Ao's provocation, the joke of an inferior ocular jutsu

At the end of the corridor, hurried footsteps came from behind.

"Stop right there!"

Qing's voice slammed against the wall like an iron plate, and everyone in the Anbu of the corridor turned their heads at the same time.

Naruto stopped walking, but didn't turn around.

Haku and Tayuya stood half a step behind him. Haku's hand had already slipped into the sleeve of his kimono, Ice Release Chakra flowed quietly through his meridians.

"A good dog doesn't block the way, move aside."

Ao strode in from the direction of the office, his single eye bloodshot, the muscles on his cheekbone twitching. "You brat from Hidden Leaf —don't think I won't beat you up just because Tsunade's protecting you."

Naruto turned around.

With his hands still in his pockets, he leaned against the corridor wall, tilting his head to look at Qing.

That posture—like looking at a stray dog blocking the way.

"The Mizukage is being polite to you because she has a good temper."

Qing gritted her teeth, enunciating each word clearly, "But I won't tolerate you. A twelve-year-old brat dares to flirt with our Mizukage right in front of me—"

"Flirt with her?"

Naruto interrupted him, a smirk playing on his lips, "What I called a marriage proposal."

A vein bulged on Qing's temple.

He reached up and removed the eye patch from his right eye.

The air in the corridor suddenly changed.

That eye had no pupil.

The entire eyeball appeared a pale, milky color, and a fine network of veins was faintly visible in the iris—that was the Byakugan.

It's not Byakugan that the Hyuga Clan is born with.

It was Byakugan that was dug out from the corpse of a Hyuga Clan member on the battlefield.

Chojuro gasped in shock from behind and gripped the hilts of his twin swords tightly.

The Anbu on both sides of the corridor took two steps back simultaneously—they all knew the significance of this eye.

During the Third Shinobi World War, Ao used it to see through Shisui Uchiha Kotoamatsukami, achieving a feat worthy of being recorded in the history of the Shinobi World.

"Today I'll use these eyes that have seen through countless tricks—"

Qing's hands moved swiftly, Hand Seals.

The veins around the Byakugan bulge, and the blood vessels wriggle under the skin like earthworms, with the veins spreading from the eye sockets to the temples.

"--Let's see what you've got to be so smug about!"

The Byakugan's power, like an invisible probe, pierced through the air and aimed at Naruto's body.

In Qing's mind, the Byakugan is the supreme Dōjutsu.

Twenty years ago, he crawled out of a pile of corpses with this eye.

Over the course of twenty years, he used it to see through sixty-seven Genjutsu, thirty-four assassinations, and countless political deceptions.

He survived to the end of the Blood Mist Era thanks to this trophy he seized from the Hyuga Clan.

He concluded that this arrogant, blond-haired kid was nothing but a pretty face with no substance, all talk and no action.

She's just Tsunade's Canary.

By understanding his Chakra system and finding its weak point, we can publicly prove that this "Hidden Leaf envoy" is nothing but a piece of trash.

The moment Ao's eye power touched Naruto's body.

His cold smile froze.

Wrong.

The information from his eyes caused Qing's brain to short-circuit for a full two seconds.

What he saw was not Chakra pathways.

His Byakugan couldn't penetrate the layer of skin on Naruto's body at all.

It was a sea.

A golden, scorching sea of the sun, seemingly alive.

It overflowed from every pore of Naruto's body, covering his skin and forming an invisible armor.

Beneath the surface of the sea, in even greater depths, lies an abyss of unfathomable depth—a vast, blue- Byakugan of life energy that cannot be measured, analyzed, or even observed for long.

His Byakugan started to hurt.

It's like an ordinary person looking directly at the midday sun with the naked eye.

"This... can't be..."

Qing's lips trembled, and a layer of cold sweat broke out on her forehead.

He wanted to shut off his Byakugan, but his pupil power was already drawn to that golden ocean—like a moth drawn to a flame, like a stream trying to flow upstream into the sea.

"Your dead fish eyes—"

Naruto's voice rang out.

Not tall, not in a hurry, with a lazy, husky voice unique to young people.

But when those words entered Qing's eardrums, it felt as if someone had driven a steel nail into his skull.

"Have you seen enough?"

Naruto pulled his hand out of his pocket.

He straightened up, moved away from the wall, and faced Qing.

Then--

I opened my eyes.

