Seeing Hyuga Hoshishaku walk out of the house, Hyuga Yunfei stopped training and watched him, waiting for instructions.
"Come stand behind me. You can practice again later."
As he spoke, Hoshishaku took out a piece of paper inscribed with a Sealing Technique formula and activated it with chakra, following the training memories in his mind.
Just as Yunfei approached, utterly confused, he suddenly heard his young master murmur:
"Sealing-In Technique!"
Sealing-In Technique?
Yunfei paused, feeling completely baffled. Wasn't that the technique for sealing things inside a Sealing Scroll?
What was the point of practicing the Sealing-In Technique on thin air?
Before Yunfei could think about it any further,
just as Hoshishaku's murmur ended, the piece of paper raised in his hand suddenly unleashed a powerful suction force.
The suction was so strong that it formed a tornado-like vortex out of nowhere. It even lifted Yunfei off his feet—he had already come close to Hoshishaku and was wiping away sweat with a towel!
He was about to be sucked into the paper inscribed with the Sealing Technique formula along with the gale, dust, and furniture!
In that split second, Hoshishaku quickly cut off the connection between his chakra and the paper, canceling the Sealing-In Technique.
Then he slapped away the furniture hurtling toward him from the force of inertia.
With his other hand, he caught the completely dumbfounded Yunfei.
Then, using only one hand, he performed Rotation to block the other debris hurtling toward them.
Everything that had just happened had taken only three or four seconds.
"Ha... ha... ha..."
Once the dust had settled, Hoshishaku stood in the messy backyard, panting heavily as he marveled inwardly.
Why was the Sealing Technique he'd just used more powerful than it had been in the training memories Ajisai gave him?
Could each character's attributes and talent stack with his own?
As he pondered this, Yunfei's timid voice suddenly sounded. "Young master, you're still holding me."
Hoshishaku's attention snapped back. He glanced at Yunfei, whom he was holding by the waistband of his trousers and who looked terribly vulnerable, then gently set him on the ground. He picked up the piece of paper he'd dropped and examined it closely.
Compared to the blank sealing paper from before,
the paper now bore an abstract image of a tornado.
Thinking of the tornado created by the Sealing-In Technique, Hoshishaku's thoughts began to wander.
If a tornado could be sealed inside with a Sealing Technique, could ninjutsu be sealed too?
And if ninjutsu could be sealed, couldn't he make something like a "ninjutsu scroll"?
The more he thought about it, the more reasonable it seemed. He planned to try it later. He could seal ninjutsu inside to make a lethal weapon, like a "ninjutsu instant-cast tag."
He could also seal an enemy's ninjutsu during a battle and send it right back at them.
"Too bad..."
Hoshishaku glanced at Yunfei, who was still in shock.
"Too bad the Hyuga Clan looks down on ninjutsu that uses the five nature transformations, so the clan barely teaches ninjutsu."
With that in mind, he decided to test his Basic Sealing Technique somewhere outside later.
If he experimented in his own courtyard, he was afraid the investment money he'd just received wouldn't stay in his hands for long.
"What happened?!"
Several figures suddenly appeared on the surrounding courtyard walls.
Hoshishaku glanced around and spotted his father and several elders.
The one who had just called out was an elder jonin responsible for protecting the clan grounds.
Hoshishaku waved the sealing paper he held between two fingers and said innocently, "I was practicing the Sealing-In Technique, and it seems to have been a little too powerful. It sucked up all the flowers and plants in the backyard."
If half the courtyard wall hadn't vanished, that might have sounded perfectly reasonable at first.
The jonin who had asked the question wore an unconvinced expression as he refuted him.
"Lord Hoshishaku, I'm also skilled in Sealing Techniques. If all you did was seal something in, there's no way it could have caused this kind of commotion."
Hoshishaku furrowed his brows, his voice turning cold. "You don't believe me?"
"No, I don't," the jonin replied bluntly.
Just as he shifted his gaze to Yunfei, Hoshishaku suddenly smiled.
"Ha, if you don't believe me, I can certainly be considerate and demonstrate it for you."
As he spoke, he took a fresh piece of sealing paper from his pocket and aimed it at the jonin.
While the jonin looked at Hoshishaku with a strange, complicated expression, as if he were watching a foolish child,
Hoshishaku suddenly asked the other elders, "If the commotion really was caused by my Sealing-In Technique, then I won't be held responsible for any damage caused by the demonstration, right?"
Unlike the other elders, who wore odd expressions,
Hyuga Tianren studied Yunfei's face, thought it over, then nodded in agreement. "All right."
Having received his approval, Hoshishaku looked at the jonin, who was struggling to suppress a laugh, and smiled too.
"In that case, then... Sealing-In Technique!"
As soon as the words left his mouth, just as the elders were about to laugh at the child's antics,
a gale-force suction burst out in an instant!
The jonin elder was the first to be caught in its path!
A moment earlier, his chest had been heaving as he tried to hold back his laughter.
But when the suction hit the next instant, his expression crumpled. If he hadn't been standing on the wall with chakra attached to the soles of his feet, he might already have been caught in the suction and dragged away.
"Boom!"
Within a second or two, the wall shattered into pieces and was swept toward the sealing paper.
The jonin elder was prepared. As soon as the bricks beneath his feet were sucked away, he reacted swiftly, dropped to the ground, and used chakra on his soles to cling tightly to the earth.
Just as the buildings farther away were about to suffer the same fate, Hyuga Tianren suddenly shouted, "Hoshishaku, stop!"
The gale seemed to vanish instantly at his words.
Hoshishaku withdrew the chakra from the paper in his hand and tossed it to the unfortunate jonin.
"This is the Sealing Technique I learned today. Since you didn't believe me earlier, I'll give this gale to you."
After speaking, he pulled the dust-covered Yunfei toward the house.
But when he reached the doorway, he turned to the group of clan leaders standing atop the wall and said,
"Remember to send someone to repair my wall. After all, this happened because of you."
With that, he closed the door, leaving the elders outside.
"Young master..."
Yunfei spoke timidly.
"Hmm? What is it?"
Hoshishaku set him down and asked, unconcerned.
Yunfei wanted to say that leaving the elders standing outside was a little rude.
But sensing his young master's relaxed yet cheerful mood, he inexplicably didn't dare bring it up.
"It's nothing. Why don't you go wash up first?"
Glancing at his dusty house clothes, Hoshishaku nodded in agreement.
"Let's wash up together. I got you dirty too, and the indoor hot spring is big enough anyway."
As he spoke, the two of them entered a room in the front courtyard.
It was an indoor hot spring room.
Hoshishaku had had it built some time ago.
He'd originally intended to use it for medicinal baths.
But after deciding to "lie low," it had instead become a medicinal bath for his older cousin.
Of course, Hyuga Yunfei didn't think the medicinal hot spring belonged to him.
He knew perfectly well that it was a gift from his young master.
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