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[— Manga Scene —]
At the center of the arena, Neji lowered himself even further, both hands extended before him.
"Gentle Fist… Eight Trigrams Field, Sixty-Four Strikes."
'Impossible… that stance…'
Hiashi's eyes widened in the stands.
Neji moved.
"!"
Naruto's feet didn't even have time to retreat. The first palm had already reached him.
"Two strikes!"
"Geh—"
"Four strikes!"
"Eight strikes!!"
Naruto's small body bent beneath the relentless barrage, Neji's arms moving too fast for the eye to follow.
"Sixteen strikes!!"
"Thirty-Two strikes!!"
"Sixty-Four strikes!!!"
The final blow exploded against the blond boy's chest, sending him flying backward. His body rolled across the arena floor like a discarded rag before finally coming to a stop, motionless.
"Geh!!"
In the stands, Hinata and Kiba gasped at the same time. Sakura and Ino froze. Shikaku, seated behind them, said nothing, while a bearded jōnin slowly removed the toothpick from his mouth.
"Looks like it's over."
From his seat, Hiashi stared at the boy standing amid the dust.
'What unbelievable talent…'
'Who would have thought that someone from the Branch Family could inherit the Hyūga blood and push his abilities this far…'
Then his expression darkened, and a name surfaced from somewhere deep within his chest.
'Hizashi…'
'Even after all that… you still could never become part of the Hyūga Main Family…'
Down in the arena, Neji stood over the sprawled body.
"I struck you with the full Sixty-Four Strikes of the Gentle Fist."
"Geh…"
Naruto lay face-down, his fingers digging into the dirt.
"The idea that hard work alone can make dreams come true…"
Neji looked down at him.
"…is nothing but an illusion."
"…"
"Hey, Hinata, are you okay?"
Kiba asked beside her.
"Cough… cough…"
"Na… Naruto-kun…!!"
"Naruto…"
Sakura muttered, both hands clenched tightly.
"Damn it!! Just like I thought."
Ino bit her finger.
At the center of the arena, the small body lying on the ground trembled.
"Damn it…"
[— End Scene —]
…
Konohagakure:
In the eastern section of the Art Store, the surrounding noise had ceased to exist for three men.
Hizashi had read the dark panel three times.
Hizashi… even after all that, you still could never become part of the Hyūga Main Family.
"Brother."
His voice was far too calm.
"Your future counterpart is speaking to me even though I'm not in the arena. He's speaking to me in his thoughts while looking at that boy."
"I noticed."
"People speak in their thoughts to those who are absent, Hiashi. The absent… or those who are farther away than absence."
Hiashi did not answer.
He, too, had stopped at the same panel.
At the tone of his future self as he said it.
There was no anger in it.
No contempt.
Only something resembling regret.
"And there's something else."
Hizashi continued, his finger sliding down to the previous panel.
Who would have thought that someone from the Branch Family could inherit the Hyūga blood and push his abilities this far.
"Your counterpart says it with admiration… about a boy whom the system of that future supposedly placed beneath him."
"The admiration of a man seeing something he believed impossible."
"Exactly."
Hizashi looked at his brother.
"And the question is, Brother…"
"Who taught him that it was impossible?"
One seat away, Masanori listened to his sons without intervening, his eyes fixed on the panel of the boy lying face-down, fingers digging into the dirt.
'For sixty years, I have listened to the Clan Council speak of blood, limits, and rank.'
'And this future shows us a boy who surpassed all of that through his own ability…'
'Then shows us his uncle saying in his thoughts: even after all that, you still cannot.'
'Even after all that.'
'Which means the problem was never ability.'
The old man closed his eyes for a moment.
When he opened them again, the document that had been sitting on his council table for months was clearer in his mind than ever before.
…
Sunagakure:
Where the Kazekage sat inside the Art Store, Saburo no Shazan slowly lowered the volume onto his metal knee.
'Sixty-four strikes, sealing chakra points one by one.'
'No fatal wound. No severed limb. Not even a drop of blood to draw attention… and yet the opponent leaves the fight as helpless as an ordinary civilian.'
The man who had survived an assassination ambush years ago understood the value of what he was reading.
'Swords kill the body.'
