Information Black Hole

His thoughts raced.

Hyuga Yu quickly thought of another possibility—

A spy.

This person was a spy from another ninja village, lurking within Konoha.

And the reason the other party had targeted him might have been related to his contact with Hyuga Genko of the Main House during the day. By that logic, the other party was very likely a spy from Kirigakure.

At that thought, Hyuga Yu frowned slightly, still unable to understand why the other party wanted to make a move against him.

But it had already happened. What mattered now was—

Resolving this sudden crisis.

Hyuga Yu put away the expression on his face, deactivated his Byakugan, and continued down the street without betraying a hint of suspicion.

The apartment where he lived stood at the edge of the clan grounds, close to Konoha Second Ring. Though it was not large, its location could still be considered prime real estate in all of Konoha.

It was close to Konoha Famous Tea Street in the center of Konoha, where little Naruto would live in the future. Hyuga Yu's neighbor was even Hatake Kakashi, who had recently sold his ancestral property and rented a place here for the convenience of commuting, becoming a Jonin at the age of twelve.

Mentioning this was not to say how wealthy Hyuga Yu was, how high his social standing was, or how well the Hyuga Clan treated its ordinary members.

It was to say—

The place he lived was a gathering place for Konoha's elite ninja.

If the enemy hiding in the dark wanted to make a move against Hyuga Yu, they could not possibly wait until he truly returned to that neighborhood. The only place where they could strike and conceal their tracks was the stretch of alleys connecting the Hyuga Clan grounds to the street where his apartment stood.

And knowing that, could Hyuga Yu run?

He could not.

No matter what, Hyuga Yu was merely a Genin with scarce chakra and a Spirit score of 2. What he feared most was the enemy launching a desperate frontal assault.

With his mastery of the Gentle Fist Style, even going all out, he could at most hold off a Chunin-level opponent for a few minutes before collapsing from exhaustion, unable to refine chakra.

So he could not call for help. Before reinforcements arrived, he would most likely already be dead.

He had to go along with the enemy, lull them into lowering their guard, and then...

Kill the enemy in an instant!

At that moment,

The sun was setting in the west.

The cicadas' rain-like song pattered in his ears.

Hyuga Yu calmly crossed the long street and passed beneath the eaves where the enemy was hiding.

Until he reached the mouth of the alley, arriving at the burial ground the enemy had prepared for him.

Hyuga Yu's pale eyes suddenly narrowed, tightening as a cold, sharp arc brimming with killing intent flashed within them.

He stepped forward into the darkness.

His hand swung in its usual rhythm. As it swept back, he quietly drew a kunai with a paper-wrapped pellet tied to its pommel from the ninja tool pouch fastened at the waist of his open-chested gray kimono.

The instant he gripped the kunai's handle, Hyuga Yu tensed his body, ground his toes against the earth, and swayed faintly within the alley's elongated shadow before abruptly accelerating!

He plunged headlong into the alley, which was only three hundred meters long.

At the same instant, the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end.

His extraordinary "sense of touch" immediately let Hyuga Yu keenly detect that, after suddenly losing its target, the gaze gathered behind him stalled for less than half a second before sweeping through the alley's shadows and locking onto him again. It became even more dangerous, sharper, as though it would pierce his flesh!

"Whoosh!"

A sharp rush of wind sounded behind him.

The enemy had noticed something was wrong and used the Body Flicker Technique to rapidly close in!

Hyuga Yu's eyes flew wide open, veins bulging at his temples!

"Byakugan, activate!"

The moment his expanded god's eye view caught the enemy urgently pursuing from behind,

Hyuga Yu lowered his body, abruptly stopped, and rolled to the side.

A broad-faced ninja wearing a cat-faced mask with only two whiskers and dressed like an Anbu agent shot past Hyuga Yu, who had rolled to the ground, driven by the momentum of his Body Flicker Technique. A cold gleam flashed from the kunai in his hand.

In that instant,

He saw the youth lying prone on the ground, lifting his head.

He saw... a pair of white eyes, foolish as a camel's, yet turning savage as a lion in an instant.

Yajima Jyunin was an intelligence ninja.

He was one of the lowest-ranking members of the Kirigakure spy network embedded within Konoha.

In plain terms, he was the sort of expendable piece whose exposure did not matter—or rather, who had been sent here precisely so he could be exposed when necessary, paying with his life to help his superior, who communicated through a single line, gather intelligence and remove obstacles.

At ten that morning,

He received an assignment—

Disguise himself as a Konoha Anbu ninja and kill a Hyuga Branch Family Genin named [Hyuga Yu].

Yajima Jyunin did not know why his superior wanted to eliminate this Hyuga Branch Family Genin, but he could roughly guess—

At nine that morning, he had seen Hyuga Yu leave the residence of Hyuga Sousuke, a main family elder of the Hyuga Clan.

That meant the target had most likely come into contact with Hyuga Genko, a Main House member whom he had been closely monitoring.

Combined with the intelligence obtained later through the mission—that [Hyuga Yu] was a Medical Ninja.

His superior had concluded:

Hyuga Yu's existence might affect Kirigakure's upcoming operation, so this variable had to be strangled in the cradle.

As for what Kirigakure's upcoming operation would be?

Why would someone as weak as Hyuga Yu affect it?

Would killing Hyuga Yu now not alert the enemy and create even greater uncertainties for the mission?

Yajima Jyunin had an idea of the answers, but he could not know.

A ninja selected as a spy could not be an idiot, especially in Konoha, where the Yamanaka Clan possessed the ability to read minds.

He only knew that, at this time and in this place, he had to rely on his strength as a seasoned Chunin to eliminate a weak Hyuga Branch Family Genin who had not even fully mastered his clan's secret techniques, without causing too much of a disturbance.

However,

After reading the assassination target's intelligence,

Yajima Jyunin instinctively sensed that something was off from the other's thin record.

The record read:

[Hyuga Yu: Genin]

[Number of missions completed: 46 D-rank, 12 C-rank.]

[Strength assessment: Genin. Has awakened the Kekkei Genkai: Byakugan, but has not mastered Gentle Fist Style: Eight Trigrams Thirty-Two Palms. Taijutsu, ninjutsu, Genjutsu, throwing techniques—all are mediocre. Through self-study, has mastered several Medical Ninjutsu techniques, including one difficult B-rank Medical Ninjutsu.]

[Konoha Year 46: Graduated early from the Ninja Academy. Konoha Year 47: Joined Reconnaissance Unit Team Eight and participated in the Third Shinobi World War. That same year, during an Iwagakure raid on the Land of Grass, the Chunin leading his team died, along with two teammates.]

[Konoha Year 48: Joined the reorganized Reconnaissance Unit Team Eight. That same year, the Chunin leading his team died. Later participated in the Chunin Ninja Exams held by Konoha, where two teammates died under mysterious circumstances.]

[Recovered from injuries until Konoha Year 49, up to the present.]

Looking at this record, Yajima Jyunin reached a conclusion.

This was an ordinary Genin who had not even fully mastered the clan secret techniques needed to protect himself. Other than having an extra pair of Byakugan that were more burden than boon to him, his combat strength alone was not even comparable to some elite Ninja Academy students who had just graduated.

Yet this ninja, weak in every sense of the word,

Had somehow survived the Third Shinobi World War, even after the Chunin leading his team and all of his teammates had died, twice over.

There was probably something wrong with this person...

Either he was so lucky that even heaven could not bear to take his life, or—

Hyuga Yu possessed abilities that intelligence reports had no way of recording.

And people like that were usually called by spies, who treated intelligence as their lifeblood:

[Information Black Hole].