Chapter 84: The Tragedies of the Cursed Clans

"Is Uchiha Sasuke present?" the proctor Genma called out. "If you do not show up within the next minute, you will lose by default!"

The crowd was starting to get restless— of all the scheduled matches, the match between the geniuses of Konoha's two great Dōjutsu clans was the most anticipated, by a significant margin. It had been a while since they had last seen members of those two noble clans facing off, and they were eager to see how such a match would play out today.

It was an indisputable fact that the Hyūga was by far the Hidden Leaf's strongest clan, but to reach that vaunted position, the Senju and Uchiha clans had first needed to die off… Indeed, this was going to be a battle between the strongest clan of today versus the strongest clan in the Leaf's history— Hyūga versus Uchiha, Byakugan versus Sharingan.

It was said that to face an Uchiha alone was to court death— but the same could be said of entering melee range when facing a Hyūga. The Sharingan could see through all techniques, while the Hyūga could see through all forms of deception— they were both incredibly useful in the context of war, but the upcoming match wasn't a war, but a one-on-one fight, where there could only be one winner!

In the middle of the arena below, Hyūga Neji stood proudly with his arms crossed in front of him. Sakura could tell that there wasn't a single doubt in his mind that he would win his match— and Sakura had to admit that he was right to be this confident.

Unless he unleashed the second level of his cursed mark, Pre-Time Skip Sasuke did not have a single chance in hell of beating Neji, even if he unlocked his third Tomoe during the match… and even then, he would be having a hard time.

"Look!" cried Ino excitedly. "Down there!"

Not far from where Neji and Genma stood, a bunch of fallen leaves were beginning to spiral upwards, carried up into the blue sky by a whirlwind that had spontaneously formed. A few seconds later, the winds calmed down and the curtain of leaves fell, revealing two silhouettes of differing heights within the swirling winds…

"You're late, Sasuke!" Naruto shouted at the top of his lungs. "Don't you dare lose to that guy, because you're fighting me next, got it?"

"Heh," Sasuke called back to Naruto, an arrogant smirk drawing itself on his face. "Wouldn't have it any other way…!"

Seeing as the audience was getting impatient, Kakashi tapped on Sasuke's shoulder and whispered something into his ear, before flickering away. Sasuke's cocksure expression slowly replaced itself with a slightly more reserved one, and he then turned his back to Sakura's section of the audience, before walking over to Neji and the proctor.

"All set?" asked Genma in confirmation. "Yes? Then let the fourth match of the quarter-finals, Hyūga Neji versus Uchiha Sasuke… BEGIN!"

As soon as the match began, Sasuke immediately activated his Sharingan and leapt backwards, his fingers weaving hand signs rapidly.

"Fire Style: Phoenix Sage Fire Jutsu!"

Sasuke a spat out a volley of small globulets of flames, which began drifting towards Neji at a relatively slow pace. It was obvious to Sakura what Sasuke was trying to do: he was trying to avoid entering Neji's melee range at any cost…

Neji charged straight through the minefield of floating flames, batting any that got in his way with his chakra-covered hands. To his surprise, he found that catching up to Sasuke was actually proving to be a challenge; Sasuke's movements were faster than he remembered them being; in fact, they were rather reminiscent of Rock Lee's, his teammate…

…

"Yo," said Kakashi lazily, as he flickered to the stairs next to Sakura's seat without warning, giving her quite a start. "I heard you won your match against Guy's disciple? I'm impressed— I didn't think Asuma had it in him to train you that well."

Sakura craned her neck to look at Kakashi, who was in the middle of counting a fat stack of crisp, thousand-ryō notes…

"That's because he didn't," said Sakura in annoyance. "He taught me two Jutsu, and then he had to stop because of an existential crisis, or something." Looking at the money in Kakashi's hands, she then added suspiciously, "Kakashi-sensei, did you bet on the outcome of my match?"

"I would never," said Kakashi innocently. "Just a low-stakes wager between friends, that's all."

Sakura snorted derisively— but since Kakashi had obviously bet on her, she decided to forgive him, and she turned her attention back to the match.

"Kakashi-sensei," Naruto blurted out, as he got up from his seat to chat with his teammates. "How did Sasuke get so fast? He wasn't like this before!"

…

Down below, Sasuke had lured Neji into the forested area of the arena, where at least he could use the trees as cover; to put something, anything, between him and the unstoppable menace that was Neji. So far, he was doing a pretty good job of staying out of his opponent's melee range, but his stamina was limited, so there was no telling how long he'd be able to continue to dodge at such a fast pace…

…

"Simple," Kakashi nonchalantly answered Naruto's question. "He recorded Lee's movements with his Sharingan, so I simply made him imitate his moves until he could perfectly replicate them."

Sakura scoffed— of course, Kakashi would pick a way to train Sasuke in such a way that he personally wouldn't have to actually put in any effort… No wonder Sasuke had ditched him for Orochimaru, who was a superior teacher in every conceivable way!

…

"Useless, useless, useless!" Neji shouted. "Did you really think I couldn't see you setting up these wire traps hidden in the trees? And all of these Explosive Tags, are those supposed to be the real trap? Is this really all you have, Uchiha?"

…

The corners of Kakashi's mouth lifted slightly under his mask; running fast wasn't the only thing he had taught Sasuke...

A deafening explosion rocked the forested area, as Sasuke's Explosive Tags all detonated simultaneously around Neji, who had still been in the middle of weaving his way through his wire traps like a contortionist.

The explosion raised a large cloud of smoke; nothing could be seen within it, save for a few flickering blue lights… and that's when Sakura heard what sounded like the chirping of a thousand birds.

"ROTATION!"

The dust cloud was suddenly sucked into the vortex that had formed due to Neji's Rotation Jutsu, revealing what had occurred under the cover of the smokescreen. On one end of the field, amidst the sea of destruction caused by Sasuke's Exploding Tags, stood Neji's rapidly spinning figure under a dome of swirling blue chakra; on the other end stood Sasuke, who was holding what seemed like a ball of lightning in his palm…

"YOU CAN'T HIT HIM HEAD-ON!" Sakura screamed at Sasuke in warning.

Though Sasuke gave no indication of having heard her, he suddenly veered to Neji's left in the middle of his mad dash towards his opponent. He was now running alongside his Neji's shield of chakra, accompanying the Rotation Jutsu's anticlockwise spin as fast as he could…

"CHIDORI!"

Like a flash of lightning, Sasuke's arm abruptly snaked out towards Neji, partially penetrating the rotating chakra shield— and yet, despite his great speed, he couldn't match the angular velocity of the Eight Trigrams Palms: Revolving Heaven. The instant his legs faltered, his arm was brutally ejected from the rotating chakra, and Sasuke was sent flying.

Neji finally stopped spinning, panting slightly— and then his eyes widened in shock, his hands immediately flying to his naked forehead. His forehead protector had been knocked off his head and had fallen to the ground a few metres away from him; a deep groove graven across the Leaf symbol embossed in the metal, where Sasuke's Chidori had scraped against it…

At first, Sakura failed to recognize what all the fuss was about— a great clamour had risen from the Hyūga's V.I.P. seating area— but a second later, she finally understood the gravity of the situation.

It wasn't about what was on his forehead, but rather what wasn't on it…

Hyūga Neji's forehead was as clear and as unblemished as the day he was born— somehow, the Manji of the Caged Bird Cursed Seal had vanished from his brow!