Chapter 56: Seizing the Blade

Chapter 56: Chapter 56: Seizing the Blade

A person’s outward bearing—their vigor, spirit, and presence—could reveal the truest state of their heart.

Hyuga Kagami firmly believed this.

The way Uchiha Hiiragi immersed himself in his swordsmanship reflected the pride he held in his own skill with the blade, as well as the absolute trust he placed in the razor-sharp short sword in his hand.

And it was precisely this pride in his swordsmanship and confidence in his weapon that caused him to unconsciously take dangerous risks whenever he became caught up in an intense battle.

It was a flaw he had never noticed.

Or rather, among the entire Uchiha Clan, aside from Shisui, no one had ever noticed it.

And sometimes, the smallest detail was enough to decide victory or defeat!

After exchanging blows with Uchiha Hiiragi at close range for a while, Hyuga Kagami deliberately pulled back and began using the terrain of the small forest to fight him on the move.

Screech—!

With another shrill whistle as the short sword tore through the air, yet another tree as thick as a man was sliced cleanly through the middle.

Counting this one, eight or nine large trees in the small forest had already fallen victim to Uchiha Hiiragi’s blade.

Using the cloud of dust kicked up by the falling tree trunk, Hyuga Kagami once again successfully widened the distance between himself and Uchiha Hiiragi.

Uchiha Hiiragi shouted with murderous fury, "Coward! Is dodging all you know how to do?"

Hyuga Kagami remained perfectly calm. "Is cutting down trees all you know how to do?"

"You...!"

Uchiha Hiiragi was momentarily speechless.

Kagami didn’t continue mocking him. Instead, he focused all his attention on dealing with Uchiha Hiiragi’s increasingly ferocious waves of attacks.

Uchiha Hiiragi truly deserved to be called one of the Uchiha Clan’s elites. Even without using genjutsu or ninjutsu, his strength was unquestionably at the jōnin level. Combined with the enhancement of his Sharingan, his exquisite swordsmanship was terrifyingly sharp and aggressive!

Truthfully, without using Wheel of Will or the Third Kazekage Human Puppet, Kagami really didn’t have any particularly good way of dealing with Uchiha Hiiragi. If Shisui hadn’t passed along that information beforehand, this battle would have been far more troublesome.

For now, Kagami’s strategy was simple.

Drag it out!

He intended to keep dragging the fight out until Uchiha Hiiragi grew restless and his heart became consumed by killing intent. Only then would Uchiha Hiiragi expose an opening.

Like the vast majority of Uchiha, Uchiha Hiiragi wasn’t particularly patient either. After relentlessly pursuing and attacking Kagami for so long, his emotions gradually became more and more unstable.

Every slash and every movement was overflowing with killing intent.

But when killing intent became too overwhelming, one’s attacks would inevitably lose their versatility.

As a result, under Hyuga Kagami’s Tenseigan, more and more openings began appearing in Uchiha Hiiragi’s swordsmanship. On several occasions, Kagami could even barely seize the opportunity to counterattack with the Eight Trigrams Palms.

But Kagami wasn’t in a hurry.

He trusted the information Shisui had passed along to him, but he trusted his own eyes even more.

After another bout of pursuit, the two leapt out of the now-devastated forest one after another and arrived at a lake, startling the villagers washing clothes along the shore and sending them into cries of alarm.

Standing on the surface of the lake, Kagami panted lightly as he said, "Looks like you’re a little stronger than the last guy."

Uchiha Hiiragi roared, "Someone like you, who only knows how to run and hide, has no right to judge us Uchiha!"

No sooner had he finished shouting than Uchiha Hiiragi broke into a violent coughing fit.

There was no doubt about it. His stamina had never been particularly good to begin with, and he had spent the entire fight simmering in frustration, unable to vent his killing intent. As a result, his physical exhaustion was far greater than Kagami’s.

Knowing that the time was finally ripe, Kagami smiled.

"Run and hide? Your shallowness is truly astonishing!"

Without waiting for Uchiha Hiiragi to respond, Kagami took the initiative and launched an attack.

Uchiha Hiiragi’s spirits immediately soared at the sight. He raised his blade and slashed straight at Kagami.

