunai. Instead, she seemed to let him approach. Once he had come within a certain distance, she began forming Hand Seals in front of her chest—
"Snake, Goat, Monkey, Boar, Horse, Tiger..."