Within the secluded forest clearing, Neji stood with arms crossed, a composed yet aloof expression resting on his face.
"Let me make this clear first," he said coolly, "I don't see you as an enemy. I only view you as someone I must surpass. Nothing more."
"Healthy competition's a good thing," Garou Zenin replied casually, waving a hand. "It pushes us to grow faster. But I didn't come here to discuss rivalry. I came to make a deal."
"A deal?" Neji blinked, caught off-guard.
On the walk from the training field to the forest, Neji had mentally rehearsed a dozen different scripts, justifications, retorts, defensive stances.
Only for Garou to drop that.
He was here to… negotiate.
"I want to confirm the positions of the chakra points on the body. In exchange, I'll teach you a jutsu I'm certain you'll be interested in," Garou said with a faint smile.
"A jutsu I'll be interested in?" Neji frowned. His interest was piqued despite himself. "What kind of technique?"
"In a way… it's a form of Gentle Fist," Garou replied. "Just something I've recently developed."
"Gentle Fist? That's impossible." Neji's voice dropped, skeptical and almost insulted.
As far as he was concerned, only members of the Hyuga clan could ever hope to master Gentle Fist. It wasn't just a technique. It was tied to their lineage and dōjutsu.
"Let me show you instead." Garou's expression sharpened. He turned and slammed a palm into a nearby tree.
A dull, muffled sound echoed.
Neji activated his Byakugan on instinct. His eyes widened a moment later. The tree's surface showed only a needle-thin puncture. But inside, the fibers had twisted and torn apart, spiraling outward from the impact like a small cyclone had drilled through it.
'That kind of internal damage… applied to a human body?'
It would crush organs. Fracture bone. Disrupt chakra flow.
'Terrifying.'
Neji stared at the tree in stunned silence. Several seconds passed before he finally looked back at Garou.
"…Why?"
"Huh?" Garou tilted his head slightly.
"Why can you do this?" Neji muttered. "You're a civilian. Your fate… your destiny… it shouldn't…"
He was spiraling. He'd never seen Garou as an enemy. Just a strange anomaly in the flow of fate. A challenge on the path he walked.
But Garou kept breaking the mold. Again and again.
It was exhausting to comprehend.
"Destiny? If you've already accepted your fate, why are you even training?" Garou asked, puzzled.
"Because I…"
"You might be about to say you're destined to be a genius," Garou interrupted, smirking slightly. "But even geniuses still need to train."
He paused, then waved a hand dismissively.
"Anyway, I'm not here to convince you of anything. That'd be childish. Let's just get to the deal."
Neji said nothing for a long while.
Then, slowly, he exhaled.
"You want to learn to strike chakra points. But you don't have a Byakugan. So how are you planning to hit them?"
"I've mapped out the general locations already. I just want to verify the accuracy. Also, I'd like to test something while we're at it."
Garou's tone was relaxed, as if this were a school project and not a forbidden skill of one of the most secretive clans in the village.
Neji's brows furrowed.
He still didn't believe it would work. But...
"Fine. Let's see what you've got."
His chakra surged as his Byakugan flared to life again, veins bulging around his temples with a haunting intensity.
Most people were unsettled by the first close-up encounter with a fully activated Byakugan.
Garou had seen it enough times now to shrug it off.
After a moment's pause, he reached out and gently pressed a finger to one of Neji's chakra points.
"How about that one?"
Neji's expression shifted.
"You really do know where they are?"
He had been skeptical, but now that he was seeing the precision of Garou's strikes, and remembering the Gentle Fist-like technique.
He couldn't dismiss it.
"That one's accurate," Neji admitted. "Chakra points don't shift much with age or growth, at least not the main ones. Try another."
Garou tapped another, lower down on the torso.
"A bit to the right."
Another.
"Too far left."
Another.
"Higher."
After a few more tests, Neji gave in and started pointing them out himself. It was faster than correcting Garou after each attempt.
Truthfully, it wasn't just that Garou was close, his instincts were unnervingly spot-on.
And for someone without a Byakugan, that was extremely rare.
