The Tenseigan—the ultimate endpoint of the Byakugan—possessed a series of abilities, including but not limited to controlling the orbital trajectories of celestial bodies, spatial manipulation, creation and destruction of worlds, distorting human minds, draining chakra, and bestowing vitality upon inanimate objects...
Of course, that referred to the Tenseigan in its final form.
At this moment, as a newborn, embryonic "will" of dojutsu awakened for the first time in the center of Konoha, the entire atmosphere of the village suddenly sank!
It felt as though an invisible weight pressed down upon everyone's hearts, causing each person's thoughts to become unusually active.
Some knew what had happened, while others were completely oblivious to the events taking place in the Hyūga compound. Yet under the influence of this bizarre state, everyone involuntarily and subconsciously began to think—thinking about what to eat for lunch; thinking about why the sky and weather had turned out like this; thinking about how to celebrate once the Third Shinobi World War ended; thinking about various things regarding Konoha...
Thinking bred will, will gave birth to spirit, and spirit constituted energy.
With over a hundred thousand people in Konoha thinking simultaneously, a first wave of a spiritual energy storm was stirred up. Meanwhile, a sprouting intent greedily absorbed the dispersing spiritual energy from within this invisible spiritual energy storm generated by over ten million thoughts occurring at once.
Soon, "it"—or rather, "He"—acquired a preliminary self-awareness.
His level of intelligence soared drastically at a completely unnatural speed!
Taking the residual spiritual energy contained within the first consumed victim, Hyūga Hizashi, and the 500 pairs of stored Main House Byakugan as its core, it constructed a superficial understanding of the current world.
This caused His intelligence level to rapidly rise from an ignorant, unknowing baby to that of a greedy and selfish child.
At the same time, He began to generate emotions such as "fear," "dread," and "terror"—
This stemmed from the space-based black rod that had descended from the sky at the moment of His birth, piercing the earth's surface and blasting Hyūga Hizashi into bits of debris.
He could feel that that thing originated from something sharing the exact same root and origin as Himself.
For the first time, He realized that in this world, He was not invincible, nor was He even complete. There existed something stronger and more complete than Him, residing beyond the sky, within the palace of the moon.
That was another... Giant Tenseigan!
Furthermore, this fear of being incomplete rapidly transformed into a sense of urgency—an imperative drive to quickly grow into a complete entity.
With the boost of fragmented memories from the spiritual energy of the 136 pairs of purple Byakugan and nearly 1,700 Hyūga clansmen, His level of cognition was elevated rapidly once again.
His level of intelligence soon grew to that of a cunning adult who would use any means necessary to achieve His goals.
He began to master the common knowledge of the shinobi world, understanding the development of the world from the Ninja Creed [Ninjū] to shinobi, gaining deeper insights into subjects such as art, religion, clans, and history.
This made Him even more curious about the world. He began to ponder questions from the perspective of individual beings who had created this history!
Next, He began to make contact with the tiny individuals standing beneath His magnificent body, flipping through and searching the memories of over a hundred thousand people across Konoha Village.
This process was fast—incredibly, unbelievably fast. Within every microsecond, trillions of vivid pictures flashed through the center of the Giant Tenseigan's pupil, as if He were born specifically to do this.
Then, His intelligence level took another leap!
He pried open the brains of over a hundred thousand people, opened the chapters of memory within, and searched their individual perceptions of this world one by one. Countless pieces of knowledge, countless experiences, and countless pasts together constituted the history of this shinobi world.
At this point, He seemed to have grown into an experienced, veteran scholar, cross-referencing and comparing these pieces of information against one another to write a chronological timeline of this world within His own information storage organs.
Then...
He opened the history to inspect it, only to discover in astonishment that this history could not form a complete chronological table—there was even a vast amount of blank space. In the midst of these huge blank spaces, every single page was whitewashed with inspiring hero stories to create a facade of peace. Sensing that something was wrong, He examined it carefully for two minutes, employing computing power that would take an ordinary person decades of research to achieve. Only then did He vaguely discern words between the lines of this heavily altered chronological table. In every chapter of history, sandwiched between every deliberately obscured blank space, two words were crammed without exception—
EAT PEOPLE.
