He just had no idea what these people were planning to do to him.
Kawaki Aoba had practically become a thorn in the Hyuga Clan's side. Unless they dealt with him, this potential threat, some of them probably wouldn't even be able to sleep comfortably.
The same went for Kawaki Aoba. What made it worse was that this nuisance called the Hyuga Clan was one he couldn't escape.
When he got home, all Kawaki Aoba wanted was to lie down and get some proper rest. But the moment he stepped into his room, he noticed something was off.
Someone had been in his room.
Before leaving the village, Kawaki Aoba had used Observation Haki to memorize the arrangement of everything in his room. Now, after checking it again with Observation Haki, he noticed something unusual.
Already suspicious of a particular object, Kawaki Aoba used Observation Haki to watch the every move of the person secretly monitoring him.
The veins at the corners of the person's eyes were bulging. It was an obvious sign that he had activated his Byakugan.
Without showing any reaction, Kawaki Aoba put away the ninja tools he had on him, then lay down to rest. Everything seemed perfectly natural.
The watcher could use his Byakugan to see what Kawaki Aoba was doing, but he couldn't detect Observation Haki.
Silently, Kawaki Aoba used Observation Haki to inspect every corner of the room.
Sure enough, he found something out of place.
When had a hidden compartment appeared beneath his bed?
Observation Haki continued to probe downward, inspecting whatever had been stuffed inside.
It looked like... a book.
Kawaki Aoba was baffled. He couldn't understand why the other side would hide a book there. Even planting a stack of Explosive Tags that might go off during the night and blow him sky-high would have made more sense.
Observation Haki couldn't sense any threat from the book.
At the same time, though, unease began to rise in Kawaki Aoba's heart. The unknown was the most frightening thing, after all. If they were openly trying to blow him up with Explosive Tags, that would actually be easier to deal with.
But instead, they'd hidden some unidentified book beneath his bed, leaving Kawaki Aoba with no idea what they were up to.
And the Hyuga Clan members outside showed no sign of doing anything else. It was as if their only job was to watch him.
In that case, Kawaki Aoba decided to keep waiting them out.
He refused to believe the guy outside could keep his Byakugan activated while staring at him forever.
Kawaki Aoba had activated the Byakugan himself before, so he knew that maintaining it for long periods was no easy feat.
Sure enough, it wasn't long before the other person deactivated his Byakugan.
Wait, wasn't that an unusually short time to keep it activated?
To be safe, Kawaki Aoba didn't make a move. He stayed on the bed a little longer.
Sure enough, after a short interval, the other person activated his Byakugan again.
Damn it!
Kawaki Aoba cursed inwardly, realizing he probably wouldn't be able to shake the guy outside anytime soon.
But if the other person wanted to drag this out, he'd play along. After all, he wasn't the one spending Chakra every time the Byakugan was activated.
Even if it was only activated intermittently, there was still a limit to how long it could be maintained.
The reality wasn't far off from Kawaki Aoba's guess.
After a while, activating the Byakugan over and over left the person secretly watching him with aching, swollen eyes.
There you go, running out of steam, huh? Why don't you take a break?
Kawaki Aoba had a good plan. He would wait until the other person couldn't keep going and took a rest, then inspect the book they'd hidden in the compartment beneath his bed.
Only by finding out what they'd prepared for him could he guess how they planned to deal with him.
But what caught Kawaki Aoba completely off guard was that just as he thought the person secretly spying on him with the Byakugan was about to give up...
They... changed shifts.
The two watchers coordinated seamlessly. As soon as the "old friend" deactivated his Byakugan, the newcomer immediately took over.
What annoyed Kawaki Aoba even more was this: didn't these branch family shinobi ever slack off or take it easy?
They were in the village, not out in some dangerous place, and he wasn't going to run away.
Or did these people genuinely enjoy serving the Hyuga Main Family?
Kawaki Aoba was thoroughly frustrated. By now, he had more or less given up on trying to outlast the other person.
Seizing a moment when the other person deactivated his Byakugan, Kawaki Aoba got out of bed and created a Shadow Clone to take his place. His real body used the Transformation Technique to disguise himself as an utterly ordinary shuriken and hide in his ninja tool pouch.
The Transformation Technique was a basic ninjutsu taught at the Ninja Academy. It couldn't escape the Byakugan's scrutiny, but the Transformation Technique Kawaki Aoba used was completely different.
Although it had the same name, it was a special superpower from the Dragon Ball world.
It was a ridiculously overpowered ability: turn into a missile, and you could fly through the sky with a flaming trail behind you.
Now that he'd transformed into a shuriken, no one could spot anything amiss as long as Kawaki Aoba had any Chakra left. This was also what had given him the confidence, back then, that he could escape Konoha if he had no other choice.
Sure enough, when the Hyuga Clan member secretly watching him activated his Byakugan again, he didn't notice anything unusual.
After making sure everything was fine, the Shadow Clone taking the real body's place on the bed began to move.
Perhaps he felt he'd rested long enough. The Shadow Clone felt his way out of the yard, looking as though he wanted to go for a walk.
"A blind guy should stay home, but instead he's wandering around. What a pain." The Hyuga shinobi hidden in the shadows muttered with a frown, then followed the Shadow Clone with an impatient look, never suspecting a thing.
It was contempt for Kawaki Aoba, who had gouged out his own eyes, as well as absolute confidence in his own Byakugan.
As for Kawaki Aoba's real body, once the other person had gone far enough away, he finally released the Transformation Technique.
Without wasting a moment, Kawaki Aoba headed straight for the hidden compartment beneath his bed.
He wanted to see what that book was and what the Hyuga Clan was up to.
He opened the hidden compartment with ease. There was no dangerous mechanism or deadly poison inside, just a thin book.
Kawaki Aoba picked it up, opened it, and covered it with his fully mastered Observation Haki, reading it line by line.
That was right. Fully mastered Observation Haki could make out the writing on a page, so it could be used to read books, too. The only reason he hadn't revealed this before was that it was so outrageous, it went far beyond the limits of what Sensory Ninjutsu should be able to do.
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