Toxic Spores Turn the Tables, Naruto Breaks Through to Seize the Flag

"Poison?"

Neji withdrew his right hand. A layer of pale purple powder already coated his palm.

"The training rules didn't forbid it."

Chiba steadied himself again. A blocked sensation came from where his ribs had been struck as his Sage Body pushed the Gentle Fist chakra outward.

The spore sac hidden inside his clothes had already burst. The remaining powder clung to the fabric with sweat and did not continue drifting away.

Neji brought his fingers together, but the chakra flow in his right hand slowed by a beat.

"When did you put it there?"

"Before entering."

"You knew I would strike that spot?"

"I only knew the Byakugan would target the place with the weakest chakra."

Chiba raised his left arm. The chakra points that had been sealed earlier were already open again.

"I let you hit me six times. Every time, I shifted my chakra to the right. If you still couldn't see it, the Hyuga's eyes might as well be given away."

Neji tried to clench his fist, but his middle and ring fingers would not fully curl.

The purple powder was entering his chakra pathways through his skin, and the numbness spread upward from his wrist.

"You deliberately let the Gentle Fist seal the chakra pathways on your left side, then disguised your right side as a weak point."

"You can still understand something, at least."

"Those earlier attacks were part of the plan too?"

"The pain was real."

Chiba walked closer.

"But worth it."

Neji raised his left palm while his right hand hung at his waist. He did not forcefully circulate chakra through it any longer.

"You traded your own injuries for one of my hands. That doesn't mean you've won."

"How much Gentle Fist do you have left with one hand gone?"

"Enough to take the white cloth."

Neji struck toward Chiba's chest with one palm. His movements were tighter than before, and every attack centered around Chiba's left side.

Chiba raised his arm to block, no longer allowing Neji to guide his punches. Force drove straight through his forearm.

One palm could not fully deflect the impact. Neji's shoulder was knocked back, and just as he regained his footing, Chiba's second punch had already reached his abdomen.

Neji twisted aside and struck the chakra point on Chiba's punching arm with his left palm.

The instant chakra entered Chiba's pathways, Chiba reached out and grabbed his sleeve.

"Got you."

Neji saw the purple powder on his sleeve and immediately tore the fabric away.

The toxin had not touched his skin, leaving only a pale mark on the ground.

"The same trap won't work twice."

"That's why this one was fake."

Chiba drove his knee into Neji's waist.

Neji was forced to release the sleeve. His body went over the edge of the slope, and he had to kick off a tree trunk before landing again.

The numbness in his right hand was worsening. He could no longer unleash the Gentle Fist's rapid strikes.

Chiba did not pursue him down the slope.

Hinata's chakra was returning from the north, and the disturbance Naruto had created was changing from scattered to concentrated.

Neji also looked into the depths of the forest.

"Lee and Kiba have stopped."

"Naruto is more useful than you think."

Elsewhere in the woods, Naruto had just dispelled a batch of clones he could no longer sustain. The remaining Shadow Clones surrounded Kiba and Rock Lee as they moved toward the slope.

Kiba leaped over a horizontal branch with Akamaru in his arms. When he landed, he caught the same scent from three different directions.

"They all smell like Chiba's Wood Release. Which one of you is real?"

Three Narutos pulled open their collars at once, revealing green strips of cloth.

"Guess! If you guess wrong, keep chasing!"

Rock Lee charged into the group of clones from the side. With one sweeping kick, several figures turned into white smoke on the spot.

"Naruto, although you have many clones, their movements lack coordination!"

"Who says we aren't coordinated?"

The remaining clones swarmed forward. Some wrapped their arms around Rock Lee's waist, while others clung directly to his legs.

A clone would disappear after taking a single attack, but another Naruto would fill the opening behind it.

Just as Kiba was about to help, two more Narutos sprang up beside his feet and grabbed his pant legs from either side.

"Akamaru, bite them!"

Akamaru pounced at one of them, but Kiba tumbled into the grass with him.

"Stop grabbing my legs!"

"Chiba said as long as we hold you back, we win!"

Naruto's real body hid behind a tree. Maintaining the Shadow Clones had already brought sweat to his forehead, but his hands remained in their hand seal.

"More!"

Smoke rose one cloud after another as fresh clones filled the gaps.

Rock Lee shook off the people around his waist, only to find another row of Narutos ahead of him, all waving green strips of cloth in different directions.

"I acknowledge this determination of yours to never give up!"

"Then stand still and let me take your white cloth!"

"That won't do!"

Rock Lee raised his knee and charged into the crowd. Every punch and kick took out a clone, but the clones vanished slower than Naruto could replace them.

Through the sensations sent back by the thin vines, Chiba confirmed that Kiba and Rock Lee were still trapped in the north.

"He can't hold on much longer."

Neji followed the thin vines with his gaze toward the distance.

"Naruto's chakra is becoming unstable. Keeping up these clones will only make him collapse first."

"He'll last long enough."

The twang of steel wire came from the direction of the riverbed.

A training kunai curved around a boulder and flew past Shikamaru's shoulder, cutting off a corner of the white cloth at his waist.

Tenten stood atop the cliff wall, steel wires in her hands connected to several ninja tools.

"Come out. I can already see your shadow."