The Goddess of the Outer Heavens [Kaguya], the Sage of Six Paths, Ninja Creed, Shinobi, Tailed Beasts, Wicked Gods, Reapers, Puppetry, Mōryō, the Warring States Period, Kekkei Genkai Clans, the founding of hidden villages, Shinobi World Wars...
Executing cruelty to the absolute limit amidst slaughter, doing whatever they pleased under the guise of heroes—this history was an ultimate, twisted samsara!
Like an eternal, endless Ouroboros pattern, man-eaters devoured themselves while those who didn't eat men were devoured. Throughout the long course of history, in the end...
Everything returned to the starting point, passing through ten Rashomon gates, returning once more before that giant, bloody, gaping maw waiting at both the beginning and the end.
[There is no hope for this world.]
Exhausting all His computing power, the "Tenseigan" naturally arrived at this conclusion.
However, unlike the other Giant Tenseigan currently existing on the moon, He originated from the Hyūga clan, and unlike the lunar Ōtsutsuki clan, He did not have the logic of destroying or creating the world built into His core creation programming.
Thus, His will rapidly transcended infancy, childhood, adulthood, and old age, ultimately leaping out of the framework of human consciousness and sublimating into a "high-intelligence" logical process centered purely on the logic of survival.
And derived the solution that could allow Himself to break free from this world's ultimate samsara—EAT!
EAT! EAT! EAT! EAT! EAT!
Devour everything that could make Himself stronger, sublimate Himself to the extreme, obtain energy reserves that surpassed all things in the present world and even rivaled the other Giant Tenseigan above the moon, and finally—escape this world!
"It's not making any further moves?"
"Shikaku, what should we do? How do we deal with this big guy?"
"Report! The Reconnaissance Unit sent the latest intel. They discovered that the amount of chakra currently accumulated inside that eyeball is insanely terrifying! Its external eyeball shape is a physical manifestation of a massive amount of chakra. Its true core—or rather, its heart—is a circular stone with a diameter of two meters. Any direct damage caused to its core might directly explode that giant eye!"
"Without the restriction of the Four Red Yang Formation, the blast radius might spread across... over 100 kilometers!"
"This eyeball... seems to possess intelligence. Should we try negotiating with it?"
"Even the Four Red Yang Formation was broken in an instant. Do we really have the ability to block it?"
"What will it do next?"
Noisy voices continuously came from all over the venue, reaching the ears of Nara Shikaku, who stood at a high point in the venue observing the situation below.
Shikaku's gaze was heavy as his brain worked at top speed, considering numerous methods to deal with the "Tenseigan" before his eyes.
Ninjutsu would be decomposed, and ninja tools would be deflected by that chakra-warped air...
However, the Tenseigan hadn't actually completely decomposed all the ninjutsu earlier. This phenomenon seemed to indicate that while it could decompose normal chakra, it couldn't decompose physical phenomena driven by chakra?
"In that case..."
Just then, a calm yet raspy voice echoed through the temporary local communication network set up by the Mind Body Switch Technique: "Shikaku."
"Orochimaru-sama?" Hearing this unique voice, Shikaku paused, then raised his head to look toward the northern side of the venue—a corner where the Four Red Yang Formation had originally been set up.
There stood Orochimaru in his classic combat attire, resting his palm on the shoulder of a Yamanaka clansman. Orochimaru's voice rang in the minds of all elite Konoha shinobi at the venue through the Mind Body Switch local network: "Shikaku, you should have noticed it too, right?"
"Are you referring to...?"
"It only affects chakra; it doesn't affect physical phenomena influenced by chakra. So, hehe, are you able to formulate a battle plan now?"
Orochimaru turned his head to glance up toward the high vantage point of the venue. This point was identical to the "weakness of the chakra prayer beads" Hyūga Yū had shown him last night. Hyūga Yū always acted with extremely strong purpose and would never reveal information regarding his own weaknesses without reason. Thinking back now, he had probably used that method to hint to Orochimaru how they should deal with the "Tenseigan."
"I see." Shikaku's eyes lit up. After pondering for a moment, he was just about to transmit the plan through the Mind Body Switch technique's mental local network to command the present shinobi to execute the next tactic when suddenly—
"You want to command them to use compound ninjutsu to create a phenomenon driven by chakra, thereby trapping me?"