It's not azure blue.

It is pure, without a trace of impurity, a silvery white.

It spreads outward from the center of the pupil, filling the entire iris within a third of a second.

There were no bulging veins, no exposed blood vessels, and no scars or signs of rejection left by any transplant surgery.

Those eyes were as clear as two moons just taken down from the snow-capped mountain.

Pure Byakugan.

Qing's world collapsed.

It's not a metaphor.

It was a physical collapse—his transplanted Byakugan began to tremble violently before this gaze, like a slave meeting the king of the purest bloodline.

An irresistible force poured out from the other person's silvery-white pupils, flowing backward along the optic nerve in his Byakugan, and brutally crushing into his brain.

Bloodline suppression.

An absolute, source-driven, dimensional-reducing suppression of the bloodline from its source to its tributaries.

"Ah--!"

Qing let out a short, painful scream.

His body felt as if an invisible hand was gripping his brainstem, and the sound of his knees hitting the floor echoed through the corridor.

Blood and tears streamed wildly from the transplanted Byakugan, and the veins around the eye socket burst one after another, with purplish-black bruises spreading under the skin.

He knelt on the ground.

He covered his right eye with both hands, his fingers digging into his flesh, and his whole body convulsed uncontrollably.

The entire corridor was deathly quiet.

Chojuro's sword fell to the ground. The boy's face was ashen, his lips moved but no sound came out.

The Anbu on both sides retreated in unison. Someone knocked over a vase by the wall, and the sound of it shattering was particularly jarring in the silence.

The office door—had been open at some point.

Terumi Mei stood in the doorway.

She saw everything.

She saw Qing kneeling on the ground, convulsing in agony; she saw those silvery-white, breathtakingly pure eyes; she saw the twelve-year-old boy standing there, hands in his pockets, looking down at her from the closest angle.

Naruto withdrew his eye power.

The silvery-white fades, and the azure returns.

He looked down at Qing, who was curled up on the ground, his face showing neither murderous intent nor anger.

There's only one kind of boredom—the boredom that follows once the verification is complete.

"Your piece of junk--"

Naruto kicked Ao in the shoulder, turning his body over.

"Secondhand scraps pried from the dead, and you dare call that Byakugan?"

He crouched down, resting his left elbow on his knee, and patted his pale face with his right hand.

"I'll tell you about Lord Mizukage later--"

Naruto stood up and turned around.

His silvery-white eyes met Terumi Mei's gaze for a fleeting moment as he turned around.

At that moment, Terumi Mei stopped breathing.

It wasn't because they were intimidated.

Yes--

When those silvery-white eyes looked at her, the coldness in their gaze faded, leaving only an indescribable, possessive warmth.

It's as if they're saying: See, I wasn't bragging.

Naruto withdrew his gaze and walked towards the end of the corridor.

Bai Wusheng followed.

Tayuya followed behind with her head down and small, hurried steps.

His voice drifted back from the depths of the corridor, utterly nonchalant:

"Three days. Just wait for the package to arrive, Lord Mizukage."

He disappeared around the corner.

Terumi Mei braced herself against the doorframe.

Her knees were trembling, and her heart was pounding so hard it felt like it was going to jump out of her throat.

Genji rushed to Qing's side to check on his injuries; the old man's hands were trembling.

Chojuro bent down to pick up the sword, failing three times before he could finally grip the hilt firmly.

Terumi Mei lowered her eyes, looking at her hand gripping the doorframe—her knuckles were clenched so tightly they were red.

"... Genji."

Her voice was as soft as a feather.

"Yes, I'm here."

"Was his eye... really just Byakugan?"

Genji remained silent for a long time.

"Something even more awesome than Byakugan..."

The old man swallowed hard. "I've lived for over sixty years and have never seen such pure eyes. Even the most authentic biological offspring of the Hyuga Clan... could never grow eyes like these."

Terumi Mei Opening Gate and retreated to her office.

The door closed.

She leaned against the door, tilted her head back, and stared at the ceiling with her bright green eyes.

Heartbeat.

It was still very fast.

The system notification in his mind rang in Naruto's ears from the other end of the corridor.

[Detected target [Terumi Mei] Affection level change: +20. Current Affection level: 60 (An undeniable strong attraction).]

Naruto's lips curled into a slight smile.

I'm sixty.

Two and a half days left.

That's enough.