Temporarily Settled

The moment he landed, Furukawa Kazekaze felt a powerful chakra lock firmly onto him.

Looking closely, the white-clad youth who had burst through the snow glared furiously, veins bulging at the corners of his eyes as he assumed the opening stance of a taijutsu technique.

"You are..."

Furukawa Kazekaze's heart tightened. He seemed to have heard of a clan with similar eye traits to Yizhe's. Just as he was about to say something, a fierce gust of fist wind mixed with snowflakes rushed into his mouth, choking off his voice.

In that instant, he felt as if ten thousand beasts were trampling over him, enduring Yizhe's merciless barrage of strikes. Pain engulfed his entire body until he lost all sensation.

The world fell silent, leaving only a cold voice counting in his ears.

"One palm, two palms, three palms... Sixty-Four Palms!"

Only when that cold voice counted to sixty-four palms did he feel the attacks stop, but he had already lost the strength to keep fighting.

Watching Furukawa Kazekaze collapse onto the snow like a rag after taking a full set of Sixty-Four Palms, Yizhe was filled with emotion.

The ninja world was this cruel. A single moment of carelessness could mean the difference between life and death.

If the one who had used the gale to leap over the earthen wall and launch the ambush had not been Yizhe's Shadow Clone, but his real body, perhaps Yizhe himself would have been the one lying in the snow.

Furukawa Kazekaze had already performed astonishingly well. At least in Yizhe's eyes, his combat performance far surpassed that of Yizhe's classmates at the academy.

Compared to them, he was like a starving wolf among sheep. If Yizhe used the trick of concealing an ambush with a gale against his academy classmates, nine out of ten would probably fall for it.

Never mind counterattacking!

"You... you are... from Konoha's Hyuga... the Hyuga Clan..." Furukawa Kazekaze lay in the snow, barely drawing breath.

The vital acupoints and chakra pathways throughout his body had suffered Yizhe's powerful attacks, and even his internal organs had been severely injured.

He recognized the Hyuga Clan's Gentle Fist.

"Yes, my name is Hyuga Yizhe!" The white-clad youth shook the windblown snow from his body and answered coldly.

"No wonder... no wonder you were unwilling... to reveal your surname from the beginning!" Furukawa Kazekaze said with a bitter smile.

"Then... why... why are your... your eyes..." He continued asking, forcing himself to hold on with what little breath he had left.

"You want to ask why my eyes look no different from ordinary people's when my Byakugan isn't activated, unlike the usual white-eyed members of the Hyuga Clan, right?" Yizhe easily understood what he wanted to ask.

"Could it be that you don't know there's something in this world called contact lenses?"

As he spoke, Yizhe gently removed the lens from his right eye, revealing the distinctive white iris of a Hyuga clansman.

Yizhe had custom-made those contact lenses at an optician's shop before leaving Konoha. He had also added something to them, making them like the colored contacts people often wore for decoration in his previous life.

He knew full well that his eyes could easily expose his identity. To conceal his information and catch enemies off guard during battle—

Yizhe used colored contacts to disguise his eyes. Even during the journey, when he activated his Byakugan to scout the road ahead, he had deliberately avoided everyone's gaze.

Therefore, no one knew that Yizhe was a member of the Hyuga Clan.

"Cough... cough... cough!" Seeing Yizhe reveal his white irises, Furukawa Kazekaze felt a wave of discomfort run through his body and coughed up several mouthfuls of blood.

"So... that's how it is... I... did not lose... unjustly..."

The youth lying in the snow gave one bitter smile after another. His mistaken assessment of his enemy and his greedy, reckless advance had been the root of his defeat.

"My apologies. Please be on your way!" Yizhe put the lens back in and was about to strike.

Bang—

The sound of collapsing snow came from the accumulated snow in the gorge.

Yizhe turned at the sound and saw two sturdy figures burst through the snow layer, rushing toward him.

"Show mercy!"

The newcomers shouted loudly from afar.

"They really came at the right time!" Yizhe cursed inwardly.

He had only just exhausted himself taking down Furukawa Kazekaze, and had consumed quite a bit of chakra. Now two more had arrived.

Facing two opponents alone was not a wise choice.

Moreover, Yizhe was not yet prepared to confront the two Red Ant leaders head-on.

Therefore, a temporary retreat was the best option.

But he did not want to let Furukawa Kazekaze, lying in the snow, go so easily.

Because he did not know whether the two Red Ant leaders had a way to quickly heal Furukawa Kazekaze's injuries. To prevent a future situation where he faced the siege of three ninja—

He had to completely extinguish Furukawa Kazekaze's last spark of life.

However, he could not kill Furukawa Kazekaze on the spot either.

Because, according to Furukawa Kazekaze's earlier introduction, he was the leader's son. If the Red Ant leader witnessed his son's death, he would likely fight Yizhe desperately without regard for anything else.

So, while cutting off Furukawa Kazekaze's last chance of survival, he still had to leave him one breath and could not let him die immediately.

After quickly weighing the situation before him, Yizhe raised his hand and struck Furukawa Kazekaze's chest with a vicious palm, directly injuring several of his heart meridians.

"You..." Furukawa Kazekaze was horrified.

He had thought that after his father and uncle broke free from the snow, Yizhe would retreat in the face of difficulty and spare his life.

Under normal circumstances, injuries to several heart meridians would cause severe internal damage but would not be fatal. Yet Furukawa Kazekaze was already gravely wounded, and with Yizhe injuring his heart meridians again, his wounds only piled atop one another.

The flame of his life was like a candle guttering in the wind, liable to go out at any moment!

"Boy! You..." the newcomers shouted.

From far away, both of them had clearly seen Yizhe strike down without mercy.

"No need for the two leaders to see me off. Please return!" Yizhe turned and smiled at them.

Even from such a distance, he could feel their burning gazes, as though they wanted to swallow him alive.

"Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!"

A violent gale burst from Yizhe's mouth, sweeping up snow that filled the sky and blowing the two Red Ant leaders backward.

Then, with a tap of his foot, he rode the wind and used several Body Flicker Techniques to flee far from the scene.

Only after the gale dispersed did the two Red Ant leaders reach Furukawa Kazekaze's side.

"Big Brother, I'll go after that brat!" Seeing the youth lying motionless in the snow, the slightly shorter middle-aged man was furious beyond measure.

"No, don't go! Kazekaze still has a pulse!" After checking the youth's breathing, the taller middle-aged man said in surprise.

"Really?" The shorter man was uncertain.

"Kazekaze is wounded like this. We need to find a doctor for him immediately! And the brothers under the snow—we must save as many as we can! If we delay, I'm afraid they'll all die in there!" The taller man clenched his teeth, quashing the other man's urge to pursue Yizhe as he quickly made arrangements.

Judging by the situation, the calm man known as Big Brother, who was slightly taller, should be the Red Ant leader, while the other was the deputy leader.

"Big Brother, are we just letting this go?" The deputy leader was deeply unwilling.

"How could we? Blood debts must be repaid in blood! We need to consider this matter carefully!" The leader forcibly suppressed the anger in his heart and growled in a low voice.

He was the leader of an organization. He had to be responsible for it and could not act solely on personal preference. One misstep might bring utter destruction upon them.

But even now, he still could not understand it. That young ninja had not made even the slightest probing move before attacking outright, as if he had been certain they were inside!

What exactly had he relied on?