Chapter 47: Sakura VS Neji (Part 2)
The speed of the two was extremely fast. Before the audience could even seem to take a long breath, over a hundred exchanges had already taken place below.
Both were thoroughly familiar with each other's fighting styles.
The tall, slender youth usually sparred with Rock Lee, who practiced the Strong Fist, so he was very experienced in dealing with enemies with a powerful and direct style. The pink-haired girl's close friend was Hinata, who, as the main family's daughter, was a master of the orthodox Hyuga Gentle Fist. The girl, having sparred with her, was also well-acquainted with the characteristics of the Gentle Fist.
Therefore, although the two exchanged blows quickly, neither revealed a fatal opening. After fighting back and forth for so long, neither had gained the upper hand, let alone decided the winner.
The pink-haired girl's punches and kicks were extremely powerful, but the youth dealt with them with ease, using softness to overcome hardness. He would either redirect the force, parry left and right, or dodge and evade, rendering the girl's full-powered blows to only twenty or thirty percent of their potential.
The long-haired youth's Gentle Fist was soft, its true killing move being to strike chakra into the enemy's body, causing damage to their internal organs and bones. But against the girl, his usually invincible Gentle Fist was ineffective. When his fists and palms struck the girl's body, they would meet a film of water. The chakra felt as if it had hit a barrier and couldn't penetrate her body. The power of the Gentle Fist was suppressed by seventy or eighty percent!
The battle between the two, though fierce, was merely a probe.
BOOM—!
Sensing that the girl's fully charged punch was unstoppable, the black-haired youth's figure retreated explosively, instantly leaping back over ten meters to create a safe distance. The girl's unstoppable punch couldn't be retracted in time and slammed into the ground, actually piercing through the floor, which was as thick as a forearm, with a heavy sound!
The crowd on the viewing platforms was in an uproar.
"They're both so strong!" "I can't keep up with their rhythm!" "Getting hit by that fist would definitely be fatal!" the candidates discussed among themselves.
On the other side, Naruto's neck shrank as he recalled his own painful experience of being beaten up by Sakura.
Gai's eyes lit up. The girl's nin-taijutsu had the flavor of the Strong Fist and was quite powerful, able to fight on par with Neji! He was instantly interested.
And not far away, a youth with heavy dark circles under his eyes watched the two on the floor and revealed a ferocious smile!
Below, the two who had instantly created distance faced off for only a few seconds before silently rushing towards each other again!
After the probing ended, the second round of the battle became even more fierce and cruel.
In the first round, both sides had been testing each other based on their knowledge of the Strong Fist and the Gentle Fist.
The girl quickly discovered that although Neji's Gentle Fist and Hinata's came from the same source, they were different. The exceptionally talented Neji's Gentle Fist was sharper and more decisive. Each punch and palm, though seeming light as a feather, contained a hidden force that would make a sound like hitting worn leather even if it struck empty air.
And the long-haired youth also realized that the girl's nin-taijutsu, though seemingly similar to the ordinary Strong Fist, was actually much more profound. The thin layer of water around her joints served far more than just to enhance her speed and strength; more importantly, it provided additional points of support and leverage besides the ground.
Power is born from the roots, reaches the legs, with the waist as the pivot, passes through the back, along the shoulders, is carried by the arms and elbows, and is released from the extremities. This was a universal principle of martial arts, but on the girl, this principle was invalid.
More points of support made the girl's punches and kicks possess both the ferocity of the Strong Fist and the flexibility of the Gentle Fist, as well as a trace of unpredictability not found in normal taijutsu.
After the first round of probing, both of them simultaneously discovered that with their respective attainments in taijutsu, it would be difficult to decide a winner with these basic moves.
Therefore, in the second round of the battle, the style of Neji's punches suddenly changed. It was no longer just a simple Gentle Fist strike, but had shifted to a style of using the Gentle Fist for defense and pressure point strikes for offense.
The starkly different fighting style immediately caught the unprepared Sakura at a disadvantage.
At the twenty-sixth exchange, the girl lunged forward with a punch, its momentum like the wind, which Neji barely dodged.
Taking advantage of the girl's spent momentum, Neji closed in. A light and fluttering Gentle Fist strike went straight for the girl's heart. If this blow landed, given the characteristics of the Gentle Fist, it would definitely cause internal injury to the heart!
The girl's cold expression did not change, like ten-thousand-year-old frost. But her upper body, drawing strength from somewhere unknown, forcefully shifted back half an inch, letting Neji's right palm graze past a soft area. At the same time, seeing Neji's left palm reach for her right shoulder, the girl's free left hand had already reached in front of his, intercepting the attack from his simultaneously extended left palm.