He really might be able to make it work.
Once Garou had mentally mapped the key chakra points, he raised a hand again. "I want to try another move. Can you observe what it does?"
Neji nodded.
Chakra surged around Garou's fingertips, and from them emerged dozens of glowing threads, fine and condensed, yet flexible and agile.
They weren't sharp enough to cut, but they moved with purpose and coordination.
The threads darted toward Neji.
Neji braced instinctively but didn't counter. Garou was careful. None of the strikes caused external harm, but… several chakra points flared under his skin, hit, again and again.
Eight of them shut down.
"You used threads to strike pressure points?" Neji's voice was tight with disbelief.
It finally made sense.
He understood Garou's plan. You didn't need perfect precision. Just enough consistency, and overwhelming volume.
"You really couldn't imagine this before?" Garou asked, tilting his head. "You guys have the Byakugan. You see everything. Why hold onto the old ways instead of innovating?"
Neji clenched his fists, anger bubbling beneath the surface. He loved the Byakugan and believed in its potential.
But he couldn't deny the truth.
Hyuga techniques had remained unchanged for generations. Their style was rigid, tradition-bound. Even their signature Gentle Fist hadn't evolved at all.
The realization stung.
"Thanks for your help," Garou said, dismissing the threads.
Neji didn't respond. His hands curled tighter.
Garou began to walk off, but stopped and looked over his shoulder.
"Oh, by the way, did you memorize the technique I showed earlier?"
"…Tch." Neji's face darkened. A faint red tint flushed across his otherwise impassive features.
"Guess I'll show you again. The principle is simple," Garou said, drawing chakra into his hand. "Condense it as tightly as possible, inject it on contact, and then force it to spin and expand inside."
He explained each step in detail, demonstrating once more.
Neji studied carefully, his expression sharpening.
"I've got it," he said finally.
"Good. Try it."
Garou gave him room.
Neji focused, recalling the motion.
He stepped forward and fired a palm strike.
The chakra discharged wildly, too uncontrolled. The power was there, but the precision wasn't.
A small crater formed in the soil beneath them.
"…Oops," Neji muttered, mildly embarrassed.
Garou didn't mock him.
Instead, he gave a small nod. "You can always fall back on that version, just let the chakra explode outright. It's a good starting point."
Then, with a wry grin, he added, "By the way… you guys with your 'Two Palms,' 'Four Palms,' 'Eight Palms', ever think of optimizing the damage?"
"…I…" Neji's jaw tensed.
He couldn't argue.
Which made it worse.
"Anyway," Garou said with a wave, turning away again, "maybe we'll work together again sometime."
He walked back toward where Lee and Nami were training.
Neji stood there, silently running the strike through his head again and again. After two or three more attempts, his frustration was mounting.
'You call this a genius move? This is insanity!'
But as he breathed through the irritation, clarity began to form.
Garou hadn't expected him to master the exact technique.
The point was not to replicate it, but to adapt it.
Neji didn't need to learn a foreign style. He could take the core concepts, chakra condensation, internal rotation, impact disruption, and apply them to his own moves.
'What if I integrated these into Eight Trigrams techniques?'
Suddenly invigorated, Neji restructured his approach entirely.
Meanwhile, outside, Garou had rejoined Lee and Nami.
As expected, training them was a headache.
Lee was enthusiastic but lacked control. Nami was cautious and analytical, but slow to act.
They were nothing like Neji in terms of intuition or precision.
Still, Garou wasn't expected to be their long-term teacher.
By afternoon, Guy would likely be discharged.
While taking a breather, Garou climbed a tree and began scribbling notes for his mission report.
By sunset, he escorted Neji's team to the hospital to check in on Guy. Then he made his way alone to the Hokage Office. The reports he carried today were crucial.
Especially the one on Gentle Fist.
Garou had a small but ambitious idea.
He wanted to use this technique to pry open the gates of the Hyuga Clan. The Hyuga were powerful, wealthy in heritage and knowledge.
They were also stagnant.
If he couldn't barter for their knowledge, then at the very least… he could spark something that might let them, and him, evolve.
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