Willow Branch Breaks Dance of the Crescent Moon

Yugao's sweeping slash reached a point thirty centimeters outside Chiba's right ribs.

The tip of the willow branch met it at the same instant.

It did not block head-on. It flicked upward from below at an angle, the branch striking precisely one-third down the blade. That was the structural weak point of Japanese-style swords, the boundary where leverage was greatest and the wielder's control was weakest.

Chiba infused a thread of Wood Release chakra into the willow branch with his fingers.

Not much—an extremely restrained amount, just enough to transform the branch's fibrous structure from soft wood into the resilience of a steel cable.

Clang.

A crisp metallic collision exploded atop Hokage Rock.

A willow branch and a proper katana had produced the sound of clashing weapons. The sight itself was absurd enough to seem unreal.

A recoil force Yugao had never anticipated shot through her arm, numbing the web between her thumb and forefinger. Her sweeping blade was forcibly deflected five degrees.

In a high-speed battle, a five-degree deviation was already a fatal mistake.

Her center of gravity drifted half a step forward under the sweep's momentum. Her left foot missed the point that should have steadied her body, exposing an extremely brief opening.

Chiba did not press the advantage.

He took a step back, drawing the willow branch to his side. Its tip still swayed from the impact, making a faint rustling sound.

"The transition from the first form of Konoha Style Iaijutsu, thrust to horizontal slash, was good. But when you exerted force, your forearm rotated 0.3 seconds too early, exposing the change in your blade's trajectory ahead of time."

Yugao steadied herself, holding her katana horizontally before her. Beneath her mask, her lips pressed tightly together, and her chest rose and fell slightly more than before.

"You could see that?"

"You swung your blade under the moonlight. Every muscle contraction was written across your skin. Why wouldn't I be able to see it?"

Yugao changed her grip.

Both hands clasped the hilt. She raised the sword over her head, its tip angled toward Chiba, with her weight pressed onto her rear foot.

This was the second stance of Konoha Style.

Chiba recognized the opening posture.

"Dance of the Crescent Moon?"

Yugao did not answer. Chakra surged fiercely into her blade, silver-white light spreading along its patterns. Moonlight struck the blade and refracted into three beams shooting in entirely different directions.

The three beams locked onto Chiba's head, chest, and knees respectively.

His upper, middle, and lower lines were sealed off at once.

One of Konoha Style's signature techniques: through three ultra-fast consecutive slashes, it created three blade shadows in the target's vision, each difficult to distinguish as real or false, and each carrying enough genuine killing power to cut through armor.

Yugao moved.

Her figure split into three afterimages beneath the moonlight, each trailing a silver-white blade flash as they closed in on Chiba from three different angles simultaneously.

She was an entire level faster than her first charge.

This strike contained more than eighty percent of her true strength.

A steady azure light glowed in Chiba's pupils. His mental power, balanced between Yin and Yang, slowed the flow of time in his perception by threefold.

The three afterimages lined up in his vision like three consecutive frames of a photograph.

The first came down from the upper left, aimed at the crown of his head.

The second swept horizontally from directly ahead, targeting the line from his chest to his abdomen.

The third rose from the lower right, its tip aimed at the side of his knee.

The three blade flashes appeared to arrive at once, but Chiba saw the time difference.

The second was 0.1 seconds faster than the first, while the third was 0.05 seconds slower than the second. The middle one was the real body.

Chiba's willow branch moved three times.

The first time, its shaft flicked upward and struck the blade shadow descending from the upper left, making contact one-third from the rear of the blade. The Wood Release chakra in the branch pulsed at the instant of contact, knocking that blade shadow off course.

Clang.

The second time, the upward flick flowed directly into a horizontal sweep. The middle of the branch intercepted the blade sweeping in from the front, once again striking the sword's weak point.

Clang.

The third time, Chiba twisted the tail end of the willow branch in his hand. From the end of the horizontal sweep, he pressed downward, the branch tip precisely tapping the spine of the sword rising from the lower right.

Clang.

Three clear rings erupted in succession in less than half a second, their echoes bouncing back and forth between the stone walls of Hokage Rock.

Yugao's Dance of the Crescent Moon had been broken.

All three blade flashes veered from their original paths and scattered in three directions, slashing into the stone surface of Hokage Rock. They carved three grooves of varying depths, sending chips of stone and sparks flying.

Yugao's body solidified from the three afterimages five meters directly in front of Chiba. She gripped her katana with both hands, its tip pointed down, her arms trembling slightly.

The skin at the web between her thumb and forefinger had been rubbed raw by the three recoil impacts. Beads of blood seeped from the tears, running down her fingers and dripping onto the hilt.

