Konoha: Sage Body

Flame-like curse marks crawled all over Hanare's body before disappearing in an instant, at which point, Hanare's appearance had undergone a drastic change.

Her originally black hair had completely turned silver white, her fair and delicate skin had become even paler, her rosy little mouth was coated with a touch of purple, and one of the most striking changes was undoubtedly her eyes, which had actually changed in color from white to pale yellow.

In order to be able to fight Chizuru, Hanare decisively opened the second stage of curse mark transformation right away, causing her physical quality and chakra to temporarily increase dramatically.

At this moment, Hanare gave off the impression that she was infinitely close to the elite jōnin level.

There were quite a few people watching the battle in the Kakuzu arena, and among them, there were many jōnin.

Many of them had never seen the power of curse marking, and now that they had witnessed Hanare turn on curse marking, her strength breaking through from elite middle jōnin to infinitely close to elite upper jōnin all at once, each and every one of them had a look of astonishment on their faces, and then they couldn't help but have a strong desire arise in their eyes.

"Could this jutsu have been developed by Orochimaru-sama?"

A young jōnin who recognized Hanare as someone from Orochimaru's squad asked the lead jōnin beside him.

This kind of Ninjutsu that could temporarily and drastically increase one's strength was just too amazing.

As a ninja whose strength had also reached the level of an elite chuunin, he was too eager to obtain this kind of ninjutsu, even if this kind of ninjutsu was, at first glance, the kind of ninjutsu that temporarily boosted one's strength and had potentially large side effects.

If he could get it, he didn't mind paying his loyalty and enough price.

For no other reason, the battlefield was too dangerous, if he could master this kind of jutsu, his chances of surviving on the battlefield would definitely be greatly improved, and it would no longer be a dream to gain battle honors and a bright future in Konoha in the future.

"..."

The lead jōnin was silent when he heard the words of his men.

He wasn't even aware that Orochimaru knew this kind of Ninjutsu, but as a jōnin, he couldn't be as furtive as his men, revealing any bit of information about Orochimaru, the Kage-Level powerhouse of Konoha, in front of a large crowd.

This was true even if all the people coming here in the Kakuzu are Konoha ninja.

"Hmph."

The lead jōnin didn't say anything, but a young ninja nearby let out a cold hum of disdain.

Hearing this grunt, the young ninja immediately turned his head to seek out the sound and looked over, instantly seeing a teenager wearing a jōnin vest.

He recognized this person, the other was someone who had recently been promoted to jōnin after setting several A-ranked missions, this person's name was Shiranui Takeshi, and he was the same age as Kirito's people.

Seeing the young Shinobi looking over, Shiranui Takeshi simply gave him a cold look before redirecting his gaze to the battlefield below.

The young chunin's question, as well as the hum of Shiranui Takeshi, was noticed by many of the nearby ninjas, and one by one, they had a thoughtful expression on their faces.

This little interlude did not affect the battle between Chizuru and Hanare.

"Is that all you've got?"

Chizuru looked at Hanare's change at this moment and said with a lack of interest, but a pair of Sharingan eyes revealed an icy killing intent.

She was now aware that Hanare possessed the same curse mark given by Kirito as she did, and that the curse mark level was not low.

For a moment, her mood became terrible.

As soon as the words left her mouth, she was ready to end the battle quickly.

Sharingan - Illusion!

A mere chunin who relied on curse marks to raise his strength to supreme jōnin had no qualifications to make her move for real, and to come on the field and actually dare to keep glaring at her, really not knowing the heights of heaven and earth.

Did she really think that she didn't know any illusions?

"It's over."

Chizuru laughed coldly as she looked at Hanare's lax and dull eyes.

But in the next moment, her eyes widened, and the three hooked jades in her eyes turned rapidly.

It was because the Hanare in front of her had actually broken free of her Sharingan illusion and, just like Kirito, completed some kind of jutsu seal with a clap of her hands.

A thick fog quickly appeared on the battlefield, enveloping Hanare's entire being.

Water Release - Hidden Mist!

"It's starting."

In the audience, Minato Namikaze saw the thick mist appear, his face slightly raised, and he said with some fear.

As Hanare's teammate who had been trained over the past year or so, and as Hanare's usual sparring partner, he knew Hanare's strength very well, and although his surface strength was that of an elite jōnin, his true strength was already that of an upper jōnin.

Hyuga Hanare's best ability is chakra manipulation power, which is the ability that every Gentle Fist proficient jōnin excels at, but Hanare's chakra manipulation power is far above that of an ordinary jōnin of the Hyuga Hanare clan.

