Poof!
Under the cover of night, a cloud of smoke erupted atop Konoha's Hokage Monument.
A figure plunged out of mid-air, crashing onto the top of the stone faces.
Down below, the village of Konohagakure lay dead quiet. Even the streetlights lining the left and right sides of the avenues had been extinguished, leaving only a scattered few lamps flickering in the night wind like ghosts. Not a soul walked the streets, but strangely enough—
Down below, across the rooftops of the densely packed houses, fully organized shinobi squads would silently bound over the tiles every so often, appearing as black shadows in the dark as they dispersed in every direction across Konoha.
These shinobi were equipped in full battle gear usually reserved for times of war—Konoha flak jackets, chainmail, headbands, leg wraps, iron gauntlets, scroll holsters, and weapon pouches... Every single one carried a grave expression, looking as though they had received some crucial mission and were now quietly waiting for the moment when the "impending crisis" spoken of by the village leadership would finally arrive!
At this moment, the time in Konoha was three o'clock in the morning.
The entire village was submerged in the calm before a storm—silent, motionless, and outwardly serene, yet maintaining a tension that kept everyone on edge. The commotion atop the Hokage Monument immediately drew the attention of the hidden patrol ninja. A ink bird rapidly took flight from the right side of the Hokage Residence below, flying silently through the air.
Riding atop it was Shin, the contemporary successor of Konoha's secret ninjutsu: Super Beast Imitating Drawing.
Shin's assignment was to covertly monitor the Hyūga Clan as an information hub, gathering and relaying any abnormal intelligence to the village leadership at a moment's notice.
Holding the hilt of the ninja blade strapped to his back, he quickly approached the top of the Hokage Monument where the strange noise had originated, his face grave. However, when Shin saw the person who had appeared atop the monument, his pupils contracted violently. "Tennin...-sama!?"
He let out a raspy, unfamiliar exclamation—a voice he hadn't used in years—as he stared at the uninvited guest, Hyuga Yu, who looked quite disheveled. Or rather, half of Hyuga Yu.
At this moment, half of Hyuga Yu's body was still completely petrified. His overall chakra fluctuations were extremely low and feeble, like a candle flickering in the wind. Having fallen onto the Hokage Monument, he lay flat on his back, struggling to prop up the half of his body that could still move. Yet from the looks of it, he lacked even the most basic capacity to move around.
Seeing this, the astonishment in Shin's eyes grew even deeper. He had personally witnessed Hyuga Yu's terrifyingly vast power. Furthermore, as a direct subordinate under Hyuga Yu's command, he possessed far more detailed intelligence regarding tonight's operations than anyone else: five hours ago, Hyuga Yu had left Konoha to head to Mount Myōboku to train in Sage Mode, leaving behind a prophecy—"Tomorrow, Konoha will face a crisis capable of destroying the entire village!"
Actuated by this intelligence from Tennin, the Foundation, the Anbu, and even the Konoha shinobi forces covertly mobilized by the Third Hokage had begun establishing defensive perimeters around the Hyūga Clan compound.
Yet, after a mere five hours, how could Tennin—who had been frighteningly powerful before leaving Konoha—have ended up in a state like this?
What had he encountered? What kind of enemy had he met? And just what kind of opponent possessed the capability to push Tennin, a man standing near the absolute pinnacle of the shinobi world, into such a pathetic state?
Having confirmed the newcomer's identity, Shin instantly leapt down from the large ink bird onto the top of the Hokage Monument. Reaching out to support Hyuga Yu, he stared at him with intense nervousness. Straining his throat, he asked in a raspy, unaccustomed voice, "Tennin...-sama!"
"Are... are you alright?"
At that moment, the supported Hyuga Yu slowly opened his eyes. Seeing Shin right before him, he was also thoroughly surprised. "So, you actually know how to speak?"
Shin: "..."
He did not answer. Engaging in direct verbal conversation was actually a burden for him.
Shin immediately pulled out a pen and paper. With a hand speed even faster than a normal person speaking, he scribbled a sentence and held up the paper:
What happened to you? Did you encounter an enemy?
"I'm fine."
Hyuga Yu shook his head, slightly sensing his physical condition. Once he had escaped the world of "Insight," the petrification affecting his body had ceased. Furthermore, after mastering the [Conversion] ability mimicked from the Six Paths Sage Jutsu, he had successfully suppressed the bloodline disease, the decay of the Hashirama cells, and the frantic drain of his vitality through controllable Yang Style.
As long as Hyuga Yu did not tap into power at the Super-Kage level again to overload his body, his physical form could barely manage to support his Tenseigan chakra system.
However, Hyuga Yu's gaze quickly swept past Shin, looking down toward the northern side of the Hokage Monument at the Hyūga Clan compound located in the heart of Konoha. At this moment, under the influence of something invisible to normal people, the structure of his eyeballs underwent a change—an extremely intricate and comprehensive sensory neural system was rapidly establishing itself within his eyes!