In an instant, the once-calm surface of the lake erupted into turbulent waves.

Amid the flying spray, the two clashed fiercely!

The moment they clashed, Hyuga Kagami could tell that Uchiha Hiiragi’s swordsmanship had become far more chaotic than before. Although his killing intent remained just as fierce, his blade had lost some of its speed and gained far more viciousness!

But killing intent alone could not kill anyone.

An opening!

Another opening!

And another!

Through his Tenseigan, Kagami spotted flaw after flaw in Uchiha Hiiragi’s movements.

Yet he still didn’t rush.

He wasn’t merely waiting for an opportunity to defeat Uchiha Hiiragi.

He was waiting for an opportunity to seize the short sword from his hand!

He wanted to completely crush Uchiha Hiiragi’s confidence!

A few breaths later, the opportunity finally appeared.

Kagami no longer hesitated. He immediately closed his palm into a fist and drove it straight toward Uchiha Hiiragi’s chest.

And just as Kagami had predicted, Uchiha Hiiragi didn’t retreat.

Instead, he chose to meet attack with attack, swinging his blade toward Kagami!

"Just as I thought—he really does have a habit of taking risks!"

The corner of Kagami’s mouth curled upward into a faint smile.

At the same time, Kagami’s feinting fist suddenly swept upward, striking the wrist of Uchiha Hiiragi’s sword hand, while his other hand followed through and snatched the short sword away.

The entire disarming maneuver happened in the blink of an eye.

By the time Kagami had seized the blade and backed away, Uchiha Hiiragi was still standing there in a daze, unable to process what had just happened.

Idly playing with the short sword in his hand, Kagami said indifferently, "It really is a fine blade. The one wielding it, though, still has some ways to go."

"You..."

Kagami tossed the short sword back to Uchiha Hiiragi.

"You lost!"

With that, he paid no further attention to the stunned Uchiha Hiiragi and walked straight off the surface of the lake.

Not long afterward, Shisui appeared before Kagami and asked, "Senpai, did everything go smoothly?"

Because Uchiha Hiiragi was very strong, Shisui wasn’t confident that he could secretly follow him without being noticed. So unlike the previous time when he had followed Uchiha Shinichi, he hadn’t watched the entire battle from beginning to end.

Kagami nodded. "Smooth enough. But that Uchiha Hiiragi is pretty strong. If I hadn’t agreed with him beforehand that we’d only compete in taijutsu, it’s hard to say how things would’ve turned out."

During the battle, Kagami had appeared completely calm and composed, as though he hadn’t taken Uchiha Hiiragi seriously at all.

But in reality, without being able to use Wheel of Will or the Third Kazekage Human Puppet, this was probably about the limit of Kagami’s current strength.

And if they hadn’t restricted the fight to taijutsu from the very beginning, it was difficult to say whether Kagami could have defeated Uchiha Hiiragi at all.

Shisui smiled. "When it comes to you, Senpai, I wasn’t worried at all."

"You know as well as I do that there are certain methods I can’t conveniently use inside the village." After a brief pause, Kagami continued, "If the Uchiha send someone even stronger next time, I really might not be able to handle them."

Against Uchiha Hiiragi this time, Kagami had already relied on a certain amount of trickery. If the Uchiha sent a jōnin even stronger than Uchiha Hiiragi next time, Kagami’s chances of victory wouldn’t be very high.

Besides, Kagami had accepted the Uchiha’s challenges not only because he wanted to temper himself through battle, but also because he wanted to use the Uchiha’s reputation to build a name for himself.

The Uchiha might not be particularly well-liked, but their reputation was undeniably formidable. Although the village’s shinobi rarely said it aloud, deep down, they had long since come to regard the word "Uchiha" as synonymous with "elite."

At the same time, the village’s higher-ups were deeply suspicious of the Uchiha.

So using the Uchiha as stepping stones could be considered the fastest and safest way for Kagami to make a name for himself.

Shisui hurriedly assured him, "Please rest easy, Senpai. Now that Hiiragi has lost, the clan probably won’t send anyone else to challenge you for a while."