Hyuga Kiyonari stood in the middle of the clearing, drenched in sweat, holding the opening stance of Gentle Fist. From the outside, it looked almost identical to the stance Neji had demonstrated.
Then he suddenly stepped forward. His right palm shot out like an arrow, striking straight toward Neji's chest.
Smack!
Neji kept his left hand behind his back and reached out with his right hand, catching Kiyonari's palm.
Kiyonari tried to attack again—and again—but no matter what he did, Neji could read every movement clearly. With just one hand, he dealt with everything effortlessly.
The spar ended. Panting, Kiyonari shook his head. "No, no… you're always one step ahead of me. I know I should change my move, but I'm still half a beat too slow."
"Because your way of generating force is wrong," Neji said, raising his right hand and copying Kiyonari's attack posture. "Watch carefully."
Neji's palm slowly pushed forward—so slowly Kiyonari could see every tiny detail. Yet despite the sluggish movement, Kiyonari felt an invisible pressure, as if the air itself were being shoved aside.
"Watch my arm," Neji said as his palm continued forward. "The arm muscles are relaxed. The real force comes from here…"
He stopped and tapped his elbow with his left hand.
"Elbow?"
Kiyonari froze. He couldn't believe it—the answer was that simple.
"Exactly." Neji drew his palm back and explained. "Gentle Fist doesn't obsess over maximum power in every strike, but it must always leave room to change and adapt. So when you drive a straight punch, you don't swing with your arm—you push from the elbow."
"The essence of Gentle Fist is flexibility. Stiff muscles make you slow. Even if you can see the enemy's movements and predict what comes next, you still won't be able to adjust in time."
As he spoke, Neji stepped forward and lightly pressed his right palm against Kiyonari's chest.
"Like this, you can get the same effect with less force—and still leave room to change."
Kiyonari hadn't even fully processed it when a gentle but irresistible force came from his chest. He staggered back several steps before barely stabilizing himself.
"Try again," Neji said.
He stepped back to create distance and motioned for Kiyonari to attack.
Kiyonari took a deep breath, adjusted his posture, and assumed the opening stance again. He locked onto Neji and extended both palms.
But Neji raised both hands too, responding with the Eight Trigrams Two Palms.
Their hands clashed once in the air and withdrew… then came the Four Palms—wait!
Kiyonari's eyes widened.
After using the Two Palms, Neji's body shifted—and he skipped the Four Palms entirely. His palms became afterimages, as if four hands were striking at Kiyonari simultaneously.
This was… the Eight Trigrams Eight Palms!
The sudden variation was far beyond what Kiyonari expected. Facing the fierce storm of palm strikes, he didn't have time to think through a proper Gentle Fist response. In the panic of the moment, instinct took over. He sank his hips into a stable stance, and his right arm snapped out like a whip.
His clenched fist wasn't swung with brute arm strength. After the earlier correction, he used the elbow as the driving point, pushing the fist forward faster and cleaner.
Boom!
That rushed yet precise straight punch actually disrupted Neji's Eight Palms assault, forcing Neji to pull back and retreat for a moment.
Neji, unusually, praised him. "Good. Your combat instincts are decent."
"That worked?"
Kiyonari was confused—what he'd just done was pure reflex, his brain basically abandoning thought.
Was "turning off your brain" the true secret of fighting?
"That's enough." Neji nodded.
"We talked about it earlier—whether it's Gentle Fist or the Byakugan, the essence of Hyuga combat is that the enemy can't read your movements, while you can read theirs."
"As long as that condition is met, what does it matter if you mix a little hard-fist into Gentle Fist? The only drawback is that some main-family elders will scold you for being 'disrespectful' and 'against the rules' if they see it."
"Take the Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms: most Hyuga think a combo like that must be executed in one uninterrupted flow—always thinking Two Palms then Four, Four then Eight. Hinata is like that. She's too focused on the forms themselves."
"But in the end, the Sixty-Four Palms is simply the fastest method our predecessors developed to strike sixty-four major tenketsu. Against an opponent who understands Gentle Fist, changing the order can create surprising results. You could even do it in reverse."
Hyuga Kiyonari: 666… he's not even pretending anymore.
Is this what the world of geniuses is like?
At an age when most people can't even chain the Sixty-Four Palms smoothly, Neji was already thinking about how to improve techniques.
When others were still grinding basics, Neji had already taught himself the Hyuga's highest secret—Rotation.
When others were still following tradition, Neji had already created the One Hundred Twenty-Eight Palms.
That gap wasn't something effort could bridge.
Kiyonari suddenly thought of someone else: Uchiha Sasuke.
Sasuke had worked himself to the bone to master Great Fireball. He trained for days—morning to night—forming hand signs, gathering chakra, breathing out flames. The heat even scorched the skin on his face.
But Itachi?
He watched Fugaku demonstrate it once—and reproduced it perfectly.
In ordinary people's eyes, Sasuke was already a genius.
But in Sasuke's eyes, only someone like Itachi truly deserved the word "genius."
Sometimes, the gap between people really is bigger than the gap between a person and a dog. The Inuzuka can fuse with dogs—can you fuse with a genius and get a glimpse of their world?
Wait.
Kiyonari narrowed his eyes slightly.
I… actually might be able to.
After parting with Neji, he shut himself in his room and started examining the ability he lacked the most.
Was it combat instinct? Tactical thinking? Or… comprehension?
A few minutes later, he added a tiny setting to the "Hyuga Kiyonari" character in his script, spending only 30 correction points.
The instant the points were paid, a strange clarity surged up in his mind, like fog being swept away.
He pulled an arrow out from under his bed and tried channeling chakra into it. Pale blue chakra light flowed from the tenketsu in his hands and quickly spread to cover the arrowhead. But the moment he loosened his fingers, the chakra on the arrow vanished instantly—like water with no source.
Kiyonari stared at the arrow, Gentle Fist principles circling in his head:
"The essence of Gentle Fist is driving your chakra into the enemy through their tenketsu. As long as you can inject chakra, you can damage internal organs. Striking tenketsu mainly blocks the chakra network, hinders movement, and creates openings for follow-up… but what if the first strike is also the decisive strike…"
At that thought, everything suddenly clicked.
"If this arrow were made of chakra-conductive metal, could it maintain the injected chakra even after it leaves the bowstring?"
And the idea branched into even more possibilities.
"If that works… could I replace arrows with something else? Thin needles that are hard to notice? Or bullets—faster, harder to dodge?"
But then a new problem surfaced immediately.
"Then cost becomes an issue. And if you can't achieve volume of fire, what's the point of making firearms? Ordinary modern guns also struggle to do meaningful damage to ninja unless you have scale."
"Wait… did I go off track?"
"Ugh. So annoying…"
He muttered, scratched his head, then went to his desk and wrote down every line of thought he'd just had.
Yeah—too much inspiration can be its own headache.
~~~
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