Night fell, the darkness thick as ink, and the forest was utterly silent.
Most of the people in the medical and logistics unit did not truly fall asleep. They only maintained a light rest with their eyes closed. This was common knowledge during wartime marches to guard against enemy infiltration at night. Yet deep down, they were not overly worried.
After all, there were Hyuga Clan's ninjas in the unit, and three of them at that.
That was the Byakugan!
The Hyuga Clan's Kekkei Genkai, which had been passed down for hundreds of years, had long been recognized in the Shinobi World as having immeasurable strategic value.
Once a Hyuga clan member activated their Byakugan, everything within a one-kilometer radius became visible in fine detail. Chakra flow, signs of life, terrain details, all were within grasp.
Moreover, through training, the Byakugan's viewing distance and perception range could be further enhanced.
Thus, in countless wars and missions, the Byakugan had been hailed as the most reliable living radar. To this day, there has never been a case of infiltration that went undetected.
With the Byakugan present, it was as if the unit were protected by an invisible, impenetrable sensory barrier.
As the person in charge of forward reconnaissance, Kenichi Hyuga maintained the Hyuga Clan's usual stern and rigid expression.
He moved forward in silence, veins bulging around his eyes, his pure vision like the most precise scanner, bringing every inch of land ahead and every trace of abnormal fluctuation into surveillance.
"Safe. No abnormalities within three kilometers ahead."
Kenichi Hyuga made a concise hand signal.
The three teammates following him relaxed noticeably upon hearing this.
After all, it was the Byakugan. As long as Kenichi Hyuga said there was no problem, then there was definitely no problem. This was a near-instinctive trust accumulated through countless missions, as well as absolute trust in the Byakugan, the strongest eye for perception.
The group exchanged a few more quiet words, confirming details of several terrain points, then continued forward for a short distance, reaching the reconnaissance boundary set by Tsunade.
"Prepare to return."
Kenichi Hyuga gestured, signaling to turn back.
At that moment, the four of them turned around and prepared to retrace their path…
"Boom!!!"
The ground beneath their feet and several surrounding points suddenly exploded without warning!
Blazing firelight and violent shockwaves instantly tore apart the silence of the night!
Pre-set Explosive Tags were precisely triggered, and the explosions covered the area where the squad was located!
"When!? How is this possible!?"
Kenichi Hyuga's eyes widened, his pupils filled with disbelief and horror!
There are enemies nearby! And they had perfectly avoided the Byakugan's detection!
But his body reacted far faster than his thoughts! As an experienced Special Jonin, at the instant the explosion occurred, the chakra within his body erupted at an unprecedented speed!
The roar of explosions echoed through the forest, with smoke and fire spreading everywhere.
At the critical moment, Kenichi Hyuga leaped out of the Explosive Tags' blast range. At the same time, the veins around his eyes bulged even more violently, his vision opening to its fullest 359-degree capacity, frantically scanning every inch below and around him, the darkness, every tree, every rock, every subtle movement.
But Kenichi Hyuga still did not discover any enemies; he only saw that the other three teammates beside him had already been killed on the spot in that sudden wave of dense explosions just now.
Where? Where exactly are they hiding? Why did his Byakugan not detect them? Is it some special concealment Ninjutsu? Or…
Kenichi Hyuga's body was still in midair, his mind racing wildly.
However, just as his feet were about to touch another seemingly flat patch of ground below…
Crack! Crack! Crack!
Four puppets of bizarre shapes and dark hues, as if fused with the shadows of the ground, burst out of the earth without any warning from the spot where he was about to land!
They held sharp, poison-coated blades, and with unbelievable speed and tricky angles, like venomous spiders waiting for their prey to walk into their web, they suddenly thrust upward!
Puchi! Puchi!
The sound of blades piercing through the flesh was especially clear and harsh in the silent night.
Kenichi Hyuga's body froze in midair. He slowly lowered his head while staring in disbelief at the blades that had pierced through his chest, abdomen, and ribs, carrying a cold gleam and warm blood.
Strength rapidly drained from his body, and his vision began to blur and darken.
How could this be?
In the vision of his Byakugan… there was clearly nothing there…
Before his consciousness completely fell into eternal darkness, he used his last bit of strength, his eyes barely managing to look toward the deep darkness ahead.
At the edge of the flickering firelight and drifting smoke, a slender figure slowly stepped out from the shadows.
It was a young man with rare purple hair and an exceptionally handsome face. His eyes, under the dim light, shimmered with an eerie yet pure brilliance, like radiant rubies.
The purple-haired man's expression was calm, even carrying a trace of indifferent fatigue, as he quietly watched Kenichi Hyuga, suspended in midair and pierced by four puppets, his life rapidly fading away.
Immediately afterward, more than a dozen figures dressed in the Sunagakure ninja uniforms appeared silently like ghosts from the surrounding woods and behind rocks, encircling the area.
One of them, who appeared to be the leader, glanced at the corpses of the Konoha's reconnaissance ninjas on the ground and at the dead Kenichi Hyuga, then turned to look at the purple-haired man, a smile of awe and excitement appearing on his face: "Incredible, Mr. Nozomi Hinokawa, the Kekkei Genkai of your clan, the Red Eyes, can actually completely suppress even the Hyuga Clan's Byakugan, which is said to have absolute perception. This ambush was simply perfect, hahaha!"
(A/N: The Red Eyes is like a hybrid of Byakugan and the Sharingan; both abilities are weakened, but the fusion of the two also gives birth to a new, comprehensive power.)
The purple-haired man, Nozomi Hinokawa, did not respond. He merely raised his eyes slightly, those ruby-like pupils sweeping indifferently across the battlefield, as if all the life and death before him were nothing more than insignificant dust.
Nozomi Hinokawa's clan was an extremely small and almost unknown minor ninja clan located along the border between the Land of Rivers and the Land of Wind.
The entire clan, including women, children, and the elderly, numbered only a little over thirty people. They usually made a living by taking on scattered tasks in the border regions and gathering medicinal herbs, living peacefully and avoiding conflict.
Earlier this year, before the third Kazekage mysteriously disappeared, the Village Hidden in the Sand was intensifying its military preparations to deal with possible upheavals, searching everywhere for any power and Hidden Jutsus that could enhance its strength.
It was during this carpet-like search that the Village Hidden in the Sand's intelligence personnel accidentally discovered this small clan hidden in a mountain valley on the border and noticed the peculiar Kekkei Genkai passed down through generations of their clan, the Red Eyes.
This was a Visual Jutsu-type Kekkei Genkai, and some of its abilities were astonishingly similar to the Byakugan of the Hyuga Clan.
It could see far into the distance, observe scenes at extremely long range, penetrate objects and see through obstacles, and possessed keen perception, able to sense others' strength and potential danger.
However, the Red Eyes also possessed an even more bizarre ability.
It could use chakra to create false images and chakra signatures sufficient to interfere with perception and confuse enemies.
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