Disagreements within the Head House regarding the future form of the Hyūga clan?
Hearing this, Hyūga Yu narrowed his eyes slightly. After reflecting for a moment, he made a mental note of this information, then looked at Hyūga Hizashi and asked abruptly:
"Why are you helping me?"
Yu had suspected that Hizashi might be helping him from the shadows, but that judgment was based on Hizashi's status and knowledge of future events. In reality, Yu didn't truly understand Hyūga Hizashi as a person.
In the original series, this man only appeared in the memories of others—and memories are often tinted with the most subjective of colors.
What kind of man was Hyūga Hizashi?
A younger brother who loved and respected his elder brother? A martyr with a sense of the "bigger picture"? Or was he simply a tight-lipped father who loved his son, Neji?
Hizashi's next answer would determine the extent to which Yu could cooperate with him.
Faced with the question, Hizashi was clearly stunned for a moment. He hadn't expected Yu to be so direct. However, he didn't ponder for long before speaking. "Do you think I'm helping you because of my status? Because of my past?"
Yu remained silent for a while before saying, "You are different from us 'Caged Birds' who have been imprisoned and 'protected' since birth."
"You are the one with the most right to be resentful."
"You're right." Hizashi nodded calmly.
No emotion could be read on his face. Or rather, the expression he wore now was a sort of "expressionless" mask, numbed to the extreme.
He began to speak:
"In the past, I hated the Head House with a passion. I hated their harsh systems, and I hated my brother, Hiashi, for showing no mercy. On the day I lost the selection, I even entertained the thought of killing this entire absurd clan—slaughtering every last one of them."
"It might be hard for you to understand, but at the time, I didn't think those thoughts were extreme or terrifying. It was like eating when you're hungry or drinking when you're thirsty. When you suffer such injustice, you want revenge!"
"Even now, I still feel that if I were to personally massacre every member of the Head House, I wouldn't feel any psychological burden."
"However, as I stepped out of the lofty Head House estate, interacted with more and more Branch House members, and saw the broader, more dangerous shinobi world, I gradually realized something."
"For a Branch House member with a bit of talent like me, the Caged Bird is the most difficult prison to escape. But for the average clansman, it is their safest fortress."
"I began to wonder—"
Hizashi's brow furrowed deeply, a trace of confusion appearing in his eyes.
"Is the Head and Branch House system a medicine... or a poison?"
Yu looked at him and asked, "Did you find the answer?"
"No."
Hizashi shook his head regretfully. He looked at Yu and let out a sigh.
"Words can only do so much. It's better to let you see for yourself."
With that, he took a Gentle Fist starting stance. In the next instant—
Whoosh!
A storm of deep blue chakra rose around Hizashi. The chakra was so dense that it almost condensed into a spectral suit of armor on the surface of his body.
Hizashi's explanation followed:
"Even if you train the Gentle Fist to its limit, the most you can achieve is the seventh step: the Gentle Fist Art: Eight Trigrams One Hundred Twenty-Eight Palms. And even if you control the Hyūga's unique chakra to the extreme, you can only form this basic chakra armor on the surface of your body."
"Once I reached this level, I gradually discovered that the strongest technique of the Hyūga clan isn't the 'Strongest Nintaijutsu' recorded in the clan archives, the Eight Trigrams Mountain Crusher. It is actually—"
Hizashi's gaze shifted as he thrust his palm toward the sky.
A massive amount of chakra gathered and condensed in an instant. It was released from the tenketsu in his palm, coalescing into an air cannon compressed to the absolute limit!
"—BOOM!!!"
With the swing of his palm, an exaggeratedly thick, invisible air cannon blasted outward, shooting straight into the sky for approximately 600 meters before slowly dissipating.
The massive commotion drew several prying eyes, but once they saw the disturbance was caused by Hyūga Hizashi, they quickly looked away.
At this point, Hizashi gave Yu a helpless smile and spoke:
"The strongest move of the Hyūga clan is actually the most common Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm."
"The power of the Vacuum Palm increases with precise control and the number of tenketsu used to release chakra simultaneously. When you condense and swing all the chakra released from all 361 tenketsu in your body, the pure physical destructive power of that single strike can even surpass the Eight Trigrams Mountain Crusher."
However, there was no pride in Hizashi's voice for developing such a move. Instead, it carried a heavy sense of worry.
"And this... is actually the strongest move the Hyūga clan has to offer."
By now, Yu had activated his Byakugan to evaluate the power of the strike. Hizashi's stats were roughly equal to Hiashi's. This meant the strike was delivered with values of Stamina 8, Speed 8, Strength 7, Seals 10, Ninjutsu 7, and Taijutsu 10.
Pure stats, no fluff.
Based on the scale of the atmospheric disturbance, it was difficult to calculate the final impact force. Combined with the Hyūga chakra's property of penetrating other chakra, the power of this single palm was at least enough to shatter the defense of a second-stage skeletal Susanoo. If he landed two in a row, he could likely knock the "Gundam pilot" right out of the skeleton.
But that was it.
In Yu's Byakugan vision, the chakra inside Hizashi's body had hit rock bottom instantly.
In other words, even a "perfected" Hyūga like Hizashi could only fire such a move once in a given timeframe.
Yu suddenly understood what Hizashi was worried about.
Hizashi let out a long breath, his voice heavy as he cautioned Yu:
"The abilities of the Hyūga clan seem to cover everything."
"For defense, we have Rotation. For melee, we have the Eight Trigrams Palms. For mid-range, we have the Vacuum Palm and Mountain Crusher. For long-range, the Byakugan allows us to avoid danger—or, like you, to find a new path and use a bow to attack."
"But none of these abilities are extreme enough. They aren't 'absolute'!"
"Among the strongest people in the shinobi world, not being 'absolute' is a fatal weakness!"
Yu nodded in agreement.
However, he knew that this was definitely not the limit of the Vacuum Palm. Hizashi's strike already possessed the prototype of the Eighty Gods Vacuum Attack, but it was still quite a distance away from that level of extreme offensive power.
There had to be a way to increase the power of the Vacuum Palm.
And the method for that improvement...
Yu couldn't help but let his gaze fall on the layer of chakra armor on the surface of Hizashi's body.
Of course, this wasn't a power Yu could master right now.
The problem with Hizashi's "Modified Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm" was glaringly obvious. The power was immense—reaching the threshold of top-tier shinobi—but the consumption was equally terrifying!
Even though he had some ideas, Yu still didn't plan to conduct research into the secret arts of the Hyūga clan until he solved the root issue of his chakra levels.
Hizashi steadied his slightly hurried breathing and turned to look seriously at Yu.
"You asked why I'm helping you?"
"I'll tell you now—"
Hizashi used his Byakugan to scan the mess of meridians he had modified inside Yu's body, as well as Yu's unique cyan-colored chakra.
"Hyūga Yu!"
"In you, I see the hope of reaching the limit and breaking the ceiling of this clan!"
"During these years of being demoted to the Branch House, rather than pondering the meaning of the Head and Branch system, what I have seen more clearly is this—"
"The current problem with the Hyūga clan isn't some conflict or dispute between the Head and Branch Houses. It's certainly not about attacking each other to chase boring things like status and power!"
"It is that this clan has gone for far, far, far too long without producing a truly powerful figure!"
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