REVIEWS AND POWERSTONES PLSSS!!!!!Chapter 86: The Hyuga's Tragedy
"What did you do? How did you even attract the Otsutsuki?" Yasushi asked curiously.
"Otsutsuki?" Orochimaru didn't answer his question, instead asking thoughtfully: "That's the Sage of Six Paths' surname. Are they descendants of the Sage?"
"No, not descendants of Otsutsuki Hagoromo, but descendants of Otsutsuki Hamura," Yasushi explained.
"Ah, so descendants of the Otsutsuki Hamura who possessed the Tenseigan!" Orochimaru had an epiphany and was immediately delighted. "So the Hyuga clan was deliberately concealing this from me!"
"What a bunch of stubborn old fossils!"
"Unyielding unto death!"
"I should have just killed them all and taken their eyes. What a shame—quite a few still escaped."
"Mm..." Yasushi tilted his head in thought, deciding it was better not to tell Orochimaru the full truth. He changed the subject and continued asking: "You still haven't said how you drew them out."
"Oh, perhaps because I was planning to exterminate the Hyuga main family?"
Orochimaru answered casually with an indifferent expression:
"You know about the Hyuga clan's deformed structure. Only the main family counts as human—the branch families are all dogs."
"So that day before making my move, I targeted all the main family members in advance."
"As soon as I acted, I used the most efficient methods to capture many main family members. Then I threatened the other branch family shinobi with their lives, ordering them not to move, or I'd start with the main family."
"What's most laughable is that such a stupid tactic actually succeeded spectacularly!"
"Under the main family's orders, those branch family shinobi could only guard outside the compound, not daring to charge in and fight."
"Otherwise, with just me alone trying to contend with a prestigious shinobi clan would be completely impossible."
"After seizing the initiative, I publicly announced the secret of Tenseigan synthesis to the branch family shinobi, demanding in front of everyone that the Hyuga main family reveal the method to release the Caged Bird curse mark. This stirred the branch family shinobi's hearts and eliminated their thoughts of disobeying main family orders to launch a surprise rescue."
"Originally everything was going smoothly."
"At that time, I interrogated many Hyuga main family members. Those stubborn old fossils from the main family refused to tell me the Caged Bird curse mark release method even unto death."
"Even after I publicly revealed the secret, they just insisted I was employing a divide-and-conquer strategy. They'd rather incite separation between main and branch families than remove the Caged Bird for those branch family shinobi."
Hearing this, Yasushi couldn't help opening his mouth, but ultimately said nothing more, just continuing to listen to Orochimaru's account.
"At that time, those old fossils had annoyed me, so I directly told them that if they refused to hand over the Caged Bird curse mark release method, I'd kill all the main family members and take all the Byakugan."
"Later, I'd carefully research cloning technology and attempt to mass-clone Byakugan through cloning methods—I could still synthesize the Tenseigan that way."
"But those old fossils remained unyielding unto death!"
"Then I thought of Nagato's Human Path being able to probe intelligence from people's brains, so I had a summoning beast go request the Human Path to come."
"But perhaps because the battle situation was too intense, the summoning beast was killed. The Human Path didn't come. Instead, that Otsutsuki fellow appeared, used those strange puppets to entangle me, then rescued Hiashi Hyuga."
"Only rescued Hiashi Hyuga? Didn't rescue Hinata or Hanabi Hyuga?" Yasushi asked strangely.
"Hiashi's two young daughters?" Orochimaru thought for a moment and shook his head. "I didn't pay attention to those little girls. Perhaps they'd already entered shelters for refuge. Of course, it's also possible they were similarly rescued and I just didn't notice."
"I see! That makes sense then!" Yasushi scratched his head, roughly understanding.
The Otsutsuki clan on the moon should have just experienced their family upheaval a few years ago.
After the Otsutsuki branch family exterminated the main family, only a handful remained. Yet they still harbored ambitions to "reshape the shinobi world" and fulfill their ancestors' mandate—they definitely needed a powerful Tenseigan for that.
As the sole surviving member of the Otsutsuki branch family, Otsutsuki Toneri was born without eyes. He had to transplant a pair of pure Byakugan, then use the Giant Tenseigan's refined high-quality ocular power to stimulate his eyes before he could evolve his own Tenseigan.
Most suitable for Otsutsuki Toneri were the young princesses of the Hyuga main family—either Hinata or Hanabi.
Similar ages, and sufficiently high eye purity.
So the Otsutsuki branch family must have been closely monitoring the movements of the Hyuga main family within the shinobi world.
With the Tenseigan's might, most happenings in the shinobi world probably couldn't escape the Otsutsuki branch family's eyes.
For other matters, perhaps they simply wouldn't bother caring. But now that Orochimaru planned to exterminate the Hyuga main family, the Otsutsuki branch family couldn't tolerate it!
If they didn't intervene and let Orochimaru exterminate the Hyuga main family, whether Orochimaru would eventually synthesize the Tenseigan remained uncertain, but Otsutsuki Toneri would definitely bid the Tenseigan a permanent farewell.
Given such considerations, the Otsutsuki branch family sending someone to rescue the main family members made perfect sense.
As for why they also rescued Hiashi Hyuga, Yasushi wasn't entirely certain. Most likely either as an afterthought addition, or for immediate use!
He filtered some of the intelligence he knew and told Orochimaru, who listened with mounting excitement.
"Hehe—so the purity level of the eyes is this important!"
"Good thing you told me this. Otherwise, I might have cultivated all these Byakugan mixed together."
"Mm, as the Hyuga clan head, Hiashi's Byakugan should be sufficiently pure. His two daughters should be similar."
"No, I need to carefully investigate the Hyuga family genealogy to see whose Byakugan in the Hyuga clan is purest."
"Since I'm synthesizing the Tenseigan, naturally I need the best materials!"
"I plan to only use the purest Byakugan for cloning. The other Byakugan can all serve as research materials."
"I don't understand this stuff and won't comment. Everything's up to you." Yasushi waved his hand, bid Orochimaru farewell, and left the laboratory with his three bodyguards.
After watching Yasushi and company depart, Orochimaru gave a sinister smile. His long serpentine tongue licked his lips as he reached beneath the examination table and pulled out a hidden compartment.
Inside the compartment was a groove containing several test tubes. One was already filled halfway with blood.
He chuckled as he extracted the tube, gently shaking it to mix the anticoagulant with the blood evenly. Then he sealed it with a stopper, sealed it in a scroll, and tucked it in his robes.
"Hehe—since I'm researching cloning, naturally I need more materials!"
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