Chapter 7
Clues to the Tenseigan
Whoosh—
Whoosh, whoosh—
In the forest outside Konoha Village, four ANBU ninja continuously leaped through the trees, gradually converging from different directions.
“No sign of the target!” one ANBU ninja reported after stopping on a large tree branch. He used his sensory abilities to scan the area before speaking through the communication device attached to his ear.
The technology of the ninja world was strangely inconsistent. The development of firearms had practically stagnated, and technological levels varied greatly, yet they already possessed things like wireless communication devices and microphones.
The other ANBU members also stopped one after another, each taking a high position on the trees and keeping watch over the surroundings.
“Strange. Where did he go?”
The sensory ninja formed hand seals again. Chakra spread outward like ripples, but he still found nothing.
Whoosh—
The sound of rushing wind suddenly rang out as Kakashi, wearing a white cat mask, landed nearby.
As an ANBU captain, Kakashi normally would not be dispatched personally. However, this incident involved the Hyuga Clan, one of Konoha’s two great noble clans.
The Third Hokage had personally ordered Kakashi to lead an ANBU squad to investigate.
“Captain!” the other ANBU ninja called out.
“You haven’t found anything either?” Kakashi asked. Beneath the white cat mask, his single visible eye was filled with concern.
The moment the mysterious man disappeared into the night, Kakashi had immediately led the ANBU in pursuit. They spread out like a giant net while searching.
Yet they were already close to the village barrier and still had not found any trace of him.
“The orphanage has been searched. Nothing unusual was found,” one ANBU reported. “There are only a few scattered buildings in this area. The orphanage director is Yakushi Nono.”
“The Wandering Shrine Maiden…” Kakashi murmured quietly.
Naturally, he had heard of her. After all, Root was technically a subordinate branch of the ANBU, and information on many Root agents was shared with the ANBU.
Of course, some of the ninja secretly trained by Danzo were not included in those reports.
“Continue the search! You two follow the village barrier and search east. The rest will come with me and search west!”
“Yes, sir!”
The ANBU quickly moved out.
Konoha Hospital – Special Care Ward
After receiving treatment from the medical ninja, Hyuga Hizashi was no longer in danger. He had been placed in a private room to recover.
After all, Hizashi was not only a Jonin but also the head of the Hyuga Branch Family and the younger brother of the Hyuga Clan Head.
However, the injured Hizashi could not fall asleep.
Lying in bed, his Byakugan stared at the hospital ceiling. Deep furrows lined his brow.
The battle replayed repeatedly in his mind.
Faced with the combined assault of himself and Hiashi, the mysterious man had directly struck his blind spot, as though he knew the Hyuga Clan’s secrets extremely well.
Knock knock.
A knock sounded at the door.
“Come in,” Hizashi said, turning toward the entrance.
The door slowly opened, and Hiashi entered wearing casual clothes.
“Brother…”
Hizashi struggled to sit up and greet him, but Hiashi stopped him with a raised hand.
“Stay down. Your condition isn’t good.”
Hiashi pulled up a stool and sat beside the bed. Looking at his injured younger brother, his expression was gloomy.
Although he had been dissatisfied with Hizashi because of recent events, he had to admit that Hizashi’s combat strength was comparable to his own.
The two of them had attacked the mysterious man from both sides, yet one ended up seriously injured while the other suffered minor injuries.
A ninja of such strength should not have been an unknown figure.
And…
“I came to confirm the techniques that mysterious man used,” Hiashi said seriously.
“Yes…”
Hizashi’s expression darkened as he recalled the battle.
“That person knows a lot about us—or rather, about the Hyuga Clan.”
“At the beginning of the fight, when my Gentle Fist struck his chakra points, he released chakra from those very points to resist me. He even protected them with chakra. Every strike felt like hitting iron.”
“It was extremely difficult for Gentle Fist to seal his chakra points or inject my chakra into his pathways.”
Hiashi’s expression became even more serious.
His own exchange with the mysterious man had been brief. He had not attempted precision chakra-point strikes, instead using the Eight Trigrams Palm techniques directly.
“I tried to use my Byakugan to see his face beneath the mask, but all I saw was an endless abyss of darkness. His chakra was also unimaginably vast.”
“And he seemed to know my blind spot…”
Just remembering it caused Hizashi’s body to tremble slightly.
The Bird Cage Seal gave every member of the Branch Family a unique blind spot. Normally, it was almost impossible for an opponent to discover it during a single battle.
A veteran Jonin like Hizashi had survived countless brutal wars and had almost never had anyone find his blind spot.
Yet the mysterious man had done so in barely more than ten exchanges.
Hiashi folded his arms and remained silent for a moment before speaking.
“I was defeated by his Twin Lion Fists.”
“What?!”
Hizashi’s eyes widened in shock.
By the time he had been blasted away by the mysterious man, he was already half-conscious and had not witnessed Hiashi’s defeat.
But as the Branch Family head, Hizashi had sparred with his brother countless times and was very familiar with that technique.
The full name of the technique was Gentle Step Twin Lion Fists, a high-level taijutsu that only members of the Main Family could learn.
By concentrating massive amounts of Gentle Fist chakra into both fists, the user shaped the chakra into lion heads that surrounded their hands. Combined with special footwork, it greatly increased both attack power and striking range.
The difficulty of learning it was comparable to Rotation.
Even Hizashi, who had independently developed Rotation, had never succeeded in creating Twin Lion Fists.
Countless possibilities flashed through his mind.
Could the Hyuga Clan…
Have a defector?
Late Night – Hyuga Main Family Estate
After shaking off the pursuing ANBU, Uzumaki Menma made a return trip.
Taking advantage of both Hizashi and Hiashi being at the hospital, he casually walked into Hiashi’s study.
The tiny Nine-Tails jumped out from Menma’s fur collar and landed on the desk, immediately beginning to rummage through drawers.
“What were we looking for again?” it asked after opening one drawer.
Menma didn’t answer immediately.
“Oh right. Clues about the moon and the Tenseigan.”
Standing before a massive bookshelf, Menma extended his hand and searched through the books.
There was no way the descendants of Otsutsuki Hamura living on the moon had no connection whatsoever with the Hyuga Clan on Earth.
Otherwise, it would be impossible to explain why, among so many bloodline clans in the ninja world, only the Hyuga had developed a curse seal technique like the Bird Cage Seal.
Their precautions might not have been aimed at other clans stealing the Byakugan.
After all, other clans could at most obtain one or two Byakugan, like Ao had.
But the Otsutsuki on the moon were different.
Furthermore, in The Last: Naruto the Movie, Otsutsuki Toneri and his father had visited the ninja world when Toneri was young. They had found the Hyuga Clan compound and observed Hinata from afar.
After growing up, Toneri had even arranged a meeting with Hiashi. Hiashi attended with only two trusted followers.
That suggested Hiashi might know something about the moon from ancient clan records.
“Menma.”
While searching through the drawers, the tiny Nine-Tails suddenly sensed something.
It quickly jumped back into Menma’s collar.
“That big sister is coming.”
After speaking, it retreated into the mental space.
“Hmm?”
Menma paused while flipping through a book titled Byakugan User’s Manual.
He expanded his malice-sensing ability.
A somewhat familiar chakra signature was approaching.
And judging by the feeling…
Whoever it was seemed quite angry.