This was evident from the fact that she could easily unlock the illusions of the three-tomoe Sharingan and unleash multiple jutsu without seals.

Hanare is not a pure Gentle Fist practitioner, she is also a Water Release and Wind Release ninjutsu master, and most of Water Release and Wind Release can be released without a seal.

Hanare's combat system is very simple, that is, to maximize the use of Byakugan as a Bloodline Limit.

Her battle system is centered around Byakugan.

If Byakugan was the centerpiece of Hanare's combat system, then Hidden Mist was the finishing touch.

Relying on Hidden Mist, Hanare's Byakugan will become a nightmare for ninjas who don't know the wind release ninjutsu. If the enemy can't disperse the fog and has super strong sensing ability, then they will be the living target of Hanare's ninjutsu and will be played to death.

The most frightening thing was that Hanare could also fly.

"Troublesome thing."

Chizuru said with a slight frown as he looked at the dense fog in front of him and instantly understood Hanare's intentions.

The Hidden Mist Kirigakure technique and Byakugan were indeed an excellent match.

Her Sharingan observation power was strong, but she didn't have the kind of powerful penetrating ability of the Byakugan to catch Hanare in the thick fog, and she personally didn't know the wind release ninjutsu, so it could be said that her Sharingan ability was considered to be mostly null and void.

But she didn't panic about it.

Sharingan was just a part of her strength, even without Sharingan, she was still able to defeat this somewhat annoying woman with Byakugan eyes.

Without the Sharingan, she could still find the Byakugan woman in another way.

Natural energy perception.

This was an ability she gained after unfolding her natural energy cultivation with the power of the curse mark.

Unfortunately, she really did not have much talent in cultivating natural energy, and after more than a year of hard work and cultivation, her natural energy perception had only expanded to about fifty meters, which was completely incomparable to that bastard's perception range.

The good thing was that this perception range was a little smaller, but it was enough for her to find her opponent's position in this thick fog and detect the arrival of their jutsu in advance.

"Bang!"

A loud gunshot suddenly appeared.

Chizuru instantly took the longsword in her hand and made a quick chop forward, sending a highly condensed Wind Release Chakra bullet flying.

"So heavy."

Chizuru felt the force coming from the top of the famous sword Lightning Strike, and after sighing, she quickly completed a one-handed seal with her left hand.

A Fire Release was immediately ejected from her mouth, shooting into the air in front of her that was obscured by the mist.

Fire Release - Phoenix Sage Fire Technique!

At the same time, above the thick mist, Hanare flapped a pair of green chakra wings and flew in the air, at this time wearing a delicate chakra kimono.

Chakra Armor.

This was the jutsu that Kirito had taught Hanare in the beginning, and now this jutsu that required superb chakra manipulation in order to learn it had already been perfectly mastered by Hanare, and it was even styled in a more subtle way to make it even more defensible.

Because of her learning of the Chakra Armor, Hanare was now also proficient in the use of Chakra threads, so proficient that it allowed her to weave a pair of strong and powerful Chakra feathers.

When she injected Wind Release Chakra into this pair of Chakra wings, she had accomplished the dream of flight that the majority of ninja had never been able to do in their entire lives.

"It's useless, my Byakugan insight is far above your Sharingan."

As she looked at the incoming mass of Fire Releases, her eyes narrowed and she immediately maneuvered her Chakra wings to make small displacements in the air, perfectly dodging Chizuru's Phoenix Sage Fire Jutsu.

At the same time, with her hands that made a pistol gesture, a highly concentrated and condensed Wind Release Chakra bullet shot out from her two index fingers.

Double Gun Jutsu!

This Ninjutsu was invented by Hanare from the inspiration that ordinary people took from the invention of a weapon called a pistol, the principle was very simple, it was to highly condense chakra into bullets, and then combine it with the release principle of the Eight Trigrams: Vacuum Palm to release the chakra bullets out of her forefingers.

The essence of this ninjutsu is a small Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm.

But because of the small size of the Chakra bullets, if coupled with the power of Wind Release Chakra, then the shooting speed of the Chakra bullets is far above the Chakra shockwave released by the Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm, and the destructive power is no less, or even beyond.

Not only that, Hanare could use the chakra bullets as a long-range pointing technique by relying on Byakugan, but this long-range pointing technique, she usually only used on those large targets.

Against ninjas, she only needed to send the bullet into the enemy's head or heart and that was enough.

