On the battlefield,
Ao and the sensory jōnin in his squad stared coldly at the cloud of smoke that had suddenly erupted.
Hyuga Genko was clever—he had grasped the situation almost instantaneously.
There was nothing wrong with the plan Hyuga Natsu had given him.
Only by shaking off the enemy's sensory ninja could they have any chance of escaping this predicament alive.
But the question was: how could he ensure the enemy would definitely send their sensory ninja after Hyuga Natsu?
Or rather—
Would Hyuga Natsu really tie down the enemy's sensory ninja for him?
Hyuga Genko didn't dare gamble on it, so he made the safest choice—
Using the Transformation Technique, he deliberately expanded the range of smoke produced by the jutsu to obscure the enemy's vision.
Within this cloud of smoke, whichever "Hyuga Natsu" escaped first—whether real or fake—would be pursued by enemy forces.
And he himself would use this opportunity to flee in the direction Hyuga Natsu had indicated!
At this moment,
Threatened by the Caged Bird Seal, Hyuga Natsu had no choice but to follow Hyuga Genko's orders. She broke away from the smoke first and began to run, while Hyuga Genko followed closely behind, fleeing in the opposite direction.
Faced with this situation,
Without Akamaru at his side and unable to quickly distinguish the real from the fake transformation through the red-eye vision, Ao decisively gave the order:
"Kensuke, follow the first one."
"Yes!"
The sensory jōnin named Kensuke sprang from Ao's side, pursuing Hyuga Natsu.
At a time like this, decisive orders were more important than hesitant correct judgment. Although from their previous encounter Ao had gained a rough understanding of what kind of person this Hyūga main family member was, and had already guessed that the second "Hyuga Natsu" to flee was actually the main family member in disguise—
He couldn't afford to gamble.
And just as Hyuga Genko's heart filled with secret delight, thinking his plan had succeeded, what he didn't know was—
At this very moment on the battlefield, there was another hunter who had set their sights on him.
After confirming that the enemy's sensory ninja had gone to pursue Hyuga Natsu, Hyuga Genko faced the remaining Mist ninja, Ao. Though he didn't think much of his opponent, he knew this wasn't the time to get entangled in battle.
At this moment, he finally activated the all-seeing Byakugan that belonged to the main family, consuming his chakra without hesitation!
However,
When he hadn't fled very far in the direction Hyuga Natsu had indicated, just as his Byakugan opened and he was still adjusting to the god's-eye bird's-eye view—
"Snap."
Hyuga Genko seemed to have stepped on something.
Immediately after—
"—BOOM!!!"
A massive flaming tornado erupted from beneath Hyuga Genko's feet!
A violent wind swept the surroundings, and a deafening roar accompanied the rising mushroom cloud!
No fewer than a hundred explosive tags released their light and heat in an instant, engulfing everyone's entire field of vision!
The expression on the main family member's face transformed in a flash from secret delight to stunned confusion, then to shock, and finally, 'her' pale face looked as if all the blood had been drained from it, her wide-open eyes filled with uncontrollable fear!
Hyuga Genko was sent flying!
The situation changed abruptly.
On the battlefield, the three who had been pursuing their respective fleeing targets all stopped in their tracks.
Then, from the other side, Hyuga Natsu suddenly turned around, a flash of ruthlessness crossing her beautiful eyes. Without hesitation, she charged toward the blasted Hyuga Genko!
While running at extreme speed, as if performing a face-changing act in Sichuan opera, she displayed an expression of worry, fear, and terror, screaming at the top of her lungs:
"Young Master Genko!!!"
Although this trap had actually been set by her in advance, this didn't prevent Hyuga Natsu from appearing completely innocent and uninvolved at this moment.
The same type of trap—along this road leading to the Grass Wave Coast,
She had set up six locations.
Hyuga Natsu was rapidly closing in on Hyuga Genko!
Ao stood frozen in place for several seconds, watching Hyuga Natsu turn back and charge forward, continuously approaching.
Instinctively, he felt a trace of eeriness that sent chills down his spine!
But in just an instant, he subconsciously ordered the jōnin Kensuke on the other end:
"Kensuke, get out of the way!"
