The custom-made metal crossbow arrived in less than a week.
Seiran ran his fingers along the sleek frame, barely containing his excitement. Rin Uchiha had delivered exactly what he'd requested—and ahead of schedule. The woman had proven herself a woman of her word.
After classes ended, he made a beeline for the forest behind the training grounds, the wooden box tucked under his arm. With his Electromagnetic Manipulation now upgraded to Level 2, he needed to see what this weapon could really do.
He opened the box carefully.
The crossbow inside was unlike anything in the village's standard arsenal. A metallic accelerator track ran down the center of the bow frame, and the arrows were custom-designed—thin, aerodynamic, optimized for magnetic propulsion. This was the Armstrong: Electromagnetic Railgun, refined from his theoretical designs.
Seiran loaded a metal arrow and took a steadying breath.
The principle was elegant: accelerate a conductive projectile through a magnetic field, and it would reach velocities conventional weapons could never match. The challenge had always been the propulsion system itself—controlling the magnetic acceleration with precision.
In his past life, entire nations had raced to perfect this technology. The bottleneck? Generating enough current to accelerate the projectile without destroying the weapon itself. It had taken decades to make practical progress.
But Seiran wasn't bound by the limitations of conventional engineering.
He drew the bow string taut. Blue current crackled along his arm as he generated the propulsion field, then carefully adjusted the magnetic envelope around the arrow itself. The energy flowed smoothly—a stark contrast to how clumsy it would have been at Level 1.
Activating his Byakugan, the world expanded into crystalline clarity within a thousand-meter radius.
The electromagnetic field reached its peak.
He released.
The explosion that followed was sharp enough to make birds scatter from nearby trees. The arrow became nothing but a streak of blue lightning, tearing through the air so fast his Byakugan struggled to track it.
It slammed into a tree nearly three meters thick and buried itself deep into the wood.
Seiran's breath caught.
Three times the speed of sound. Maybe more.
He'd just created something that could punch through heavy armor from a kilometer away. For ninjas—mobile, lightly armored, unprepared for sniper fire from extreme range—this was a nightmare weapon. Even Kage-level shinobi would have to retreat and close distance, exactly what they'd never want to do against a railgun user.
The only exception he could think of was the Fourth Raikage. That man was fast enough that conventional tactics didn't apply.
Seiran retrieved the arrow carefully and allowed himself to breathe.
The weight that had pressed on him since the last three battles—the constant, grinding tension—began to lift. He had a trump card now. Something that changed the equation entirely.
The walk home felt lighter.
He was half a block from his door when he stopped dead.
A man stood waiting on his doorstep.
Seiran's eyes narrowed. The face was familiar—carved features, dark eyes, the unmistakable bearing of someone accustomed to command. He'd never met this man before, but something in his expression, his posture, told Seiran exactly who he was.
The man smiled, polite but measured. "Let me introduce myself. I am Hiashi Hyuga. May we speak?"
Seiran's stomach tightened. Of course. The head of the Hyuga Clan himself.
He passed Hiashi without a word, unlocked the door, and gestured him inside. The main room was sparse—training equipment scattered in one corner, barely any furniture beyond the essentials. Seiran pulled out a chair.
"I don't have much time to clean because of my training," he said, the excuse feeling hollow even to him.
Hiashi surveyed the cramped quarters with an expression Seiran couldn't quite read. When the older man sat, he was quiet for a long moment.
"Hizashi has been gone a long time," Hiashi said finally, his voice soft. "You must have struggled."
Hizashi. Seiran's biological father—dead before this body's consciousness awakened. The transmigrator's inherited memories of him were fragmented at best. Still, the name hit something in the body's emotional core.
"I heard from the clansmen that you awakened a second Kekkei Genkai because of his death?" Hiashi continued, watching him carefully.
Seiran's jaw tightened. That story. He'd fabricated it back at the main house to explain his unusual Electromagnetic Manipulation without exposing the truth of his nature. He hadn't expected it to spread this far—certainly not to Hiashi himself.
"Why do you train alone?" Hiashi asked. "Why not with the rest of the clan?"
"A second Kekkei Genkai makes me an anomaly," Seiran replied carefully. "It's better to keep my distance."
It was the truth, as far as it went. His path was fundamentally different from every other clan member's. Integration was impossible.
But Hiashi shook his head slowly, and when he spoke, his voice carried a strange weight.
"You think a second Kekkei Genkai makes you an anomaly? No." He paused, choosing his words with deliberate care. "I once believed the clan was a stagnant pool, beyond redemption. But then I heard about you."
Hiashi's dark eyes fixed on Seiran's.
"You're not an anomaly. You're a variable. Proof that this rotting, ancient tree still has life in it. New growth."
Something in those words resonated deeper than Seiran expected. He felt the shift in the conversation—from casual inquiry to something more deliberate, more weighted with purpose.
"Did you come here specifically for this?" Seiran asked.
Hiashi was quiet for a moment, then stood. His expression softened, and when he spoke again, it was barely above a whisper.
"No. I simply wanted to see them—the new green shoots on this decaying old tree." He moved toward the door. "Forgive the intrusion. If you ever need resources for your training, come to me."
Seiran watched him leave, saying nothing.
Long after Hiashi's footsteps faded, Seiran remained motionless, turning the visit over in his mind. In the original timeline, Hiashi had been consumed by resentment toward the branch family system, bitter enough that it had nearly cost Hinata her life. That same man had walked away from this meeting calling Seiran a "variable"—as if the very existence of his second Kekkei Genkai had shifted something in Hiashi's understanding of the clan itself.
He'll come back, Seiran thought. Whatever he wanted to see today, it wasn't just this.
The old man had tasted the possibility of change. And if there was one thing Seiran had learned about power-hungry shinobi in this world, it was that once they glimpsed potential, they couldn't look away.