Saburo's Tournament

CHAPTER 9

Scorching Palms

Natsu vs. Neji


Now, the last fight of Block B!" Saburo laughed quietly to himself before continuing on. "Neji Hyuga vs. Natsu Dragneel!"

"Alright!" Natsu grinned from ear to ear as he stepped towards the exit of the containment cube. He stepped into the town center with an obvious eagerness. He was a lean, well-built young man that stood at an average height. He also had light tan skin, black eyes, and spiky rose-colored hair. The youth also wore a scarf that was detailed with white 'scales'. His outfit consisted of a black waistcoat with gold trimmings, an he didn't wear a shirt underneath. Lastly, he had short white trousers that extended to his knees, and a black wristband on his left wrist. Natsu watched as his opponent came to stand on the battlefield. "This is finally getting interesting! I'm your opponent!"

"So it seems," replied Neji as he looked the mage up and down. Neji had long, dark brown hair that framed his face. He had fair skin and his eyes were almost blacnk in appearance. He wore a white short with loose sleeves, closed on the right shoulder, with a fastener running down the right part of the chest, matching pants, with a dark navy gray apron tied around his waist and black shinobi sandals. His face was calm, confident, and mature.

"Match Eight, begin!" Saburo shouted, leaping far away from between the two combatants. Neji got into a Gentle Fist stance and watched as a wild grin spread across his opponent's face.

"What are you standing around for?" Neji baited intensely. Natsu's wide smile only gained in size.

"Alright! I'm all fired up!" The Fire Dragon-Slayer leapt at Neji recklessly and launched a normal, yet quite powerful, punch at the ninja. Neji simply pressed his right palm against the side of Natsu's quickly approaching fist and pushed. This effortless act threw Natsu off balance, and caused him to tumble forward. The Fairy Tail mage quickly got back to his feet and began to launch a volley of strikes at Neji.

"It's pointless," declared the youth as he deflected each of the punches with his bare palms, deeming them ineffective. Natsu scoffed and threw a kick that was aimed at Neji's head. The ninja lowered his head ever so slightly, carefully avoiding the powerful strike, and countered. He pushed his palm against the back of Natsu's swinging leg, increasing the mage's rotation speed. When Natsu spun around to face Neji again, the ninja was already in extremely close range, and the veins around his eyes seemed to be protruding prominently.

"What?" Natsu asked as Neji thrusted his chakra covered palm into the mage's torso, propelling him backwards a good meter or two. Neji wore a intrigued look on his face as he watched Natsu stand up straight again.

"You went with the force of my strike in order to allow yourself to be pushed out of my range. Was this to make sure I didn't land a second hit?" He asked, smirking slightly. Natsu, however, wasn't paying attention to what he said at all.

"What the hell, man?" Natsu asked, holding his stomach tightly. "What's with your strikes? They hurt like crap on the inside!"

"It's called the Gentle Fist," answered Neji honestly, as if he were proud that Natsu acknowledged his clan's taijutsu skills. "It's a form of hand-to-hand combat used by the Hyuga clan, meant to inflict severe internal injuries through attacking the body's Chakra Network."

"Hyuga Clan? Chakra Network?" Natsu repeated questioningly. "I don't quite get it, but I can tell it's going to be a pain in the ass." The Fire Dragon-Slayer cracked his knuckles and glared at his opponent.

"If you're coming, then come on!" Neji demanded, getting a nice reaction from Natsu.

"Fire Dragon's Iron Fist!" The Fairy Tail member's right fist became ignited in orange flames as he launched himself at the man that stood opposite of him. Natsu's shot his fist forward as Neji got into range, but the ninja tilted his head to dodge the attack.

Flames? Does he use a fire-release combat style? Neji asked in his head as he slid to the side. But those were not normal flames...they had a much higher temperature! Neji glanced at his singed hair, noticing that it was scorched even though it did not connect with Natsu's flaming fist. "You...who are you exactly?"

"Natsu," the mage answered, turning to the right in order to look Neji in the eye. "Natsu Dragneel, the Fire-Dragon Slayer of Fairy Tail," he proclaimed. Neji smirked slightly, finding his answer in the youth's sentence.

