Hyūga Yuu emerged from the ninja tool shop with a massive bow-and-arrow case slung across his back and headed toward home.
The case was nearly two and a half meters long. Inside, besides the colossal Japanese bow forged by Io, were three hemp bowstrings, fifty Japanese arrows (ya), and the accompanying quiver, finger guard, and arm guard.
Carrying such an exaggeratedly large case down the street made him conspicuous.
Along the way, Hyūga Yuu could vaguely hear passing shinobi whispering about him.
"Whoa—what kind of ninja tool is that? Even a Fūma Shuriken isn't that big."
"Isn't that Hyūga Yuu? That weirdo from the Hyūga clan?"
"Who?"
"Heh. A jinx. Keep your voice down. Don't let him pick you as a teammate."
"He was strange even back at the Academy. Instead of learning the Hyūga clan's proper secret techniques, he hung around that eternal genin Might Duy and his son, practicing Strong Fist. What a waste. His talent was so poor that even Might Duy didn't think much of him."
"After becoming a genin, he lost two teams of teammates in a row…"
"Every time, he—the weakest one—survived. It's like he sucked all the luck out of them."
"Now he must've realized ninjutsu and taijutsu are useless for him, so he's switched to ninja tools. No chakra required, hahaha. That's why he's called the disgrace of the Hyūga clan."
The whispers—mocking, pitying, or tinged with envy—brushed past him like dust.
Hyūga Yuu's eyes darkened slightly. He didn't argue. He merely quickened his pace and put distance between himself and the training grounds.
The shadow of war already loomed over Konoha.
Once he left the training area, the streets grew increasingly desolate. Pedestrians were few, and those he passed wore solemn expressions, moving with hurried steps.
Shops were shuttered. Entertainment districts were closed.
Only the Konoha Hospital and the training grounds remained unusually crowded.
By the time the sun began to sink toward the west, Hyūga Yuu had finished making his rounds—exhausting every method available to prepare for war in a single day.
He soon returned to the vicinity of the Hyūga clan compound.
He technically had two residences.
One was an annex room within the estate of Hyūga Shūkō, an elder of the Hyūga main family, reserved for servants and retainers.
The other was a narrow apartment on the edge of the clan compound, left behind by his parents.
By refusing the commission issued by the main-family elder, Hyūga Yuu had effectively severed that employment relationship. Naturally, he could only return to the small apartment now.
Fortunately, cramped as it was, that place gave him a rare sense of security.
However—
Just as Hyūga Yuu was about to step into the Hyūga compound, a hidden gaze brushed against him from the shadows along the street.
A chill ran straight down his spine.
In the early stages of his career, Hyūga Yuu had been weak. His only real strength was his bloodline limit—the Byakugan. Precisely because of that, he had become extraordinarily sensitive to the gazes of others.
This sensitivity was also why a cannon-fodder genin like him had survived two brutal years on the front lines of the Third Great Shinobi War, while nearly all of his teammates had perished.
It was an instinctive perception of the abstract concept known as a "gaze."
Human vision spans roughly 180 degrees horizontally and 135 degrees vertically. When facing forward, the area of clear focus narrows to about 120 degrees, with peripheral awareness extending another 60 degrees to each side. Upward vision reaches around 60 degrees, downward about 75.
The Byakugan, however, granted near-total perception—360 degrees in all directions. Even a branch-family member like Hyūga Yuu possessed a 359-degree field of view, a penetrating, omniscient, god's-eye perspective.
This meant that even when standing behind an opponent, Hyūga Yuu could observe subtle shifts in their eye movement through X-ray vision and determine precisely where their attention lay.
In theory, by exploiting this difference in gaze, he could remain perpetually outside an enemy's field of focus during close-quarters movement—achieving a peculiar form of "invisibility."
This principle closely resembled the so-called Invisibility Technique devised by the imprisoned genius in the film *3-Iron*.
After grasping this concept and combining it with the standard Three Body Technique, Hyūga Yuu's battlefield survivability had increased dramatically.
Just like now.
The moment he sensed the gaze, Hyūga Yuu recognized its nature.
It carried killing intent.
Cold. Precise. Devoid of emotion.
It was the same kind of gaze he had encountered countless times on the battlefield—focused solely on eliminating a target to complete a mission.
Malice.
Hyūga Yuu neither understood its origin nor knew who would dare attempt an ambush so close to the Hyūga compound.
After detecting it, he did not activate his Byakugan immediately.
Instead, relying on instincts forged in war, he continued walking as though unaware.
He subtly adjusted his footing, hugging the right side of the street, and stepped into a long shadow cast by a building in the setting sun.
The gaze followed.
By tracking the minute shift in that sensation, Hyūga Yuu pinpointed the opponent's position.
Front-right. Behind the eaves of a two-story wooden residence.
The area near the Hyūga compound was dominated by traditional structures—gray tiles, white walls, wooden frames. Grand in appearance, yet riddled with visual blind spots.
Hyūga Yuu's expression remained calm.
When he was roughly fifty meters from the suspected location, he suddenly shifted sideways, placing himself between the building's shadow and a utility pole.
From the observer's perspective, it looked as though Hyūga Yuu had noticed something posted on the pole. He showed mild interest, circled halfway around it, and leaned in to inspect it.
The large case on his back, the utility pole, the building's shadow, and the natural blind spot together completely obscured his face.
Then—
"Byakugan."
The veins around his eyes bulged as blood surged through them. His vision drained of color, shifting into monochrome.
And then it expanded.
Rapidly.
As his sight enveloped the surrounding kilometer, the figure stalking him was laid bare.
The person wore a cat-faced mask marked with two whiskers and a light-yellow hooded cloak that concealed their physique entirely.
Beneath the mask was a broad face, faintly sinister.
The attire resembled that of Konoha ANBU—or Root.
Hyūga Yuu frowned.
He recognized the man.
It was the owner of a pharmacy that had opened three months earlier on a street bordering the Hyūga compound.
Hyūga Yuu had passed that shop more than once. He clearly remembered how approachable the man looked when smiling.
So… Root?
Was this Shimura Danzō's way of "inviting" him?
No. That didn't add up.
Neither ANBU nor Root had any reason to monitor the Hyūga clan at this time. Doing so was pointless—any attempt to surveil the clan or the Byakugan had an almost guaranteed chance of exposure.
More importantly, this man's intent was unmistakably hostile.
He wasn't observing.
He was here to kill.
Why?
Hyūga Yuu had not provoked ANBU. The Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi, would not casually dispatch an operative to assassinate an insignificant genin.
That morning, Hyūga Yuu had only submitted a commission to Root—disguised as an S-rank mission request, but in reality an application to enter Root.
Even if Danzō despised him and rejected the idea outright, as long as Hyūga Yuu hadn't touched Root's secrets or crossed a critical line, there was no reason to eliminate him.
Hyūga Yuu was painfully aware of his own worth.
Trash like him wasn't worth killing.
So the question remained—
Whose blade was this man carrying?
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