Sensory jōnin Kensuke immediately followed Ao's command and moved aside, clearing the path blocking Hyuga Natsu.
In the next moment—
"Whoosh!"
A fierce palm wind grazed past the face of Mist sensory jōnin Kensuke, shooting out and striking a large tree in the distance.
In an instant, a tree twenty meters away—thick enough to require a person's arms to encircle it—was struck at the waist by Hyuga Natsu's Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm and collapsed with a thunderous crash!
Kensuke's face immediately showed a look of terror, and he retreated several steps, increasing his distance from Hyuga Natsu.
Having missed with one strike, Hyuga Natsu immediately bit her silver teeth slightly, raised her Byakugan-bulging eyes to sweep toward the obstructive Ao, and an undisguised intense killing intent rose in her gaze!
At this moment, Ao once again gave orders to the sensory jōnin Kensuke in his squad:
"You keep an eye on the main family member."
"I'll personally deal with this woman!"
Then, with a solemn expression, he stared at the charging Hyuga Natsu, drew the ninja blade from his waist with a flick of his hand, and gripped it single-handedly.
For ordinary ninja, Hyūga clan members were actually quite troublesome to deal with.
At close range they had the Gentle Fist that could seal chakra and counter ninjutsu; for defense they had the extremely overpowered Rotation; at medium range they had the seal-less taijutsu technique Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm; and at long range they possessed the Byakugan's ultra-long-distance detection—if the situation looked bad, they would simply withdraw in advance.
Like a hedgehog curled into a ball, they could be described as having a full 360-degree coverage with no blind spots or weaknesses.
Even with full knowledge of their capabilities, it was extremely difficult to form targeted countermeasures against Hyūga ninja, ultimately devolving into the most plain and simple chakra consumption war of attrition.
Under these circumstances,
Main family Hyūga members could not be countered.
But branch family members could!
Ao formed the Ram seal with one hand held vertically before his chest, while his other hand gripped his ninja blade. His entire body suddenly transformed into a puddle of water that fell to the ground.
"Splat!"
Water Release: Water Instantaneous Body!
Hyuga Natsu's 359-degree field of vision immediately lost track of Ao's figure.
However, she knew very clearly that Ao was hiding in that one-degree blind spot restricted by the Caged Bird Seal.
Hyuga Natsu immediately gathered a large amount of chakra in both palms, pivoted on the balls of her feet, and executed a beautiful spinning palm strike!
"Boom!"
The palm wind broke free from her body, coalescing into an air cannon that blasted toward her rear!
At the same time, her rotating Byakugan locked onto the enemy's position once more.
But at this moment,
Hyuga Natsu's pupils suddenly contracted!
She saw that the Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm striking behind her had accurately hit Ao, but in the next instant, this "Ao" burst apart into a puddle of water.
And behind it,
Ao's true body held his ninja blade in one hand, pulling it back to his chest in a sideways stance, while his other hand remained raised before him, continuously changing and forming seals!
Rabbit - Ram - Snake.
Water Release: Water Fang Blade!
Violently rotating vortexes spiraled and spun around his ninja blade, converging at a single point!
Hyuga Natsu immediately recognized this as the extremely rare one-handed seal technique among the ninja population!
And Ao, while gripping his blade in one hand and forming seals with the other, had consecutively deployed three techniques—Water Release: Water Instantaneous Body, Water Release: Water Clone, and Water Release: Water Fang Blade—neutralizing Hyuga Natsu's counterattack and creating an opportunity for a decisive strike!
Ao stared coldly at Hyuga Natsu, pronouncing his indifferent judgment:
"It's over!"
In the next moment, after a few running steps, he leaped up like a rabbit, and with chakra enhancement at near-instantaneous body speed, he thrust rapidly toward Hyuga Natsu's throat!
However,
At that very moment—
Not far away, sensory ninja Kensuke suddenly seemed to sense something. He snapped his head around, looking toward the western side of the battlefield.
Immediately after,
He whipped his head back around. His face flushed red, then turned pale. His suddenly widened eyes carried a trace of fear as he shouted in alarm toward Ao:
"Ao-sama!"
"Watch out!"
"Something... something's being shot this way!"
————
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