A while later, Kanae stood near one of the worktables, a scroll unrolled beside her, her violet eyes scanning a column of data while Ryusei adjusted a seal array humming with golden light. Their conversation was easy, the way it had become lately, half-teasing, half-focused.
"So, six months," Ryusei said lightly, without looking up. "Not bad for two people who started with nothing but a borrowed notebook."
Kanae's lips curved faintly. "And now we've, in some ways, surpassed the man who wrote that notebook you passed me eventually."
Ryusei smirked. "Orochimaru would cry if he saw how fast we solved some cellular feedback problems in his old notes."
She turned toward him, arms crossed. "He didn't consider Yang Release's interference, on that level, properly. Once we started merging my vision with the cellular scans, it was a simple thing to solve."
He nodded in agreement. The combination had been their breakthrough.
When he built this lab, she had insisted on fine-tuning every instrument to connect directly with her Byakugan feedback.
With chakra-conductive lenses and focused mirrors, her eyes could now observe chakra reactions at the cellular level, seeing growth and mutation in real time.
At first, it was just an experiment, adjusting Yang Release to restore tissue.
Then, through weeks of refinement, Kanae managed to alter cell functions deliberately, strengthening them instead of merely healing.
She could also now quietly and easily duplicate many types of cells, although the process was not as fast or advanced, so it could be considered cloning.
Her control had advanced beyond anything a Hyūga had achieved before.
Their main research, however, was the Byakugan itself.
The mystery of how it truly worked, the link between chakra and perception, and whether the limits of its vision were physical or spiritual.
Kanae turned from the desk and motioned for him to follow.
On a nearby platform rested a small glass container sealed with layered chakra tags.
Inside floated a pale, translucent sphere, softly glowing with faint chakra threads that pulsed like veins.
"This is what we've managed so far," she said quietly. "A replica, at least, the closest we can get right now."
Ryusei stepped closer, eyes narrowing slightly as the sphere shifted under the light.
It was clearly alive in some sense, reacting faintly to their presence, but it wasn't quite a Byakugan.
Its surface rippled with subtle color. too warm, too fluid.
"It doesn't have the compression lattice yet," Ryusei said after a moment.
"Without that, the chakra field can't stabilize its vision layer."
Kanae nodded. "Even so, it's already responding to the Yang input. It can detect chakra flow from a few centimeters away."
He reached out, letting a faint current of chakra flow from his fingertip into the barrier.
The replica shivered, tiny tendrils of light blooming across its surface before fading again.
Kanae watched him with quiet satisfaction. "It's strange," she said. "We're already growing eyes in a tank."
Ryusei smirked faintly. "Progress comes faster when we have a shared obsession."
She glanced at him then, her tone softening. "I know why you're obsessed. You don't have to pretend. You think this can help remove my Curse Seal."
He didn't answer right away, only adjusted one of the seals on the container before saying, "Maybe."
Kanae's lips curved just slightly. "Maybe? You've been ignoring even the Hashirama cell research for weeks just to focus on this. I can see where your priorities are."
Her voice was calm, but a faint warmth filled her chest.
She had convinced herself long ago that Ryusei's interest in the Byakugan was mostly about freeing her.
That thought always made her feel something she couldn't quite describe.
Gratitude, maybe.
Or something deeper, warmer, and far more dangerous.
She watched him as he leaned over the containment array, light from the seals reflecting off his face.
Ryusei let her keep thinking that way, which was even better for him.
Only he knew the real reason.
His interest in the Byakugan didn't come only because of Kanae.
He had long realized how much untapped potential hid inside that eye, how much it could still offer to someone who truly understood it.
If he could unravel its structure, it could become another weapon, something that gave him an even greater edge in this world.
It was about knowledge.
Trying to clone a Byakugan also wasn't just about freeing her from the Cursed Seal.
To him, learning how the eye worked was more valuable than anything else right now.
He also knew that taking her eyes out and replacing them wouldn't fix anything.
The Byakugan destroyed itself the moment it was removed from a living Side Branch host, just like when they died.
And the new one wouldn't match her current eyes.
Hers had already adapted perfectly to her body and also had that unique microscopic focus.
Replacing them would remove the seal's danger, maybe, but it would weaken her ability.
So his plan was different.
Instead of removing the problem, he wanted to make her eyes strong enough to try and resist it, to gradually grow beyond the Cursed Seal's reach.
They'd already found signs that it could work.
Months ago, while experimenting with the clone samples, they learned that the Byakugan was unusually stable.
It didn't resist manipulation like the Sharingan did.
It accepted the Yang chakra, through those instruments, easily, merged with new tissue, and even responded to regeneration without losing function.
It made sense. The Byakugan leaned more toward Yang, life, matter, and biology, while the Sharingan was more Yin, born from spirit and emotion.
Yet both were branches of the same lineage, Sage Eyes rather than Sage Bodies, meaning that by nature, both should have been more spiritual than physical, yes, but there were also spectrums on this.
That was why their clone experiments were showing progress so fast.
The eye's nature itself wanted to adapt.
Unlike the Sharingan, which centered its power on the user's individual spirit and emotion, the Byakugan spread its strength outward, connecting to the body and life force around it.
It was broader, more versatile, an organ built for harmony and evolution, not obsession.
And Ryusei thought, if it could adapt that easily, then maybe one day, it could evolve into something even greater.
He stood beside her, arms crossed, watching the pale clone sample pulse faintly inside its container.
"You should push this cloning work harder," he said. "The faster we stabilize more samples, the sooner we can start fusing them into your eyes. Every fusion should weaken the seal's grip a little. If things go wrong with the Hyūga, and I think they might, you'll need every edge you can get."
Kanae didn't look up. "You don't need to threaten me to make me work."
"I'm not threatening you," he said, his tone unusually flat. "Just telling you what's real. The Hyūga aren't as simple as they pretend to be. If they ever trace the eyes I took in the Land of Rivers, the first one they'll come for is you. That seal makes you the easiest target, even from this distance, for example. So hurry, for your own sake."
Her hands paused above the controls, then she turned her head slightly, her voice quieter but firm.
"I don't need to be told twice. I'm doing this because I want to. I won't stay in that cage forever."
Ryusei gave a short nod and went back to the instruments, adjusting the seals with quiet precision.
She didn't speak again, but her thoughts kept circling.
She wasn't doing all this for power, or even for him; it was survival, the only way out she had left.
A few months ago, she'd had nothing.
No plan, no direction, only anger.
Now there was a path, however impossible it sounded.
Still, the pace was slow.
The first prototype was barely stable, and each new one would also take a long time to grow, even if perfected.
She hadn't slept properly in days, her mind fixed on the pale glow of the tank, the hum of the seals, and the soft rhythm of Ryusei's movements somewhere behind her.
And in that silence, despite the exhaustion, she started to believe, maybe for the first time, that escape wasn't just a dream anymore.