Chp-4: The Burden of Expectations

Hyuga Satoru glanced at Obito, who looked utterly defeated, and silently thought, "Obito, you can't blame me for this."

"You are the perfect test subject since no one would be surprised by any foolish thing you do. Plus, this will motivate you to study harder and not get distracted by early romances—it's for your own good."

Through his experiment of interfering with Obito's shuriken, Satoru discovered that he could control even high-speed flying shuriken to some extent. From now on, ninja tools wouldn't pose much of a threat to him.

Looking at Obito flailing about, Daikichi Fujino sighed and scratched his hair, styled like the bald top with hair on the sides typical of some older men, feeling a headache coming on.

"How did the Uchiha clan produce such an oddball?"

"Alright, next, Hyuga Iroha."

From the crowd, a boy with bandages on his forehead and pure white eyes stepped forward and threw his shuriken with both hands.

"10 points, 9 points, 10 points…"

"Impressive, just a bit below Kakashi and the others."

"Well, he is from the Hyuga clan."

"Why does he have bandages on his forehead?" someone whispered.

"Shh! Don't you know? That's the Hyuga clan's…"

Hyuga Iroha's face turned cold as he subconsciously clenched his fists and returned to his spot.

Daikichi Fujino nodded in satisfaction. From his observations over the past few days, he noticed that although Hyuga Iroha wasn't the most talented, he was certainly the most diligent. For the Hyuga branch family, hard work was their only path to success.

"Next, Hyuga Satoru."

Hyuga Satoru stepped forward and picked up a few shuriken.

"7 points, 7 points, 7 points… 10 points."

After several scores of 7, the last one barely hit 10 points.

The crowd started murmuring.

"Even though he's from the Hyuga clan, he seems much worse than Iroha. The gap with Kakashi and the others is even wider."

"Yeah, not everyone can be a genius."

Hyuga Satoru maintained a calm expression. He didn't want to reveal his electromagnetic force ability too soon. This level of performance suited his low-profile persona within the Hyuga clan.

Hyuga Iroha glanced at Satoru before looking away. Despite being from the same clan, they rarely interacted, and this level of performance didn't warrant his attention.

However, Rin Uchiha's eyes sparkled as she noticed the shuriken on the target forming a hexagram with the center.

A coincidence?

Interesting.

…

Not long after Hyuga Satoru returned home, someone came knocking on his door. It was a branch family guard.

The guard, wearing a ninja forehead protector, handed him a slightly bulging envelope.

"Hyuga Satoru, this is your living allowance for the month from the clan."

Satoru took the envelope, which had his name and the amount written on it.

"Thank you."

The guard nodded and disappeared.

This branch family guard only came to deliver the allowance once a month, and their interactions were minimal.

Satoru opened the envelope to find 15 thin bills, totaling 1500 ryo. He felt a headache coming on. In a world where a bowl of ramen cost 60 ryo, 1500 ryo for a month was quite tight.

As one of Konoha's most famous clans, the Hyuga clan greatly valued their traditions and strict hierarchy, making life orderly yet oppressive.

Living alone as an orphan in a corner of the clan's territory, Satoru keenly felt the indifference. The 1500 ryo allowance was only given in recognition of his father's sacrifice for the main family.

The Hyuga clan didn't support idlers.

But this also meant a bit of freedom. Unlike other branch family members, who were heavily controlled by the main family, he had some autonomy.

Hyuga Satoru wasn't overly fearful of the Caged Bird Seal. As the electromagnetic force grew stronger, it would become nearly omnipotent. Breaking a seal would be easy. If necessary, he could stage a coup and obtain the Tenseigan, which could also remove the seal.

The key was to become strong enough.

After dinner, Satoru sneaked out of the clan's territory and headed to the forest in the back mountains.

He wanted to fully test his abilities without being discovered by his clan members.

Satoru threw a shuriken with all his might. Enhanced by the electromagnetic force, the shuriken glowed with a faint blue light and disappeared with a swoosh.

