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Chapter – 1120 Hyuga Neji vs Raijin II
🕑 Added 2024-12-02 16:36:07 +0000 UTC"Hahaha… Cheeky boy!" Raijin chuckled, but his grin quickly faded as his expression turned serious. Infusing Chakra into the summoning seals on his wristbands, he activated them to summon a pair of shurikens.
Poof! Poof!
With two small bursts of white smoke, a pair of shurikens materialized in his hands, crackling with streaks of lightning. Holding the electrified weapons, Raijin smirked at Neji and said, "You claim Ninjutsu is useless against you? Let’s see how you handle this."
Without waiting for a response, he hurled the two Lightning-enhanced shurikens straight at Neji. ‘Lightning Style: Lightning Shuriken Jutsu!’
The two shurikens, wrapped in crackling lightning, zipped toward Neji with unexpected speed—much faster than the Lightning Dragon Raijin had used earlier. The absurd speed of the two Shuriken left Neji slightly unprepared.
It wasn’t just their speed that caught him off guard. Unlike the pure Ninjutsu-based Lightning Dragon, these lightning-infused shurikens were physical objects. This meant Neji couldn’t use the same technique to disrupt and destroy them as he had with the Lightning Dragon. After all, even if the lightning surrounding the shuriken was disrupted, the shuriken itself would still retain its momentum and could injure him.
‘Tch, I shouldn’t have revealed that all Ninjutsu is useless against me,’ Neji thought, clicking his tongue in frustration and regret. He had hoped to provoke Raijin into repeatedly using Ninjutsu to deplete his Chakra reserves. If Raijin hadn’t been alerted, he might have used more of those Ninjutsu, wasting more Chakra before realizing the issue. But since Neji had pointed it out himself, that plan was now useless. Considering the approach Raijin turned to immediately after, it was obvious that Raijin was smart enough not to fall for the same trick once he understood the situation.
While Neji regretted his earlier mistake, the lightning-wrapped shurikens were already closing the distance. He quickly analyzed his options, thinking, ‘I can’t let these shurikens touch me directly. No, not even through a kunai—the current would flow through it and paralyze me. Using regular shurikens to deflect them won’t work either; these lightning-wrapped ones would slice right through mine, I’ll have to use other means to change their trajectory…s’
Realizing this, Neji decided on his next move, ‘Since, that’s the case…’
Holding his stance, he channeled Chakra into the palms of both hands. Carefully aiming at the incoming shurikens, he released two bursts of high-speed palm thrusts. ‘Eight Trigrams: Vacuum Palm!’
The pressurized bursts of air shot forward, striking the shurikens mid-flight. The powerful impact slowed their momentum and redirected their trajectories, sending them crashing harmlessly into the ground far from Neji’s position.
Phew… Neji let out a small sigh of relief after successfully neutralizing the threat. Unfortunately, the threat wasn’t over. Just as Neji let out a sigh of relief, Raijin’s voice cut through the air, “Let’s try that again…”
Without waiting for Neji to react, Raijin summoned another set of lightning-infused shurikens from the seal mark on his wrists. Poof! Poof! Zzzzzz! ‘Lightning Style: Lightning Shuriken Jutsu!’ he declared as the shurikens zipped toward Neji once more.
‘Eight Trigrams: Vacuum Palm!’ Neji repeated the same technique he had used before, skillfully redirecting the two incoming shurikens. They crashed into the ground harmlessly once again.
However, once again his moment of respite was cut short by Raijin’s laughter.
“Hahaha… not bad! You handled that well,” Raijin said with a smirk. “But let’s see how many you can deal with and… to make things interesting let’s increase the number of Shuriken!”
After speaking these words, Raijin used the technique again. This time, however, Raijin upped the ante. Instead of two shurikens, he summoned and hurled four lightning-infused shurikens at Neji. Poof! Poof! Poof! Poof! Zzzzzz! ‘Lightning Style: Lightning Shuriken Jutsu!’
Air crackled as four Shurikens zipped toward Neji at blistering speed.
Things were manageable when Raijin used only two Shurikens, but now, with four lightning-wrapped Shurikens speeding toward him, Neji found himself in a difficult position. He didn’t have enough time to block two and then deal with the remaining pair—but he had no other choice. Gritting his teeth, he resolved to handle all four Shurikens anyway.
He quickly released the first Vacuum Palm from both hands, deflecting two of the incoming Shurikens. Without pause, he began gathering Chakra to deal with the remaining two. The second pair of Shurikens were closing in fast, but fortunately, Neji managed to release another Vacuum Palm just in time. ‘Eight Trigrams: Vacuum Palm!’ The strikes hit their targets, diverting the last two Shurikens away from him.
“Good, you managed to handle that,” Raijin said with a mocking grin. Not giving Neji a moment to rest, Raijin summoned four more Shurikens, enveloped them in crackling lightning, and hurled them toward him. "Let’s keep this going for a while…”
For a while, Raijin continued his relentless assault, summoning four Shurikens at a time, wrapping them in lightning, and hurling them at Neji. Initially, it was difficult for Neji to deflect their trajectories with his Vacuum Palm, but with each successive deflection, his speed and efficiency in countering the attacks gradually improved, giving him a sense of control and comfort.
To an ordinary civilian unfamiliar with the nuances of ninja combat, it might have seemed that Neji was quickly adapting and was no longer under pressure. To them, it looked like he was beginning to block the Shurikens effortlessly. However, anyone with experience in battle would recognize that the reality was quite different.
While Neji was indeed beginning to deflect the Shurikens with ease, each use of Vacuum Palm consumed a small amount of his Chakra. On its own, the consumption was negligible. But with each repeated use, the cumulative strain on his Chakra reserves began to show.
Though he maintained his composure outwardly, Neji could feel his reserves steadily depleting as Raijin continued his unrelenting barrage.
The real problem wasn’t just Neji’s steadily decreasing Chakra reserves with each use of Vacuum Palm. It was also the significant distance between him and Raijin. Raijin’s relentless barrage of lightning-wrapped Shurikens gave Neji no opening to close that gap.
At such a range, the Gentle Fist, a close-quarters combat style, was practically useless. If Neji wanted to land a meaningful blow or deal damage, he had to get close to Raijin.
But would Raijin give him the opportunity to close the distance? Naturally, that was far from easy.
Even if Raijin allowed Neji the chance to close the gap, Neji still needed to figure out a strategy to defeat him. Simply closing the distance with the intent to seal Raijin’s Tenketsu wasn’t an option.
He had already attempted that during their initial exchanges, but Raijin clearly knew the locations of the Tenketsu in his body, and using that knowledge, each time, he managed to evade Neji’s attacks at the last moment, rendering Neji’s Gentle Fist techniques ineffective.
The ineffectiveness of Gentle Fist and his inability to close the distance weighed heavily on Neji, making him feel pressure, unlike anything he’d experienced before.
‘Damn it... this is the first time I’ve faced someone this difficult! Gentle Fist feels completely useless here!’ Neji thought, frustration mounting.
Seeing Neji’s frustration written all over his face, Raijin smirked and seized the opportunity to mock him, “Hah… I guess I was right, huh? The Gentle Fist of the Hyuga Clan isn’t as perfect as you people boast about. Or wait… maybe the problem isn’t the technique. Maybe you’re just not good enough? Yeah, that has to be it, right? Who am I kidding—it’s definitely the case. You’re an embarrassment, aren’t you? Not just to the entire Hyuga Clan, but even to the Hokage who accepted you as his disciple. Oh, but maybe he didn’t even want you as his disciple. Maybe he had no choice! That would explain why he picked Uzumaki Naruto later on!”
