Chapter 255: Wait — I Could Resurrect Otsutsuki Kaguya?
The sensation of having an additional field of vision was strange, but it had almost no practical effect on him. Everything the Rinnegan could perceive already fell within the Byakugan's range of observation. If anything, the Rinnegan's depth of perception was somewhat shallower.
"Does this make me an Otsutsuki?"
He let go. Uchiha Tatsuhata's body hit the floor with a dull thud. At the exact moment the Rinnegan had opened between his brows, Tatsuhata had drawn his last breath.
Ritsu walked around to the other side of the desk, opened a drawer, and pulled out a small mirror. He held it up and looked at himself carefully.
Black hair falling to his waist. A smooth, unmarked forehead. Pure white eyes. His complexion had returned to its normal color — the healthy, faintly warm white of an ordinary person. Without the vertical eye resting closed between his brows, he looked entirely like a Hyuga clan member who happened to be reasonably good-looking.
He didn't look much like an Otsutsuki at all.
And the difference wasn't just on the surface.
Internally, things were equally unlike what a true Otsutsuki would carry. He could sense that his life force had become genuinely boundless — an ocean with no visible floor. His exact lifespan was difficult to estimate precisely, but it was measured in thousands of years at minimum.
But he couldn't detect anything related to Karma.
The Otsutsuki clan's most essential characteristic wasn't the Byakugan. It was the ability called Karma — the power of endless rebirth and reincarnation that allowed the Otsutsuki to persist across generations.
He hadn't gained that.
"Still not truly complete."
He clicked his tongue.
Though he didn't feel any real regret about it.
What he had gained was already extraordinarily rich. A Rinnegan between his brows. A lifespan measured in thousands of years. And his Physical Regeneration superpower had climbed further — not enough to break through to the next level, but it had advanced a significant distance upward. He could faintly sense the barrier separating him from the tier beyond.
A Level 5 Physical Regeneration user already possessed the combat power to suppress an entire fully-armed modern military force. But it was still human. Still within human limits.
Level 6 was something else entirely — described as "one who, without divine form, hears the will of the divine." That was no longer human. That was the first step into the domain of something greater.
So the absence of Karma wasn't worth mourning. He had never forgotten what had actually allowed him to rise in this world. His effort alone wouldn't outpace everyone around him — there were people who had worked far harder, and always would be. What had set him apart, in this life as in his previous one, was the power called Physical Regeneration. That was the real foundation.
He set the mirror down and turned his attention inward, toward the Rinnegan between his brows.
Its awakening hadn't been something he had predicted, but thinking it through now, it made sense. When Uchiha bloodline and Senju bloodline of sufficient purity merged, the Rinnegan could emerge. He had used the Chimera Technique to fuse both. The result was entirely logical.
Although — worth thinking about.
If the Hyuga clan's Byakugan was a heritage passed down from Otsutsuki Kaguya through the Otsutsuki bloodline, then the Uchiha clan's Sharingan was something different: the product of the Divine Tree's power mixed with Kaguya's own, a separate lineage descending from a different source.
His eyes narrowed.
After Uchiha Madara had awakened the Rinnegan, he had gained not only control over the Six Paths and Outer Path abilities, but also a unique ocular technique that belonged to him alone — Limbo: Border Jail. It was a power that Nagato, despite wielding the Rinnegan for years, had never once perceived or accessed. It had been Madara's and Madara's alone.
And now Hyuga Ritsu had gained something similar — a Rinnegan technique that was uniquely his.
It was just that this technique felt somewhat unusual. It wasn't a combat technique in the way Limbo: Border Jail was. If he was being straightforward about it, it was a rather unsettling kind of power.
Power itself carried no moral character. But the form certain powers took and the uses they lent themselves to could look deeply unpleasant regardless, and his fell squarely into that category.
"Interesting."
He had no complaints.
