Explosion of Youth! (4)

"Lee, you are under a genjutsu! Snap out of it!" Tenten yelled from the sidelines with little effect.

The other auditory effect of False Shadow Equivalency was, aside from recreating the sounds of fighting an imagined enemy, masking noise in the background, to further minimise the chances of the target breaking out of the illusion.

In truth, False Shadow Equivalency was not an overtly complicated genjutsu. For most chuunin, and even some genin, it was not difficult to break out of. Lee as well, despite his chakra system deficiency, could have also broken out of the genjutsu had he known about it. That was because his defective chakra system could still allow him to control and mold chakra inside of his body. Most genjutsu only needed for one to disrupt the chakra flow within themselves in order to break free of the illusion.

No, what stopped Lee from breaking out of the genjutsu was not his inability to do so. Rather, it was his inexperience!

His genin team consisted of Neji, another taijutsu specialist, Tenten a weapons specialist and Gai, who was a jounin that leaned heavily towards taijutsu. He simply had too little experience dealing with and countering genjutsu.

As a result, even if Lee was a monster in the martial arts and everything else physical in the shinobi arts, without sufficient experience dealing with crafty illusions and scheming genjutsu users, he was not able to perceive the genjutsu he was under and subsequently break himself out of it.

Shinji stood a fair distance away from Lee who looked as though he was shadow boxing, fighting an invisible enemy who wasn't really there and evading fists and kicks that did not exist. He sighed with discontent, 'This is the reality of the world. There is no perfect jutsu. Everything has its strengths and weaknesses. Although Lee is strong in taijutsu, when faced with other aspects of the shinobi arts, he is still lacking. And though I sincerely wanted to face him and contend purely with martial arts, I too am still lacking, at least when compared to him.'

Enough time had passed, and Shinji was no longer willing to let Lee continue making a fool of himself. It's time to end this, he decided. But at the same time, it was difficult. He wanted to fulfil as many bonus objectives as he could, from his quest to defeat Lee in a spar. One of which was to knock him out.

The second bonus objective he had already completed, by forcing him to remove his weights, whereas the third he held little hopes for. It would be impossible to push Lee to such a corner where he was forced to open his chakra gates during a friendly spar.

However, knocking Lee out would be difficult. Lee was someone who had trained his body extensively. Scratch that, he only trained his body. As such, he also had high HP and by extension a resilient physique.

It wasn't like in the movies where he could just deliver a swift chop to the back of the neck that would instantly knock him unconscious. At least, not against someone like Lee who was currently enhancing himself with chakra that held both offensive and protective properties. Knocking someone like that unconscious would require a prolonged battle that would exhaust his energy and strength before he could deliver the finishing blow that would render him unconscious.

That was something Shinji did not want to resort to, since the chuunin exams were going to be starting soon. For Shinji, recovering HP and CP was not an issue, especially after his last power up when he pumped in all his free stat points. It would take an hour or so for him to completely recover, and the first stage of the chuunin exam would be longer than that. So he would already be fully recovered by the time the second stage of the exam started.

His concern was actually for Lee, someone he thought truly deserved to progress in the chuunin exams even if he would inevitable be defeated by Gaara in the preliminaries.

But then, Shinji had an idea. Knocking someone out didn't always mean beating them into unconsciousness.

He stealthily approached Lee, still throwing kicks into empty space, before quickly using [Flash Step] to get behind the other boy. He then activated [Bull's Strength] that increased his STR stat by 20% before lunging and wrapping his arm around Lee's neck. Shinji was using one arm to asphyxiate Lee while the other pinned down one of his arms.

The other genin who had been busy attacking the illusionary enemy Shinji had created immediately reacted upon feeling an arm snake around his neck and another arm wrap under his armpit.

'Who is interfering in our honourable duel!' Was Lee's first thought, but at that moment, he understood. Lee had eccentric behaviours, and he also clearly favoured the physical might of taijutsu, but that did not mean he was stupid. He may have lacked experience in discerning illusion from reality, but he was smart enough to realize at that moment everything that had happened was only an illusion, as well as the fact that it wasn't a third party who was interfering in their fight but his opponent's real body!

Lee leapt backwards with Shinji still attached to his back, bringing them both across the room in a single leap. Lee crashed into the wall, with Shinji taking the brunt of the impact but the younger genin only took minimal damage from it. In fact, his grip had tightened, constricting Lee's blood vessels and restricting the supply of oxygen to his brain.

'Ten seconds.' Shinji mentally counted down from his head. It took an average of nine seconds for someone to be choked into unconsciousness upon initiation off the strangulation. Shinji added one more second as a leeway for a total of ten.

