The damp wind from the pond blew through Hyuga Neji's hair.
He looked down at the dark, oddly shaped weapon at his feet, his mind plunged into unprecedented confusion.
This thing was completely different from any Ninja tool he knew, and he had no idea what its destructive power might be.
"What is this?" Neji's voice was a little dry. "For me?"
Uzumaki Naruto didn't answer the weapon's origin, merely stating another ongoing event.
"Times have changed, Neji."
"Gentle Fist, or Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms, after you spend your entire life cultivating them to their peak, what can you achieve? Knock down a few enemies within dozens of meters? That's too inefficient."
Naruto's words were sharp.
"They are merely techniques for close-quarters combat, relics of an old era."
Neji clenched his fists, his nails digging deep into his palms.
It was this same rhetoric again, this same dismissive attitude that devalued everything he stood for.
"Your life was shackled from the very beginning." Naruto's tone shifted, yet without any sympathy.
"Most people, if they faced the same situation as you, would only be more lost, rotting away in despair much sooner."
He took a step forward, looking directly into Neji's eyes.
"Of course, you can be lost; that is the inherent right of the weak. But you must understand that possessing overwhelming power allows you to have more choices after you've overcome your confusion, rather than passively accepting everything others have arranged for you, as you are now."
Naruto gestured to the long rifle on the ground.
"Now, I'm giving you a chance to choose."
He squatted down, picked up the weapon, and skillfully adjusted a telescope-like device on top of the rifle barrel.
"Activate your Byakugan, then put your eye to this scope."
It was an order.
Neji's chest heaved, his heart filled with a contradiction of resistance and curiosity.
He ultimately complied.
He took a deep breath, and veins bulged at the corners of his eyes.
"Byakugan!"
A 360-degree field of vision instantly unfolded, revealing every detail of his surroundings.
He skeptically brought his eye close to the cold lens.
Boom—!
The world exploded in his mind, then was reassembled, magnified, and analyzed in an unprecedented way!
The Byakugan's omnidirectional vision perfectly combined with the scope's terrifying optical magnification at this moment.
He saw it; he saw a bird perched on the Hokage Rock three kilometers away.
No, that wasn't just "seeing."
He could clearly distinguish the subtle patterns of every feather on that bird's wings, see every beat of the tiny organ beneath its chest, and even perceive how the faint, almost negligible Chakra within its body slowly flowed through its meridians.
He had never imagined that the world could be so "clear."
The synergistic effect of the Byakugan and this device was as if a severely nearsighted person had put on glasses for the first time.
"Now, you see the true face of the world."
Naruto's cold voice rang in his ears, like a key opening a door to a new world.
"This weapon is called a 'Long-Range Laser Rifle.' It is the future I have planned for you."
Naruto gave Neji no time to process, continuing to articulate a terrifying plan capable of overturning the entire Ninja World's warfare, all in his unperturbed tone.
"Your Byakugan is the Ninja World's top-tier target acquisition system. And this weapon is an undefendable spear of judgment."
"Combine them, and you will become a ghost moving outside the battlefield, an executioner of one-hit kills."
Naruto clasped his hands behind his back, straightened his posture, and his demeanor exuded absolute confidence.
"Imagine, Neji. A Daimyo, heavily protected by dozens of guards, sitting comfortably in his most fortified room. You can see him, so he will die."
"Or, an arrogant enemy Jonin, hiding behind a thick Earth Release bunker, commanding a battle. You can see him, so he will also die."
"Walls, distance, guards... all the rules for preserving life in the Ninja World will become meaningless before you. In your vision, they are no different from infants exposed in the wilderness."
"You only need to pull the trigger."
Neji's mind went blank, and the immense shock made his whole body tremble uncontrollably.
He recalled his shattered dignity, the humiliation of being publicly declared "theoretically wrong" by Naruto during the Chunin Exams, and his intense desire for self-worth.
Caged Bird...
Neji instinctively raised his hand, as if the mark on his forehead was burning.
What he desired most were more possibilities in life.
He never doubted he was a genius, yet he felt himself confined within a low framework, struggling to breathe.
"This is the first true choice I'm giving you that belongs to you." Naruto's voice was full of enticement.
"Will you continue to struggle within the ridiculous system of the Hyuga Clan, becoming a Caged Bird pitied by others, or will you accept this new power and become a ghost who controls the fate of others?"
Neji gave a bitter laugh: "No matter what, the Caged Bird curse mark will accompany me my whole life."
He didn't really believe Naruto's promise to him during the Chunin Exams.
Before Naruto could speak, Neji suddenly changed the subject, his unfocused gaze gradually sharpening.
"However, I also want my life to have different possibilities."
Neji's trembling hand suddenly tightened, gripping the cold rifle barrel firmly.
That substantial weight, that unique metallic texture, gave him an unprecedented sense of peace.
"Very good." Naruto nodded. "Now, let's proceed with the first live-fire shot."
He pointed to the distance, in a direction completely imperceptible to the naked eye.
"Do you see that waterfall? It's 3.2 kilometers from here. Behind the waterfall, I placed a rock, about one meter high. Lock onto it."
Neji didn't need to think; the Byakugan combined with the scope had already fed all the target's information into his brain.
He lay on the ground, instinctively shouldering the long rifle, his shoulder against the stock, his eye pressed against the scope once more.
The distant target, as if from another world, was now perfectly clear in his vision.
He could see every trajectory of the water flowing over the rock.
He took a deep breath, held it, and the entire world seemed to fall silent.
His finger gently rested on the cold trigger.
Then, he pulled it.
There was no deafening roar, no dazzling flash of fire.
Only a faint, crisp "click."
An energy beam, invisible to the naked eye, silently cut through three kilometers of space.
Neji was jolted by the recoil, but fortunately, his reactions were quick enough, and his body tensed in time.
He maintained his firing posture, staring blankly at the scene through the scope.
In the distance, the relentlessly flowing waterfall abruptly experienced a momentary interruption, as if an invisible hand had severed it in the middle.
The next second, the water flow returned to normal.
Although his shot was off due to his first time using a gun, the rock he had locked onto was still hit by the laser, creating a large gap on its edge.
The part that was shot through seemed to have never existed, turning into the most insignificant dust, swept away by the rushing water.
Neji was stunned.
He slowly lowered the rifle, his head down, silently recalling the scene he had just witnessed.
After a long while, he realized that the incomprehensible strike he had just made was his doing.
He gradually understood.
What Naruto had given him was not just a weapon.
It was a brand new future, defined by himself.
His gaze began to change.
He looked up at Naruto again, his voice hoarse but incredibly clear.
"Who's the next target?
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