"Byakugan!"
Winter Tree didn't care what unsightly things he might see by activating the Byakugan in the middle of the street. All his attention was focused on finding the bastard who'd controlled the lightning to strike him. He'd never suffered such an indignity!
Humans were born to human mothers, and monsters to monster mothers. As a transmigrator, he was better than all of them—he had two mothers!
You were born to just one mother, yet you dared to attack someone born to two? Had you never been beaten senseless by the Gentle Fist?
The dark clouds in the sky definitely needed chakra to move. There wasn't a single technique that didn't require chakra!
Natsumi couldn't detect chakra in the thunderclouds because the stuff wasn't made of ordinary chakra at all!
They were clouds created by a secret technique that combined Yin-Style Power with energy from the natural world.
As it happened, Winter Tree knew the Yin-Yang Shield. It wasn't particularly powerful and could only create living beings, but that was enough for him to see through the thunderclouds and trace their Yin-Style Power back to its source!
"Natsumi, come with me!"
With his Byakugan activated, Winter Tree summoned a vivid green Elemental Spirit and pressed it into his chest. The tingling sensation immediately vanished. This green spirit was made of Yang-Style Chakra and could heal the Summoner's injuries while temporarily boosting his physical abilities for three minutes.
It was an Elemental Spirit that traded mana for health.
"Young Master Winter Tree..."
Natsumi wanted to stop her young master, but after a moment's hesitation, she didn't reach out. Instead, she pulled the Summoning Scroll for contacting the Hyuga Clan from inside her kimono and quickly wrote on it with chakra: Young Master Winter Tree is in danger. Come at once!
Then she used the Body Flicker Technique to catch up with Young Master Winter Tree, who was running at the front.
Natsumi had watched Winter Tree grow up. She knew many secrets that even the Clan Head didn't know.
And because she knew how to read the situation, she understood that she was Winter Tree's personal maid and should do everything she could to help him take the clan leadership, rather than reporting every little thing to the Main Branch.
That was why Winter Tree trusted Natsumi so much and let her in on many of his secrets.
And precisely because of that, Natsumi didn't stop him.
She believed that Young Master Winter Tree would be fine, no matter what. Even if the entire Hyuga Clan were wiped out, Winter Tree would still be safe.
Following the Yin-Style Power, Winter Tree tracked it all the way to the forest beneath Kage Rock—the forest beside the Ninja Academy where the students usually practiced survival exercises.
He crossed a patch of grass and finally spotted the bastard who'd struck him with lightning. But the sight left him frozen beside the grass, staring in disbelief at a boy in the clearing ahead.
The boy's age wasn't what surprised Winter Tree. Uchiha Itachi had teamed up with Uchiha Shisui at the age of eight and taken down three Jonin. Age didn't mean everything. What truly shocked Winter Tree were the boy's eyes: his pupils were emerald green, but the whites around them were entirely black.
The skin visible on his cheeks and arms was covered in uneven cracks, like a porcelain doll.
There was only one kind of creature with those traits: a dead person summoned through Impure World Reincarnation!
In the original story, only two people knew that technique, but right now, Orochimaru was probably the only one who could use it.
Which meant... Aunt Orochimaru was here?!
"Waaah! Help!"
The boy, with symmetrical red marks on his cheeks, tan skin, and a tattered cloak, froze when he saw Winter Tree leap out of the grass. Then he let out a shrill cry and scrambled deeper into the forest.
He'd just played a nasty prank on Winter Tree. Now his victim had come looking for him, and he looked terrifying, his eyes rolled back in rage. If the boy got caught, he'd probably be sealed back inside his coffin!
No, no, he'd be shoved into the coffin, the lid nailed shut with iron spikes, and the whole thing sunk into the sea under several tons of concrete!
And the coffin was probably the sliding-lid kind, just in case he tried to push it open from the inside...
In that instant, Yota had already imagined the terrible fate awaiting him if he fell into Winter Tree's hands.
"Thunder Spirit! Earth Spirit!"
Although the boy in front of him had startled him, Winter Tree didn't care whether he was dead or not. The boy had struck him with lightning, so Winter Tree would strike him with lightning too—and then spray water all over his face!
Winter Tree had been born with Water, Lightning, and Earth chakra natures. After acquiring chakra, he'd trained in Wind and Fire as well.
However, Wind and Fire were abilities he'd picked up later. His control and proficiency in them couldn't compare to his natural affinities.
Elemental Spirits were all spherical, though each nature had its own color. Only the Yin-Style Chakra spirit looked like a bean sprout.
Winter Tree summoned a yellow spirit and a white one. The white one turned into a streak of lightning and struck the boy in an instant, sending him tumbling across the ground. The Earth Spirit controlled the soil around him, burying him and packing the dirt down for good measure.
"Waaah! Don't hit Yota! Yota knows he was wrong!"
Yota looked panicked. At the same time, clouds began gathering in the sky, turning from white to black and forming ominous storm clouds above Winter Tree. Then they unleashed a thunderstorm as if opening a floodgate.
It really was like opening a floodgate. A steady stream of water two meters across poured down from the clouds, drenching Winter Tree.
Winter Tree raised a hand over his head. His chakra erupted in an instant, and black chains spread from his palm, trapping the column of water and the clouds in a cage. They turned into Water Elementals and dropped to the ground.
The Whirling Demon Society's Elemental Summoning Technique didn't rely on chakra alone. If a suitable medium of the same nature was present, the Summoner only needed to spend a small amount of chakra to summon Elemental Spirits.
For example, suppose someone from the Uchiha Clan charged into battle and hurled a Great Fireball at Winter Tree. Winter Tree could throw out the Spirit Binding Vehicle to lock down the fireball, turn it into a medium for his summons, and summon a whole group of Fire Elemental Spirits at once.
Apart from Lightning Release and composite nature transformations, there wasn't a single nature transformation Winter Tree couldn't use as a medium for mass summoning.
"Jingle, jingle..."
With the clouds overhead dealt with, Winter Tree withdrew the chains that could restrain Yota, because he saw Konoha's Anbu heading this way. The Summoning Technique was fine; he could pass it off as the Multiplication Summoning Technique.
But the "Spirit Binding Technique" was a problem. It looked far too much like the Uzumaki Clan's Adamantine Sealing Chains.
For the sake of his parents' happy marriage, Winter Tree didn't want to expose the technique just yet.
Otherwise, who knew whether his father would dig through the family records all the way back to the age of Kaguya-hime or start arguing with his mother?
"Hah! Art is Magnetic Storm Infantry!"
Winter Tree raised two fingers like a sword, focused his mind, and ordered the Elemental Spirits to sacrifice themselves.
"Crackle, crackle..."
The Lightning Elemental Spirit split apart, sending waves of blue lightning outward and paralyzing every enemy nearby.
The thirteen Water Elementals lined up beside Winter Tree, taking turns spraying Yota and teaching him what it meant to get drenched.
Yota was completely unable to speak. He'd never seen such a tremendous volume of water in his life.
"Hmph. If you pull another stunt like that..." Winter Tree waved away the Water Elementals. "I'll show you what men can't endure—and what it means to die in peace!"
"Can't endure" meant a kick to the groin, a kidney punch, or a spike thrust!
"Die in peace" meant having your neck snapped instantly and passing away painlessly.
Don't doubt whether the Gentle Fist could do the job. It was a fighting style specifically designed to strike the internal organs, meridians, and pressure points.
Before you continue