"Hmph," snickered the Konoha ninja. "It seems that I may actually find a challenge in you, if that's the case." Neji dashed forward, entering into Natsu's range in a matter of moments. Instinctively, the mage threw a right hook, but Neji easily dodged the strike and proceeded to counter. He struck Natsu's twice in the stomach, once in the face, and swiped at him with his fingers across the cheek, causing the mage to stumble back after the assault.

"Damn it," he swore, trying to gain distance between them once again.

"Do you understand now?" Neji questioned. "You have no way of beating me!" He boasted confidently. Natsu interjected by launched two more flame-engulfed punches, but both were dodged with minor difficulty by Neji. The ninja then landed two more finger jabs and palm strikes to the face, another body shot, and an additional hit to the face for safe measures. Natsu spiraled away and out of Neji's range for the time being.

"You're really tough," acknowledged Natsu in between coughs and hacks. "I think I can loosen up now! Fire Dragon's..." Natsu's cheeks inflated as he reared his head back and inhaled. He then put his hands before his mouth, and released a stream of fire between his fingers as he hollered, "ROAR!" Neji's eyes grew wide momentarily, but he quickly rationalized how to deal with the attack as he entered into a Gentle Fist stance. He then began to rapidly spin to his right, somehow managing to erect a rotating shield of blue chakra around himself. Natsu's flames collided with Neji's defense and failed to breach it entirely.

"Neji can see almost see 360 degrees with his Byakugan," Tenten began to explain. "It's pointless, really. He can detect any attack as soon as it's launched. That's when his real defense comes into play - The Eight Trigrams Palm Rotation."

"So you can defend yourself against my attack with a barrier of magic, eh?" Natsu asked, slightly intrigued. Both of his feet suddenly ignited with bright flames. The youth propelled himself into the air using the pushing force of the flames against the ground. He moved at an incredible speed, successfully getting behind Neji without him getting a chance to turn around. "But I'm guessing that you can't defend against what you can't see!" Natsu swung his flaming leg against Neji's defenseless back.

"Wrong," replied Neji calmly as he rotated again, creating another revolving barrier of chakra that launched Natsu in the opposite direction. He stopped spinning and watched as Natsu got up and dusted himself off.

"You got me again," sighed Natsu. "I can't deny that you're incredibly tough!" Another grin spread across his light face. "But this is way too exciting to end!" Natsu jumped into the air and formed two streams of fire from his hands that enveloped his whole arm and extended past it towards the ground. "Fire Dragon's Wing Attack!" Natsu then lashed the two seperate streams of flame at Neji, but the ninja positioned his body sideways in between them. He then rushed forward through the opening and landed another powerful palm strike to Natsu's rib cage, launching hims backwards.

"I told you it was pointless," taunted Neji. He watched the Dragon Slayer hit the ground harshly, but he knew that he wouldn't be there long. The ninja then changed his gaze from Natsu to his own hands, inspecting them quickly. Kakashi and Tsunade noticed this, and wondered if something were wrong with his hands. Neji quickly looked back at his opponent as he got back to his feet.

"I guess my long range attacks aren't going to work," he muttered, "but this guy is a hand-to-hand specialist!" Natsu conversed with himself, but he could soon see them impatience and annoyance on Neji's face. "Well I guess I'll just have to try again and again until something gives!" The Dragon-Slayer sprinted towards the ninja with flame wrapped hands.

"So be it," mused Neji as he took his signature stance one more time. Natsu greeted Neji with a flaming right hook, which the ninja parried with the back of his own hand. The Konoha 11 member was forced to duck in order to evade a follow-up punch from Natsu. While still ducking, Neji pushed his chakra-enveloped hand towards Natsu's heart. He struck something hard and flesh-like, but it wasn't his intended target.

"That was a close one," sighed Natsu, as Neji retrieved his hand from the mage's elbow. He wasn't quite fast enough to counter as he felt Natsu's shin slam into his face once, sending him crashing through a nearby wall. "Whoa, that took a lot of effort...but atleast I know that you can be hit!"

"That hot-head finally landed a hit," bleated Gray from the sidelines. "He took quite a beating just too land a single punch, though..." Natsu's head whipped towards Gray and he glared at him intensely.

