"Father… is dead!?"
"And he even killed every adult member of the Hyūga clan…"
Even though Hinata had matured a great deal after going through her father's imprisonment, the moment she heard Neji tell her all of this, her heart still couldn't calm down for a long time.
Scene after scene of her life with her father rose unbidden in her mind. Maybe most of the time, Hiashi had looked at her with disappointment. Maybe he had always been harsh with her.
But… he was still her father.
She couldn't even bring herself to blame Uchiha Chizumi. After all, her father had really done something like that—something only slightly less horrific than what Uchiha Itachi had done…
"I'll go to the Academy and ask for a few days' leave for you. I'm also going to apply for early graduation."
Looking at Hinata's tearful, lost expression, Neji ultimately couldn't bring himself to tell her what Hiashi had really done. He had also decided to bury the matter of the Ōtsutsuki on the moon deep in his own heart.
"While I'm at the Academy, you're going to take charge of the Tenseigan."
"This is the ultimate power of our Hyūga clan. While you're controlling it, the Tenseigan's chakra will enter your body. It'll be good for you, Hinata."
"And one last thing—no matter what happens, no matter who comes looking for it, do not hand the Tenseigan over."
Neji didn't say anything else. He simply guided the Tenseigan floating behind him until it hovered in front of Hinata.
After realizing that he himself was basically incapable of awakening the Tenseigan, Neji had stopped drawing on its power. He was worried that taking too much of the Tenseigan's chakra for himself might affect Hinata's own chance of awakening it.
As for Hinata, although she didn't really understand why the Hyūga clan had suddenly gained an eye like this, she still reached out and touched the Tenseigan in a daze.
The moment her hand brushed against it, the Tenseigan seemed to recognize that the person it had always been waiting for had finally arrived.
Sapphire-blue chakra surged out of the Tenseigan, and in an instant, a cloak of Tenseigan chakra wrapped around Hinata's body. Its color was so deep it was almost dark blue.
Even Hinata's own Byakugan, stimulated by that chakra, began to shift toward a pale blue.
"This is… Father's chakra. And Uncle's, and the others' too…"
Hinata didn't understand what was happening to her. As the Tenseigan chakra cloak formed, her whole body lifted into the air—but what she cared about most wasn't the power itself. It was the chakra signature inside the eye.
Within the Tenseigan, she could clearly feel the chakra of her father, Hyūga Hiashi, of the other main family elders… and even of Neji's father, Hyūga Hizashi.
"So this is where the title 'Byakugan Princess' really comes from…"
Seeing Hinata's Byakugan fully dyed in a layer of pale blue, Neji couldn't hide the shock in his eyes.
He himself had drawn on the Tenseigan's power before, and by his estimate, even with the Tenseigan nourishing him, it would still have taken at least three years for his Byakugan to gradually evolve in that direction.
But Hinata had only just touched it.
"Again? More Tenseigan chakra?"
The disturbance from the Tenseigan chakra wrapping around Hinata wasn't large, but it was still enough to alert quite a few people.
Jiraiya, for example, was in the middle of preparing his lessons at the Ninja Academy. He may have taken the teaching job for his own reasons, but he still thought of himself as a pretty responsible instructor. At the very least, he always prepared before class.
Now he found himself staring in the direction of the temporary residence where Hinata and Neji were staying, unsure whether or not he should go check.
"No. This chakra is even purer than the chakra Hyūga Hiashi had yesterday!"
"Konoha really does have a child with the aptitude to awaken a Sage Eye?"
Fukasaku stared toward Hinata's side of the village, his expression growing increasingly uncertain.
He could feel it. The Tenseigan chakra there wasn't simply acting as a temporary buff—it felt much more like there was another person already wielding a fully awakened Tenseigan.
"Wait, you're saying there's a child who can awaken a Sage Eye?"
Jiraiya's pupils tightened sharply. He had seen a Sage Eye before—and that eye had belonged to his own student. There had even been a time when he believed Nagato was the Child of Prophecy.
And now Fukasaku was telling him there was another one?
Wasn't the Sage Eye supposed to be a power that only the legendary Sage of Six Paths possessed?
How had it suddenly started getting mass-produced in this era?
"There's no mistake. I don't know who exactly has awakened the Tenseigan, but I know what I'm feeling!"
"I think I finally understand the condition required for the Hyūga clan's eyes to awaken further."
Fukasaku frowned deeply. The birth of the Great Tenseigan alone had already been enough of a headache. He had even been thinking about whether they ought to find a way to take that Great Tenseigan away.
But now, if there was also someone who had actually awakened a Tenseigan—
Fukasaku knew perfectly well that Mount Myōboku no longer had any chance of taking the Tenseigan away. If they dared take both the Tenseigan and the child who had awakened it, Konoha would almost certainly go to war with Mount Myōboku.
"So the condition to awaken a Tenseigan is that there has to already be a real Tenseigan there to induce the evolution of a Hyūga's Byakugan?"
After only a little thought, Jiraiya also figured out the condition for awakening the Tenseigan.
And once he reached that conclusion, his mind went even further. For example, why had Hiashi been so determined to slaughter the Hyūga clan in order to create the Great Tenseigan?
In Hiashi's plan, he himself had probably always been a disposable piece. The whole point had been to create the Great Tenseigan and then pass it on to the one child in the Hyūga clan with the aptitude to awaken a Tenseigan.
"If I remember right, the only people left in the main family are Hyūga Hinata and Hyūga Hanabi, aren't they?"
"So which one is it—Hinata or Hanabi?"
"Did Hiashi know from very early on that one of his daughters had the aptitude to awaken the Tenseigan, and simply never manage to make up his mind?"
Jiraiya stared into the distance, thinking all of that over. Then his gaze shifted toward Uchiha Chizumi's house.
And the moment he looked that way, his expression gradually turned to horror, and his mouth fell open on its own.
Not just Jiraiya.
At that moment, almost everyone in Konoha looked up.
Even ninja who were in the middle of carrying out missions found themselves involuntarily drawn to what was happening over in the direction of the Uchiha compound.
"No way…"
"Why is there suddenly a sun rising over the Uchiha district?!"
"That's a sun, right?"
"That's definitely a sun, right?!"
Naruto, who had just gotten up and was getting ready for school, stared toward the Uchiha compound with his mouth hanging open so wide it looked like it could fit three eggs.
Naruto swore he must still be half asleep.
Because there was no way Konoha could suddenly have two suns first thing in the morning.