Chapter Fifty-Seven: Fierce Battle with Gaara

In truth, Feng Xue had considered simply admitting defeat, but his instincts told him otherwise. Retreat was a habit, and precisely this habit was something a transmigrant could not abide.

Moreover, Feng Xue cultivated the Way of Humanity.

The Way of Humanity is to take from the excessive and give to the insufficient; ever since Feng Xue chose this path, it was destined he would walk a road of defying heaven and earth, comprehending the nature of existence through combat and brushes with death—a path of no return.

So, even if he could have surrendered and remained in the Hidden Leaf’s prison as a tainted witness until the collapse plan concluded, he still chose to fight Gaara.

Staring at the berserk Gaara, Feng Xue paid no heed to the fierce, blood-scented sand that formed his opponent’s defense. With a stance akin to a self-sacrificing blow, he charged at Gaara’s ferocious visage.

The friction of swirling sand sounded like a demon’s roar. The sand, torn from the earth, multiplied, morphing into giant hands that lunged at Feng Xue.

“Too slow!” Feng Xue leapt suddenly, his body gliding like a fish through the gaps of the lethal sand. Not a single grain touched him.

“Stir-fried roots!” Feng Xue cried out a nonsensical battle shout, then delivered an upward punch that crashed into Gaara’s chin, actually sending him airborne!

“How is that possible!” Anyone familiar with Gaara’s abilities now wore an expression as if their entire worldview had been overturned, like an elephant tripped by an ant.

“Why? Why can you break through my absolute defense?” Large chunks of sand peeled from Gaara’s face. Clearly, the punch’s force had been absorbed by the sand armor enwrapping him—yet Feng Xue’s blow had only been a probing strike.

“I’m not sure exactly how you control the sand, but it’s clearly not by conscious thought. To be frank, you have almost no combat awareness,” Feng Xue said, wagging his index finger before him. “Beneath your devastating attacks lies a heart that knows nothing of battle.”

“Ha? Are you saying someone who’s been targeted for assassination by his own father since childhood doesn’t understand fighting?” Gaara’s face twisted with rage, his dark-ringed eyes looking almost comical to Feng Xue.

“That’s right. Maybe your power is simply too overwhelming—you never learned to command it.” Holding to the principle that villains perish from excessive talking and heroes triumph by explaining, Feng Xue began his lecture, forgetting how many heroic side characters had also met their end while narrating (a fate especially common in the Reaper series).

Gaara felt deeply insulted. The massive sand hand quivered, transforming into countless bullets that shot at Feng Xue. Yet not a single one touched him, though he hadn’t moved an inch.

“Impossible!” Gaara’s hoarse voice underscored his disbelief. He kept hurling sand bullets, but none could reach Feng Xue, who stood unmoving—as if rooted in another world.

“Your method of controlling sand is off,” Feng Xue said with a faint smile, gradually approaching as silence descended over the arena. “It seems you don’t control the sand continuously. You just give it an order to attack, and it attacks?”

Though phrased as a question, Feng Xue’s tone brimmed with certainty.

“So, does your sand have a will of its own?” Feng Xue continued to approach. In Gaara’s eyes, he seemed a primordial fiend. Gaara kept unleashing his “Sand Drizzle” bullets, but it was all in vain. No matter how he altered the attacks, the projectiles seemed to intentionally avoid Feng Xue’s position. Even as the surroundings were ravaged, not a speck of dust touched where Feng Xue stood.

Among the spectators, some began to angrily shout accusations of a fixed fight, while the more discerning ninja watched in grave silence.

“Is that the same ‘Yubu’ as last time?” Lee, who had come early to the arena and had not been crippled as in the original story, recognized the scene and asked Guy beside him.

“No, there are some differences...” Guy’s expression was odd, drawing the attention not just of the nearby genin but also several jounin seated nearby.

“Close your eyes and try to sense his position with your intuition,” he instructed.

The genin closed their eyes, only to remember they were too far away to sense anything, and reopened them awkwardly. The jounin, however, watched the two in the arena with ever-deepening seriousness.

“Genjutsu? He’s not actually standing where he appears to be?” Kurenai attempted to dispel an illusion, but found no sign she was under genjutsu at all.

“Maybe it’s the opposite,” Guy said, looking even more perplexed. “In battle, perception consists of both intuition and the five senses. The more experienced a fighter is, the more they rely on intuition.”

“You mean this genin, Feng Xue, is deceiving people’s intuition?” Asuma’s face was incredulous. “Intuition can be tricked?”

“Could be genjutsu, could be taijutsu—who knows?” Guy shrugged, merely voicing his own guess, unaware that he had hit the nail on the head. Indeed, Feng Xue was using gourmet cells and the power of imaginary numbers to subtly distort the invisible waves around him—electromagnetic, ultrasonic, infrasonic, even air density and other forces imperceptible to humans. Though people can’t directly detect these, because human brainwaves themselves manifest as waves, these otherwise intangible signals express themselves as intuition. Feng Xue’s technique misleads both human intuition and any entity that perceives through soul-vision (such as spirit weapons). He named this technique—“Arrogance.”

As the jounin’s discussion grew more heated, Feng Xue had already reached Gaara. He slowly extended his right hand, and, as if performing a routine practice, delivered a straight punch to Gaara’s face, meeting incredulous eyes.

“See? Sand is still sand. Even if it has a will of its own, it has no sensory organs. Unless it borrows your eyes, it must be controlled by some soul directing it through spiritual perception. Whether that’s conscious or unconscious, spiritual perception is still just that. If you tamper with the electromagnetic waves around the body, you can disrupt it.”

Feng Xue was explaining enthusiastically when he sensed a fierce gust approaching. In an instant, he flashed dozens of meters away, realizing the spot he’d just occupied was now buried beneath a surging tide of sand.

“So, when single-target attacks fail, you use area attacks instead?” Feng Xue teased Gaara, strolling leisurely about the arena, easily evading each assault.

It wasn’t out of mere mischief. Rather, he was testing his new technique. Facing such a rare opponent—one whose combat strength was unmatched by his mindset—how could Feng Xue resist making the most of it?