The moon shone brightly overhead, surrounded by a sparse scattering of stars amid the hazy night sky.
Slumped over her desk, Hinata rubbed her eyes and let out a long, lazy stretch.
Tobirama Senju had truly been an unprecedented genius.
In a world with zero historical precedent—where spacetime ninjutsu was practically the exclusive domain of the Otsutsuki Clan—he had managed to build the Flying Raijin Jutsu completely from scratch.
Hinata’s desk was littered with notes and reference materials on spatial mechanics.
To even begin practicing the Flying Raijin, one first had to comprehend the fundamental nature of spacetime itself.
Space and time bound together into a dynamic four-dimensional continuum, capable of being warped by mass and energy, perturbed by gravitational waves, and expanding indefinitely.
In short, something along those lines.
Furthermore, Tobirama Senju had explicitly noted in the scroll that the Flying Raijin Jutsu was merely a half-finished concept.
His ultimate goal had been to open direct spacetime portals, allowing a user to launch truly undefendable strikes against an enemy anywhere in existence.
If the Flying Raijin ever reached the full scope of Tobirama’s vision, a user could simply slash a blade at empty air, and the moment the edge pierced through space, the blade’s spatial nodes would manifest across enemies tens of thousands of miles away, generating a theoretically infinite number of attacks.
Hinata rubbed her temples.
Regarding Tobirama’s grand vision, she could only admit that he truly deserved his status as one of the absolute peaks of the shinobi world.
Under the overwhelming, godlike strength of his older brother Hashirama Senju, a man who should have been completely overshadowed had managed to radiate a brilliant, immortal light entirely his own.
Hinata possessed an exceptional capacity for learning—otherwise, she would never have mastered the Gentle Fist so quickly.
Yet, in the face of the Flying Raijin, she hit her very first wall.
Beyond grasping abstract spatial theory, the Flying Raijin required a natural, instinctual sensory perception of spacetime nodes.
But it didn’t matter.
When the time came, things would sort themselves out.
Was a living, breathing person really going to let a minor setback corner them?
If she spent enough time picking it apart, she would eventually find the trick.
Hinata’s mindset had always been aggressively optimistic; otherwise, she wouldn’t have gone out of her way to thrash Naruto, Neji, and Kiba just for fun.
With that thought in mind, Hinata carefully rolled up the Flying Raijin scroll and tucked it away.
Stepping out of her room, she slid the wooden door shut behind her.
She could roughly guess why Hiruzen Sarutobi wanted to see her tomorrow, just as her father had mentioned earlier.
After all, a six-year-old child asking for the Flying Raijin and the Mutually Multiplying Explosive Tags was utterly absurd.
Only Hiashi, who had been worn down by her relentless chaotic influence over the years, could accept such a request with a straight face.
Hinata walked along the polished wooden floorboards, heading toward the kitchen.
Having spent so much mental energy studying, her body naturally demanded a high-calorie late-night snack.
Physical strength was the foundation of everything; for the sake of the shinobi world’s future peace, Hinata decided to indulge her appetite a little.
The Hyuga Garden.
At that moment, two strangers clad in pristine white robes—one tall, one short—stood side by side in the center of the garden as if the space belonged to them alone.
Strangely enough, whether it was passing servants or patrol shinobi, everyone seemed completely blind to their presence.
“Father, she’s so cute…” The younger figure held his father’s hand tightly, his empty eye sockets turned toward the girl walking in the distance.
“Does Toneri like her?” The tall man smiled gently, gazing down at his son.
“How about marrying her as your wife in the future?”
“Really?” Hearing his father say this, the boy named Toneri couldn’t help raising his voice slightly, a thrill of delight rushing through him.
Yet in that brief moment of distraction, the secret technique cloaking their presence wavered for a split second.
At that exact instant, Hinata—who was just about to head to the kitchen for food—felt a sudden, bone-chilling shiver run down her spine!
It was the raw, primal instinct of prey being locked onto by an apex predator.
Acting almost entirely on muscle memory, Hinata activated her Byakugan instantly, her pale eyes veins bulging as she whipped her gaze toward the empty garden!
“Who’s there?!”
“Get the hell out!”
Her body moved far faster than her brain.
Before the words had even fully left her mouth, Hinata whipped four paper bombs folded into shuriken from her pocket and hurled them straight into the void!
As for where she got the paper bombs?
No need to worry!
The Hyuga Clan’s storehouses were massive, and explosive tags were stacked in endless crates; who would ever notice a few missing here and there?!
BOOM!
Scarlet flames and violent shockwaves swept across the garden in a single second!
Trees snapped like twigs, ceramic flowerpots shattered into dust, and roaring fire consumed the greenery!
Through her Byakugan, Hinata clearly saw a shimmering, invisible barrier deflect the blast, light flowing across its surface as it absorbed the kinetic impact!
And right behind that barrier, two figures stood side by side!
Seeing the smaller figure, roughly her own height, Hinata’s pupils contracted sharply!
That was…
In a matter of seconds, the entire Hyuga Compound erupted into absolute chaos!
Dozens of Hyuga shinobi rushed toward the garden at blinding speed!
Detecting the approaching waves of chakra, the two figures vanished into thin air without a trace!
“Hinata!”
“What happened?!”
Hiashi Hyuga was the very first to arrive on the scene.
Looking at the ruined, smoking garden, his eyes narrowed into razor-sharp slits.
“An intruder,” Hinata stated directly, pointing a finger without missing a beat.
Hiashi didn’t respond immediately.
Instead, he stepped toward the epicenter of the explosion.
Amid the scorched wreckage of the garden, a small patch of earth remained entirely untouched, as if an invisible blade had sliced the blast in half—one side a scorched wasteland, the other completely pristine.
That was the residual trace of an absolute defense technique!
“An extraordinarily sophisticated barrier method,” an elder noted, stepping up beside Hiashi to observe the scene.
“Hinata, what exactly did you see just now?” Hiashi’s face was terrifyingly grave.
An outsider infiltrating the innermost sanctuary of the Hyuga Compound was completely unprecedented.
With almost every clan member possessing an active Byakugan, this was nothing short of a humiliating security breach!
“I was heading to the kitchen to grab a late-night snack,” Hinata explained calmly, organizing her story on the fly.
“When I walked past here, my skin crawled, so I threw a few explosive tags at the spot.”
Hiashi completely ignored the mention of paper bombs; an enemy infiltrating the heart of the clan made a few missing explosive tags entirely irrelevant.
Besides, the physical evidence on the ground proved Hinata wasn’t lying.
“Immediately place the entire clan under total martial law,” Hiashi commanded, his voice cold and unyielding.
“I am going to meet the Hokage.”
Hinata was his daughter, the future head of the Hyuga, and the prospective core of the entire clan.
Under no circumstances could anything be allowed to happen to her.
Furthermore, this wasn’t just the heart of the Hyuga—this was the heart of the Leaf Village itself!
“Hinata, come with me,” Hiashi said, his expression softening slightly as he looked down at her.
Meanwhile, high up in the dark night sky, a pair of hidden eyes watched every movement within the Hyuga Compound below.