Beneath her mask, her breathing was rapid and uneven.

Chiba stood where he was, the willow branch resting on his shoulder, his posture no different from before the fight began.

He had not even shifted his position by half a step.

"Dance of the Crescent Moon. The intervals between the three slashes are 0.1 seconds and 0.05 seconds. The middle strike is the real body, while the upper and lower strikes are supplementary attacks created by rapid footwork and afterimages."

Chiba's voice carried through the night wind, as calm as though he were explaining a practice problem to students in class.

"The design of this technique is fine, but you are not fast enough. The time difference between the three attacks should not be visible to the naked eye. Either increase your speed by another thirty percent so all three truly arrive at once, or make the fakes more convincing by attaching more chakra to the afterimages, making it impossible for your opponent to distinguish the real body."

Yugao's hands trembled. It was not entirely from the lingering recoil; part of it was the shock she could not accept.

She had used Dance of the Crescent Moon for seven years since entering service. She had fought the top three in ANBU internal ranking matches, and powerful rogue ninja encountered during S-rank missions. Never had anyone completely broken the technique upon seeing it for the first time.

Never.

And her opponent had used a willow branch.

"Where did you learn your swordsmanship?"

Yugao's voice came from behind her mask, rougher than before. Her throat had tightened, altering the sound of her vocal cords.

Chiba took the willow branch off his shoulder and raised it before his eyes. Three dents marked its surface, left by the collisions. The wood fibers had compressed and deformed at those points, but they had not broken.

"Senju Style Iaijutsu. Something the Senju Clan developed over hundreds of years of war against the Uchiha Clan during the Warring States era. There is only one core principle: no matter how fast or sharp your blade is, find the point where its strength is weakest. A light touch is enough."

Chiba rested the willow branch on his shoulder.

"You should have learned the phrase 'use softness to overcome hardness' in the ninja academy. But you have never seen anyone truly do it in combat."

Yugao slowly sheathed her katana.

The sound of metal sliding into the scabbard was soft, yet it was crystal clear atop the silent Hokage Rock.

She released the hilt and let both hands hang at her sides. The blood beads on the backs of her hands had already congealed into dark red specks.

"Lord Chiba, I lost."

"Good that you know it. Go back and tell the Third that Senju Chiba's close combat is not limited to Wood Release."

Chiba turned to leave.

Yugao's voice came from behind him.

"Lord Chiba."

"Hmm?"

"Those three taps just now—every one of them landed precisely on the same spot on my sword. Four cun and seven fen from the guard."

Chiba stopped and glanced back at her.

Yugao's mask was slightly crooked, perhaps from the airflow generated during the fight. The edge on its right side had lifted, revealing half of one eye.

That eye was deep violet beneath the moonlight, with Chiba's figure reflected in its pupil.

"That spot is where this sword's forging defect lies. An air-bubble pattern left behind during forging, invisible to the naked eye. The weakest point on the entire blade."

Her voice trembled with something she could not conceal.

"How did you see it?"

The corner of Chiba's mouth curved upward. Moonlight spilled from behind him, outlining his silhouette with a golden edge.

"Captain Yugao, before asking me for another spar, remember to fix the defect in your blade first."

His figure walked down the stone face of Hokage Rock, the willow branch across his shoulder, his steps as leisurely as if he had just returned from a stroll through the park.

Yugao remained where she stood.

Moonlight shone over her ANBU combat uniform and the sword on her back. Her purple hair drifted in the wind, her mask crooked to reveal half her face. Her lips were slightly parted, and her deep violet eyes stared at Chiba's retreating back.

Blood still seeped from the web of her hand, but she did not wipe it away.

Fourteen years of swordsmanship training had been thoroughly shattered by a single willow branch.

Yet the three clangs echoing in her mind were clearer and more profound than the humiliation of defeat.

"Senju Style Iaijutsu."

Yugao repeated those five words, and something began to burn in her violet pupils.

At the foot of Hokage Rock, Chiba's mental power sent back a message.

That female ANBU swordswoman's chakra fluctuation pattern had changed, shifting from a mission-execution state into another frequency Chiba knew well.

Obsession.

She wanted another round.

Chiba's lips curved in the darkness, the willow branch on his shoulder rustling in the night wind.

"Interesting."

His mental power swept toward the Senju Main Residence. Tsunade had already finished her fifth pot of sake and fallen asleep sprawled in the corridor. Anko was sneaking dango in the kitchen, while Yuhi Kurenai still sat in the study researching that Yin Release technique.

Farther away, the lights on the third floor of the Hokage Building were still on. Hiruzen Sarutobi's chakra fluctuations showed that he had not yet gone to sleep.

"Old monkey, I'll take the person you sent."