Through his Byakugan, he clearly saw the shuriken hit a tree trunk a hundred meters away.

Satoru raised an eyebrow. The maximum effective range for a standard ninja shuriken was about 40 meters. Even Jonin found it challenging to exceed this distance. Don't underestimate this range—it's equivalent to the height of a 10-story building.

Ninjutsu had an even shorter range. The most famous, the Great Fireball Technique, appeared powerful but only covered a few meters, mainly serving as a battle atmosphere tool, easily dodged.

Ninjas had limits!

Unless you were someone like Madara, who could summon meteors and fight with Susanoo, conventional ninja attacks had limited range.

But the electromagnetic force could break this limit!

The combination of Byakugan's high-resolution vision and the electromagnetic force's long-range attack gave him immense sniping capabilities.

Imagine, you are eating hotpot and singing, and suddenly, you get sniped. You don't even see the enemy. Who would you complain to?

Hyuga Satoru thought for a moment. His Byakugan had a range of about one kilometer. Within this radius, aside from a blind spot at the back of his head, no living creature could escape his detection. However, even with electromagnetic enhancement, the shuriken's effective range was only about 100 meters, far from the ideal distance.

If he could develop an electromagnetic cannon, this wouldn't be an issue, but with level 1 electromagnetic force, it was still impossible.

"Is there any ninja tool that can maximize my attack range?"

After some thought, Satoru's eyes lit up.

A bow!

In this era without guns, the bow was the most long-range weapon!

He remembered a question he saw on Zhihu in his previous life: if you transmigrated as a Hyuga ninja, how would you maximize the Byakugan's potential? One highly upvoted answer was to use a bow.

When a Hyuga uses a bow, the Byakugan's ability is fully utilized!

However, regular bows had difficulty reaching a range of over a hundred meters, but Satoru was different—he had the electromagnetic force!

The more he thought about it, the brighter his eyes became!

Due to their structure, bows naturally had a longer range than shurikens. With electromagnetic enhancement, reaching a kilometer was not impossible!

This was practically a sniper rifle!

A sniper rifle with built-in X-ray vision!

The times have changed!

Moreover, the Byakugan's range would continue to increase with training. Some main family members could reach a range of five kilometers!

Taking a deep breath, Satoru suppressed his excitement.

With a long-range attack method in place, he needed to develop a close-range technique. Gentle Fist, the Hyuga clan's most famous technique, was something he had no interest in learning!

He approached a tree as thick as a person's embrace, took a Gentle Fist stance, and used the electromagnetic force to alter the magnetic field of his palm before striking!

There was a muffled sound. As his palm connected with the tree, a faint blue light membrane burst from his palm, splitting the tree in half and scattering wood chips everywhere.

Shaking his hand, Satoru was satisfied with the power. Before striking, he had altered the magnetic fields of his palm and the tree. Upon contact, high-voltage electricity, combined with repulsive force, exploded, cutting the tree in half.

If the Hyuga clan leader saw this, he would exclaim, "Is this Gentle Fist?"

"I'll call this move Magnetic Storm Palm! The power is satisfactory. If I have enough chakra, I can turn each of the Sixty-Four Palms of Gentle Fist into a Magnetic Storm Palm! But…"

Satoru frowned, looking at his slightly trembling hand.

"This move requires a high level of physical strength. With my current body, I probably can't even complete eighteen palms, let alone sixty-four."

"Eight Gates might be the best taijutsu for enhancing physical strength, and the Strong Fist style suits the Magnetic Storm Palm well. I'll have to find a way to get them."

If the Hyuga clan leader heard this, he might die of anger. You're a Hyuga ninja, and you want to learn Strong Fist—betraying your master and clan!

Having decided on his path, Satoru stretched and felt immensely satisfied.

"That's settled then! I'll find a way to get a high-strength bow and the Eight Gates technique."