Chimera Technique

After resting in place for about half an hour, Hyuga Ritsu felt that his mental state had returned to its peak. He lit another oil lamp and set it on a protruding stone ledge in the rock wall, then stepped forward, opened the cell door, and stood before the still-unconscious "precious specimen."

He took a deep breath.

His hands began forming seals.

The Chimera Technique had a total of nineteen hand seals. With each one, the Chakra within his body was mobilized and circulated through specific meridians. Once all nineteen seals were complete, pale blue Chakra radiance bloomed from his hands. In the Byakugan's vision, the true form of that pale blue Chakra radiance was countless thin, blade-like strands of Chakra.

His fair hands were cut open with dense, fine wounds by those blade-like strands of Chakra.

Immediately afterward,

he raised his hands and slowly brought them toward the "precious specimen's" chest.

With a rip, the man's clothes were sliced into shreds.

Then,

dense, tiny wounds appeared across that muscular chest as well. Specks of blood seeped from the cuts, and an invisible pulling force drew the Chakra-wrapped, Chakra-infused droplets bit by bit into Hyuga Ritsu's body through the wounds on his hands.

In an instant,

the muscles in his arms throbbed violently, and his veins bulged like little snakes, as though they would burst the very next moment.

Hyuga Ritsu's expression was as hard as iron.

He did not waver in the slightest.

He continued using the Chimera Technique without hesitation.

At the same time,

he released the "regenerative ability" he had deliberately been suppressing. The moment his blood vessels cracked, they healed directly. Of course, allowing the regenerative ability to take effect came at the cost of repeatedly cutting open his palms, and the wounds had to be made a little longer and wider, or else they could not keep up with the rate at which the cuts healed.

The pain was beyond question.

The pain of having his palms sliced open was merely an appetizer. The excruciating agony erupting from every part of his body was what truly made him wish he were dead. His blood surged through his veins like boiling water, his muscles convulsed as if struck by electricity, and worst of all, waves of agonizing scraping and grinding pain came from his bones, as though someone were preparing to use electric drills and saws to carve an entire Along the River During the Qingming Festival into them.

At the same time,

even his eyes sent wave after wave of indescribable stabbing pain through him.

It hurt so badly that the corners of his eyes split, thin streams of blood trickling down.

Cold sweat broke out over him again and again. He looked as though he had just been pulled from a pool of water.

The concept of time blurred amid the agony. One second felt like a minute, one minute like an hour. Time became unbearably long, like the Snake Way leading to King Kai's Planet, where no matter how desperately one ran, the end remained out of sight.

His consciousness became increasingly unsteady under the successive waves of pain.

Fortunately, Snake Way had an end.

And suffering was not endless either.

After climbing to its peak, the pain suddenly plunged off a cliff. In its place came an ethereal sense of clarity, as if every pore in his body had opened and all the accumulated ailments within him had been swept away. The relief was so intense that he nearly cried out.

"Did it... work?"

Hyuga Ritsu jolted awake.

The pain had left him in a half-asleep, half-awake state.

Now that he had suddenly come back to himself, he immediately noticed the changes in his body. First, his Chakra reserves had skyrocketed. If they had once been ten, they were now roughly a hundred—a full tenfold increase. Second, he discovered that his consciousness could extend into every bone in his body.

He raised his right hand, and with a thought,

a sharp, pale jade-white bone protruded from his palm.

"Shikotsumyaku!"

Hyuga Ritsu stared at the piece of bone in his right palm, the corners of his lips lifting into a faint curve.

It had really worked.

Using the Chimera Technique, he had successfully seized the Kaguya clan's Kekkei Genkai, the Shikotsumyaku.

However,

that was only an incidental gain.

He had not risked using the Chimera Technique in an "incorrect manner" merely to obtain the Shikotsumyaku.

He activated his Byakugan. Veins bulged around his eye sockets as a 360-degree field of vision without any blind spots flooded into his mind. Yes, a 360-degree field of vision without any blind spots, rather than the 359-degree vision of Branch House members, suppressed by the Caged Bird Seal and burdened with a one-degree blind spot.

That additional one degree of vision filled Hyuga Ritsu with wild joy.

He removed his forehead protector, took out the small mirror he had used before, and held it near the bean-sized flame of the oil lamp to inspect himself. Reflected in the mirror was a handsome, vigorous face. His pure white eyes resembled the finest mutton-fat jade, and his forehead... was smooth and unmarked!

The Caged Bird Seal had broken on its own,

without leaving behind even the faintest trace.

"It finally worked! Hahahahahaha!!"

Hyuga Ritsu could no longer hold himself back.

In this secret underground laboratory, he laughed to his heart's content until tears slid from the corners of his eyes.

A moment later,

Hyuga Ritsu regained his composure.

It was not yet time to relax completely. Losing the Caged Bird Seal was only the beginning.

Teacher Hiruko's words before their parting surfaced in his mind once more. Without the Caged Bird Seal to restrain him, he had merely flown out of a small cage. Beyond it stood another prison called the "Main House-Branch House system," denying him freedom. The moment those people from the Main House discovered that he no longer bore the Caged Bird Seal, he would become a thorn in their eyes, one they would spare no cost to remove!

Only by killing him as a warning to others

could they crush the ambitions in the hearts of the Branch House members and ensure that the Main House-Branch House system remained as immovable as a rock.

"This is a fight to the death. There is no room for compromise or retreat. Even if compromise and retreat happen, it will only be to gather strength to destroy the other side." Hyuga Ritsu muttered to himself. As he spoke, his gaze gradually turned cold, and killing intent as scorching as lava surfaced in his pure white eyes.

He had no intention of accepting Teacher Hiruko's suggestion to "leave Konoha."

Konoha had one of the highest standards of living in the ninja world, making it the closest place to the modern society Hyuga Ritsu had lived in during his previous life. Over the fifteen years since his birth, he had grown familiar with every blade of grass and tree in Konoha and built his own relationships there.

Why should he abandon everything he had in Konoha because of those inhuman bastards from the Main House, becoming a rogue ninja endlessly hunted by the Anbu, sleeping rough and wandering the world?

The sages once said,

"He who lives apart from the herd is either a beast or a god."

And Hyuga Ritsu neither wanted to become a beast nor resembled some crazed man with ringed eyes who proclaimed himself a god.

He only wanted to be an ordinary social animal.

To Hyuga Ritsu, "defecting" from the village was the worst possible option, a choice that should only be made when everything else had failed and there was no other path left.

Before that,

he had to use every possible means to fight, to struggle!