The kunai only deflected the angle of Splash slightly.
Hyuga Yu shot out from the exploding smoke cloud, his heels dragging across the ground for over ten meters before he finally stopped his momentum.
By now, his left shoulder was a bloody mess, and his left hand had lost all sensation.
Yet Hyuga Yu's expression remained calm, his gaze so composed it had nearly lost all human color.
He raised his eyes and saw—
Two figures leaping out along the path Ao had taken when ambushing Hyuga Natsu.
One of them was tall with long limbs, wearing a black top and gray shinobi boots, his face covered by a Hidden Mist ANBU mask. He wielded a blade shaped like a long needle—
It was Kushimaru Kuriarare, the wielder of the Longsword Nuibari, one of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist!
The other person was now leisurely walking out from the forest. He approached Splash—the blade he had thrown earlier—pulled the door-sized sword from the ground, and hoisted it onto his shoulder.
This man had an extraordinarily long, donkey-like face, thick lips, sharp teeth, and long black hair styled in vertical braids with a long beard. His head and neck were wrapped in layers of bandages.
It was Munashi Jinpachi, the wielder of the Blastsword Shibuki, one of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist!
At that moment, Kushimaru Kuriarare turned his head and, through his mask, coldly glanced at Ao lying on the ground. He spoke in an icy voice:
"Ao, you talked too much."
On the ground, Ao coughed up blood, a smirk playing at the corner of his mouth, but he didn't argue.
In truth, the reason Hyuga Yu—who had kept his Byakugan active the whole time—hadn't detected Kushimaru Kuriarare was because Ao had deliberately lured Hyuga Yu to that position and kept him constantly facing his direction, causing Hyuga Yu to lose the one-degree blind spot behind his head.
At the same time, when circling around to ambush the Hyuga main family, Ao had left markers for the Seven Ninja Swordsmen following behind. (PS: This was Ao's habit—he did the same thing when tracking Danzo during the Five Kage Summit.)
If Hyuga Yu hadn't been about to kill him, Ao wouldn't have exposed the two early.
Shinobi moved quickly, and with the two battlefields less than two kilometers apart, the pair—using Body Flicker Technique without regard for chakra consumption—could cross the battlefield in just over ten seconds, and upon seeing Ao's markers, immediately understood his plan.
Unlike Kushimaru Kuriarare, Munashi Jinpachi didn't mind using underhanded shinobi tactics, but compared to that, he preferred grand spectacles. He let out a chuckle and consoled the two:
"Isn't this more interesting?"
"It's been a long time since I've seen such an interesting brat. That green chakra... tsk tsk, completely different from other Hyuga."
Munashi Jinpachi suddenly swung his blade, the edge covered in explosive tags pointing directly at Hyuga Yu's face. Baring a mouthful of sharp teeth, he sneered mockingly:
"You'd better give me an even bigger surprise, brat!"
Facing the two members of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen who treated the battlefield like a playground,
Hyuga Yu narrowed his eyes slightly, appearing to watch his enemies with utmost vigilance.
But in reality, he was looking in another direction.
Not long ago, Hyuga Sosuke had been sent flying by the trap Hyuga Natsu had laid. Hyuga Natsu immediately went to check on his condition.
Clearly, even a main family member like Hyuga Sosuke, who had little shinobi experience, wasn't so easily killed by explosive tags—at the moment of the explosion, he had instinctively released chakra from all his tenketsu to block some of the damage.
However, Hyuga Sosuke's current state wasn't good.
Covered in burns and both legs blown off, his lips trembled and opened for quite a while before he finally managed to open his eyes in a daze.
Fortunately, those white eyes of his were still intact.
Hyuga Sosuke breathed weakly, looking around somewhat vacantly. When he saw Hyuga Natsu with her slightly grim expression, his gaze became evasive.
While Hyuga Natsu watched the still-living Hyuga Sosuke, her expression darkened. Her gaze fixed intently on his hands, guarding against him forming the seal for the Caged Bird, while her hand reached toward the ninja tool pouch at her lower back.