It couldn't directly boost his combat effectiveness, but in terms of what it could accomplish, it might actually exceed Madara's Limbo: Border Jail in its own way. There was just no suitable subject available to test it on right now, so that experiment would have to wait.
Beyond the technique itself, he had also become aware of the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path.
The moment the Rinnegan opened, a connection had formed between him and the statue — something like a summoning contract taking root instinctively. His intuition told him clearly that he could call it here if he chose.
The Demonic Statue's true nature was the animated Divine Tree. And the Rinnegan itself was the product of the Divine Tree's power mixed with Otsutsuki Kaguya's — so a deep, inseparable connection between the Rinnegan and the tree that had borne the Divine Fruit was exactly what you would expect.
"So... I could actually advance the Moon's Eye Plan myself. I could resurrect Otsutsuki Kaguya?"
He murmured it quietly to himself.
His mind erupted into motion. One idea collided with the next and the next, branching and sparking, and then when he connected it to the specific technique his own Rinnegan had just awakened, something ignited. A wild thought took shape in the back of his mind.
Maybe his life didn't have to be confined to this small ninja world.
Maybe he could reach toward a future that was broader and more open than anything this place could offer.
He snapped his fingers.
The four wood clones standing at the corners of the room dissolved simultaneously. The Four Violet Flame Formation barrier released, and the setting sun poured through the windows and caught his white eyes — burning in them like fire, filling them with color.
"Another day gone."
He said it quietly to himself.
Time had slipped away without him noticing. But then he thought about the thousands of years now stretching ahead of him, and the hours that had passed shrank to something entirely insignificant.
He shook his head and pushed the wandering thoughts aside. The Rinnegan between his brows closed quietly, leaving only a faint thin line. From the outside, with its chakra at rest, even his own Byakugan couldn't see through it.
"Arima."
"Here!"
Hyuga Arima pushed the door open and dropped to one knee in front of the desk.
"Your assignment is finished. Everyone can stand down and rest."
"Yes, clan head."
Arima looked up — and stopped. He stared. Hyuga Ritsu's horns were gone. He had grown so accustomed to seeing them there that their sudden absence was unsettling.
He couldn't help worrying that something had gone wrong with the research.
"Don't overthink it. Those horns were more ornamental than functional, and I don't need them anymore. The research was a complete success. My strength is greater than it was before — you should be able to feel that without even using your Byakugan."
Arima blinked.
Then it hit him.
Ritsu wasn't pulling his presence in at all. What was radiating from him now — that vast, unhurried, crushing weight of life force — Arima had never felt anything like it. He stood there with the expression of a man who had just put his hand into what he thought was a shallow stream and found no bottom.
If an ordinary person's life force was a torch burning in the dark, then what Hyuga Ritsu was putting out right now was an entire mountainside on fire.
"Clan head... are you still human?"
The words were out before Arima could stop them.
He immediately wanted to take them back. His face went red. "No — that's not — I mean you feel like a mon— no, not that either, I mean you make monsters look — "
"Enough. Stop talking."
Arima's mouth shut instantly. He looked miserable.
Ritsu let out a long-suffering sigh. "Arima, if you can't say what you mean, go home and practice. I understood what you were trying to get at, and yes, I can tell you plainly — I am still human."
Arima opened his mouth, thought better of it, and said nothing. The effort showed on his face.
Ritsu looked at him and laughed despite himself. "All right. Dismissed."
Arima retreated with the gratitude of a man who had been let off easy, already thinking about how one practiced the skill of saying things properly.
Once he was gone, Ritsu didn't linger in the office. The sun was going down. It was time to go home. He had none of his predecessors' appetite for working through the night, and he had no intention of developing one. If something genuinely important came up, it would find its way to him wherever he was. And anything that didn't find its way to him evidently wasn't that important to begin with.
He picked up Tatsuhata's body and sealed it into a storage scroll. Burning it outright felt wasteful — corpses had research value, and there was no reason to discard something useful. The Interrogation Department's researchers could make use of it eventually, even if the department was currently running on skeleton staff after the attack. Konoha had solid systems for training and replacing people. Given time, the gap would be filled.
