Chapter 45: One’s Own Eyes

Chapter 45: Chapter 45: One’s Own Eyes

Supporting each other, the three finally made their way out of the cave.

The first person Hyuga Kagami saw upon emerging was Guy.

Clearly, Guy had faithfully carried out Kagami’s instructions. He had guarded the cave entrance the entire time, preventing the shinobi from Sunagakure and Iwagakure from entering without permission.

Seeing all three of them emerge safely, Guy flashed his trademark grin and gave Kagami a thumbs-up.

"Kagami! I knew you guys would succeed!"

Not far away, Kakashi said nothing. He still wore that same aloof, lackadaisical air as always, but from the rise and fall of his chest, Kagami keenly noticed that beneath his mask, Kakashi seemed to have let out a long sigh of relief.

Sunagakure’s Pakura did not approach. Instead, she remained where she was, carefully sizing up Kagami and Shisui.

Everyone outside the cave had felt the commotion coming from within, so it wasn’t difficult for them to imagine just how fierce the battle inside had been.

For Kagami and Shisui, both so young, to walk out alive naturally made Pakura regard them in a new light.

On the other side, however, the Iwagakure shinobi were looking at Kagami and Shisui with noticeably less friendly eyes.

Their captain, in particular, wore a thoughtful expression, as though he were considering some important matter. He was so preoccupied that he even seemed somewhat absentminded.

Sensing the hostility coming from Iwagakure’s side, Kagami immediately understood what was going on.

With the demon Moryo, which had brought calamity upon the world, now completely sealed away, the temporary cooperation between the various shinobi villages came to an end as well.

In its place returned the same old hostility and competition as always.

At that moment, the Priestess, holding the wooden box in her hands, bowed to the shinobi gathered outside the cave and thanked them for their assistance.

Even without mentioning anything else, the shattered soldier puppets littering the ground outside were enough to show that the shinobi who had remained behind had not had an easy time of it either.

After all, before Moryo had been completely sealed, those soldier puppets had essentially been immortal.

After exchanging a few polite words, the group escorted the Priestess back to the Land of Demons. Soon afterward, the shinobi from Sunagakure and Iwagakure took their leave one after another.

Since Hyuga Kagami’s private deal with the Priestess had yet to be completed, Konoha’s ANBU Team Eleven used the excuse that the Priestess had commissioned them to wipe out the remaining members of the Yomi Cult and temporarily stayed behind in the Land of Demons.

Of course, Kagami promptly dumped the job of exterminating the Yomi Cult remnants onto Kakashi, Guy, and Shisui.

As for himself, he recuperated at the Priestess’s palace while waiting for her to gather the Purple Clay Gel he needed.

During his free time, Kagami reflected on his battle with Moryo.

This had been the first time since obtaining the Tenseigan that Kagami had completely exhausted every last bit of chakra in his body.

Because of that, the battle had exposed many of his weaknesses—but it had also brought him a few unexpected gains.

The aftereffects of completely draining his chakra were far more severe than he had anticipated.

For the next several days, his body was almost completely devoid of strength, while his mind was weighed down by an unbearable sense of oppression.

It was as though a dark cloud hung over his head, one that refused to disperse no matter what he did.

Fortunately, the Tenseigan in his eye sockets were his own, perfectly compatible with both his body and soul. As a result, the burden they placed on him was considerably lighter.

If these Tenseigan had been transplanted from someone else, he would probably have already suffered a merciless backlash from them. Even if he somehow managed to survive, his body would likely have been left utterly depleted of vitality.

In his hazy memories from his previous life, after Otsutsuki Toneri was defeated by Naruto and exhausted all the chakra in his body, the Tenseigan he had obtained by transplanting Hanabi’s Byakugan disappeared as well.

From this alone, it was clear that even someone like Otsutsuki Toneri—a being capable of soaring through the skies and splitting the moon—was still unable to maintain a bloodline power on the level of the Tenseigan once his chakra was completely exhausted.

The weak weren’t even qualified to possess the Tenseigan!

And so, this once again confirmed Kagami’s earlier speculation.

His Tenseigan seemed almost sentient. All this time, they had instinctively been suppressing themselves, remaining in their initial awakened state so as to avoid inflicting irreversible damage on Kagami’s still-insufficiently powerful body.

"Nothing beats having your own eyes!"

Having finally understood this, Kagami couldn’t help but sigh with emotion.

Even with the same Rinnegan, the power it displayed when wielded by Madara, its original owner, was markedly different from when it was wielded by Nagato.

Madara could even use Rinnegan ocular techniques such as Limbo: Border Jail, an ability Nagato had never once demonstrated.

This, in turn, was further proof that Madara, as the Rinnegan’s original owner, was able to bring out far more of its true power than Nagato ever could.

Moreover, the price Madara had to pay was far smaller than Nagato’s.

This incident also served as a warning to Kagami. From now on, he wouldn’t dare recklessly exhaust every last drop of his chakra again.

At the same time, it only made his desire for an artificial tailed beast even stronger!

Time waited for no one.

Unable to hold himself back any longer, Kagami finally asked the Priestess to teach him sealing techniques.

The result, however, left him bitterly disappointed.

The Priestess told him plainly that without the bloodline of the Priestesses, it was absolutely impossible to learn the sealing techniques passed down through their lineage. Countless people throughout history had already tried and proven this fact.

Simply put, the sealing techniques of the Priestess lineage were themselves a type of kekkei genkai.

That was also why, for the past thousand years, the Priestesses of the Land of Demons had always passed their legacy down through a single line, with no outsider ever able to involve themselves in their inheritance.

Suppressing the disappointment in his heart, Kagami had no choice but to settle for the next best thing.

Although the Priestess couldn’t teach Kagami the powerful sealing techniques of her own lineage, as a master of sealing arts, she had no problem guiding him in the study of other sealing techniques.

After changing his approach, Kagami immediately extracted every sealing formula related to sealing techniques from the artificial tailed beast research materials.

He then handed them over to the Priestess and asked her to guide him in learning them.

The moment she saw those sealing formulas, the Priestess showed tremendous interest.

All of the sealing formulas contained in the artificial tailed beast research materials came from the Uzumaki lineage.

The Uzumaki Clan was a renowned clan of sealing masters that had developed powerful forbidden techniques such as the Reaper Death Seal, the Four Symbols Seal, and the Adamantine Sealing Chains. So even the Priestess, whose own mastery of sealing techniques was exceptionally profound, couldn’t help but marvel at the Uzumaki Clan’s sealing formulas, showering them with praise.

After several days of study, the Priestess relied on her own expertise in sealing arts to quickly familiarize herself with the characteristics of Uzumaki-style sealing techniques. Before long, she had mastered every sealing formula involved in the artificial tailed beast project.

"These sealing formulas are simply exquisite. The Uzumaki Clan truly deserves admiration!"

The Priestess’s praise came straight from the heart.

The defining characteristic of the Uzumaki Clan’s sealing techniques was "using the weak to control the strong."

Through sealing techniques, a frail human body could suppress and control gigantic monsters as powerful as the tailed beasts. That was why, ever since Konoha’s founding, every Nine-Tails jinchūriki had come from the Uzumaki Clan.

On this point alone, even the Priestess had to admit that she fell short.

Thus, after learning so many of the Uzumaki Clan’s sealing formulas, the Priestess felt as though she had benefited tremendously from the exchange.

And so, she held nothing back and began wholeheartedly instructing Hyuga Kagami...