Chapter 70: Team Eleven’s Recuperation

Chapter 70: Chapter 70: Team Eleven’s Recuperation

Now that he could freely activate and deactivate the Tenseigan, there was naturally no longer any need for the dark-tinted goggles.

After all, wearing them had a considerable impact on his vision. This was especially true at night, when the dark lenses seriously interfered with Hyuga Kagami’s sight and reduced his powers of observation.

After putting the dark-tinted goggles away in the ninja pouch at his waist, Kagami got up and returned to the small cave where Team Eleven was hiding.

The moment he saw Kagami, Guy, who was outside the cave stretching his body, grinned and said, "Heh, seeing you without those goggles feels kind of strange."

Kagami looked Guy up and down before asking, "Your body’s fine now?"

Guy immediately gave Kagami a thumbs-up, flashing a full row of teeth as he laughed heartily.

"Don’t worry! I’m Konoha’s Blue Beast! A little injury like this is nothing to me!"

Guy’s physical recovery truly was extraordinary.

If an ordinary person trained at the same intensity he did, their body probably wouldn’t be able to endure it for long. Yet Guy trained like that every single day as though it were nothing.

His injuries this time hadn’t been light either, but after only a few days of rest, he was already back on his feet and full of energy.

Inside the cave, Kagami found Shisui and Kakashi chatting quietly.

Kagami casually asked, "What are you two talking about?"

Shisui glanced at Kakashi. After seeing him nod, he turned to Kagami and said in a strange tone, "Kakashi-senpai awakened the Mangekyo Sharingan."

Kagami looked toward Kakashi. "Did it awaken after the battle in the valley?"

Still looking somewhat weak, Kakashi shook his head. "I’m not really sure myself."

Kagami actually wasn’t too surprised that Kakashi had awakened the Mangekyo Sharingan. From what he remembered, this was something that had practically been inevitable.

Kagami could no longer clearly remember exactly when Obito’s Mangekyo Sharingan had awakened, but he knew that as long as Obito had awakened his Mangekyo Sharingan, then considering the resonance between the two Sharingan, Kakashi could potentially awaken his own Mangekyo at any time as long as he received enough emotional stimulation.

And Kakashi certainly hadn’t lacked for that.

Even setting aside the life-or-death battle in the valley, the deaths of Rin and the Fourth Hokage alone had dealt him psychological blows that were almost impossible to put into words.

So it was entirely possible that Kakashi’s Mangekyo Sharingan had already awakened sometime before this, and that the battle in the valley had merely allowed him to accidentally discover how to activate it.

Seeing that Kakashi still looked half-dead, Kagami didn’t press him with any more questions.

Kagami didn’t want to appear overly interested in the Mangekyo Sharingan, much less give the impression that he was particularly familiar with it. Doing so would only invite a great deal of unnecessary trouble and suspicion.

After all, among those currently interested in the Mangekyo Sharingan, there was Danzo inside the village and Orochimaru outside it.

And then there was Obito, lurking behind the scenes and constantly plotting to wipe out the Uchiha Clan and destroy Konoha. Not a single one of these people was easy to deal with. Kagami wasn’t afraid of attracting their attention, but it would still be troublesome.

Shisui didn’t say anything more either.

In truth, Shisui was still somewhat dazed.

He had never imagined that a non-Uchiha who had merely received a transplanted Sharingan could actually awaken what he regarded as the Uchiha Clan’s ultimate power—the Mangekyo Sharingan.

To him, this was practically the greatest and most cutting mockery imaginable toward the proud Uchiha Clan.

Countless Uchiha who had been praised as "geniuses" had failed to awaken the Mangekyo Sharingan. Even now, as far as Shisui knew, he was the only person in the entire Uchiha Clan who possessed the Mangekyo Sharingan.

He had even lived in constant anxiety precisely because he had awakened it, fearing that such overwhelming power might bring misfortune upon both his clan and the village.

He had guarded this power, the very embodiment of Uchiha pride, with such extreme caution.

Yet somehow, a man who wasn’t even an Uchiha had inexplicably obtained the very same thing.

For Shisui, that sense of being mocked was particularly intense.

Fortunately, Shisui’s pride had already been torn to shreds by Kagami not long ago. In his heart, the proud Uchiha Clan had already suffered a complete defeat at the hands of the Hyuga Clan.

Because no matter how he compared them, the power of the Mangekyo Sharingan simply could not be mentioned in the same breath as the Tenseigan Chakra Mode, which had erased an entire valley with a mere gesture.

So, in Shisui’s heart—

the Uchiha had lost.

And they had lost completely.

Having already suffered one defeat, a second one seemed a little easier to accept. At the very least, Kakashi was the son of the White Fang of Konoha, the man whose very name had once struck fear into the other ninja villages.

Neither Kagami nor Kakashi noticed the complicated emotions running through Shisui’s mind.

Kakashi was still immersed in his own inner world. Deep down, he was nowhere near as cold as he appeared on the surface. Much of the indifference he usually wore on his face was merely a mask to conceal his wounded heart.

Kagami, meanwhile, was reflecting on everything that had happened over the past few days.

The battle in the valley had truly been a narrow escape from death. It had taught him an important lesson: even if you had a trump card in your hand, you still had to be cautious—then be even more cautious. Otherwise, you might lose your life for some ridiculous reason before you even had the chance to play that trump card.

That was exactly what had happened this time.

Although Kagami had the Third Kazekage human puppet as his trump card and could have used Magnet Release to break out through the air at any moment, a single lapse in judgment had nearly resulted in him being captured alive by the Kumogakure shinobi before he even had a chance to bring out the Third Kazekage puppet.

He had to remember what kind of world this was.

This was the shinobi world—a world where even Madara, as the Ten-Tails Jinchuriki, could be caught off guard and instantly taken down.

Of course, Kagami had also gained quite a lot from this battle.

His greatest gain was undoubtedly obtaining, from the giant Tenseigan on the moon, the hand seals required to enter Tenseigan Chakra Mode, as well as the methods for manipulating the Truth-Seeking Balls to perform Golden Wheel Reincarnation Explosion and Silver Wheel Reincarnation Explosion.

At the very instant he entered Tenseigan Chakra Mode, he had even felt as though—

he was a god.

As though no matter what enemy stood before him, all he had to do was raise his hand...

and he could crush them effortlessly.

That feeling was indescribably exhilarating.

Unfortunately, the Otsutsuki descendants on the moon had reacted far too quickly, leaving him with no further opportunity to take advantage of the giant Tenseigan’s free chakra and familiarize himself with Tenseigan Chakra Mode.

In truth, after recuperating for the past few days, Kagami had already recovered seventy to eighty percent of his chakra.

Judging by the chakra consumption of Tenseigan Chakra Mode during the battle in the valley, the amount of chakra currently within his body should be enough for him to enter Tenseigan Chakra Mode on his own.

However, considering that the Otsutsuki descendants on the moon would occasionally use the giant Tenseigan to scan the surface, Kagami felt it would be safer to keep a low profile for the time being.

Ideally, he would wait until they had returned to the Land of Fire, then find some remote, deserted place where he could properly familiarize himself with Tenseigan Chakra Mode...