Neji did not let Toneri finish. After interrupting him, he turned and went straight back outside to the balcony.
Realizing the purpose of his challenge, Toneri smiled confidently.
They were powerful, and the puppets were no match for them, but Naruto had done most of the fighting. They had only dealt with those monsters after the creatures lost their immortality—
He could do all of that himself!
So Toneri naturally followed him out. Yet, before long...
After a few crisp sounds of blows landing and bodies hitting the ground, silence returned. Toneri followed Neji back inside, looking utterly crushed. There were several obvious tears in his pure white clothes, but he had no other injuries.
"That fast?"
Even Naruto was a little surprised. It seemed Toneri was right: Neji had received an incredible gift of power, and his strength had soared.
Of course, Naruto could not rule out the possibility that Toneri was simply weak. Still, given how confident he had looked earlier, surely he should have been able to last at least a few minutes.
"He has plenty of power, but unfortunately, he has hardly any actual combat experience."
As though noticing the questions in Naruto's eyes, Neji explained directly, "He either stood still and used ninjutsu right from the start, or tried to compete with me directly in taijutsu. The last time, he even tried to threaten me with a large-scale ninjutsu... You know I've never been afraid of fighting anyone up close. So I let him make the first move twice, and the other time, I blocked his ninjutsu before counterattacking. Three rounds, and this was the result."
Neji shrugged. Among his peers, only Rock Lee, who relied entirely on taijutsu, could fight him at close range. Even Sasuke had to use all sorts of tricks to