A Promising Future!

Beyond the rather sci-fi door lay a row of bottle-shaped incubators, where a tall figure bustled about.

"I'm back!"

Now seventeen, Uchiha Izumi wore a white research coat, her silky black hair cascading down to her waist like a waterfall.

She looked toward the door in surprise, not expecting Neji to return so quickly.

A year after the Night of the Uchiha Clan Downfall, Neji had replaced her eyes with cloned ones.

Her beautiful black eyes held a beauty mark at their corners, and a faint smile appeared on her lips.

"Welcome back, Neji."

Her gaze fell upon Neji's eyes. His Konoha forehead protector had been turned into a new eyepatch, making him look rather strange.

"Congratulations on graduating. Neji, you're officially a ninja now."

"Mm."

Neji answered softly. Uchiha Izumi walked over, removed his outer coat, and helped him into a white research coat.

He took off the forehead protector from his head, revealing his white eyes as he looked toward the cultivation equipment.

Pairs of Byakugan floated within, a rather chilling sight, though the two of them had long grown used to it.

"How many new Byakugan have been cultivated?"

"Not many. Yesterday, I successfully brought ten pairs of Byakugan up to standard. The number still isn't enough for what you need."

Without being nurtured by his Chakra, cloned Byakugan were nothing more than decorations, completely useless.

They possessed no special effects whatsoever. The same was true for Sharingan—they had to be nurtured by special Chakra to achieve their effects and generate so-called Dojutsu Power.

Those that had already awakened were not included. Could awakened eyes possibly be the same as ones that had never awakened?

Just look at how many unawakened Sharingan had ever been stolen. As for Byakugan, the Main Family heir branded every member of the Branch Family with the Caged Bird Seal at the age of three, leaving them no opportunity at all.

He had now cultivated nearly a thousand Byakugan, and this was only a recent achievement.

Every single one needed to be nurtured with his Chakra until it awakened, making the process incredibly troublesome.

Those thousand or so Byakugan contained the essence of his days and nights—every last bit of it was his Chakra!

With such a troublesome process, he could not guarantee that all those identical Byakugan could fuse into a Tenseigan.

After all, only his own eyes could be cultivated and cloned. He had not used anyone else's genes for cloning.

"Only ten?"

Neji pondered briefly and sighed inwardly.

"It's still nowhere near enough. There are only a thousand or so, and their quality still falls short of the requirements."

Of the two methods, he had chosen the most laborious and unstable one.

If the fusion succeeded, he would absorb the Tenseigan's special Chakra and nurture his own Byakugan into a Tenseigan.

Since they were all his Chakra and his Byakugan, there would be no rejection or abnormalities.

At the same time, he would gain a massive perpetual-motion machine—a powerful energy core.

That would be immensely useful to him.

The meaning of a perpetual-motion energy source went without saying. Those who got it, got it; those who did not, forget it. Anyway...

Ahem!

Setting those thoughts aside for the moment, Neji walked up to the newly cultivated Byakugan.

"Don't disappoint me."

He placed both hands on the instrument and fed the Chakra within his body into it.

As the cultivation fluid inside slowly began to bubble, Chakra started pouring into the newly cultivated Byakugan.

A slight tremor ran through them, and Neji, whose eyes were closed, suddenly gained a new field of vision that saw through everything.

Another pair had succeeded!

Feeling that he still had sufficient Chakra, he poured it into the remaining incubators.

However, the other Byakugan had not yet reached the requirements for awakening and could only continue being nurtured.

Watching Neji repeat this day after day, Uchiha Izumi stepped forward to support him once his Chakra was nearly depleted, bringing him to the lounge.

"Neji, what is the point of doing all this?" she asked worriedly.

She had wanted to ask that for a long time. Only now, on the day Neji graduated, did she finally voice it.

Slightly weakened, Neji smiled. "I thought you would keep it buried in your heart and never ask."

Uchiha Izumi smiled faintly. As expected, he had seen through her long ago.

"But I can't tell you yet. If I succeed, you'll witness it all. If I fail..."

"If you fail?"

"Then just treat all of this as a joke." Neji gave a self-mocking smile.

"How could that happen? You'll definitely succeed."

Uchiha Izumi was startled. For all these years, she had accompanied Neji and witnessed his journey from nothing to something. She did not want him to fail.

She had watched him grow from such a tiny child, little by little, until he became the person he was now.

It could be said that over these four years, apart from the scenery and crowds outside the window, Neji had been her only companion.

Time and again, she had wanted to go out, but whenever she saw Neji busily working for some unknown purpose, she endured it.

Because watching Neji's busy figure had already become part of her life.

She rejoiced when he succeeded and felt down when he failed.

Yet after an experiment failed, Neji would instead comfort her, which bothered her a little.

Why weren't you angry? That was a failure!

So annoying!

Neji chuckled and shook his head, leaning against the sofa to recover his strength.

"The future won't be so peaceful. Think about the Masked Man back then. Why would an Uchiha whose identity was unknown appear on that night?"

"Itachi!"

Uchiha Izumi's expression turned complicated. She had never understood why Itachi had done that.

Now, she vaguely understood something in her heart. It was not quite forgiveness, only...

She only wanted to ask him in person: why? Why did he do it? Was there truly no other way?

Seeing Uchiha Izumi sink into thought and sensing that his strength had mostly recovered, Neji said, "It's enough to understand some things in your heart. I'm going to take a bath. Teacher Might Guy tested me today, and I worked up quite a sweat."

"Mm! Do you want me to help?"

Seeing Neji head off, Uchiha Izumi hurriedly snapped back to her senses and asked.

"No. I'm not that little anymore, so it wouldn't be appropriate. Besides, I'm not so exhausted that I don't have the strength to bathe."

Uchiha Izumi immediately understood, and her face reddened. He really was not little anymore.

Back when his Chakra was exhausted or he had trained until he could no longer move, she had always helped bathe him and handle his clothes.

At some point, it had become a habit. Now that it suddenly changed, she felt an inexplicable sense of loss.

Yes. They were not little anymore.

By the time Uchiha Izumi realized this in her heart, Neji was already lying in the warm pool.

The underground space had everything they needed, and it was located in a remote part of Konoha to begin with.

Furthermore, as the Hot Pot Restaurant's income steadily rose, Neji had bought all the nearby land.

This ensured that their place would not be discovered by accident, while the land above could also be turned into a surface-level production site.

"The Tenseigan... I hope it succeeds."

Each Byakugan was like a storage container for Chakra. Once they fused and transformed, his strength would soar.

Still, compared with those jonin, his Chakra reserves remained far behind.

But he was at least at the chunin level, especially since Life Return unexpectedly worked extremely well with Chakra extraction.

One infused consciousness into the cells, granting perfect control over the body. As long as there was enough food, recovery would be extremely fast.

The other extracted cellular energy and combined it with spiritual energy to obtain Chakra.

They complemented each other perfectly. The future was promising!