It took Alex a long while to calm down before he finally looked at Lois.
"Sorry... just..."
"I'll tell you later."
"Sleep."
His eyes glowed a brighter shade of crimson, and almost instantly Lois' eyelids grew heavy. She slumped forward, only to be caught gently in his arms.
Alex held her for a moment before brushing a strand of hair away from her face.
"...Sorry, Lois."
"I'll tell you everything later."
Even if he knew she couldn't hear him.
After that brutal wake-up call of a fight, one thing had become painfully clear.
He wasn't ready.
And if he wanted to survive...
That had to change.
Slowly, Alex raised his right arm and looked at the markings on the inside of his wrist.
Two black strokes.
Beside them sat a small square, subtle enough that anyone else would dismiss it as part of the tattoo.
Only Alex knew what it represented.
[Lives: 3 → 2]
[Recharge Time: 23:30:00]
He had two more lives before death became permanent.
The memory of the explosion still lingered in his mind, making his stomach churn.
If there was one silver lining...
It was that he'd learned something.
"I was always wondering how to evolve the Mangekyō into the Eternal Mangekyō..."
Alex paused.
A strange sensation spread through his body.
His chakra stirred.
It flowed differently than before, resonating through every pathway until it gathered around his eyes.
The familiar crimson slowly faded.
In its place appeared a pale, pearl-like white.
Tiny veins surfaced around the corners of his eyes.
Alex blinked.
Then smacked his own forehead.
"...The Byakugan."
"...Seriously? I only remember an Ōtsutsuki's default eyes are the Byakugan after getting myself blown up?"
After taking a few moments to calm himself, Alex began examining the changes to his body.
The first thing he did was activate the Byakugan, slowly getting used to its overwhelming perception. The nearly three-hundred-and-sixty-degree field of vision was disorienting at first, but the advantages were obvious.
If nothing else...
He wouldn't be caught off guard by grenades again.
"At least this time I can see the entire battlefield," Alex muttered to himself.
Satisfied with the Byakugan for the moment, he shifted his focus toward his Mangekyō Sharingan.
If his theory was correct...
Then his first death hadn't only awakened the Byakugan.
It had pushed his eyes one step further.
Alex concentrated.
The crimson tomoe began spinning.
Then—
A sharp pain shot through both eyes.
"Argh...!"
He instinctively grabbed his face as chakra surged violently toward his dōjutsu. The tomoe spun faster and faster before a deep crimson glow burst from his irises.
The familiar black pupils...
Slowly shifted.
Turning into a pale, pearl-like white.
Slowly, his eyes opened, revealing beautiful pearl irises with a crimson star-shaped pattern surrounding a rose-like center. His body trembled slightly—not from fear or pain, but from the overwhelming amount of information flooding his mind.
(A/N: In the Naruto universe, users instinctively understand the basic abilities of a newly awakened dōjutsu, with Nagato being an exception since Madara transplanted the Rinnegan into him. Likewise, the Ōtsutsuki possess their own unique dōjutsu, such as Isshiki's Kokugan in Boruto.)
"Hakugan... Eye of the White Void," Alex muttered as the knowledge naturally settled into his mind.
The Hakugan inherited the complete abilities of both the Sharingan and the Byakugan, allowing him to instinctively understand everything from their perception, predictive vision, chakra sight, genjutsu, copying abilities, and even the Susanoo.
But unlike either of those dōjutsu, the Hakugan possessed abilities that were uniquely its own.
Alex only understood one of them for now.
It resonated directly with his Return by Death.
The Hakugan could accelerate the recovery of a lost life instantly, bypassing the normal twenty-four-hour recharge period.
However...
Doing so demanded an enormous amount of chakra.
Without sufficient reserves, the ability simply wouldn't activate.
Sighing, Alex pushed himself away from the bathroom sink and stretched his stiff muscles.
"Well... better get ready for Deathstroke."
Carefully, he carried the sleeping Lois in his arms and laid her gently on the couch before pulling a blanket over her.
"Even with all the tricks I have now, I'd better hold off on showing too much," Alex muttered to himself. "Waller may want useful assets, but she's not stupid enough to try controlling something she knows she can't."
If there was one thing Amanda Waller understood, it was the value of control.
Power alone never impressed her.
Control did.
The moment she concluded someone couldn't be controlled, she'd immediately start looking for another way to eliminate, contain, or neutralize them.
Alex had no intention of giving her a reason to skip straight to those options.