Almost every Hyuga Clan member of the Branch Family had a specific Main Family member they were assigned to serve. The title was called "attendant," but in truth it meant "servant."
Not every Main Family member was as gentle as Hinata Hyuga. If someone was unlucky enough to serve a bad tempered Main Family member, then in addition to being a servant, they also became a training punching bag.
By coincidence, the Main Family member that Ryuji served was exactly the type who did not treat the lives of the Branch Family as human lives. As for the person in front of him now, he was just a well trained dog.
The smile on Ryuji's face faded a little. He ignored the deliberate provocation from the Hyuga clansman and simply stepped forward, continuing toward the outside.
The other party clearly did not expect Ryuji, who had always endured rumors and insults, to ignore him. His face darkened at once as he called out Ryuji's name in a low voice, demanding an answer.
Ryuji still paid him no attention and kept walking. Seeing this, Might Guy only shrugged and followed along.
"Trash! I told you to stop!"
An angry shout came from behind, followed by the sharp sound of air being torn. The man actually reached for Ryuji's shoulder, and the force in his hand showed no trace of kinship.
Might Guy stopped and frowned, preparing to step in. But at the instant that hand touched his shoulder, Ryuji's body shook hard, like a pine shedding snow, and a penetrating force surged through his body to the shoulder, numbing the Hyuga clansman's palm.
In the next moment, before the shocked man could react, Ryuji moved without turning his head. He bent one arm, stepped forward with his left foot, and shifted his body in a smooth arc, his white clothes lifting to reveal a firm waist as he pushed his palm out.
In the Hyuga clansman's vision, his own right hand was shaken aside. Ryuji vanished at a speed close to Shunshin, lowered his body, and placed a palm against the man's abdomen.
Then an overwhelming force, far beyond anything he could imagine, poured in through that palm like a flood.
Bang!
The terrifying power erupted within less than half a centimeter, strong enough to shake stone. It slammed into the Hyuga clansman's body and bent him over as if struck by a siege hammer.
Just as blood was about to spill from the Hyuga clansman's mouth, a calm voice reached his ears. "Seeing blood would be bad."
Ryuji lifted his right palm upward, dropped his elbow, and expressionlessly tapped the man's chin. A clear cracking sound rang out, and the blood that had surged up his throat was forced back down.
"Cough, cough! Cough!"
Pain twisted across the Hyuga clansman's face as he clutched his throat and abdomen. His body went limp as he knelt in front of Ryuji.
"You actually dare…"
His Byakugan bulged slightly, veins standing out as he stared up at Ryuji with wide eyes. But when he met those calm eyes, the rest of his words stuck in his throat, and a chill rose in his chest.
It was a fear with no clear source, crawling over his body like a snake and pressing down with cold weight. He was afraid, afraid of this trash, which made no sense to him at all.
Ryuji looked down at him, and the smile returned to his face. He lightly patted the man's shoulder, ignored his trembling body, and walked out of the clan grounds with Might Guy.
"I didn't expect you to go that far."
On the way, Might Guy's tone remained relaxed, and he was mostly curious about Ryuji's actions. He had heard of Ryuji's past "deeds," but Ryuji was a friend he acknowledged, and he never believed Ryuji was the trash described in rumors.
Setting aside everything else, that taijutsu just now, which seemed to blend steel fist techniques with Gentle Fist, was something he had never seen before. In his eyes, it was far stronger than the rigid methods of those conservative Hyuga.
He simply did not understand why Ryuji had always ignored the rumors.
"I've made you laugh, senior. They are my clansmen after all, and I did not want to go too far," Ryuji said apologetically.
Might Guy shook his head and grinned. "You did nothing wrong. Youth must not be stained."
[Ding, your lie has been judged as reckless talk. Might Guy experienced a slight emotional fluctuation and reached the level of deep belief. You have obtained 200 realization points.]
Of course, that was a lie. As for why he ignored things in the past, one reason was that his plan involving Orochimaru had not succeeded yet, and the image of a harmless "waste" was more useful to him.
The other reason was simpler. When a dog at the village gate barks, other dogs bark along, but none of them know why they are barking.
If he had to stop and throw stones at every barking stray, there would be no time left to do anything else. Ryuji smiled to himself.
He felt no emotion at all toward that passerby who did not even deserve a name. Striking him was partly to test a new move he had thought up, and partly to prepare the ground for his next plan.
Only rats hide in gutters, and no one believes what a "rat" says. When Danzo Shimura speaks, villagers just wonder who that old man is, but when Hiruzen Sarutobi speaks casually, no matter how strange it sounds, people instinctively assume they misunderstood.
A lie only becomes truth when spoken by someone with authority and power. The changes to Ryuji's body from his bloodline worked from the inside out, from vague perception and talent to raw physical strength.
Without outside interference, that transformation should have been slow and gradual, growing stronger over time. Ryuji could not afford to wait, and to gain more realization points he needed to approach higher quality targets and reveal some of his ability to raise his value.
That brief "resistance" was only the first step. If nothing unexpected happened, news that he had undergone human experimentation by Orochimaru would soon be known by more people.
Hiruzen Sarutobi should have already taken Yamato, now codenamed "A," under his wing. As one of the only two surviving test subjects of Orochimaru, both Hiruzen Sarutobi and Danzo Shimura would certainly turn their attention to him and probe him.
Thinking of this, Ryuji recalled his eyes again. His gaze flickered as he silently thought, "Manifest item, pure Byakugan that can open Tenseigan after fusion."
[Spend 10000 realization points, confirm manifestation]
"It's exactly enough to manifest?" Ryuji hesitated for a moment.
To be safe, he tested again in his mind. "Manifest item, the method to fuse pure Byakugan with pure Otsutsuki bloodline to open Tenseigan."
[Insufficient points]
"…" Ryuji's face darkened. "As expected, something is still missing."
Fortunately, he had not fallen for this system's trick. If he had spent everything on impulse and ended up with a pair of useless Byakugan, there would be nowhere to cry.
"In that case, only the second method is safer," Ryuji frowned.
The Byakugan of the Hyuga Clan should be purer than that of the Otsutsuki branch on the moon. The only problem was numbers, since they could not compare to the Otsutsuki Clan who had occupied the moon for thousands of years, and he did not know whether digging out eyes from the whole clan could produce Tenseigan.
"Cough."
As the thought formed, Ryuji coughed and quickly muttered a silent apology. Digging out everyone's eyes was too evil, and he was not Uchiha Itachi, that monster.
It would be enough to take only those Hyuga Clan members who had awakened their eyes. Ordinary people without awakened eyes would be useless anyway.
Of course, this could not be done by him. He already had a better candidate.
Now, he only needed to wait for those old men to reveal their ugly faces.