'Poisons kill the body.'
'But this art…'
'It kills the shinobi while leaving the body alive.'
'If Suna possessed an art like this, the balance of interrogation, capture, and assassination across the continent would change.'
Shazan tapped one finger against his metal arm.
'Konoha has no idea how rich it is.'
…
Iwagakure:
In the rear section of Iwa's Art Store sat two fourteen-year-old boys with no one seated near them.
It wasn't their choice.
The seats around them emptied on their own every time, as though an invisible hollow followed the pair wherever they sat.
Rōshi, the boy with fiery red hair, read with his feet propped on the empty seat in front of him, a silent challenge to everyone who refused to sit there.
Beside him sat Han, a huge boy a head and a half taller than his peers, hunched over his volume as though trying to hide behind it.
"It's nothing but an illusion."
Rōshi read the sentence aloud, deliberately loud enough for the nearby rows to hear.
"You hear that, Han? A thirteen-year-old kid from the village of green trees and pretty slogans says it right to everyone's faces: the village decides your place before you're born, and everything after that is theater."
"…"
"At least he's honest. Here, they don't even say it to us…"
He threw a sideways glance at the empty seats around them.
"…they just leave the seats empty."
Rōshi smiled broadly.
The smile never reached his eyes.
Han said nothing.
The large boy had stopped at a completely different panel.
The blond boy lying face-down.
His fingers digging into the dirt.
"Rōshi."
"Hmm?"
"The defeated boy…"
Han spoke quietly.
"He was told the same thing people tell us."
"And he fell just like us. So what?"
"The chapter isn't over yet."
Han's deep voice remained low, his eyes fixed on the drawn fingers digging into the earth.
"…"
"I want to see if he gets back up."
Rōshi looked at his only friend for a long moment.
Then he lowered his feet from the empty seat and returned to his volume without another word.
Because he wanted to see too.
…
Kirigakure:
Where the Mizukage sat in the northern section of the Art Store, Hōzuki Mizuru turned the page in complete calm.
'A clan split into Main and Branch Families, a seal that guarantees obedience, and a gifted boy crushing a hardworking one while explaining that dreams are illusions.'
'And all of this in the village they call the Land of Will and Fire.'
The Mizukage smiled faintly behind his sleeve.
'And then they call Kiri the Bloody Mist Village.'
'At least we don't wrap our knives in silk gloves.'
…
Kumogakure:
"Sixty-four strikes."
Inside Kumo's Art Store, the Third Raikage A had placed the volume on the table before him, his massive arms folded.
"It shuts down the flow point by point. A surgical technique… built on one assumption: all sixty-four strikes land."
The man who had held off a tailed beast with his own body for several full seconds slowly shook his head.
"Against an ordinary body, that's a death sentence."
"But against a body that can take the first strike and remain standing…"
"…the technique becomes sixty-four chances for the opponent to grab your wrist."
The Raikage returned to the volume and carefully turned the page between two enormous fingers, like a man accustomed to accidentally breaking things.
"Let's see if there's something like that inside the fox brat."
…
Amegakure:
Inside Amegakure's Art Store, where no one dared sit within a wide radius of one particular seat, Hanzō of the Salamander read the entire scene without changing expression.
'Konoha raises, in a single generation, one boy who can see everything, one boy who can repel everything, and one boy who never runs out.'
'Then they make them fight before an audience… and sell tickets.'
The man lowered the volume slightly and looked over its edge toward the silver sign at the entrance of the store.
'And the man drawing all this chose to open a store in my village as well.'
'The Land of Rain is reading, Uzumaki Robiro…'
'And the Land of Rain is waiting to see what role you wrote for it in your story.'
…
Kusagakure:
Inside Kusagakure's Art Store, Musō, leader of the Grass Village, sat in the same seat he had occupied since the store first opened, the metal additions on the shoulders of his formal robe gleaming beneath the lights.
His small village had lived quietly since the end of the Second Shinobi World War…
Until that silver building planted itself inside it.
"Sixty-four strikes…"
The hawk-eyed man murmured while turning the page.
'The two greatest villages on the continent send their children into one arena, while their clans inherit arts capable of shutting down chakra and reading bodies…'
'And we stand here guarding the grass roads between giants at play.'
