Chapter 304 - 304: Ryusei Finds the Hyūga’s Secret Engine

Ryusei's main clone, sent on this mission, had been moving nonstop, cutting across the Land of Fire in long strides, almost weightless.

He let his fragments spread out like a living web, each one pulsing with sensory readings finer than anything a normal sensor or Byakugan user could ever achieve.

Additionally, the farther Hiashi drew on that ancient Hyūga power inside the village, the clearer the trail became.

It was like the world itself was lighting up a map for him.

The main clone held most of the chakra, stationed in reserve in case combat broke out.

But every time Hiashi called for more power, every pulse of that pale energy echoed through the fragments spread across the country.

And with each echo, the network narrowed the location down.

Eventually, they found it.

It wasn't in Konoha.

It was far outside the village, buried deep in the countryside, a forgotten Hyūga ancestral site predating the village by centuries.

As Ryusei approached, he recognized the truth immediately.

The Hyūga clan, let's say, in his estimates, probably deposited the last 10% of their dead's eyes inside that hidden chamber beneath the Hyuga clan compound in the Konoha.

Everything before that, the remaining more than ninety percent of their entire history, had been sealed into one enormous external vessel long before the founding of the village.

Possibly even tens of thousands of Byakugan.

All inside one container. No wonder Hiashi's chakra felt bottomless.

The village eyes were probably nothing compared to this.

This vessel was essentially a biological reactor built from centuries of Byakugan accumulation.

It resembled Kanae's evolved Byakugan process, micro-traces of many eyes merging into one, but on an overwhelming scale.

Still, Ryusei noted that his and Kanae's method was more refined.

This ancient vessel was raw quantity, not quality.

And it was completely different from the moon's Tenseigan.

That one used Hamura's original Tenseigan as its core catalyst, giving it even overpowered gravity manipulation and a satellite-like function capable of subtly shifting the moon itself, or watching the Earth from orbit, or even allowing better life on the Moon for the entire clan.

This one was pure Byakugan unique energy, Ryuse was already familiar with, thanks to Kanae, just in greater amounts, no spacetime distortion, no celestial abilities.

A relatively simple power-up engine, for the patriarch lineage, nothing more.

The vessel stood in a sunken valley, wrapped in layers of pale seals that glowed faintly like veins.

A massive cocoon-like structure, pulsing with white chakra.

The energy was so dense it felt heavy in the air.

Ryusei slowed.

Someone else was heading toward it.

Fast.

From the opposite direction.

A straight trajectory.

But Ryusei reached it first, logically helped by being closer, already on Earth, and following a far clearer trail in real time.

Ryusei recognized the chakra immediately.

That same moonborn powerhouse who once fought Madara so violently that the shockwave wiped Amegakure off the map.

The same encounter Ryusei used as cover to secretly steal Nagato and convert him into an ally. High Six Paths level. And closing in quickly.

It was obvious that he also probably placed a great emphasis on observing the Hyuga clan and Konoha's movements in general from space.

Ryusei, however, moved the first already.

He touched the vessel, ignored the Hyūga fūinjutsu, and simply phased through them.

His semi-fluid sage anatomy bypassed everything the Hyūga ever created.

He didn't care about damaging anything.

Even without using their ancient method, he could repurpose this power.

He had his own rituals and fuinjutsu.

Inside, the chamber felt alive.

The walls pulsed with chakra harvested from centuries of Byakugan.

Conduits of pale energy spiraled inward, compressing into the core.

Ryusei studied it calmly, taking in every detail, conversion loops, chakra refinement cycles, signatures matching Hiashi's current mode, while waiting for another celestial robber to arrive.

He eventually stopped looking everywhere inside and concentrated on the presence outside.

Akira finally descended into the valley moments later.

He expected and scavenged leftovers since Ryusei arrived there first.

Instead, he found Ryusei already inside, but nothing was stolen as his own senses told him.

Nothing broken. Nothing altered.

Ryusei simply exited outside on his own, calmly, like taking a stroll.

Like he had just been waiting for him instead, the entire time.

Ryusei stepped out of the cocoon calmly, hands in his pockets.