A streak of white-gold divine light flashed across the center of his pupils, which glowed with a faint cyan-white light.
Immediately after, the silhouette of Konoha submerged in the night became increasingly vivid in Hyuga Yu's vision. Supported by this profound and mysterious power, he was able to see the tiny vortexes of airflow, the faint vibrations traveling through the earth, and even the shifts in the magnetic field on the ground below. Using just his eyes, he could discern temperature differences as precise as 0.01°C. In absolute darkness, he could see the infrared outlines of numerous living beings—some sleeping, some awake—both inside and outside the residences of the Hyūga compound. He could even see the vibrational patterns of "sound." A vast array of sound waves, infrasound waves, and echoing resonances coalesced in his vision, forming a strange image entirely different from the normal world.
Masses of information filled Hyuga Yu's field of vision. The world he observed, the information he perceived—more and more of it flooded in, until it finally seemed to reach a critical threshold. The embryo of Hyuga Yu's Tenseigan activated automatically. His perspective began to elevate, but this time, the veins around his eyes did not bulge, nor was the field of view provided by the Tenseigan embryo a dull gray-and-white. For the very first time, it possessed "color."
And then, within this colorful world, Hyuga Yu saw—
An abnormal infrasound wave, the kind that would only appear before natural disasters like earthquakes or floods, was continuously emanating from above the Hyūga Clan compound.
Just as insects and snakes could sense when rain or earthquakes were coming, Hyuga Yu now possessed this exact capability.
This caused a faint, ominous premonition to arise from the depths of Hyuga Yu's heart.
Is this... the wave emitted before the birth of the massive purple Tenseigan?
And the medium providing this information is... natural energy?
Hyuga Yu's heart stirred slightly as he looked down at this "colored Byakugan vision," which was starkly different from the typical vision of a Byakugan or a Tenseigan.
He instantly realized that those "colored" specks of light, which adhered to and filled the monochromatic world normally seen through the Byakugan, were the very natural energy he could now sense!
By merely allowing the natural energy to spontaneously flow into his eyes without conscious effort, all the natural energy Hyuga Yu could see and perceive became extensions of his senses, supplementing a vast amount of information and intelligence that the Byakugan was normally incapable of observing.
This granted Hyuga Yu a panoramic super-sensory ability.
This sensation was truly beyond incredible, but it also caused a trace of unease to subconsciously rise within Hyuga Yu's heart. If this is the rudimentary form of Sage Mode... then the difference between mine and the Sage Modes of Mount Myōboku or Ryūchi Cave is simply too vast!
Not only did the natural energy fail to corrode me, turn me into an animal, or petrify me, but it acted as if my body were a tributary of a river, flowing right through me. In the process of flowing through, it granted me all sorts of extraordinary abilities.
It's almost as if... I myself am a mass of natural energy?
Having grasped this realization, Hyuga Yu's heart quivered slightly. Suddenly, he recalled the statement made earlier by the Great Toad Sage of Mount Myōboku:
"Once you are capable of reaching the realm where you can 'touch the truth of all creation', come back to Mount Myoboku to find this old man, and accept the next phase of your Six Paths Sage Jutsu training."
In other words... right now, I have already begun my training in Six Paths Sage Jutsu?
Hyuga Yu instantly understood. Because of my experiences in the world of 'Insight', peculiar changes have occurred within my body. To the current me, natural energy won't petrify or animalize me like it does to ordinary people. Instead, it serves as a source of strength.
And the core of this Sage Mode training clearly does not lie in the fusion and utilization of Sage Jutsu chakra, but rather in—
The ability I mastered in the world of Insight:
[Conversion].
Chakra can be converted into natural energy, and natural energy can likewise be converted into chakra.
Meaning, as long as I stand in an environment where I can sense and absorb natural energy, my chakra will be...
Boundless!
Hyuga Yu gradually grasped a threshold of the realm he currently inhabited, and an individual in a similar situation immediately came to mind—the God of Shinobi, Hashirama Senju!
A piece of trivia: the Senju Clan did not possess massive chakra reserves as a defining clan trait like the Uzumaki Clan did. Even a genius like Tsunade possessed a chakra stat of only 8 [精8], nowhere near the absurd levels of her grandfather. Furthermore, the official databooks explicitly stated that throughout the millennium-long conflict between the Senju and the Uchiha, it was actually the Uchiha Clan that held the advantage in chakra volume.
Yet, Hashirama Senju's style was entirely different from the rest of his clan members. His chakra volume was terrifyingly vast; he could single-handedly hold off thousands of troops, and he went so far as to construct a giant wooden statue over 3,000 meters tall purely on his own power, without the aid of a Tailed Beast.
So, where did Hashirama Senju's unnaturally massive chakra originate from?
Looking at the vast array of colored specks of light scattered across his god-like field of view, Hyuga Yu gained a sudden flash of insight. If Hashirama Senju's Sage Mode was the true Sage Mode, then everything made complete sense.
