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Hyūga Hizashi's Byakugan caught the opening the instant it appeared.
The second Isshin staggered back from the rebound, body momentarily frozen, Hizashi killed Rotation. The spinning chakra shield vanished. He exploded forward like an arrow, rocketing straight at the samurai.
Mid-charge he snapped his right hand into a sword-finger stance. Every ounce of chakra in his body surged toward his fingertips, compressing into a single blinding white point that looked like a tiny star. The air around it trembled from the raw power.
Eight Trigrams: Mountain Breaker!
One of the Gentle Fist style's rare, highest-concentration offensive secrets—gathering the full destructive force of the user's chakra into one fingertip and firing it like a hyper-condensed chakra laser. Guided perfectly by the Byakugan, it could punch straight through solid rock or shatter a mountain's core.
The glowing fingertip lanced straight for Isshin's wide-open shoulder.
Every sharp-eyed ninja in the stands held their breath, already picturing the devastating result.
But the moment that brilliant finger strike was about to touch fabric—
Everything changed.
Isshin's body, which looked off-balance from the rebound, suddenly tightened inward. Every muscle, bone, and inch of skin underwent an eerie transformation.
A cold, dense, metallic sheen flashed across his exposed skin—like forged steel.
Copper Head, Iron Arms!
The clone's unique innate ability activated at the exact instant the attack landed.
BOOOOM!
The blazing white fingertip slammed into that metallic body.
There was no wet crunch of flesh being pierced—only a deafening, crystalline clang like a sledgehammer smashing a massive bronze bell.
Hizashi felt the impact jolt up his arm. His fingertip went numb with agony. The bone snapped clean.
If not for the chakra coating his hand, the rebound alone would have shattered his entire arm.
But the real horror was the tidal-wave force that came right after.
Crack!
The sound of breaking bone was swallowed by the roar.
Mountain Breaker's full power slammed back into him like a freight train.
Hizashi's right sleeve shredded instantly, exploding into fluttering rags. His whole body shot backward through the air, carving a long arc before crashing hard into the stone floor dozens of feet away in a cloud of dust.
"Guh!"
Blood surged up his throat. He forced it down.
Hizashi pushed himself up with his left arm. His right hung limp at his side, completely numb from fingertip to shoulder, burning with fiery pain and total weakness.
Gritting his teeth, cold sweat beading on his forehead, he managed to kneel on one knee and steady himself. His vision blurred as he looked up.
A cold metal barrel pressed against his forehead without warning.
Isshin had closed the distance in a blink. His left hand held the same ugly pistol, muzzle resting dead-center between Hizashi's eyes.
Defeated.
Completely. Undeniably.
The stands fell into dead silence.
Thousands of spectators stared with wide eyes and open mouths, too stunned to make a sound.
Plenty of chunin and jonin wore the same look of pure disbelief.
What the hell was that metallic sheen?
A ninjutsu?
Bloodline limit?
Some secret technique no one had ever heard of?
It hadn't just blocked Jonin Hizashi's Mountain Breaker—it had bounced the whole thing straight back.
That completely shattered everything they thought they knew about defensive jutsu.
Wait… this wasn't the first time.
Several sharp-minded shinobi suddenly remembered the last match.
Yūhi Makoto's Red Lotus genjutsu had clearly landed. The samurai had frozen solid. Yet the instant Makoto moved in for the kill, the guy had snapped awake and counter-killed in the most impossible way.
Same exact feeling.
Every time it looked like the Leaf had an absolute, guaranteed win, the samurai flipped the script with something no one could explain.
Just how many secrets was this Ashina Style Isshin from the Land of Iron hiding?
Where the hell was his actual limit?
In the clan viewing area, Hyūga Hiashi's brows were locked tight. He had seen it clearly: Hizashi's Rotation defense had been flawless, his counter-timing perfect, and the power of Mountain Breaker beyond question.
So how… how had it ended like this?
What exactly had that samurai just used?
Steel Release?!
It didn't feel quite right…
"What was that? Steel Release?" Advisor Utatane Koharu frowned on the VIP platform, her face even uglier than before.
As a high-ranking Leaf elder with decades of experience, she knew about rare bloodline limits—including Steel Release, the ability to harden the body.
"How does a samurai from the Land of Iron have something like that?"
"From the look of it, it does resemble the rumored Steel Release bloodline—hardening the body to block and even reflect physical attacks," Third Hokage Hiruzen Sarutobi said slowly, exhaling a long plume of smoke. "But there's something subtly different about it. I can't quite put my finger on what yet…"
Still… why does this feel so familiar…
The Third's brow furrowed in his mind.
Mitokado Homura pushed up his glasses, eyes grave behind the lenses. "Whatever it is, Hiruzen, the situation… is getting hard to manage."
Hiruzen stayed silent.
Down in the arena, Isshin kept the pistol pressed to Hizashi's forehead. His expression was calm—no gloating, no mockery, just the detached look of someone who had simply finished a challenge.
"You've lost, Hyūga ninja," he said quietly. His voice wasn't loud, but it carried clearly across the entire arena.
Hizashi's face was pale. He felt the cold metal against his brow and the burning agony in his right arm. He slowly closed his eyes, took a deep breath, then opened them again.
"I concede."
The moment Hizashi's surrender left his lips, the stands plunged into a brief, vacuum-like silence.
Then the noise came roaring back—louder, more chaotic than ever.
The anger was still there, but now it was mixed with a growing undercurrent of shock and wariness that no one could ignore.