"Clan Head Hiashi..."
The few words Naruto spoke were like boulders plunging into a deathly still pool, stirring invisible ripples.
His silver-white eyes held not the slightest emotion as they quietly watched the head of this great Hidden Leaf clan.
The air did not freeze. Instead, it seemed forcibly twisted by some higher-dimensional existence. Every Hyuga clansman could feel it: within the Byakugan vision they took such pride in, Naruto's presence had become incomparably blurry yet incomparably clear—a contradiction beyond comprehension that nearly drove them mad.
"Now, do you think I'm worthy of Hinata?"
The calm question was like a fuse, igniting the last of Hyuga Hiashi's dignity.
"Arrogant!"
Hiashi roared, forcibly suppressing the tremor rising from deep within his bloodline. "Take him down! Show him the Hyuga iron laws!"
He could not retreat!
Behind him stood the thousand-year glory of the Hyuga Clan!
Yet Naruto moved.
He did not unleash any earth-shattering pressure. The instant the twelve Hyuga elites pounced, he merely took a leisurely step forward.
The first to charge him was a branch family jonin, whose fierce Gentle Fist strike went straight for Naruto's heart.
But in Naruto's silver-white eyes, the flow of chakra within the jonin's body, the next contraction of his muscles, even his rapidly accelerating heartbeat from nervousness—all were as clear as lines on his palm.
"A flaw."
Naruto did not even turn aside. He simply extended two fingers and, at an inconceivable angle, lightly caught the incoming wrist.
Crack!
The crisp sound of shattering bone made everyone's teeth ache!
Before the jonin could scream, Naruto had already used the momentum to turn and fling him like a torn sack toward two other clansmen charging from the side. The three immediately tumbled into a heap.
Everything happened in a flash!
"Your Gentle Fist has only learned the form. You do not understand momentum."
Naruto's voice was cold and flat, as though a grandmaster were instructing an unteachable disciple.
Hyuga Hiashi's pupils contracted sharply!
Impossible!
That had clearly been the Gentle Fist's Flowing Water Stance, deflecting force and counterattacking at the smallest cost!
But how could an outsider grasp such an essence upon seeing the Hyuga Gentle Fist for the first time?!
"Together! Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm!"
Several experienced jonin immediately pulled back, thrusting both palms out. Multiple condensed chakra shockwaves sealed off every avenue of Naruto's escape from different angles!
"A futile effort."
Galaxies swirled through Naruto's silver-white eyes. He saw through the path of every Vacuum Palm, even the weakest point where they converged.
He neither dodged nor retreated. His right palm thrust forward as well, and a similarly condensed but fundamentally different chakra abruptly erupted!
"Divine Sky Strike!"
This palm was not Gentle Fist, but a pure, highly concentrated chakra eruption technique that struck precisely at the central point where the Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palms converged!
Boom—!
There was no violent explosion. Instead, there was a suffocating annihilation.
The Vacuum Palms instantly collapsed as if they had encountered their natural enemy. The violent airflow surged back, blowing the jonin off balance and making their blood and chakra churn!
In just two moves, more than half of the Hyuga elites had lost their ability to fight!
"Monster..." Neji, supported by his clansmen, trembled as he watched. The forcibly closed Byakugan throbbed with agony, but it was nothing compared to the shock and terror in his heart.
"Your turn, Clan Head."
Naruto slowly turned toward the pale-faced Hyuga Hiashi.
"I will never..." Hyuga Hiashi clenched his teeth, a thread of blood spilling from the corner of his mouth.
He poured the purest chakra of the Main House into both palms and shot forward like lightning!
"Gentle Fist Art: Eight Trigrams: Sixty-Four Palms!"
This was an attack he staked everything on!
Palm shadows flew in an impenetrable storm, every strike accurately aimed at one of the sixty-four major acupoints around Naruto's body!
Yet beneath Naruto's God's Perspective, this seemingly flawless palm technique was like a chessboard whose every secret had already been exposed.
"Two palms, 0.1 seconds too slow."
"Four palms, your force is three inches off."
"Eight palms... your shoulder muscles have begun to stiffen."
"Sixteen palms... your chakra supply is starting to falter."
Naruto's body weaved through the dense palm shadows like a ghost strolling through a rainstorm without being touched by a single drop.
With every sentence he spoke, Hyuga Hiashi's heart sank further.
His opponent could not only see through his movements, but also perceive the most minute changes in his body and chakra!
By the time he launched the thirty-second palm, Hyuga Hiashi was drenched in sweat. To his horror, he discovered that every one of his attacks had fallen within the other's predictions. Step by step, he was being led into an invisible trap!