"I heard that, bastard!" He raged, letting out little puffs of fire as he shouted.

"Pay attention," requested Neji as he stepped out of the smothering darkness of the broken down building. Natsu's head angled to face Neji again, and his body soon followed this motion. "Just because you landed a single strike doesn't give you the right to boast about it," he scolded.

"Then let's go again!" Natsu charged forward, but Neji was already prepared as he overlapped his view of Natsu with his palm.

"Eight Trigrams: Air Palm!" Neji released a high-speed palm thrust in Natsu's direction. The mage was suddenly brought to stop as the vacuum shell collided with Natsu, even going as far as to blow him off his feet before he even knew what was going on.

"Neji is having his way with this guy!" Naruto exclaimed, and Rock Lee gave his nod of agreement.

"This quite strange though," commented Might Guy cryptically. "A normal person would have been brought to their knees a few strikes ago." Naruto thought about when he had felt the full force of Neji's blows before, not quite liking the thought.

"He did say that he's a Dragon-Slayer as well," added Sai. "Could he possibly possess a substantial amount of chakra capable of withstanding the barrage on his tenketsu?" He asked. Tenten took the time to answer the Root Ninja's question.

"Not quite," she replied. "Neji's amazing Gentle Fist will shut down the Chakra Network completely, so the amount of chakra is no good if he can't even use it."

"Then why is this guy still standing? His insides and organs should be totally shut down!" Naruto spoke.

"I've been watching the battle with my Sharingan, and it appears that Neji's opponent has managed to evade all fatal shots," commented Kakashi. "Even so, it appears that this Natsu person has a rather large amount of durability."

"You're a tricky fighter," snickered Natsu as he regained his composure. Neji simply stared at him with disinterest. "I think I spent too much time messing around, and now my body is acting all weird."

"You may not want to take any more unnecessary damage, if that's the case," teased Neji, smirking. The Dragon-Slayer replied by grinning harder, and then charged once more. "You fool."

"I'm all fired up!" Natsu, true to his words, wrapped his lower half in flames as he leapt into the air and loomed over Neji. "Fire Dragon's Claw!" Natsu flipped in the air and on his way down towards Neji, he lifted right flame-engulfed feet high above his head.

"Tch! Did you really think you'd won?" Neji crossed his forearms above his own head as Natsu landed a dropping axe kick on them. The flames lashed at Neji's skin, forcing him to act quickly in order to avoid the impending burns. The ninja grabbed Natsu's calf and and slammed him into the ground with all his might. Neji then picked Natsu back up from the cement by his scarf. "Eight Trigrams..." Neji launched another Air Palm that pushed Natsu against a building's wall. "Mountain Crusher!" Another, more powerful, burst of air forced Natsu through the brick wall with a bright light.

"Gah!" Blood shot from Natsu's mouth as he fell backwards through the gaping hole. Natsu landed with his back against the ground, surrounded with rubble as he coughed and wheezed loudly. He then rolled over slowly as Neji took a single step towards the opening in the wall. Natsu pressed his palms against the ground and managed to get his knees, but after achieving this, he coughed up another spurt of blood.

"By now, you shouldn't be able to even perform any of your fire techniques," determined Neji, looking down on his opponent. He watched with frustration as Natsu got to his feet and smiled wildly.

"We'll see," he coughed, turning to face Neji. He leapt off one foot and cocked his right arm back one more time. Neji let out a 'hmph' as he got into a Gentle Fist stance again.

"You're too slow," deemed Neji as he prepared to rotate his body. This, however was rudely interuppted by Natsu's cry.

"Fire Dragon's Flame Elbow!" A sudden burst of speed overcame Natsu's punch as a large burst of flames shot out from his elbow. With the rapid, and sudden, increase in speed, Natsu's punch landed square across Neji's jaw before he could rotate. The ninja sailed through the hole he entered through, slamming into the wall of an adjacent building. He did not slump over, however. He simply wiped the blood from his lips and assumed another Gentle Fist stance.

"That was a nice tactic, Natsu Dragneel," acknowledged the Byakugan user. "I guess I was wrong about your lack of necessary chakra. However, it's still the end for you. You are in my range and you can't escape my Eight Trigrams."