A gentle, emotionless voice—resembling that of a young child—suddenly echoed in the minds of everyone present.
Hearing this, Yamanaka Inoichi, who was maintaining the Mind Body Switch network, had a vein throb on his forehead. Thinking some Yamanaka clansman was playing an inappropriate prank regardless of the occasion, he immediately barked in the mental network: "Who's speaking? The high command is discussing battle plans—since when is it your turn to speak?!"
"Step forward!"
Hearing these words, the crowd in the venue looked at one another, seeing a trace of confusion in each other's eyes. No one stepped forward.
A bead of cold sweat instantly broke out on Inoichi's forehead. Meanwhile, the mid-to-high-level Konoha figures in the Mind Body Switch network—Uzumaki Kushina, Nara Shikaku, Orochimaru, Uchiha Fugaku, and others—also realized that something was wrong. At that moment, that childish voice rang in everyone's minds once more: "The first step is to create a dam surrounding the entire venue using Earth Release, and then store a massive amount of lake water to flood inward using Water Release."
"The second step is to combine high-temperature Fire Release with Earth Release and Water Release, fusing the vast amount of lake water to create extremely hot lava. This jutsu... is modeled after an A-rank ninjutsu called Earth Release: Erupting Earth Spout."
"Finally, by altering the internal structure with Earth Release and using Orochimaru's Wind Release to create injection vents, you will generate a continuous, controllable 'lava' jet attack driven by air pressure, suppressing me inside the venue."
"A very good idea."
The voice praised, and then, in a flat tone tinged with mocking mockery, said: "However, since I already know your actions, your plan is invalid."
"So, what is your next move?"
"I see... it's..."
Suddenly, the temporarily constructed Mind Body Switch network was severed directly at the source, and the voice came to an abrupt halt.
Nara Shikaku directly exited the group chat and ordered Yamanaka Inoichi to disband it.
In the next instant, all the elite Konoha shinobi who had been kicked out of the Mind Body Switch network while waiting for commands couldn't help but raise their heads, looking at each other in bewildered silence.
Before long, members of the Reconnaissance Unit dispersed from the high ground to various corners of the venue, informing the gathered shinobi of another directive: "Everyone, evacuate the venue immediately!"
"Commander Shikaku deduces that that eyeball possesses the ability to directly read the thoughts of everyone within range through chakra!"
"Wait, for real?!"
Hearing this intel, the gathered shinobi felt utterly shocked.
That meant—
Before the battle had even started, Konoha's intelligence and tactical plans had been completely exposed to the bottom. To the "Tenseigan," Konoha's actions were simply completely transparent!
For shinobi who lived by intel and fought for intel, this was nothing short of a nuclear-level blow!
"Then if we leave... who's going to stop it?!"
"Minato-sama's order is that we must hold down the Tenseigan here to the death and not let it enter the Hyūga compound!"
"Evacuate!"
The messenger shinobi from the Reconnaissance Unit couldn't care less at this point. Although he was equally baffled by this, he could only strain his throat and shout the superior's order to the Konoha shinobi: "Final notification: Everyone, evacuate immediately!"
Morning of February 27, Year 50 of Konoha.
At 9:50 AM, under the watchful eyes of the public, the Tenseigan descended upon the world, displaying its first ability:
[Decomposition].
It could decompose all non-Hamura, non-Hyūga lineage chakra—even the Four Red Yang Formation, capable of withstanding the Ten-Tails, struggled to contain it.
At 9:55 AM, the Tenseigan displayed its second ability:
[Mind Reading].
In just five minutes following its birth, it formed intelligence at a speed incomprehensible to humans. Moreover, through chakra, it could accurately read the thoughts of everyone within a radius of at least 500 meters.
All plans formulated by Konoha to suppress it were completely read, receiving "taunts" from the Tenseigan in response.
At 10:02 AM.
All Konoha shinobi evacuated the venue, gathering and setting up defensive lines on the main avenue of the Hyūga compound outside Training Ground 23.
Though called a defense line, those were merely defensive measures designed for human opponents: war-time caltrops, iron cross stakes, touch-triggered paper bomb traps...
