What did "slow motion" mean, exactly? Simple. It was like watching the world through a movie playing at half speed.
Through Miyuki's eyes, every corner of the alley had begun crawling forward at a fraction of its normal pace.
It was bizarre. He could see the blood mist forming and dissolving in real time, each crimson particle drifting and fading with crystalline clarity. The kind of footage that required specialized high-speed cameras to capture. Far, far beyond what the naked eye's dynamic vision should have been capable of perceiving.
Am I seeing things?
Confused, Miyuki squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. When he opened them again, the slow-motion effect was gone. Time snapped back to its normal flow.
To make sure he hadn't imagined it, Miyuki glanced around quickly. And when his gaze drifted up to Kaguya-hime, he froze.
Her eyes were glowing. A pale, luminous white. And around those eyes, faint but unmistakable, a network of veins had risen to the surface.
That's... the Byakugan?
The realization hit him like a physical blow.
He was Hyuuga. He knew this dojutsu inside and out. The genetic gift passed down from the alien Ootsutsuki clan, branded into the blood of every Hyuuga born.
For reasons nobody had been able to explain, Miyuki's own Byakugan had never activated. Not once in five years. And now his Stand had awakened it instead? What did that even mean?
Wait, Stands can develop dojutsu? And that slow-motion vision from before, was that because of...
When a Stand was manifested, it shared all six senses with its user. As long as Miyuki chose to, he could sync his perception with Kaguya-hime's and see through her eyes.
So he tried it. He shifted his visual feed over to Kaguya-hime's perspective.
And the world transformed.
Through her eyes, the alley was no longer a place of color and light and shadow. It was a stark, monochrome landscape composed entirely of points and lines. Simple. Stripped bare.
But within that simplified world, the blood mist's drifting pattern was visible in perfect detail. And the figure creeping through it, inching closer with every passing second, stood out like a bonfire in the dark.
The dual-vision effect was extraordinary. Through his own eyes, Miyuki saw the normal world. Through Kaguya-hime's, he saw what lay beneath it. The invisible architecture of reality.
If the world was a coin, then what normal eyes saw was the face. And the hidden "chakra world" that normal eyes could never perceive was the reverse. Right now, Miyuki was looking at both sides simultaneously.
Seeing chakra flow this clearly... that's definitely the Byakugan. But why? Why did it awaken in my Stand instead of in me? And what was that slow-motion effect?
No. No time to think about it!
While Miyuki was still reeling from the discovery, Kaguya-hime's Byakugan vision had already picked up movement. A figure was using the blood mist as cover, closing in from an oblique angle.
At the same time, a wave of intense killing intent rolled in from a completely different direction. The Crimson Mist technique at work, feeding false signals to anyone relying on sensory awareness.
But the misdirection was useless now.
Miyuki saw Diavolo coming. Saw him clearly, through the mist, through the deception, through everything. And before the strike could land, Miyuki had already moved. Not away. Forward. Dropping low and charging straight at his attacker.
What?! Diavolo hadn't expected the boy to pierce his Crimson Mist. Not even slightly. So when Miyuki came barreling toward him, his reaction was a half-step too slow.
Diavolo had absolute confidence in his signature technique. As far as he knew, the only way to see through Crimson Mist was the Hyuuga clan's Byakugan. Every other method was unreliable at best.
And this kid was Hyuuga, sure, but he clearly hadn't activated the Byakugan. The telltale veins around the eyes were the most obvious visual indicator in the world. Diavolo wasn't going to miss that. And the boy's eyes were clean. No veins. No Byakugan.
Right. I don't have it. But Kaguya-hime does.
Committing fully to the charge, Miyuki watched Diavolo's internal chakra flow through the shared Byakugan vision and executed the legendary combat technique known as the "Tiger-Slaying Secret Art: Power Slide."
As previously established, Miyuki's body was tiny. Roughly half the volume of a normal adult. When that body dropped flat and slid across the ground at high speed, the resulting attack angle was absurdly low. Practically subterranean.
At that height, with arms as short as his, the number of viable targets was extremely limited. So Miyuki picked the one that mattered most.
Diavolo's left ankle.
In a thousand years, Diavolo would never have anticipated an attack from that angle. His arm was already extended in a committed strike, impossible to retract. And before he could adjust, a sharp jolt of impact vibrated through his left ankle.
It's fine. I already switched to Tobiou's body the instant I felt contact. His pressure points won't match. The kid can't hit anything vital...
Diavolo was still feeling smug about his counter as the two combatants slid past each other on the ground, separating cleanly. Both appeared unharmed.
"Hmph. Nice try, kid. I don't know if you stumbled onto my position by luck, but next time you won't..." He planted his feet to pivot. "Huh?"
His body tilted. Sideways. Involuntarily. His left foot was gone. Not physically, but neurologically. Zero sensation from the ankle down. He couldn't stand. He couldn't balance.
What? My left foot... how?!
Diavolo stared at his own leg. Everything below the ankle was dead. Not numb. Not tingling. Completely absent, like it had been surgically removed from his nervous system. It simply would not respond.
Impossible! I switched to Tobiou's body! He couldn't have found the right pressure point! So what is this?!
But it wasn't a chakra circulation issue anymore. This wasn't about tenketsu being blocked. The limb itself had been shut down. From the ankle joint to the tips of his toes, nothing worked.
"What's wrong? Keep going, jackass."
Watching Diavolo's face cycle through confusion, denial, and dawning horror, Miyuki finally allowed himself to exhale. Because he knew this fight was over.
Or maybe "over" was too strong. More accurately, Miyuki had managed to survive.
When his pressure point strike connected with Diavolo's left ankle and severed the flow of blood and energy to that area, the man's fate had been sealed.
Yes, Diavolo had switched bodies the instant he felt the attack. Yes, the pressure points had shifted. And none of that mattered anymore. Because now, Miyuki could see.
Through Kaguya-hime's Byakugan, the interior of Diavolo's body was an open book. Every "point" and every "line" was visible in luminous detail.
Points were pressure points. Stimulating them produced positive or negative effects on the body.
Lines were chakra pathways. Attacking them severed the flow of energy through the system.
Being able to see both in real time multiplied a Juuken user's combat effectiveness several times over. No wonder the technique had always been meant to pair with the Byakugan. Without those eyes, Juuken was a scalpel wielded blindfolded. With them, it was precision surgery.
"You don't seriously think crippling one foot means you can beat me, do you?"
Even now, Diavolo forced the words out through gritted teeth. His mobility was crippled, but he'd more or less figured out this kid's tricks. If the fight continued, Diavolo would win eventually. He was sure of it.
"No argument there. You're way stronger than me right now. If things hadn't broken my way, I'd probably have died two or three times over already. But with that left foot out of commission, here's my question: can you kill me and escape before a jounin gets here?"
A grin spread across Miyuki's face. And in Kaguya-hime's three-hundred-sixty-degree, long-range Byakugan field of vision, a black-clad figure was closing in on their position fast.
"Jounin? What are you talking ab..."
"Miyuki-Sama! Are you alright?!"
The shadow guard landed in the alley like a thunderbolt, planting himself between Miyuki and Diavolo like a wall of iron and killing intent.
"I'm fine. Go ahead. Give our guest here a nice sendoff."
Miyuki looked at Diavolo's face, which had gone the color of ash, and offered him a cheerful little wave.
Bye-bye.