This analysis struck the Konoha elites like a thunderbolt.
The Uchiha ninja's eyes were filled with shock and sudden realization.
He understood in an instant.
The clan head's gamble had never been about securing the position of a concubine.
They had been gambling on whether the Uchiha Clan could become the first builders of the new order!
Hizashi Hyuga lowered his head and spread open his callused palms.
These hands could unleash the Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms at any time.
Caged Bird.
Teaching.
How similar they were.
The only difference was that the shackles imposed on him by the Main Family were meant to protect the Hyuga Clan.
While the rules established for all ninja by that daimyo were meant to build the entire Land of Fire.
The ridiculous part was that the Main Family's cage made him suffocate and despair.
Yet the daimyo's rules allowed him... to see another possibility.
A possibility where Neji would no longer have a curse mark carved into him.
Not far away, Asuma leaned against a wall and took it all in.
He heard every word Shikaku Nara said.
Absurd. That was his first reaction.
He wanted to argue, to mock it as nothing more than alarmist nonsense.
But when he opened his mouth, he could not utter a single word.
Because those words explained every unreasonable thing before his eyes.
That daimyo was not playing house with them.
He was rewriting the rules of the game for the entire Shinobi World.
And they had not even understood what the rules were.
Amid the silence, Shikaku's gaze swept over the chaotic construction site, and a bitter smile appeared on his face.
"This is an exam. Not only did we fail to understand the questions, we nearly tore up the test paper."
He turned to