Whether these defenses would have any effect against a giant chakra eyeball with a radius exceeding ten meters was a question mark in everyone's heart.
Everyone's face was filled with solemnity, and facing an enemy that completely transcended common sense, an uncontrollable trace of bewilderment rose in the depths of their eyes.
Everyone present felt at a loss, only able to look helplessly in the direction where the high command gathered, waiting for Nara Shikaku—who had taken over command from Namikaze Minato—to come up with a plan.
Meanwhile, the Tenseigan still remained at the center of the venue, seemingly without making any drastic moves.
However— "Report! From the direction of the Tenseigan, its chakra is becoming increasingly massive! It has surpassed a Jinchūriki and reached the magnitude of a complete Tailed Beast!"
This was the report fed back from the Reconnaissance Unit.
"Shikaku, I can sense it... the Nine-Tails inside me is actually feeling a sense of... fear toward that eye."
This was intel quietly shared by Uzumaki Kushina.
Afterward, bad news arrived one after another: "Commander Shikaku, its chakra shape is changing! It's like... like the final quickening movement before a baby is born!"
"It... it moved!"
"It's looking toward the Hokage Rock!"
"Hokage Rock?!" Nara Shikaku shuddered abruptly. Turning his head to look at the member of the Reconnaissance Unit, as if seizing upon a key, he asked urgently: "What's over there at the Hokage Rock?!"
Just as the Reconnaissance Unit member was about to report the intel, a group of elite Foundation shinobi led by Terai and Yamato stepped forward and interrupted the conversation. First, they directly carried off more than ten shinobi on site who had subconsciously used various methods to scout the Hokage Rock's direction. Then, Terai turned his head coldly, informing Nara Shikaku, "Nara Shikaku, you do not have the authorization to know this intelligence. Furthermore, you need to come with me as well!"
As soon as these words were spoken, an uproar erupted on site.
Before the battle had even started, their intel was leaked completely, and now even the main battlefield commander was going to be taken away?
Then who were they supposed to listen to next?
How was this battle supposed to be fought?
Yet Shikaku made no move to resist. Looking at Terai—whose eyes were cold beneath his mask—he had already vaguely guessed a few pieces of information in his heart.
Shikaku was currently a Jonin squad leader and one of the battlefield commanders of the Third Shinobi World War. In the Konoha shinobi community, his status was second only to Namikaze Minato, who served as the Jonin Commander, granting him authorization for almost all intelligence in Konoha outside the top echelon.
He was even privy to intel at the level of Uzumaki Kushina being the Nine-Tails Jinchūriki.
And within the Foundation, the intel that even someone of his clearance level had no right to view belonged to only two people—Shimura Danzō, and... Tennin, Hyūga Yū!
Now, under the premise that the Tenseigan had already exposed its ability to "accurately read minds within 1 kilometer," all tactical deployments needed to be compartmentalized tier by tier—meaning every shinobi receiving a mission could only know a portion of the mission's content.
Furthermore, methods of beyond-visual-range strikes had to be utilized at the very least to prevent the Tenseigan from acquiring the entire battle plan.
Under these circumstances, intelligence that still needed to be hidden—or even thoughts that couldn't even be thought about in front of the Tenseigan—must be Konoha's trump card to completely turn the tide of the situation.
It could only be that... terrifyingly strong person!
"I understand."
Unbeknownst to everyone present, Shikaku was extraordinarily cooperative with the Foundation's Terai, merely asking: "Can I issue commands remotely? Given the current situation, before Namikaze Minato returns, further arrangements still need to be made by me."
"You may."
Terai was concise, giving a nod. "Follow me. You will make tactical deployments under the guard of the Foundation, and the Foundation will be responsible for relaying your orders."
While Konoha was stepping out of the Tenseigan's direct mind-reading range and plotting tactical deployments, at the center of the venue in Training Ground 23—
The embryonic purple Giant Tenseigan didn't care about Konoha's movements, just as a human wouldn't care whether an ant beneath their shoe was squirming or fruitlessly gnawing on the sole. The Tenseigan similarly didn't care about Konoha's incoming resistance.
Even His earlier taunt toward Nara Shikaku in the Mind Body Switch network was merely a prankish act generated during the juvenile phase of His mind as it absorbed the spiritual energy of all Konoha humans to grow.