'Fine.'
'Let the giants fight inside the pages.'
'Those who stand between their feet…'
'Learn from their falls first.'
Musō continued reading, his fingers in no hurry to turn the pages.
…
Takigakure:
Inside Takigakure's Art Store, Senji, leader of the Waterfall Village, stood in his usual place near the wall.
Beside him was Hisen, the young jōnin who had remained near him since the store opened.
"Hard work is nothing but an illusion."
Hisen read the sentence and twisted his face.
"Obnoxious brat."
"Honest brat."
Senji replied calmly.
"In their world, blood decides before sweat. That's what these pages have been saying for eleven volumes."
"And you believe that?"
Senji did not answer immediately.
Ever since that red-haired man had placed a hand on his shoulder and told him that his village's role was to do little more than watch…
He had been reading every volume like a man searching for a hidden door between the pages.
But the leader's gaze drifted, as it had for the past three days, toward the far corner of the store.
There, in the seat pressed against the wall, sat a man.
A huge man.
Broad-shouldered.
Wrapped in a worn gray traveler's cloak of the kind worn by distant-road merchants.
A hood hung low over his eyebrows.
A face covering concealed almost all of his features.
No one had seen him speak.
No one had seen him eat or drink anything sold in the store.
He entered when the doors opened.
Sat in the same seat.
Read with almost no movement until closing.
Then left and disappeared into the village alleys.
"That strange merchant has been here for three days."
Hisen whispered.
"Should we investigate him?"
"His papers are valid, his bill is paid, and his hands haven't gone near anyone."
Senji replied.
"The store enforces its own rules, Hisen. If the man intended harm in here…"
"We would know."
In the far corner, the masked man turned the page with fingers covered by gray gloves.
Only his eyes could be seen between the face covering and the hood.
Strange green eyes.
As calm as ancient wells.
The idea that hard work alone can make dreams come true… is nothing but an illusion.
The man read the sentence once.
He did not need to read it again.
'Smart boy.'
'It took me half a lifetime to understand what this brat understood at thirteen.'
'Work hard.'
'Sacrifice your body.'
'Face whoever you're ordered to face, even if it's the God of Shinobi himself…'
'…then return alive from the impossible, only to find that the village prepared a prison cell instead of a medal.'
The man's fingers moved along the edge of the volume.
The gray glove tightened over something resembling stitches around his wrist.
'Dreams are illusions.'
'Loyalty is an illusion.'
'Villages are large illusions that sell their own children every day.'
'Only one thing in this world does not lie…'
The man lifted his green eyes toward the illuminated sign above the counter, where the prices of the volumes were displayed in clear numbers.
'…and the owner of this store understands it very well.'
'Information about the future of the entire continent… sold for the price of a single volume.'
'The cheapest investment in history.'
The man turned the page and continued reading in complete silence, while his heart continued beating calmly inside his chest.
His heart…
And four others.
…
Konohagakure:
Back inside Konoha's Art Store, behind the counter, Rob's hand suddenly stopped while arranging coins.
[ Alert: High-Quality Reaction Recorded — Art Store, Takigakure Branch ]
[+188 AC from Kakuzu]
"…"
Rob read the name twice.
Then his smile slowly widened.
The smile of a merchant who had discovered an unexpected number in his ledger.
'Kakuzu.'
'The man who faced Hashirama Senju on his village's orders and returned alive… only to be imprisoned by them.'
'The man who escaped that prison carrying the hearts of its elders and one of its most valuable forbidden arts.'
'The most dangerous bounty hunter in the history of this continent… is sitting disguised in his home village, inside my store, paying for the volumes out of his own pocket.'
'The man who will one day kill for a handful of ryō…'
'…has become a regular paying customer.'
Rob shook his head while laughing silently to himself.
'Read as much as you want, Heart Hunter.'
'Information in my store is sold to everyone at the same price…'
'…and the next chapter is on your tab.'
____________
Upcoming chapter titles (spoilers):
____________
Chapter 226: The Bird in the Cage!
Chapter 227: The Shocking Revelation!
Chapter 228: Jinchūriki of the Nine-Tails!
Chapter 229: The Winner… Uzumaki Naruto!
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