"Bastard!"
"Insolence!"
"You actually dared to..."
The clan members' avatars behind the old man drew their weapons or formed hand seals.
"Stop!" the old man shouted sternly.
Was he angry?
He was angrier than anyone. Was there anything more humiliating than having a clansman sent flying right in front of the clan head? If there was, it was the clan head himself being sent flying.
Angry as he was, the old man had not lost his reason.
The man who had been sent flying was the clan's third strongest expert. As the strongest, the old man did not think he was much stronger than the third strongest. To be fair, if that palm strike had targeted him, could his aging body have avoided it?
After reaching the answer, he wanted to wipe away the cold sweat on his forehead.
The family's second means of survival: reading the situation—in other words, bullying the weak, fearing the strong, fawning over the powerful, and trampling the fallen.
More importantly, the old man had heard that the man Pansy had once followed came from a major Konoha clan. Now that Amegakure's situation was dire and everyone was on edge, perhaps the clan should consider changing environments—say, to the flourishing Konoha?
"Are you a Konoha ninja?" the old man asked gravely, looking as though he would strike at the slightest disagreement.
"Yes." Hayato pulled aside his coat, revealing the forehead protector hanging at his waist.
The old man pondered for a moment. "The clan's handling of Pansy's matter back then was indeed somewhat improper." In any case, he had not been clan head at the time, and the previous one was already dead. He could shift the blame however he pleased.
At the old man's words, the clan members behind him erupted into an uproar.