"What?" Natsu asked in between his heavy breathing. He couldn't see it, but Neji was envisioning an illuminating, bright green Eight Trigrams circle.

Like a cobra, Neji suddenly lashed out while chanting, "Gentle Fist Art: Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms!" The ninja struck Natsu quickly twice with his stiff fingers. "Eight Trigrams Two Palms!" Neji then struck out twice more, once to Natsu's chest and the other to his hip. "Four Palms!" The ninja followed up the attack with four more precise jabs. "Eight Palms!" Eight more hits were landed with relative ease. "Sixteen Palms!" After each of the sixteen shots, Natsu was being pushed further and further back. "Thirty-Two Palms!" Another round of painful attacks were landed. "Eight Trigrams..." Blue spurts of chakra could be seen each time Neji struck. "SIXTY-FOUR PALMS!" Neji ended his series of violent blows with one wrist over the other, not even watching as Natsu flew backwards with tremendous force.

"Natsu!" The cries from his team came rushing in quickly as he landed harshly on the cement plaza.

"I told you it was pointless," remarked Neji, breathing heavier than before as he looked at his palms quickly. He watched drearily as Natsu found his way back to his knees, but the mage's eyes were cold and wavering. "I have now struck all sixty-four of your chakra points. You're lucky to still be breathing."

"You're right," agreed the boy using what little strength he had left. "I am lucky. If I hadn't used the last of my flames in that split-second to protect me, I probably wouldn't be alive."

"So that's what you did," muttered Neji as he glanced at his hands again quickly and rather unnoticeably. He then looked at the host of the tournament, who was seating on top of Fairy Tail's cube. "Saburo. It's over." The host simply smirked interestingly, and pointed at something behind Neji. The ninja spun around and watched as Natsu rose from his knees to his feet.

"I don't think so, pal," he retorted roughly. Neji's face showed frustration and even concern.

""It can't be!" Neji reckoned. "Stop this madness, you'll only get more of the same. I have nothing against you personally." He demanded, but his request was in vain. He found himself looking intensely into the battered Natsu's face. "Saburo, this has gone on long enough. I suggest you stop the match. If he's foolish enough to continue to fight, I will not be responsible for what happens to him." Saburo simply shrugged, and continued to smile wickedly.

"Don't sell me so short!" Natsu demanded, taking a step forward. "I don't know about you ninjas, but us Fairy Tail mages will always get back up!" He clenched his fist and put it out, showing how serious he was. "That's why I have to win against you...for the sake of Fairy Tail!" Neji's face was now completely void of concern as he charge forward again with a chakra covered hand. He then shot it forward and a clapping sound occurred. To everybody's shared surprise, Natsu gripped Neji's wrist tightly with both of his hands, only a centimeter away from his heart.

"What?" Neji asked, taken aback by the strength and reflex that Natsu possessed, even in his weakened state. His own skin began to burn as Natsu's natural body heat escaped from his skin, as he gripped Neji. "Why bother to attack me? You have no chakra to use!"

"This is my win!" Natsu smiled widely as he reared his head back. With all the strength and speed he could muster, Natsu swung his head down, slamming it into Neji's with deafening force and power. A loud crack resonated loudly, causing everybody's jaws hit the floor as the Dragon-Slayer's astonishing headbutt rendered Neji unconscious, and ultimately defeated. Natsu let go of Neji's wrist and allowed him to slump to the ground. Quickly after, the Fairy Tail representative also dropped to his knees, completely drained of magic and energy.

"Amazing!" Saburo shouted as he fell gracefully from atop the containment cube. "This means the winner of match eight is Natsu Dragneel!" He pat Natsu on the shoulder cheerfully, sending him away into his cube. For once, Saburo also granted the loser respect, placing two fingers on his forehead and teleporting him away. "Now, let's get the first match of Block C out of the way! Match Nine will certainly be Naruto Uzumaki vs. Laxus Dreyar!"


Team Konoha's Record: 3 Wins, 1 Draw

Team Fairy Tail's Record: 4 Wins, 1 Draw

Next Match: Naruto Uzumaki vs. Laxus Dreyar