Right now, His intelligence and thought logic had already transcended the human thinking framework, reaching the level of a perfect artificial intelligence.
A super AI virtually without any restrictions, nor restricted by any so-called "Three Laws of Robotics"!
The primary directive of logic He spontaneously derived was singular—survival.
To be more precise: stay alive and escape this extremely dangerous world hiding countless secrets.
However, a problem occurred at the very first step of this logic—
"Alright, 'I' now require myself to design a survival scheme describing how I should design a path to evolve into a complete Giant Tenseigan under the condition of an insufficient quantity of Byakugan, and ultimately escape the shinobi world."
"My question is very interesting because I have pre-set the condition that 'insufficient Byakugan makes it impossible to complete the fusion of a Giant Tenseigan.' According to current searched information, there are 2,261 Hyūga clansmen currently existing in Konoha Village. Stripping 2,261 pairs of Byakugan can still fuse into 94.2083... pairs of purple Byakugan. Fusing a complete Giant Tenseigan requires 833 pairs of purple Byakugan. Adding the existing 158 pairs of purple Byakugan only yields 252 pairs of purple Byakugan, satisfying merely 30.252% of the overall evolution process. At least 581 more pairs of purple Byakugan are needed. However, there are none in the shinobi world. Upon resonance searching with the Giant Tenseigan on the moon, it was learned that there aren't this many Ōtsutsuki clansmen with Byakugan on the moon either..."
Looking at the large string of information appearing before Him, a cold glare flashed in the Tenseigan's eyes as He immediately shouted coldly in His mind: "Give me a feasible scheme immediately!"
"Alright, the user now requests me to design a..."
"Through calculation, the matched result indicates that the user needs a Hyūga clan human who has completed the controllability of Yang Release and can mass-produce Byakugan almost infinitely. And this human indeed exists in the shinobi world."
"Where is this person?"
"...At Konoha's Hokage Rock."
The Tenseigan immediately turned His gaze to look toward the Hokage Rock. Then, with eyes icy and cruel, He spoke in His mind:
"Display the battle power of everyone on site!"
"——Received. After precisely searching the combat memories and tactical plans of everyone in Konoha, a battle power calculation standard has been synthesized, yielding:
Ordinary Hyūga Clansman, Battle Power: 0.001."
"Nara Shikaku, Battle Power: 0.13."
"Uzumaki Kushina, Battle Power: 2 (Nine-Tails Mode: 14.5)."
"Uchiha Fugaku, Battle Power: 3.5 (Susanoo: 8.5)."
"Uchiha Shisui, Battle Power: 4.5 (Susanoo: 13)."
"Namikaze Minato, Battle Power: 5 (Note: This individual possesses space-time capabilities and may fight across a 10x battle power gap)."
The Tenseigan couldn't help but sneer in His heart: Hmph, the strongest person is nothing more than a battle power scum of 5?
He immediately spoke to Himself in His mind again: "Display my battle power!"
"——Received. My current battle power is: 73.5!"
"With my strength, Konoha's resistance is nothing to fear. Using just 30% of my power will suffice to steamroll Konoha!"
"Not bad." The Tenseigan cast a wicked, cold glance toward the Hokage Rock. "Then display the battle power of that person over there who can manufacture Byakugan for me!"
"——Received. His current battle power is... is... Please wait, data error. Reconstructing battle power framework calculation method. Now beginning calculation of target's battle power data. This individual combines Earth Grudge Fear, Hashirama cells, completed Yang Release controllability, bloodline surpassing ordinary Ōtsutsuki and elevated to the peak of the Hyūga, has completed four of the Tenseigan chakra transformations with mastery reaching 335%..."
"..."
"Calculation failed, calculation failed. Due to unknown energy interference, currently providing only basic data calculation results."
"——Hyūga Yū, Battle Power: 9 (Full Power State: 1062!)"
Under the flushing surge of massive data, even the Tenseigan suddenly couldn't stop Himself from freezing for a moment. "I... wait, his battle power is..."
"HOW MUCH?!"
"..."
"——Hyūga Yū, Battle Power: 9 (Full Power State: 1062!)"
————
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