Inside Hinata's basement in the Hidden Leaf Village.
Calling it a basement was no longer accurate. With all the expansions and equipment moved in, it was more like a laboratory.
Hinata had not paid much attention to Takigakure lately. With Jiraiya there, she felt at ease.
Amid her busy schedule, she took some time to come to the lab. She was here to continue the research she had never abandoned.
That was to create her own Stigmata!
Hinata had discovered earlier that the biggest obstacle preventing her Stigmata from being born was the terrifying vitality of her blood.
Once, Hinata had conducted an experiment in a lifeless corner of the desert in the Land of Wind, dripping a single drop of her blood onto the sand.
Without Hinata deliberately controlling that drop of blood.
The moment it fell onto the sand, it began multiplying on its own!
It frantically corroded and devoured everything around it. Even sand and stone became nourishment for her blood!
In just one minute, that single drop of blood had gradually formed a blood pool large enough for an adult to lie in!
But that was as far as it went.
The energy in that drop of blood was nearly exhausted. Even as it devoured the surrounding matter, that was merely a drop in the bucket compared to the energy consumed by its own multiplication.
Its ability to grow into a blood pool had depended on the immense energy it carried when it left its host's body.
Hinata had been researching how to suppress her blood's instinct to multiply.
She had also tampered with the blood she gave Orochimaru.
Although it looked no different, merely an ordinary drop of blood, it had already lost its vitality.
Hinata had "killed" it!
After all, if she simply handed