Meridian-Severing Pressure Points

With Hizashi's promise to guide him, it was time to put Gentle Fist training on the agenda. The Byakugan possessed X-ray vision, extreme long-range sight, and powerful insight. For ordinary ninja, it was an incredibly powerful bloodline limit, but compared to the Sharingan and Rinnegan, the other two of the Three Great Dojutsu, it fell short.

Leaving aside the excessively rare Rinnegan, even the Two-Tomoe Sharingan alone was valuable enough to stand alongside the Byakugan, not to mention the Three-Tomoe Sharingan and Mangekyo Sharingan beyond it. However, the Byakugan had one enormous advantage: an almost one-hundred-percent awakening rate. Nearly every Hyuga Clan member could naturally awaken the Byakugan after gaining chakra, and its consumption was not high either. In low- and mid-level battles, it was an utterly overwhelming bloodline limit.

With Hizashi's guidance, Yuun naturally awakened his Byakugan. When he first activated it, his visual range was only two or three hundred meters, but after becoming proficient with it, that range quickly exceeded five hundred meters. According to Hizashi, an ordinary Byakugan could clearly see everything within a one-kilometer radius. If focused in only one direction, that distance could be tripled. Of course, individuals differed, and their upper limits could vary. With proper, long-term training, those limits could be exceeded. Hizashi himself had a visual range of around six kilometers, meaning he could clearly see everything within a two-kilometer radius.

It was not only visual range; insight differed as well. Although Yuun had a visual range of roughly five hundred meters, he could only see clearly within a radius of about one hundred meters. Anything farther away became blurry. On the surface, a newly awakened Byakugan seemed inferior even to ordinary eyesight, but that was not actually the case. An ordinary person's maximum viewing distance could exceed ten kilometers, but objects ten kilometers away would appear as nothing more than tiny black dots. In truth, things became very blurry beyond one kilometer.

The Byakugan was different. After activating it, normal vision still remained, while the Hyuga Clan's stated visual range referred to the area they could see through. Without obstructions, the Byakugan could see several or even dozens of times farther than normal people. With Yuun's current ability, if he stood somewhere high up, he could even clearly make out the four characters "Ninja Academy" from two kilometers away.

Once Yuun's Byakugan reached a certain level, Hizashi formally began teaching him Gentle Fist. Gentle Fist was known as Konoha's strongest taijutsu style. What distinguished it from ordinary attacks was the part it targeted. Causing an opponent to suffer fractures or external wounds was called Strong Fist. In contrast, Gentle Fist could damage the chakra meridian system flowing inside an enemy's body and harm their internal organs—in other words, inflict internal injuries. Gentle Fist was an excellent form of taijutsu, but almost no one outside the Hyuga Clan could master it, because its principle was to strike the enemy's pressure points.

Humans in the Naruto World had three hundred and sixty-one pressure points. Each was as small as the tip of a needle, and even the positions of those points varied minutely from person to person. A slight deviation would render the strike ineffective. Without the Byakugan's X-ray vision, attacking based solely on memorizing the human body's pressure points was nearly impossible. Even if someone forcibly memorized every pressure point and learned Gentle Fist, it would be an extremely foolish thing to do. The time needed to memorize those points and train Gentle Fist to a respectable level would be better spent on Strong Fist or ninja tools.

Therefore, Hizashi did not hide anything when teaching Gentle Fist to Yuun. After all, no one besides Hyuga Clan members would go through the trouble of secretly learning something so unrewarding, while for the Hyuga Clan, learning Gentle Fist was not particularly difficult. Exploring it alone simply could not compare to having someone teach it.

As a taijutsu style completely opposite to Strong Fist, Gentle Fist did not demand much in terms of physical ability. In fact, excessive speed and strength were instead unsuitable for learning it, because Gentle Fist relied on striking an enemy's pressure points, and too much speed or force made it difficult to control. Naturally, for masters who had trained Gentle Fist to the point of perfect control, greater speed and strength were good things. As for a beginner like Yuun, he should honestly practice identifying pressure points and striking with his fingers. Gentle Fist that missed its target was less worthwhile than Strong Fist.

Fortunately, Yuun's mind had long since matured, so memorizing the specific functions of those pressure points was not difficult. In fact, after learning that these points were intersections of chakra meridians and blood vessels, Yuun considered taking the opportunity to develop acupuncture from his previous life. With chakra-based pressure-point strikes, he could even save himself a set of needles. Unfortunately, he had no test subjects unless he was willing to experiment on himself.

Of course, it was not entirely without gains. At the very least, after Yuun proposed sealing blood vessels by striking the corresponding pressure points to reduce blood loss from wounds, he received a reward: Rotation, a secret technique of the Hyuga Main House. Even Hizashi had yet to master this technique. However, Yuun knew that Hizashi seemed to be studying it as well, and Hizashi would likely contribute to Neji Hyuga learning Rotation in the future.

Yuun did not intend to continue researching acupuncture either. Unless he had many test subjects and the cooperation of excellent medical ninja, trying to develop anything with his limited foundation would be nothing but a dream. Fortunately, stopping bleeding by severing blood vessels was not difficult for the Hyuga Clan. Before long, Yuun obtained the Meridian-Severing Method, developed and refined by the Hyuga Clan. His personal safety had gained another layer of protection. With a ninja's physique, as long as they did not lose too much blood, they could wait a long time for rescue.

After studying Gentle Fist for a while, Yuun accepted Hana Inuzuka's challenge.

"You should just admit defeat, Hana." Yuun easily dodged Hana Inuzuka's claw strike. With the Byakugan, the possibility of being caught off guard was vanishingly small. Unless it was a powerhouse like Might Guy, who could move so fast his shadow could not even be seen, Hana Inuzuka's speed posed no threat to Yuun at all.

"How could that be? It's only been a few days." Hana Inuzuka retreated several steps, pulled a pill from the pouch at her waist, and swallowed it. "Beast Mimicry Ninja Art: Modified Four-Legged Technique!" Her short hair slowly lengthened, her sharp nails gleamed coldly, and her scarlet eyes fixed on Yuun.

"You're not seriously doing this, are you?" Yuun frowned. What worried him most was Hana Inuzuka losing her mind in a fight. Those claws did not look like something to fool around with. Unfortunately, Hana Inuzuka would not listen to Yuun's explanation now. Her technique was clearly beyond what she could control at present. In her beastified state, she would only choose to take Yuun down.

"This really is troublesome." Yuun sighed. He had already seen several classmates run off the training field, apparently to find a teacher. After all, one look at Hana Inuzuka's condition was enough to tell that something was wrong. "I can only try that move." Yuun muttered as he took his stance.

Before Yuun could say anything else, Hana Inuzuka moved on all fours and shot forward like an arrow released from its bow.

"Eight Trigrams Palm: Rotation!" Although it was a secret technique of the Main House, Rotation was not actually that difficult to train. With Hizashi, who had studied Rotation for many years, as such an excellent teacher, Yuun mastered a simplified version in a short time. It was impossible for him to use Rotation to defeat enemies as Hiashi Hyuga did, but dealing with a Genin like Hana Inuzuka was more than enough.

As chakra continuously erupted from all over his body, Yuun spun at high speed, and a thin wall of chakra appeared around him. Hana Inuzuka, who had already lost her reason, slammed into it and was sent flying back. Driven by inertia, she collided with Yuun's Rotation and was knocked unconscious on the spot. The ninja technique's effect naturally dissipated as well.