A smile soon appeared on her face, the same smile as always:
"Young Master Sosuke, are you alright?"
"I... I..." Hyuga Sosuke instinctively wanted to say he was fine, but looking at his condition, he couldn't bring himself to say those words.
He swallowed, and when his evasive gaze caught Hyuga Natsu's movements, he seemed to realize something. His face twisted slightly.
He struggled to shift his body backward, as if instinctively wanting to get as far from Hyuga Natsu as possible.
"I think I just vaguely heard... the main family's true guard has arrived... Who, who is it?"
"Can't you see for yourself?"
Hyuga Natsu smiled, shifting her shoulder to block the view of Hyuga Yu's figure not far behind her.
"Just gather chakra in your eyes, activate your Byakugan, and you'll see."
When Hyuga Yu had worked part-time at Konoha Hospital learning the craft, Hyuga Natsu had assisted as a nurse.
Even in Konoha Hospital, removing eyeballs was considered an extremely difficult surgery that required the medical team's senior staff to perform personally.
Especially when ensuring the eyes remained completely intact and could be used without issue in the future.
Of course, the conditions in the field were far from ideal.
Hyuga Natsu had once asked Hyuga Yu about this problem.
He had answered like this:
"Field environments make it very difficult to meet sterile requirements, but there is a remedy—chakra."
"Gathering chakra in the eye area can form a very brief sterile layer. After accomplishing this, you can make a circular incision along the corneal limbus, separate the conjunctiva and subconjunctival tissue downward, then cut the rectus muscles connecting the eyeball and the optic nerve, and you can extract the eyeball cleanly."
Hyuga Natsu watched Hyuga Sosuke with a smile.
Hyuga Sosuke gulped, feeling increasingly uneasy.
He couldn't understand why someone who had been betrayed could still look at him with such a sweet smile.
Why wasn't she angry?
Even if it was just slapping him and cursing, 'I must have been blind to accept your marriage proposal, you bastard!'—why didn't she even do that?
But Hyuga Natsu did nothing. She just smiled and said softly:
"Young Master Sosuke, what are you afraid of?"
"The main family's guard has arrived. You're safe now. You can open your Byakugan and take a good look."
Hyuga Sosuke's palm scraped against the ground, clawing at it, gripping a handful of dust. His eyes evading hers, he asked:
"Heh heh... haha, Natsu, just tell me directly. That person is—"
However,
At that very moment, a footstep rang out from nearby, as if it would shatter the earth itself.
Immediately after,
"—BOOM!!!"
With a thunderous roar, a terrifying storm of flames erupted behind Hyuga Natsu!
One green and two black figures tangled together.
The flash of blades, the glow of fire, and a brilliance so dazzling it seemed silver—all intertwined and blazed forth in that instant!
When he saw that upright figure wrapped in green chakra,
Hyuga Sosuke's eyes flashed with horror, then understanding.
In the next instant,
Countless complex emotions transformed into a single determination to destroy everything.
Hyuga Sosuke's expression turned fierce!
He suddenly flung the dust he held in his hand at Hyuga Natsu's face, then viciously raised his only functioning hands and formed the seal!
Two beams of cold light shot from Hyuga Sosuke's eyes as the skin on his face twisted grotesquely. He snarled with a mocking sneer:
"With you two mongrels, branch family trash, lowborn scum!"
"You think you can take my eyes? All of you can go to hell!!!"
However,
In the very next blink,
A tall, calm figure appeared before Hyuga Sosuke—one eye unable to open, blood streaming down his face, yet his expression utterly emotionless.
"Too slow, Natsu."
Hyuga Sosuke's eyes widened in disbelief as he stared at Hyuga Yu standing before him, his expression blank. He looked down at his hands—at the Caged Bird seal he had undoubtedly completed.
He opened his mouth, his throat dry and hoarse.
In the next instant,
A large hand reached out and completely robbed Hyuga Sosuke of all his light!
"Delicate Illness Extraction Technique!"
————
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