You Hate the Main Family, Don't You?

Neji paused, but he did not turn around.

"Rotation releases chakra from all 361 chakra points across your body at once. Combined with your body's spin, it creates an absolute defense."

"The technique really is flawless against physical attacks and ordinary Ninjutsu." Zuo Hao spoke at an unhurried pace, like a teacher reviewing a student's work. "But your chakra release isn't even."

Neji went rigid.

Zuo Hao continued. "You release chakra from the points on your back a tenth of a second slower than from those on your chest. No one would notice in an ordinary fight. Rotation spins fast enough to conceal that delay."

"But if your opponent is fast enough, they can catch that opening before your Rotation is complete."

Zuo Hao extended a finger and aimed it at a chakra point in the center of Neji's back.

"That spot is your blind spot."

Neji spun around.

His expression remained calm, but surprise churned unmistakably in his white eyes.

He knew his chakra release during Rotation was uneven.

But that was because he had only been practicing Rotation for a short time. His fine control over chakra still needed work.

Unless someone had the Byakugan like a member of the Hyuga Clan, there was no way they could see it with the naked eye.

But Zuo Hao did not have the Byakugan.

He only had the Sharingan.

The Three-Tomoe Sharingan granted extraordinary dynamic vision and chakra perception, but it could not see through a human body, much less pinpoint the speed at which chakra flowed from individual points.

"How could you possibly see..." Neji's voice was low. He broke off mid-sentence.

A possibility occurred to him.

The Main Family.

The Hyuga Main Family would not casually teach an outsider the Gentle Fist, but if Zuo Hao was close to one of its members...

"The Main Family didn't tell me." As if he had read Neji's mind, Zuo Hao waved a hand. "I've never even met anyone from your Hyuga Main Family."

Neji pressed his lips into a thin line.

Zuo Hao hopped down from the rock, brushed the dust off his trousers, and walked up to Neji.

Less than three paces separated them. The Sharingan and Byakugan met beneath the moonlight.

"You hate the Main Family, don't you?"

Zuo Hao's tone was still casual, but his words cut straight into Neji's deepest wound.

"The Caged Bird Seal. The fate of the branch family. Your father's death. You believe it's all because of the Main Family's injustice, because of the seal you were forced to bear from birth."

Neji's pupils contracted sharply.

An instant later, he moved.

He flowed into the opening stance of the Gentle Fist and drove his right palm, wreathed in fierce chakra, toward Zuo Hao's chest.

Zuo Hao did not dodge. He used Intangibility and let the attack pass through him.

"Calm down." Zuo Hao slipped his hand back into his pocket, still looking lazy. "I'm not part of the Main Family. If you want to fight someone, go find Hyuga Hiashi."

Neji's hand hung in midair. His chest heaved, and his white eyes locked on Zuo Hao.

His body turned intangible?

This man was anything but ordinary.

"Who are you?" The calm had left Neji's voice, replaced by something between wariness and curiosity.

"Just a kind stranger passing by," he said. "And one more thing. You say fate is fixed and can't be changed."

"But I think..." He turned and started back the way he had come, raising his right hand in a wave without looking back. "A bird in a cage might still find a way out."

Neji stood where he was, watching Zuo Hao recede into the moonlight.

Emotions surged through his white eyes: anger, resentment, confusion, and a trace of doubt he refused to acknowledge.

A bird in a cage might still find a way out.

The words pierced the most vulnerable place in his heart.

"Stop."

Neji's voice carried through the night wind. His calm was gone; he trembled with barely contained emotion.

Zuo Hao stopped but did not turn around.

"What?"

"You said my Rotation has a flaw." Neji stepped forward and took the opening stance of the Gentle Fist once more. "Then prove it."

Zuo Hao turned slowly. The moonlight cast mottled shadows across his face, and surprise flickered in his crimson Sharingan eyes.

"You want to fight me?"

"It's not that I want to," Neji said firmly. "I have to."

Chakra began pouring from the points across his body. A white glow showed clearly beneath the moonlight, while a vortex lifted pebbles from the ground and sent them spinning three feet in the air.

"You say fate can change. You say a bird can escape its cage." Something close to obsession burned in Neji's eyes. "Then show me you aren't just saying empty words."

Zuo Hao looked at him in silence for a few seconds.

Then he smiled.

It was nothing like his usual lazy smile. It came from the heart, touched with admiration.

"Interesting." Zuo Hao pulled his hand from his pocket and rolled his wrist. "Neji Hyuga, you're the first member of the Hyuga Clan I've found even a little interesting."

Neji frowned but said nothing.

Zuo Hao stood without taking a defensive stance, his arms hanging loosely at his sides as the tomoe in his Sharingan slowly turned.

"Come on. Show me what the Hyuga Clan's genius can do."

Neji did not hold back.

He launched himself forward. A ring of air burst across the ground beneath his feet, and his Gentle Fist stance shifted into an attack mid-charge. His right palm, wreathed in fierce chakra, shot toward Zuo Hao's chest.

Eight Trigrams: Two Palms!

Zuo Hao turned sideways. The palm skimmed past his clothes, its gust lifting the hair from his forehead.

Neji's first strike missed, but he had already spun around. His left palm followed, cutting off Zuo Hao's retreat.

Eight Trigrams: Four Palms!

Zuo Hao stepped back lightly, leaving an afterimage in the moonlight. He evaded Neji's rapid strikes one by one. Each missed by a hair, never so much as brushing his clothes.

Eight Trigrams: Eight Palms!

Neji struck faster and faster. In the moonlight, his palms wove a net with no gaps, sealing off every route Zuo Hao could take.

Yet Zuo Hao kept evading.

He slipped between the strikes with effortless grace, his Three-Tomoe Sharingan tracking the path of every palm Neji threw.

Eight Trigrams: Sixteen Palms!

Neji accelerated again. His strikes whistled through the air, and leaves shuddered loose from the surrounding trees.

But Zuo Hao still looked entirely at ease.

He even put his hands back in his pockets.

"Your Gentle Fist is precise," Zuo Hao said as he dodged, sounding like a teacher reviewing a student's work. "You've got the rhythm of the Eight Trigrams Palm combinations down, too. An ordinary Chunin would have had their chakra points sealed by now."

Neji's pupils contracted slightly.

Zuo Hao still had breath to talk while fighting him?

"But."

Zuo Hao stopped moving.

Instead of dodging, he met Neji's palm strike head-on.

"Your Gentle Fist has one fatal weakness."