But she made an exception today, she didn't intend to kill this nasty red-eyed woman, she was going to use less powerful chakra bullets to seal all of this red-eyed woman's chakra points and defeat the red-eyed woman once and for all.

She had long been displeased with this red-eyed woman who had been pestering Kirito-kun.

It's just that her status in school at that time was so different from this red-eyed woman that she simply didn't have the ability to compete with her.

Once she dared to go toe-to-toe with the red-eyed woman, there was no need for the red-eyed woman to take action, someone from that disgusting family behind her would jump out to warn and punish her.

Now it was different, Kirito-kun had become a powerful Kage-Level powerhouse, and with him behind her, she no longer had to worry about the family behind her daring to tell her what to do, and she could safely compete with the red-eyed woman.

She was going to prove to Kirito-kun that she was the one best suited to stand by his side.

"Die!"

Hyuga Hanare shouted in her mind as a large number of highly condensed Wind Release Chakra bullets were fired with precision at Chizuru, who was trapped in the thick fog.

"Bang Bang Bang~"

A series of loud gunshots appeared.

"Damn, this Byakugan woman's tactics are really annoying."

Chizuru kept blocking the incoming chakra bullets with Lightning Strike and thought through gritted teeth.

With the assistance of her Sharingan eyes enhanced with curse marks of chakra, it wasn't a problem for her to block these chakra bullets that were firing at a very impressive speed, but the fact that she kept being passively beaten made her very suffocated.

She had realized that her opponent was not on the battlefield, at least not on the ground of the battlefield.

The only possibility then was that the opponent was in the air.

Using Mist Ninjutsu to block her Sharingan ability, and then using Flight Ninjutsu to block her proud close-up Byakugan sword art, this Byakugan woman's strength was not great, but the tactics she used were enough to give her a headache.

A long-term defense is bound to be lost.

If this continued, once her hand could no longer withstand the pressure coming from the top, she would probably be defeated by this annoying Byakugan woman.

What should she do?

A question that had begun to haunt her a long time ago appeared in her mind once again.

What should be done against a flying ninja?

"Ninjas who can fly are too difficult to deal with, and when combined with Byakugan and excellent long-range attacks, it's just a bummer."

In the audience, Minato Namikaze said bitterly as he watched Hanare continuously firing chakra bullets into the mist-shrouded battlefield.

He was sure that Chizuru was holding back in his heart right now, that feeling of being hit and not fighting back was just awful, but there was no way around it, it was just too difficult for a ninja who couldn't fly to target a ninja who could fly.

Especially this flying ninja also mastered Byakugan, this kind of Bloodline Limit which is almost difficult to be attacked by stealing, want to target them is even more difficult.

Facing a flying Byakugan ninja like Hanare, the only thing Minato Namikaze could think of currently was to hide as far away as possible.

On the other hand, in a corner of the audience, Kirito was controlling a marvelous humanoid puppet to watch Chizuru and Hanare's fight.

On the other side of the arena, he had left a puppet here all along, naturally aiming to make sure that no real lives would be lost on his side, and in the meantime, to see if there were any talents he could see in people.

As a result, before the talent could be found, he saw an internal fight first.

Honestly speaking, Hanare's current performance was somewhat amazing, not only did she successfully learn the Chakra Armor that he granted her, but she also used it to develop a flying jutsu by example, which was really good.

It had only been a year or so since he'd seen her, and the little caged bird that yearned for freedom had already grown a sharp beak, sharp claws, and favorable wings, proving that his initial investment had been the right one.

"It's just that the amount of chakra is a little less than impressive."

Kirito looked at Hanare, who was constantly making shots in the sky, and pointed out one of Hanare's current weaknesses that wasn't really a weakness.

Whether it was the Flight Ninjutsu or the Double Shot Technique, both of which were relatively chakra-consuming ninjutsu, coupled with the opening of Byakugan, she estimated that Hanare's current chakra, which was close to the Elite Jōnin rank, would allow her to last for a minute at most.

In other words, if Hanare wasn't able to finish off Chizuru within a minute, then it would be her who would lose.

"But with your pride, surely you won't defeat your opponent in such a suffocating manner."

A few seconds later, on the towering sand tower outside the oasis, Kirito's main body looked in the direction of the oasis and smiled.

As soon as the words fell, a powerful chakra fluctuation suddenly appeared on the fog-shrouded arena, the powerful fluctuation kicked up a strong wind that dispersed the surrounding fog, and a huge black ninja cat appeared in the eyes of the crowd.