In the instant Neji's left palm was caught by the girl, his sharp gaze sharpened. He forcefully stopped the momentum of his left palm, changed it from a palm to a two-finger strike, and with a sharp turn of his wrist, struck a pressure point on the girl's right arm!
"He was hit by a pressure point strike!" On the viewing platform, Lee couldn't help but exclaim!
The girl only felt her right arm go numb, her chakra blocked at the pressure point. Her figure retreated rapidly, hastily creating distance from Neji.
"A pressure point strike? What... what exactly is that?" Seeing Sakura, who had just had the upper hand, suddenly retreat after one of Neji's strikes, Naruto realized that something bad must have happened to her.
"A pressure point strike... is an advanced form of the Gentle Fist," Lee answered gravely. "By using the Byakugan to precisely observe the pinhole-sized pressure points on the human body and using the techniques of the Gentle Fist to strike chakra into those points, one can block the enemy's chakra flow!"
Below, Sakura took off her jacket, revealing her right arm. Against her fair skin, a bright red dot was even more shocking.
"You've felt the power of the pressure point strike now, haven't you!" Neji said proudly. "After being hit by a pressure point strike, your right hand can barely channel any chakra. Right now, you can't even form hand seals! And your taijutsu also requires the delicate circulation of chakra. Therefore, your taijutsu and ninjutsu have both been sealed by my pressure point strike! You no longer have any hope of victory!"
"I've told you before, failure is your destiny!"
The girl remained silent.
That's right, Sakura has already lost... On the viewing platform, Gai and Lee, who were familiar with the power of pressure point strikes, agreed with Neji's statement in their hearts.
And the others on the platform mostly showed expressions of sympathy, glad that they hadn't faced an opponent like Neji. A skill like pressure point strikes was too much of a counter for ninja who rely on chakra for combat, especially close-range fighters!
Only a few people still firmly believed that Sakura was far from being defeated.
With Sakura's personality and reaction speed, Neji's pressure point strike should have been blocked by her ultrapure water... Could it be that she was hit on purpose? Sakura, what are you planning? Kakashi was a little confused.
Below, facing the overwhelming disadvantage, the girl's icy gaze still showed not a ripple of emotion.
She had indeed been hit on purpose.
The primary reason for doing so was that she knew that even if she were hit, she would still hold the absolute advantage.
More importantly, although she was destined to be a "mage" in this life, deep down, the girl still retained a bit of the hot blood from her time as a boy in her previous life.
A yearning for a hot-blooded, fist-to-fist battle with no frills!
To have such a rare opportunity to meet a pure taijutsu master, if she didn't trade a few blows with him and instead used her ultrapure water to turn the battle into a crushing victory, wouldn't she be missing out on a lot of the fun of fighting?
Without a battle like this, how can my taijutsu be improved and sublimated? If the outcome of the battle becomes a foregone conclusion, how can I temper my own will?
Always cheating with ultrapure water for defense, how can I truly improve my own taijutsu level? To become a truly strong person, I can't have such a weakness!
Kakashi-sensei, please forgive my little willfulness!
Victory is what I desire; a battle against a worthy opponent is also what I desire. If I cannot have both... then I will cheat to have both!
In addition, Sakura was also very curious. What was this so-called pressure point strike all about? Why was it so powerful?
After personally experiencing a pressure point strike, Sakura found that it was like a sewer opening being blocked by filth. To unblock it, one could either use a large flow of water to flush the filth away, like Naruto would, or use delicate chakra control to move the filth away bit by bit. The former was fast but very damaging to the meridians; the latter, while not damaging, was very troublesome.
Sakura had neither Naruto's vast chakra reserves nor his cockroach-like constitution, so she would naturally not choose the former method.
And if she chose the latter method, Neji wouldn't give her that much time.
Perhaps, just as everyone on the viewing platform thought, the girl was already in a desperate situation?
"Neji-kun, why do you always repeat the word 'destiny'?" the girl's voice was as calm as ever. "Why do you always like to arbitrarily decide a person's fate!"
"I hate words like 'destiny.' Nothing is set in stone! Blaming everything on destiny, in my opinion... is just what cowards do to escape reality!" the girl said resolutely!
"I will not admit defeat! Look upon life and death with indifference; if you're not convinced, then fight. That is the ninja way I believe in!"
At this point, both of them already understood each other's intentions. There was no need for more nonsense. All that was left was to fight!
Since words could not persuade each other, then let them use their fists to prove their own correctness!
The black-haired youth's Gentle Fist flowed like water, his fighting spirit like fire; the pink-haired girl's Strong Fist was as fierce as the wind, her battle-intent like ice!
The two figures, one of ice and one of fire, like Mars crashing into the Earth, collided without any frills!
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