Akira landed without a sound, his ancient robes settling around him as the halos behind his back rotated in slow, steady arcs.

His Tenseigan eyes glowed faintly, completely emotionless.

"You entered a relic you should not even be able to comprehend," Akira said. "Explain yourself, human."

Ryusei shrugged. "Curiosity, I guess."

Akira didn't blink. "You trespass on a legacy far above you."

"And you watch Earth from orbit like some floating stalker," Ryusei replied. "Let's not pretend you're the moral authority here."

Akira's expression stayed blank, but the gravity around Ryusei tightened instantly.

Pebbles lifted.

Soil sank.

The air thickened like glue.

Ryusei barely shifted a foot.

"You're not the first to try this," he said. "Your chakra is nice, though. Clean. I'll make use of it later."

Akira lifted his hand.

"Then die for it."

And the valley collapsed.

A dome of crushing gravity snapped into place, fifty meters wide.

The pressure hit like a mountain falling sideways.

But Ryusei's clone didn't collapse.

His body flickered once, tissue turning semi-fluid, distributing the pressure through himself like water through a net.

"Cute," Ryusei muttered.

Akira floated effortlessly inside the dome, weightless, while Ryusei faced triple gravitational density.

Akira flicked two fingers.

The pressure increased again.

Ryusei's bones creaked, but his body adapted — density shifting, Slug Sage conduction, micro-regeneration acids.

He moved one hand slightly.

The air rippled.

Transcendent Mirage.

Gravitational Shedding.

Akira's eyes widened a fraction as Ryusei blurred out of phase, slipping sideways through the pressure field like mist.

Then Ryusei appeared behind him.

"You should stop telegraphing your moves. Watch how I did it instead," he said.

Akira instantly detonated a telekinetic burst, repelling Ryusei like a projectile.

However, the clone rolled in midair, absorbed the momentum with his constant Slug Slime Armor, and landed with a skid.

He cracked his neck. "So this is the level?"

Akira rose higher into the air, his cyan Tenseigan Chakra Mode already flaring around him.

"You are annoyingly resistant for a human."

Ryusei, meanwhile, paused for a moment, as his mode flared, thinking to himself, "His control really did improve since that fight with Madara. So he learned a few things. Still won't change anything. My versatility, experience, and current power are enough. The only issue is this being a clone… my chakra reserves aren't full. I'll have to end this fast and end it smart."

He also needed to end this fast so he could return to the main body as soon as possible, preferably with new power in hand.

He exhaled lightly, then answered out loud.

"That's what happens when you assume all humans are equal."

Ryusei already pieced together everything he needed about Akira's power set, without even knowing his name.

He had seen the Madara fight, understood the Byakugan better than most Hyūga thanks to both his old-world knowledge and his extensive research in this life, and he had been aiming for a Tenseigan himself for a long time.

Nothing Akira could show was unfamiliar.

The Tenseigan's power was also uncomplicated by nature.

Its value wasn't in exotic tricks but in how stable and overwhelming it was.

The chakra particles it produced could elevate the body's performance in chakra mode or spread outward as a complete gravitational field.

That was why its gravity seemed more absolute, not limited like the Rinnegan's push and pull.

The rest was predictable, too.

Again, the straightforward Truth-Seeking orbs, and combining both abilities into even more powerful attacks, things like the Golden or Silver Wheel variants.

And since Ryusei had already figured everything out and knew the Tenseigan wasn't using real gravity but those invisible chakra particles the dōjutsu produced to mimic it, he understood he wasn't restricted at all.

His advanced elemental releases would still work on Akira, especially with enough chakra behind them, and because they each carried their own higher, more conceptual properties.

Erosion Release would decay those particles just like anything else, and Thunder Release, with its vibrational transmission, could cut through their field.

So he activated both at once.

One hand darkened with the erosion chakra, the other brightened with the white potent thunder.

They complemented each other perfectly, thunder for close-range shock pulses and long-range vibrational transmission, erosion for mid-range decomposing zones that ate through anything in their path.

He layered them instantly.

He knew this opponent couldn't be handled with his absolute, stacked physique and brute strength alone.

He needed his full arsenal, layered smartly, used decisively, to corner him into a trap on time.