Both parties jumped towards each other, and started exchanging blows. Attack, counter, riposte, retreat, block, counter, attack, and so on. They were practically spamming each other with their open palms, which was the way how the Hyugas fight. The infamous Gentle Fist technique. Contrary to normal taijutsu, this technique doesn't deal damage to the opponent's body, but to their chakra network. The Byakugan is able to perceive the chakra nodes in another person's body, and if hit with enough accuracity and strength, these nodes would close, meaning the flow of chakra would stop. Practically it destroys the body from within.
The flow of battle was fast and dynamic. Their fighting style could be comparable to flowing water. The raining palms and fingers between the two enemies looked like two different kind of fluids trying to merge, but due to their differences they repelled each other. They were locked really close to each other in an all-out war, with no distinguishable loser or winner.
Neji was sure of his victory and didn't go all-out in the first seconds, but quickly regretted that, as Hinata really was way better than before. In the anime Neji managed to secretly lock the tengetsu points of Hinata's arms while they fought. This time she was way too vigilant and looked out for every possible angle of attack Neji could take.
At the start it wasn't obvious what would happen, but after a minute of fighting Neji started getting pushed back. It was incredible to see the stalemate breaking, and Neji was surprised to see he was on the losers side. He got his shit together and put in all the effort he had, and even had to pull out a few trump-cards he had prepared for the final exam.
At the end both of them were out of energy and tricks, but Neji managed to land a decisive critical attack at Hinata's heart, that put her out of the game. He was panting and bleeding from his mouth and nose, and was quite tired.
"You've... grown way more than I imagined. But the end result is the same. You can't fight destiny." he said, then moved off the arena grounds as Hinata was bleeding out on the ground.
Medical ninjas rushed to help her and carry her away to get emergency treatment. Dix moved up to her and gave a small congratulation for her great performance. It was a genuine gesture from him, as he was satisfied with the huge improvements Hinata showed. Her mouth turned into a huge smile and weakly thanked him. He just nodded and moved back to watch the next fight.
Because the next one will be even more interesting. It will probably be the same as in the anime, but this one was far above the rest, anyway. The next fight will be the most epic, between Gaara and Rock Lee. This will be when Lee lets go of his shackles, and also brings out the big guns.
The fight started with a few normal exchanges. Actually only Lee moved while Gaara was lazing around. After some fighting, which looked more like a cat-mouse game, Lee was instructed by his sensei to take the weight off of his legs. He suddenly got really fast, and was even able to move past Gaara's Sand Shield, which was an automatic defense mechanism.
Dix wanted to make something similar, but it was running on some bullshit magic thing, and not the usual kind of magic, but something about Gaara's dead mother's spirit possessing the sand around him and defends him from harm. Its... very well explained. Dix had a few ideas on how to do something similar, but all of those were hard to do and not too effective. Unfortunately he didn't have a dead mother that was willing to actively protect him with some sort of element.
His dead mother was only willing to do a one-time consumable resealing of Kurama, which was completely useless for him
As he was thinking about this he realized that if he had a penny for every dead mother protecting their child as a spirit in this world, then he would have 2 pennies, which is not much, but he was still surprised that it happened twice, considering the world of Naruto is supposed to be some magical power fantasy, not a spiritual one. It felt like its not something that fits very well into this world.
Back to the fight, after getting rid of his shackles, Lee was able to get trough Gaara's first line of defense, which in itself was almost miraculous, but Gaara had another way to defend himself. Namely the Sand Armor, which was, as its name indicates, a thick armor of sand that covered his whole body to dissipate all incoming attacks. It was consuming chakra like crazy though, and was physically demanding, so it wasn't as broken as the first one.
Next Lee tried his signature 'Primary Lotus' technique, but was bamboozled with a sand clone. The last attack left him quite tired, so in the end he had to pull out the opening of the Eight Gates. With that he became so fast, that Kakashi had to use his sharingan to keep up with his speed. Lee's attacks were so destructive that it almost completely destroyed the interior of the room, and almost managed to win the fight, but at the finishing move his body gave in and didn't get the KO. Gaara was still alive and kicking, but couldn't actually move on his own, same as Lee, but was still able to move his sand. With that he crippled Lee, by shattering the bones in his left arm and leg.
The idiot in the green suit wasn't willing to give up though, so Gaara 'moved in' for the kill, but Guy interrupted the fight. The medical team rushed in to take care of Lee, and was able to discern right there and then that Lee was permanently crippled and would have to look for a new job. Tough luck.
Everyone was standing around in complete silence and was about to cry, knowing full well that being a ninja is Lee's lifeline. There was so much compassion, sadness and anger in the air that Dix was about to throw up. He knew Lee will be fine soon, as he intends to get Tsunade back to Konoha.
Next up was a shitty fight between Choji and the last sound ninja, which was almost as boring and unnerving as the Sakura-Ino fight. Choji is just a fat idiot, while the sound guy was a decent ninja at least, so he swept the fatty aside real fast, almost as fast as Temari did with Tenten.
It was a seriously bad ending for the preliminary matches, but that's life. Next they were given all the information they needed and had to draw lots to see who will fight with who. Everyone pulled the same number as in the anime. Dix tried his best to draw something else, but almost like it was fated, he drew the same as Naruto did. This way he will have to fight Neji.
They were told about how the matches will go down, were informed about the importance of this system and were enlightened about how they will represent their villages in front of all the big dogs, like daimyos, shinobi leaders, etc. Boring stuff.
After that everyone was allowed to go home, or back to wherever they were accommodated at. The real third exam will start a month later. Trough this month Dix will be quite busy, as he will soon meet Jiraiya and will be able to start training his Sage mode. He was pretty sure a month will be enough and he will be back by the time the last round starts.
He said his farewell to his team, checked on Hinata to see she was quite alright, but had to rest, so he left to go back home. He had a good dinner, and went to sleep. Right as he wanted to drop dead into his comfy bed, suddenly a very interesting report arrived from one of his clones. Even though he participated in the second exam, no one was strong enough to threaten him, so he let the training squads keep going. Also, the second squad, that already managed to produce a key for the Kurama's seal, wasn't dissolved, but wes told to keep training fuinjutsu and look for more knowledge about the matter.
At that exact time a clone managed to find a hidden ruin of some sort. It was sealed away with a huge door made of some sort of stone, with a huge emblem of the Uzumakis in the middle of it. It was really hard and sturdy, the clone didn't manage to get trough it, but noticed that the emblem on the door seemed to be a lock. After a few hours of decrypting and studying the lock, the clone came to the conclusion that the door can be unlocked by the blood of an Uzumaki.
When Dix got the news he got extremely hyped, and rushed out of the village to the indicated location. He had to go there physically, as none of the clones could give blood, so he was supposed to do it himself. He was excited as this would be the first time he used his FTGT on such distances. This is why he learned the jutsu, next to its broken combat prowess. The location itself was at the edge of the Fire Nation, which was quite interesting for him. The Uzumaki Clan probably hid something there, because why else would they make a building like that so far away from the central parts of the country.
When Dix arrived to the ruin he was greeted by a few clones that were left there to guard the entrance and secure the perimeter. Dix moved right over to the door, cut his palm then smeared the blood onto the Uzumaki emblem. Some sort of mechanism was activated, and the door started moving which was accompanied by some funky-sounding rumbling and mechanical noise.
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