Hashirama Senju's gargantuan chakra...
His passive regeneration that surpassed every medical jutsu...
His cellular vitality that remained more active than anyone else's even decades after his death...
His Sage Mode that could be activated instantaneously in the blink of an eye...
The source of all this perhaps corresponded precisely to what the Great Toad Sage had called the "threshold of reincarnation."
After undergoing a thousand years of reincarnations, the reincarnate of Asura had broken through the threshold of "reincarnation" spoken of by the Great Toad Sage, allowing Hashirama Senju to touch upon the threshold of Six Paths Sage Jutsu. Hashirama himself might not have realized it, or perhaps he simply treated this ability as the Kekkei Genkai he had awakened as a Senju. However, judging from the capabilities he displayed, he had at least obtained the power of [Conversion] just like Hyuga Yu. It was precisely with the foundation laid by this ability acquired by Hashirama that Naruto Uzumaki, as Asura's later reincarnate, possessed the baseline qualifications to receive the power passed down by the Sage of Six Paths.
And continuing to rely on this to master the [Vitality], [Healing Factor], and [Sage Mode] demonstrated thereafter was perhaps the precise direction for Hyuga Yu's upcoming Sage Jutsu training.
Having analyzed up to this point, Hyuga Yu's mind grew clear, and his roadmap for the future became well-defined.
At this moment, Hyuga Yu looked toward the ominous aura hovering above the Hyūga Clan compound, his gaze darkening slightly.
Even though the theory was fully understood, practical problems still remained.
Given Hyuga Yu's current physical condition, drawing upon stronger power would inevitably trigger a bodily breakdown. Yet, abstaining from that power would render the impending disaster uncontrollable. The solution to this dilemma—
Hyuga Yu looked at the vast quantity of colored specks of light within his vision, then shifted his gaze to the other half of his body that had already petrified.
In this brand-new field of view, that petrified half of his body had not actually lost its vitality. Rather, it was blocked due to a massive concentration of natural energy within it. In fact, within Hyuga Yu's vision, that half of his body radiated an exceptionally dazzling highlight. However, because he could neither utilize nor channel this natural energy, his body was unable to recover.
He had currently only completed the first step of Sage Jutsu training—perceiving this natural energy. To further resolve his physical issues in a short period and convert his gains from this trip to Mount Myōboku into concrete power, Hyuga Yu inevitably had to initiate the second phase of his training:
"Touching the truth of all creation."
Moving from perceiving this natural energy, to being able to freely touch this natural energy, and finally reaching a realm where he could master and command this natural energy at will.
As for the direction of his training, Hyuga Yu recalled the changes that had occurred in his eyes upon contacting natural energy just now, and a clear path gradually took shape in his mind.
At this time, after a brief silence, Shin looked at Hyuga Yu, who was staring thoughtfully at his half-petrified body. After thinking it over, Shin pulled out a piece of paper and quickly wrote:
Tennin-sama, do you need me to take you to the hospital?
Seeing this, Hyuga Yu waved his hand, his gaze darkening slightly as if he still felt somewhat uneasy. He spoke to Shin, "How are Konoha's preparations for tomorrow's matter coming along?"
Shin immediately pulled out paper to write, turning it around to show Hyuga Yu: As per your instructions, a force of shinobi sufficient to launch a localized war has been mobilized, ready to seal off the Hyūga Clan compound at any moment!
All Three Sannin have been recalled. According to the higher-ups' arrangements, Minato Namikaze will enter the Hyūga compound tomorrow as an invited guest, and he will decide whether to initiate combat actions.
At the same time, Konoha has entered Level 2 combat readiness. Should a crisis occur, the village will immediately organize the evacuation of civilians into the shelters.
Following your instructions, all researchers from the Konoha Hospital have been arranged to evacuate into the shelters in advance.
Hyuga Yu nodded, then asked, "What about Hiruko's research progress? When will he be able to complete the theoretical verification?"
Regarding this question, since Terai was the one handling follow-ups on that front, Shin knew very little. He did not reply immediately, instead drawing a small ink bird on the spot and releasing it. In less than three minutes, a message was relayed back from the shelter beneath the Hokage Monument:
Within half a month, the theoretical verification of the Chimera Technique can be completed. However, the initial experimental phase will require a large number of test subjects from the Hyūga and Kaguya clans.
Upon receiving the message, Hyuga Yu closed his eyes slightly and fell into deep thought for a moment. Immediately after, he issued an order to Shin: "Resume your mission."
Shin looked at Hyuga Yu's body, his brows furrowed tightly as he pulled out another slip of paper:
Then you...
Hyuga Yu lay back down atop the first Hokage face—that of Hashirama Senju. Though his eyes remained closed, he had already seen the contents written by Shin. He said calmly, "I can just stay here."
"This place... happens to be perfect for the next step of my training!"
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