The brain needed oxygen to function – that was an immutable fact. But Shinji's strangulation method was even more vicious. It constricted the bloodflow from reaching Lee's brain! No matter how hard Lee trained his body, he could not train his brain.

Even if shinobi could perform superhuman feats using the mystical energy known as chakra, they were still intrinsically human. That too, was an immutable fact. And a human body had its weaknesses that one could exploit if they had sufficient knowledge and technique.

Lee struggled intensely, his one free arm first trying with all his might to pry Shinji's arm away from his soft and vulnerable throat. But with Shinji's increased STR from his [Bull's Strength] perk, his physical prowess had temporarily surpassed Lee's. Failing that, Lee then swung his clenched fist back, punching Shinji repeatedly in the face, but in such an awkward position that left little room to maneuver, these punches could do little damage.

As Shinji counted down in his head, Lee's resistance also quickly faded away. The bowl haired genin's vision started blurring, a blackness closing in from the outside. He could also feel his control over his limbs weakening, his arms and legs growing feeble, as well as an innate panic originating in the deep recesses of his mind - the human instinct of self-preservation. His thoughts petered out, his mind no longer being able to sustain any more mental activity.

Before Shinji reached zero in his mental count down, Lee had already slumped down in unconsciousness like a rag doll, prompting him to let go of his vice grip around his neck.

'Lee is not yet at the point where he is strong enough to smash apart ninjutsu and genjutsu like he will be in the future. To the current him, everything other than taijutsu can be considered a critical weakness. It is unfortunate that he chose the wrong opponent. Otherwise, even the current Sasuke would find it hard to deal with Lee.'

Shinji gently let Lee down before quickly administering medical ninjutsu to first diagnose Lee's condition. The only significant injury was at his back when Shinji poked a hole into it. Other than that, he was actually relatively unscathed. The strangulation that took him out at the end would only have At the same time, a system alert popped up.

[Quest [Genius of Hardwork] Completed!]

Defeat Rock Lee in a spar (√)

(Bonus) Knock out Rock Lee (√)

(Bonus) Force him to remove his weights (√)

(Bonus) Force him to release his chakra gates (X)

[Rewards:]

+5000 EXP

(Bonus 1) +5000 EXP

(Bonus 2) +10 DEX

(Bonus 3) New Skill (X)

[You have levelled up!]

He only took a brief glance at it before dismissing it.

"Lee!" Tenten ran forward to check on her teammate. When she saw Shinji using medical ninjutsu to treat Lee, her first thought was one of concern, then of condemnation.

'Devious scum! How could you use genjutsu against Lee!?' She wanted to scream out, but on second thought held her words back. Neither Lee nor Shinji had ever declared that they were only going to be using taijutsu, though Lee didn't really have a choice in that matter. Furthermore, genjutsu was one of the three main branches of the shinobi arts, using it in a duel that did not forbid it was normal.

And as a result, her subsequent impression turned to one of amazement. Seeing him defeat Lee who she considered to be very strong was already astonishing to even consider.

One had to realize that Shinji's team had only graduated the Shinobi Academy six months ago. In other words, they were only official genin for only half a year, whereas Team Gai had been on active duty for one and a half years. That year more of training and experience could not be discounted, especially for their team that had been one of the few who passed the 'real' graduation exam and was thus selected for special grooming by the village.

And on top of that Shinji was even proficient in medical ninjutsu as well, that was simply unbelievable. Tenten who idolized Tsunade of the Sannin was well aware how extremely difficult medical ninjutsu was. She herself had once thought about embarking on the same path as her idol, being a medic-nin who could kick serious ass at the same time.

However, once she learned of the enormous complexity that was medical ninjutsu, she realized that it would take years, decades even to even begin approaching the realm of Tsunade's expertise. Instead, she 'settled' for what she was most familiar and comfortable with, being a weapons master instead.

It was precisely because she was fully aware how difficult medical ninjutsu was that she was so amazed at seeing Shinji using it. Taijutsu, genjutsu and medical ninjutsu, those were only the few of the shinobi arts Shinji chose to reveal, and it was already mind-blowing to her how incredibly versatile he was.

Lee then shot up, gasping for air, his eyelids flung open as he took stock of his surroundings. Seeing Shinji and Tenten looking down at him with concern in their eyes, he realized that he had lost.

"So… I lost in the end?" He muttered, more for himself than any others, while his countenance looked downcast.

Seeing his dejection, Tenten spoke up in consolation, "Y-you did well, Lee! Just that your opponent used a genjutsu and put you in to an illusion. Otherwise, you would have won!"