"Here—catch!"
The medic-nin, the type who loved drama when watching a fight, tossed his and Yūya's ninja tool pouches to Gojo Yoru and Namikaze Minato.
They caught them and strapped them on with practiced ease.
"Please!"
Yoru and Minato formed the Seal of Confrontation toward each other again.
Then, without waiting for Yūya to announce the start again, they moved in sync—reaching to their pouches, drawing three shuriken each, and hurling them at one another.
At the same time, they each reverse-gripped a kunai and chased after their shuriken, eyes locked through the spinning blades, tracking every movement.
In their vision, shuriken collided and scraped past incoming trajectories.
Like mirror images, Yoru and Minato raised their kunai at the same moment, knocking the incoming shuriken aside.
Clang—!
Two overlapping collisions rang out almost as one.
From the classmates' perspective, the two who'd been several meters apart suddenly turned into black afterimages the moment they deflected the shuriken—crashing toward each other.
When their bodies became visible again, it was an explosion of close-quarters blade combat, so intense it made your eyes blur.
While first through fourth years were still forbidden from using kunai, Yoru and Minato handled them like extensions of their arms. Their dynamic vision was almost like the Uchiha's Sharingan—able to precisely catch every motion, every strike line, every kunai trajectory.
With terrifying reflexes, their blocks, dodges, and counters looked effortless—less like shinobi trying to kill each other and more like a duel between swordsmen.
The medic-nin who had been casually watching now turned grim, eyes filled with shock.
You've got to be kidding—this agility and reaction speed… were these really just two fourth-years?
If you didn't know better, you'd think two Uchiha with Sharingan were fighting!
Yūya's whole body tensed as well, ready to Body Flicker in and stop the match at any moment.
He didn't want his own carelessness to get these two students—whom he was so proud of—hurt.
High-intensity blade combat demanded extreme focus.
A single lapse could let the opponent seize an opening and decide the fight instantly.
And in that regard, Yoru clearly had the edge.
After only a few exchanges, Yoru created an opening.
With a diagonal lift, his kunai struck Minato's again—then Yoru's index finger slipped into the ring at the end of the kunai. Using the contact as leverage, he flipped his grip from reverse to standard and slashed hard toward Minato's chest.
Anyone else would have been caught completely off-guard by the sudden change.
But Minato's reflexes were terrifying. The instant he saw the shift, chakra gathered in his feet on pure instinct.
Before Yoru's kunai could even land, Minato became an afterimage and vanished.
Yoru didn't look surprised.
The moment Minato disappeared, Yoru pivoted and threw his kunai toward the eight o'clock direction.
Clang! Two kunai collided, ricocheted, and fell away.
Then the thump-thump-thump of impacts followed as Yoru and Minato transitioned from kunai combat into pure taijutsu.
This time, Yoru seized the advantage even faster.
Because the gap in their physical stats was simply too obvious.
At this age, girls usually matured faster than boys.
Yoru, already 1.6 meters tall, was only about a head taller than Kushina—around twenty centimeters.
But he was more than a full head taller than Minato—around twenty-five centimeters.
That height gap translated into overwhelming strength.
Just blocking one of Yoru's whipping roundhouse kicks, Minato instantly felt his entire arm go numb. His body tilted sideways, and he nearly got knocked to the ground.
Minato's eyes widened in shock. Clearly, he hadn't expected Yoru's strength to have become this terrifying after only a year.
Without hesitation, Minato leapt backward to create distance.
And before his feet even touched the ground, his hands were already forming seals.
Seeing the very first hand sign—its attribute—both Yūya and the medic-nin's expressions shifted.
Yoru, whose academic scores were top three in the grade and who knew hand signs by heart, also recognized it instantly.
So he formed seals as well.
"Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!"
"Earth Release: Earth Shore Return!"
The two calls rang out almost at the same time.
Minato's cheeks puffed as he landed, and he spat out a twisted stream of air.
In the next instant, it expanded into an invisible roaring wave, surging toward Yoru.
Just as the gale was about to swallow Yoru, the ground in front of him suddenly flipped up into a huge square slab of rock.
The wind slammed into it, unable to topple or shatter it. Instead, it scattered outward, kicking up a storm of dust that made the watching students raise their arms to shield their eyes.
"So they really can use elemental jutsu already… geniuses, as expected," Yūya and the medic-nin murmured.
Because the gale hadn't fully dissipated, even Minato—despite his Body Flicker—couldn't take the opportunity to flash behind Yoru for a sneak attack.
Yoru used the moment to form seals again.
Poof, poof! Two bursts of white smoke appeared out of thin air.
When the wind cleared the smoke, two clones—identical to Yoru—stood on his left and right.
Yūya and the medic-nin weren't surprised.
From Yoru's hand signs, they knew it was only the most basic Clone Technique.
Those "Yoru" figures were merely intangible illusion clones.
If Yoru had made shadow clones, they wouldn't have been so calm.
But what happened next made their eyes go wide with disbelief.
After the wind died down, Yoru and the two illusion clones charged out from behind the stone slab together, sprinting straight at Minato.
Minato's pupils tightened. He quickly pulled three shuriken from his pouch and threw them at the three Yorus, trying to confirm whether this was the basic Clone Technique or the more advanced Shadow Clone Technique.
As the shuriken flew in, Yoru's real body twisted aside to dodge.
The other two Yorus let the shuriken pass straight through them.
Seeing it was only illusion clones, Minato finally let out a quiet breath of relief, then stepped forward to meet the attack without fear.
Maybe because Yoru was already so close, Minato didn't have time to think things through.
And he overlooked one crucial detail.
The Clone Technique creates only intangible illusions.
And those illusions should disappear into smoke with the slightest contact.
But Yoru's illusion clones—despite being pierced by shuriken—had not dispersed.
Clearly, these weren't ordinary illusion clones.
Minato realized it almost immediately.
As he moved to engage, he slipped to the side to avoid Yoru's suddenly much slower straight punch, then fired a swift backfist into Yoru's chest—
But there was no sensation of hitting a solid body.
His fist passed through Yoru.
Yet the earlier shuriken passing through "the illusion clones" had made it seem clear that this Yoru was the real one.
So were all three illusion clones, with the real body hidden somewhere else?
As Minato's mind raced and he scanned the surroundings, a rapidly enlarging fist suddenly filled his vision.
Minato's expression changed violently—he finally understood.
But it was too late.
BOOM!
Minato's handsome face warped from the impact.
The sheer force didn't just deform his face—it sent his body flying up into the air.
That alone showed how terrifying the power behind Yoru's punch was.
And… this was only the beginning of the combo.
~~~
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