He said a brief word to the duty staff on his way out and headed home.
By the time he arrived, the smell of tempura had already spread from the kitchen throughout the house.
Three figures were busy inside. His mother was there, and his Aunt Midoriko, and beside them a slender girl moving lightly between them — narrow-waisted, her long black hair tied up in a high ponytail that swayed as she moved and occasionally revealed the pale line of her neck.
Ritsu forgot to look away.
"Ritsu-nii. Nice view?"
"Very."
"Disgusting. Aika is sixteen."
Akiba looked at him with open contempt.
Ritsu turned to his cousin without any particular hurry. "I said she looked nice. I didn't say anything else. If your mind went somewhere more specific than that, I'd think carefully about what that says about you."
Silence.
"And Aika is in the kitchen helping. Someone else, as I can see, is on the sofa reading manga."
"I — Ritsu-nii, I will fight you."
Akiba launched herself at him with the conviction of someone who had run out of arguments. It didn't accomplish much. The gap between them was considerable, and Ritsu held her off with one hand without particular effort.
"Ritsu, you're back?"
His mother's voice came from the kitchen, warm and unhurried. "There's fruit on the table if you're hungry. Dinner won't be long."
"Thanks, Mom."
He stretched out the last syllable lazily.
Aika glanced back from the kitchen. Their eyes met. She smiled — bright and unguarded — then turned back to what she was doing, moving around the kitchen like a small butterfly, contributing what she could. Whether she was actually helping very much was debatable, but the effect on the atmosphere was not. Ritsu could clearly see his mother and Aunt Midoriko both losing the battle against their own smiles.
Akiba, still pinned, received no sympathy from anyone.
At home Akiba was Ritsu's sparring partner in the ongoing small war that had been running between them since childhood. The adults had long since stopped reacting to it. Ritsu had always been exceptionally self-possessed even as a child, and Akiba, for all her bluntness, didn't have a mean bone in her body. It was just how they were.
His father, Hyuga Tetsu, arrived home precisely at dinnertime, as he always did.
Six people sat down around the table, Aika included, and settled into a generous meal. Predictably, the change in Ritsu's appearance drew attention almost immediately.
"Ritsu, where did your horns go?"
His mother's expression carried a flicker of worry.
Ritsu met the concerned looks around the table and offered a relaxed, confident smile. "Don't worry about it. Those horns were a sign that my training wasn't finished yet. Now that it's complete, they're gone. Perfectly normal."
"Are you sure? You're really all right?"
"Mom." Aika set a piece of tempura shrimp gently into his mother's bowl and smiled. "I checked with my Sharingan. He's in perfect health. Not a single thing wrong with him. You can put your mind at ease."
"Well, if Aika looked, then I'm sure it's fine."
His mother's expression softened immediately into something much more relaxed.
His father quietly returned his gaze to his bowl and continued eating without comment.
"Ritsu-nii." Akiba had been staring at his forehead for the past minute. "What's that on your brow? There's something there."
Ritsu smiled slightly.
"Secret."
He had no intention of letting word of the Rinnegan spread. The eye between his brows, when closed, produced no chakra signature whatsoever — even his own Byakugan couldn't penetrate the stillness it fell into. To any observer, there was nothing there to find.
He planned to keep it that way. A hidden card was worth far more than a known one. The next time he faced Orochimaru and reanimated Madara, catching them off guard with something they didn't know he possessed might make all the difference.
He was confident in his own strength. He knew what he was capable of.
But Orochimaru's capacity for causing trouble was genuinely exceptional, and now Orochimaru also carried the Sharingan and Wood Release. With his help, there was a real possibility that Madara could eventually be fully restored.
Ritsu had no intention of letting his guard down.
Caution had kept ships sailing for ten thousand years. It would serve him just as well.