Even so, his heart was still filled with lingering fear.
Was the Tenseigan really this powerful?
Or perhaps this girl's Tenseigan had different abilities from Hamura's.
After all, he had only ever seen one pair of Tenseigan—the ones Hamura possessed. It was only natural for the second pair to differ from Hamura's.
Still, mental attacks... He needed to figure out how to defend against them.
Black Zetsu turned into a puddle of liquid, gradually enveloping White Zetsu's corpse before seeping into its body.
"Luckily, it was a mental attack. The body isn't damaged, so I can still use it."
All he wanted now was to find somewhere safe to recuperate. He had not died, but his mind had been severely injured. If he really dared to wander around outside, he would probably end up getting himself killed.
He could also think of some secret techniques for defending against mental attacks.
After handing the White Zetsu clone over to her teacher, Hinata used Space-Time Ninjutsu to return to Kakashi and the others.
Kakashi and the others had remained where they were. When they saw Hinata return without that white humanoid creature beside her, they wisely chose not to ask.
The group continued on their way, but the atmosphere had changed considerably.
Although Hinata had previously been the Hokage's disciple, that had merely been a status. How powerful could an eight-year-old child be?
But Hinata's use of Space-Time Ninjutsu had shown everyone that her strength was far from as simple as they had imagined, not to mention that mysterious Tenseigan...
Wait. As Kakashi traveled, he suddenly realized that Hinata was the Hokage's disciple and Jiraiya's junior martial sister.
And Jiraiya was his teacher's teacher—his grandmaster. In other words, by seniority, Hinata was his grand-uncle's martial sister...
Uh... What was I just thinking about? I wasn't thinking about anything. I'm just an emotionless traveling machine.
Kakashi remained extremely silent along the way, barely speaking at all.
Two days later.
"Wait."
Hinata called out to stop the group. After two days of travel, they had already drawn very close to the Land of Wind.
"Miss, is something wrong?"
Hyuga Soki asked.
Hinata pointed to the front left. "Over there. A ghost is being born."
"What?!"
"Lady Hinata, are you sure you didn't see it wrong?"
Everyone was shocked. Although Bizarre Creatures had appeared several years ago, where they came from and how they came into being remained a mystery.
Yet Hinata was saying that a Bizarre Creature was currently being born!
The group exchanged glances. Without needing to speak, they confirmed one another's thoughts.
"Let's go take a look!"
As for the mission? Compared to confirming the birth of a Bizarre Creature, it no longer seemed so important.
Hinata was also quite surprised. Back in the Hidden Leaf Village, most of the Bizarre Creatures she had discovered had already been born.
She had truly never seen the birth of a Bizarre Creature before.
Although the place Hinata had pointed out was ten kilometers away, when the group arrived, they found nothing at all.
It was simply an utterly ordinary spot in the forest.
"Here?"
Nara Takumi looked at Hinata.
Standing on a tree branch, Hinata looked toward an open patch of ground. There, strange and distorted energy was gathering together. In all likelihood, it would give birth to a Bizarre Creature within a few days.
"There isn't enough energy yet. It will need a few more days before it is born."
Nara Takumi looked toward Hyuga Soki, who shook his head. His Byakugan was not like his young mistress's Tenseigan; he could not see everything.
Then the whites of Nagai Ukaku's eyes suddenly vanished, turning both eyes completely black.
"A huge amount of Ghost Qi is indeed gathering there. That's highly abnormal!"
Ghost Qi was the energy possessed by Bizarre Creatures. Normally, places Bizarre Creatures had passed through would retain traces of Ghost Qi, but with so much Ghost Qi and no ghost in sight, it already suggested that what Hinata had said might be true!
A ghost might truly be being born here!
The group set up camp two hundred meters away. They planned to wait several days. As for the Hidden Sand Village, they could only make them wait a few more days.
Hidden Sand Village: "..."
Over the following days, aside from Hinata, everyone else spent the entire day staring at the place where the strange energy was converging, trying to make sense of it.
But after watching for several days, they figured out nothing.
Other than the fact that, as time passed, they felt their surroundings becoming increasingly oppressive. They could not rest properly, and some of the ninjas even had nightmares.
Even refining Chakra became sluggish, as though something were interfering with it.
Among these ninjas, those who had entered the Alternate Dimensions of Bizarre Creatures knew that these symptoms were extremely similar to the reactions caused by the suppression of an Alternate Dimension.
Only far, far milder.
Over the past few days, Hinata had only occasionally taken a look to check how far the energy had gathered.
She spent the rest of her time setting Sealing Jutsu on the sword in her hands.
Hinata had long harbored a question: how were the forms of these Bizarre Creatures determined?
So far, the Bizarre Creatures she had seen had come in all manner of bizarre forms. Some were humanoid, some beast-like, and some were simply ropes.
Could the appearance a Bizarre Creature took after being born depend on what existed at its birthplace?
Having unexpectedly encountered the birth of a Bizarre Creature this time, Hinata finally had the chance to confirm this idea.
If all of Hinata's guesses were true, then she had a very good idea.
Thus, Hinata had made a special trip to Mount Myōboku, where she dug up several pieces of special metal nurtured by Nature Energy.
This metal had an extremely high affinity for True Qi, after all, it had been dug out of Mount Myōboku, where Nature Energy was incredibly dense.
Afterward, she went to the Hidden Leaf Village and found a blacksmith, hoping to have him forge these metals into a sword.
But the blacksmith told her that he could not do it. He could not even melt those pieces of metal.
With no other choice, Hinata could only do it herself. Fortunately, the flames formed from her True Qi were hot enough.
The result was the longsword now in Hinata's hand.
This sword was double-edged and did not resemble the katana commonly seen in the Hidden Leaf Village.
After the longsword had taken shape, Hinata began inscribing Sealing Jutsu formulas onto its blade.
Because of the sword's material, it had a high affinity for True Qi, allowing Hinata to carve sufficiently advanced Sealing Jutsu onto the blade without causing it to collapse.
Hinata was confident that this sword could even seal the Nine-Tails, forcing him to obediently become the sword's "sword spirit."
Thinking of this, Hinata suddenly had another idea. Should she forge several more pieces of equipment like this, then capture a few tailed beasts and seal them inside?
Not long after Hinata finished the Sealing Jutsu on the sword, she sensed that the energy in the distance had gathered to a critical point. A Bizarre Creature could be born at any moment.
Yet Hinata did not place the sword at the center of the energy convergence, allowing the Bizarre Creature to use the longsword as its vessel and take on the form of a sword.
Every Bizarre Creature possessed different abilities, and because the forces that nurtured them were strange and chaotic, even Hinata did not want to confront one head-on.
So she would not obediently wait for the Bizarre Creature to be born.
Before you continue