"Right here."
Naruto's icy voice sounded by his ear.
He finally stopped evading and extended one finger, pointing from an angle that completely defied common sense toward a seemingly heavily protected spot on Hyuga Hiashi's chest. In truth, it was an absolute blind spot where the old force had run out and the new force had yet to arise.
In Hyuga Hiashi's eyes, only that infinitely magnified finger remained.
Pfft!
The finger landed.
There was no immense force, yet a supreme, tyrannical ocular power mixed with the Uzumaki Clan's unique sealing chakra invaded in an instant!
Hyuga Hiashi was struck as if by lightning, his entire body going rigid.
The chakra within him was like a rebel army meeting its king. It instantly collapsed and was forcibly sealed within his chakra pathways, unable to move!
The Main House Byakugan he had always taken pride in released a cry of sorrow and submission from the deepest depths of its bloodline before this power!
Thud.
Hyuga Hiashi's knees buckled. He used the last of his strength to avoid kneeling on the spot, but one knee still slammed heavily into the ground, cracking the hard concrete beneath it.
He raised his head, his face filled with a horrifying despair that shattered everything he believed in.
"This... this is... the Otsutsuki Clan's..."
He could not even fully speak the name from the legend that existed only in the Hyuga Clan's oldest scrolls!
The hallway was deathly silent.
"Whew..." Naruto slowly exhaled a foul breath. Two streams of blood slid down from the corners of his eyes, a shocking sight.
His face had turned somewhat pale, and his breathing was slightly hurried.
Even with the Sage Body supporting them, the power of these eyes was far from something he could squander freely.
He wiped away the blood and looked down at the one-kneed Hyuga Hiashi. There was a trace of fatigue in his voice, but it only made him sound more domineering.
"I am Minato's son, and the last male of the Uzumaki Clan in this world. How could my bloodline and power possibly be understood by a decayed clan like yours, one that clings to the past and only knows how to use the 'Caged Bird' to harm its own kin?"
"Look at Neji." Naruto pointed at the distraught genius. "These are your rules? A pitiful wretch twisted by hatred, and you, the clan head, have indulged him until now. Pathetic!"
Hyuga Hiashi's worldview was utterly shattered.
The Fourth Hokage's son!
The Uzumaki Clan!
And those legendary eyes!
Any one of these was enough to overturn the balance of Hidden Leaf!
Resistance?
He looked at the clansmen groaning all over the ground and felt the chakra sealed tightly within his body. A sense of helplessness drowned him.
Pride and dignity were worthless before absolute, incomprehensible power.
"I have taken a liking to Hinata."
Naruto declared forcefully, "When she grows up, I will make her the most glorious wife of Naruto Uzumaki! Whoever dares object, I will personally tear down your Hyuga Clan ancestral hall and throw your ancestors' memorial tablets into a cesspit!"
Arrogant!
This was the victor's declaration to the defeated!
Hyuga Hiashi trembled violently. Humiliated fury burned in his heart, yet he could not find even a trace of oxygen to turn it into an inferno.
He had lost, beyond all dispute.
He gritted his teeth. An absurd yet only feasible thought coiled around his heart like poisonous vines: If... if resistance is impossible, then submitting to a future powerhouse with divine blood and making Hinata the bond between them... could the Hyuga Clan undergo an unprecedented evolution amid this humiliation?
That thought caused his last shred of will to resist to crumble beneath the crushing reality known as "the clan's future."
[Ding! Linked target detected: Hyuga Hiashi. His psychological defenses have been completely shattered! His will to resist has collapsed, and his attitude has shifted from "hostile" to "fear," "awe," and "humiliated opportunism"!]
In the shadows atop the apartment building, two masked ANBU stood stiffly as stone statues.
"Tobi... did you see that?"
The ANBU codenamed "En" spoke in a dry voice filled with unbelievable shock.
"I saw it."
The ANBU codenamed "Tobi" stared fixedly at the blond youth below in the hallway as he wiped the blood from his eyes. "Naruto Uzumaki... single-handedly suppressed the head of the Hyuga Main House and twelve jonin. The Byakugan... has undergone an unknown evolution. Combat assessment... impossible to calculate."
After a brief deathly silence, Tobi suddenly snapped back to his senses, his voice carrying an urgency unlike anything before.
"Immediately! Highest-level alert! Report every piece of intelligence just recorded, without omitting a single word... to the Hokage! Hidden Leaf... is about to change!"
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