Shikamaru remained crouched behind the boulder.

"Seeing my shadow doesn't mean you can catch me."

"You don't even dare show the flag, and you want to stall until training ends?"

"The flag has been under your feet the whole time."

Tenten lowered her head toward the cliff wall. A corner of a green flag peeked out from beneath the moss.

She raised her hand and pulled the steel wire. Two kunai dropped toward the riverbed, forcing Shikamaru to move out from behind the boulder.

His shadow stretched outward with his body, using the cliff's cover to bypass the wire and attach itself to Tenten's shadow cast across the slope.

Tenten's arm froze in midair.

"Shadow Imitation Technique?"

Shikamaru stepped out from behind the boulder, keeping his arm raised.

"You're standing too high, so your shadow gets longer too. What a pain."

"Even if you control me, you can't climb up here and take my white cloth."

"I don't need to climb up."

Shikamaru turned his wrist. Under the technique's influence, Tenten released the steel wire in her right hand.

The ninja tools, no longer held by the wire, fell from the trees. One of them, trailing a long line, slid into the riverbed, its end landing right beside Shikamaru.

"You want to use my steel wire to pull me down?"

"If I injure an upperclassman in a fall, Iruka will lecture me. I'm just borrowing it to take something."

Shikamaru reached toward his waist, and Tenten followed by reaching for her white cloth.

She tried to stop, but her shoulder was still pulled along by the shadow.

"Wait. If you take my white cloth, the Shadow Technique will be released. I can still seize the flag."

"So first, I need to make sure you can't see the flag."

Shikamaru kicked the steel wire on the ground. The kunai scraped past the edge of the cliff wall and cut through the branches fixed above.

A mass of leaves fell into the riverbed, covering the flag's position and blocking Tenten's view downward.

Through the Byakugan, Neji saw the changes in the riverbed. His toes had already turned toward the base.

"Tenten has been trapped by Shikamaru."

"If you go back now, you can still take her white cloth for her."

"You'll let me leave?"

"No."

Chiba stepped down the slope, his right fist shooting straight for Neji's chest.

Neji blocked the punch with his left palm and used the force to retreat toward the riverbed.

Chiba pressed closer, every punch sealing off Neji's path toward the inside of the forest.

The numbness in his right hand had spread to his elbow. Neji could neither use Eight Trigrams Palms Revolving Heaven nor perform the Gentle Fist's continuous chakra-point strikes.

"You're stalling for time."

Neji dodged a punch and grabbed for the white cloth at Chiba's waist with his left hand.

Chiba did not pull back to evade. Instead, he stepped half a pace forward and let Neji's fingers touch the knot.

Neji pulled outward with force, but the white cloth did not come free.

A thin vine emerged from within the knot and coiled around his wrist.

"Wood Release?"

Neji cut the vine, but the wind from a punch was already against his shoulder and back.

He gave up on the white cloth and flipped to the side. When he landed, his right knee sank into soft mud.

The roots Chiba had buried beforehand did not attack. They had merely weakened the support beneath this patch of earth.

Neji pulled his leg free a beat too slowly, and Chiba's fist had already stopped just before his cheek.

"You lost."

"The fist didn't land. How does that count as losing?"

Neji raised his left palm, his fingertips aimed at the chakra point on Chiba's wrist.

"You haven't taken my white cloth either."

A large cloud of white smoke rose from the northern bushes. Naruto's Shadow Clones had reached their limit.

Kiba burst out of the encirclement with Akamaru, while Rock Lee threw off the last two clones and rushed toward the riverbed.

Neji's Byakugan looked past the forest.

"They're back."

"Too late."

Shikamaru released the Shadow Technique. The moment Tenten regained control, her own hand tore the white cloth from her waist, sending it sliding down the steel wire into the riverbed.

Hinata rushed out from behind a tree. Before Tenten could pull the wire again, Hinata knocked away the kunai beside the white cloth with one palm.

"Got it!"

Shikamaru caught the falling white cloth, then pulled the green flag out from beneath the moss.

A column of green smoke immediately rose from the observation point, signifying that one member of Team Eight had lost their combat eligibility.

Neji saw the smoke column, and his left palm immediately changed direction, striking for Chiba's waist.

Chiba did not defend, and his fist withdrew from beside Neji's ear.

"You're still looking at the white cloth?"

Just as Neji's fingers touched the knot, the numbness in his right arm passed his shoulder and invaded the chakra pathways in his chest along the residual Gentle Fist chakra.

His movement stopped with one final inch remaining, and even the Byakugan vision in his right eye briefly went blank.

Chiba seized the hand that could no longer exert force and pressed Neji to the ground.

"The toxic spores follow chakra, and you've been leading them along this whole time."

Neji braced his left palm against the muddy ground and looked up at several of Chiba's chakra points that had yet to recover.

"From the first palm strike, you were testing the poison on your own chakra pathways?"

Chiba tore the white cloth from Neji's waist.

"You only figured it out now. Too late."

A second column of green smoke rose from the observation point.

When Kiba and Rock Lee burst from the woods, all they saw was Neji's empty waist and the white cloth in Chiba's hand, stained pale purple by toxic powder.

And Naruto's real body had already reached the unguarded flag of Team Eight.