The Main Branch's Response (Part One)

After thinking for a moment, Hyuga Hane took out the scroll containing three Anbu and released one unconscious Anbu Ninja.

Then he took a test tube containing black hair from his ninja tool pouch.

It was the hair of the Hyuga Ninja he had just killed.

He hadn't collected any blood. That would have made it easy for the smell of blood to cling to him.

"Summoning Technique, Impure World Reincarnation!"

Ash-gray scraps of paper wrapped around the Anbu Ninja in the formation. The pain jolted him awake, and he stared in terror at the paper surrounding him.

"What is this..."

thing?

Before he could finish, paper covered his head too. The Hyuga Jonin who had died earlier returned from the underworld.

He opened his eyes in a daze. The moment he spotted Hyuga Hane nearby, he tried to assume a defensive stance.

But to his horror, he couldn't move at all.

"What did you do to me?"

"This is the Second Hokage's Impure World Reincarnation. You're dead. You haven't forgotten, have you?"

The Jonin blankly raised his hands and stared at the cracks covering them. "I'm dead."

"You can come to terms with that later." Hyuga Hane walked up to him and placed a Kunai bearing a talisman into his mind.

"For now, activate your Byakugan."

The Jonin's fingers raised against his will, and he said, "Byakugan, activate!"

Hyuga Hane watched him activate his Byakugan with ease, a glint in his eyes.

Before the Jonin had died, Hyuga Hane had absorbed all the visual prowess of his Byakugan, yet he could still activate it.

Just like Nagato and Uchiha Itachi after their Impure World Reincarnation.

Though their bodies had lost their eyes, they hadn't lost their ocular techniques or Kekkei Genkai.

"So what's inherited is Chakra, not blood itself?"

Hyuga Hane chuckled quietly.

"So that's why awakening the Tenseigan requires the Byakugan of the Hyuga Clan."

The unnamed Hyuga Jonin held his Byakugan open and glared at him resentfully. "Did you bring me back to take revenge on the Main Branch?"

"To verify something."

Hyuga Hane glanced at him and explained in a good mood, "Before you died, I used Sealing Jutsu to absorb all the visual prowess of your Byakugan."

"It's a Sealing Jutsu I created based on the Uchiha Clan's Transcription Seal. It's the exact opposite of the Transcription Seal: it forcibly absorbs the target's visual prowess."

"But in the final moments before your death, you couldn't even activate your Byakugan. Now you can. Why?"

Before the Hyuga Jonin could recover from the unexpected question, Hyuga Hane continued, "Because you haven't lost your Chakra!"

"A Ninja's Kekkei Genkai exists not because blood is inherited, but because Chakra is passed down."

"The Kekkei Genkai users brought back through Impure World Reincarnation prove it."

Though they'd lost their bodies and their genes, they could still use their Kekkei Genkai!

With that, Hyuga Hane understood the answers to some of his questions.

—Why did Nagato still have the Rinnegan after being brought back through Impure World Reincarnation?

The answer could be considered alongside Naruto's situation.

Naruto's whisker-like marks were caused by the Nine-Tails' Chakra, and he'd had them since birth.

That was because Kushina was Naruto's mother, and the Nine-Tails had indirectly passed its Chakra on to him.

It was a strange way to think about it, but the Chakra Naruto inherited at birth must have come from Minato, Kushina, and the Nine-Tails.

Hmm. The child of two people and a fox?

Nagato's situation was quite similar. He'd had the Rinnegan transplanted into him as a child and served as a living tool to keep it active.

The immense power within the Rinnegan had continuously seeped into Nagato's Chakra, gradually transforming his Chakra into the unique Chakra of the Rinnegan.

And the Spirit Transformation Technique showed that a Ninja's soul wasn't merely spiritual energy. It was made of Chakra.

So after Impure World Reincarnation gave him a body, Nagato could still use the Rinnegan's Kekkei Genkai. After all, the Rinnegan's Chakra was still with his soul.

But if that was the case, did using the Rinnegan's abilities require only the corresponding Chakra, rather than the Rinnegan itself?

Just then, seeing Hyuga Hane lost in thought, the Hyuga Jonin furrowed his brow and asked tentatively,

"What can you do with this knowledge?"

Hyuga Hane looked at him indifferently, making the Hyuga Jonin shiver. "It can take my strength to an even higher level."

With that, Hyuga Hane waved his hand and recalled the Hyuga Jonin, who was full of questions. Then he walked out of the underground training ground, his gaze profound.

"Byakugan, Sharingan, Rinnegan, Tenseigan. The ocular techniques of the Shinobi World are just organs, similar to the lungs and heart. They simply convert Chakra into ocular techniques."

"What matters is the Chakra that enables them to exist. In other words... Yin-Yang Release!"

"The Tenseigan is an ocular technique on par with the Rinnegan. It couldn't have become so powerful without the influence of Yang Release Chakra!"

"Yin Release Chakra and Yang Release Chakra complement each other. The Eternal Mangekyo represents the limit of Yin Release Chakra, while Hashirama's Chakra represents the limit of Yang Release. Together, they create the Rinnegan."

"Obito transplanted Hashirama Cells, which kept his Mangekyo from going blind. You could say he had something close to Eternal Mangekyo."

"So if the Byakugan is to evolve into the Tenseigan, Yang Release Chakra may be the key."

Deep within the Hyuga Compound, many Main Branch elders and the clan head had gathered.

"Another Ninja who was close to us was killed tonight. That traitor is getting too brazen!"

One elder said furiously, "Clan head, what are you thinking? If our enemy is so well hidden that we can't catch them, then interrogate everyone one by one."

"I refuse to believe they can withstand the pain of the Caged Bird!"

Even Danzo could guess that the attackers came from the Branch Family. How could they, who understood better than anyone the Branch Family's resentment, fail to figure it out?

The problem was that it was too difficult to investigate.

A knife in the back was hard to catch, and the Byakugan gave its wielder a huge natural advantage.

What's more, as Ninja from the same village, they'd fought alongside one another during the Third Shinobi World War. These attackers knew better than anyone how to evade Konoha's investigation.

They knew which Ninja they couldn't attack while in range of a Byakugan, which clans had unusual investigative methods and could uncover clues ordinary people would miss, and how to counter them.

At those words, the half-lidded eyes of Hyuga Hiashi's father, the current clan head of the Main Branch, opened. His voice was cool. "Do you want them to stage a coup?"

Seeing the elder's scornful expression, the clan head sighed.

"Don't say it's impossible. Even sheep can become deadly when led by a lion."

"Judging by the timing of the Ninja deaths and their strength, quite a few members of the Branch Family are secretly resisting us. If we strike first, more of them will side with the rebels."

"After all, we're enslaving them and want to enslave them for generations to come!"

No parent wanted to see their child become a slave, let alone have their children and grandchildren remain slaves for generations...