Assassination

Bang!!

The door slammed shut with a loud crash, and Utatane Koharu's body trembled.

Seeing this, Mitokado Homura sighed inwardly. Danzo was still firmly in Sarutobi's grasp.

Hopefully, this lesson would make Danzo behave himself for a while...

"By the way, Sarutobi."

As if recalling something, Mitokado Homura suddenly frowned and looked at Sarutobi Hiruzen. Lowering his voice, he asked, "The village's strength is already depleted. Is it really alright to let Jiraiya remain outside?"

Hearing this, Sarutobi Hiruzen thought of Jiraiya, who had left the village under the pretext of "pursuing Orochimaru," and sighed inwardly. In an even tone, he said, "When it is time for him to return, he will return."

Mitokado Homura and Utatane Koharu exchanged glances. Seeing that Sarutobi Hiruzen was unwilling to say more, they could only shake their heads helplessly, rise, and take their leave.

Click.

Staring at the closed door, Sarutobi Hiruzen remained silent for a long while. The only sound in the room was his breathing.

After some time, he rose stiffly and walked to the office window. His clouded eyes could not be seen clearly through the smoke rising from his pipe.

Konoha always looked especially clean after the rain. Dew clung to the eaves, and mottled water stains were like scattered mirrors set everywhere—on leaves, streetlamps, and wall tiles—reflecting Konoha's prosperity together.

Looking at the scenery outside, Sarutobi Hiruzen thought of many things.

He thought of Konoha's hard-won peace, the troubles besieging it within and without beneath that peace, Orochimaru and Jiraiya who had left the village, Tsunade who numbed herself in gambling dens every day, the orphan Minato and Nueve had left behind, and the admiring gaze in the Hyuga Clan child's eyes whenever he looked at him...

"Hiss..."

Sarutobi Hiruzen drew in a deep breath, the bittersweet, acrid air entering his lungs. Then he slowly exhaled. A spark glowed in his pipe as he buried all his emotions deep in his heart.

"It's alright." After a moment of silence, he murmured in a slightly hoarse voice, as though speaking to himself, "No matter what must be sacrificed, we must protect everything Konoha has so painstakingly gained."

Meanwhile, at Training Ground 44 on Konoha's outskirts, within the Forest of Death, sunlight filtered through the branches and scattered flecks of gold across two figures' shoulders.

"Senior, power rises from the ground, strength originates from the spine, hardness and softness must complement each other..."

"Ah-ta!"

The wooden posts before Hyuga Yunchuan and Might Guy had both shattered. However, Yunchuan's post had clearly burst apart from within, while Guy's looked as though it had suffered brutal abuse from a heavy fist.

Watching Might Guy, whose method could practically be described as utterly unstructured and reliant purely on brute force, the smile on Hyuga Yunchuan's face was beginning to falter after teaching him all morning.

"Whew." Might Guy, who normally would not tire even after running around Konoha for an entire day, was drenched in sweat now. Panting heavily, he could not help rubbing his head as he smiled helplessly. "Yunchuan, your improved Gentle Fist is really hard to learn."

"After all, Senior has studied Strong Fist for over a decade. Adjusting the body's instincts will naturally take some effort." Hyuga Yunchuan shook his head. "Let's stop here for today."

During the second round of the Chunin Exams, in Neji versus Hinata, Might Guy and Rock Lee had once proposed a classification for taijutsu.

Taijutsu that relied on direct attacks to inflict external injuries, such as breaking an opponent's bones, was called "Strong Fist." The Hyuga Clan's taijutsu, which injured an enemy's meridian system and internal organs, was called "Gentle Fist." As for styles like Tsunade's and the Fourth Raikage's, which combined Ninjutsu and taijutsu, they were known as "Nintaijutsu."

What Hyuga Yunchuan was attempting now was to combine the advantages of Strong Fist and Gentle Fist, then develop the taijutsu system best suited to himself atop the Eight Gates Released Formation in the future.

"Alright, then..."

Might Guy had only spoken halfway when Hyuga Yunchuan suddenly felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, and an intense chill surged through him.

It was utterly abrupt. Utterly terrifying.

The muscles throughout his body tensed in an instant, and veins bulged around his Byakugan.

Nothing was abnormal.

There was no abnormality at all.

"No, that's not right!" Hyuga Yunchuan's expression changed drastically. "It's a Blind Spot!"

The Byakugan gave members of the Hyuga Clan a 360-degree field of vision, but because of the Caged Bird Cursed Seal, Branch Family members possessed a one-degree visual blind spot extending backward from the spine!

If an enemy was close by, a one-degree visual blind spot was insignificant. But if they were very far away...

That one degree would become a fan-shaped area with an arc angle of one degree, expanding into an enormous blind spot as the fan's radius increased!

Screech!!

Sure enough, almost the instant Hyuga Yunchuan realized it, an almost imperceptible sound of something cutting through the air reached his ears.

This was an assassination. An assassination targeting him. A supremely lethal killing intent.

At this distance, with that sound, it was already too late to locate it and dodge.

Realizing this, Hyuga Yunchuan's originally grim eyes suddenly became calm. Driven by bodily instinct, he slowly closed them.

If I can't see it, he thought, then I won't look.

The next instant, invisible ripples spread from within his body, and Hyuga Yunchuan seemed to step into another world.

All his physical senses shut down, leaving only spiritual "perception."

There was no howl of wind, no chirping insects, no breathing, no heartbeat...

The world was as silent as death.

It was also as if time had stopped for him.

And so, he "saw" it.

Behind Hyuga Yunchuan, he "saw" a kunai wreathed in razor-sharp currents of air.

Wind Style: Vacuum Blade, a Wind Style Ninjutsu combining shape transformation and nature transformation. It infused Wind Release chakra into an external object, turning it into an incomparably sharp, swift blade.

The assassin had mastered this technique to the extreme. It was so fast that even Might Guy had failed to react.

Yet under Hyuga Yunchuan's intuition, the kunai, whose full shape should have been impossible to discern due to its immense speed, seemed to trail an endless line as it glided toward him at an incredibly slow pace.

Hyuga Yunchuan did not turn around. He raised a hand and spread his fingers like the wings of a crane about to unfurl, the joints carrying pale yellow calluses from years of training beneath the sunlight.

He caught the kunai by its handle. The surrounding Wind Blades pierced his palm, yet it was as though they had struck an invisible iron wall, suddenly stopping in midair.

Hyuga Yunchuan opened his eyes. His snowy, tranquil pupils reflected Might Guy's tense face beside him, as well as the depths of the forest, broken into fragments by fallen leaves.

Whoever it was, failing to return what one had received was discourteous.

"Then I'll return it to you."

He turned and flung the kunai. His movement was as swift as fallen leaves scattered by the wind. As the hem of his clothes fluttered, it exposed his lean waist, his spine rising and falling like a drawn bowstring as he unleashed all his strength.

The next instant, the kunai left his hand.

Buzz!

A piercing shriek tearing through the air exploded beside Might Guy's ear. Falling leaves were crushed to pieces by the fierce wind in the blink of an eye, while yellowed leaves on the ground were swept up by the airflow and sent spinning into the air.

Almost at the same time, the sound of a blade piercing flesh came from the distance.

Splat!