The moment his eyes changed, Lan noticed it.
Everything around him appeared sharply defined, every detail clear to his eyes. Their powers of perception had instantly increased by several levels.
The feeling of being bound by the Caged Bird Seal vanished along with the change in his eyes. At last, he had escaped the fate of being controlled.
But his good fortune didn't last. His chakra was running dry, and the pattern forming in his golden eyes began to fade. Even their golden glow dimmed rapidly—a sign that they were about to revert to Byakugan.
Feeling his eyes change, Lan racked his brain, but couldn't think of a solution.
Had he really struggled all these years just to enjoy such a brief moment of freedom?
Thump!
A heartbeat-like resonance rang in Lan's ears. His consciousness was fading, but he seemed to see a golden sun before him.
Its light was warm and gentle, and it brimmed with the kind of chakra that drew him in. The sensation was unfamiliar, yet somehow familiar.
What was it?
Before Lan could ponder what he had sensed on the brink of death, his vision went dark, and he lost consciousness.
At the same time, while Lan lay unconscious, a powerful, unending stream of chakra appeared out of nowhere and entered his body, then continued to flow into his eyes.
The eyes that had been about to revert to Byakugan blazed with light once more. Soon, the faint pattern in his pupils reappeared, eventually forming a six-pointed diamond shape etched deep into them...
On the moon.
Inside the Ōtsutsuki Clan's Shrine Hall.
A massive eye, dozens of meters across and resembling a miniature sun, was displayed there. It was a treasure made from the gathered Byakugan of many members of the Ōtsutsuki Clan: a Giant Tenseigan.
If Lan had been conscious and come here, he would have realized that his evolved eyes looked remarkably like this Giant Tenseigan.
Clearly, there was some kind of connection between his eyes and this Giant Tenseigan.
Tap, tap, tap...
Three hurried figures arrived before the Giant Tenseigan. Seeing that it had begun behaving strangely, the three exchanged glances.
"What's going on?"
"This has never happened before!"
"Why is our clan's treasure sending chakra to the Ninja World? What's happening there?"
These three were clearly members of the Ōtsutsuki Branch Family on the moon, but no one could answer their questions.
"Let's not worry about who the Tenseigan is communicating with. Our priority is to contain it and take back control."
The man in the middle spoke, and the other two nodded repeatedly.
The three members of the Ōtsutsuki Branch Family formed Hand Seals in unison, then pointed at the Giant Tenseigan.
"Seal!"
At once, the Giant Tenseigan's light began to dim. Under the influence of the technique, its power was gradually sealed away, and the chakra it had been transmitting naturally stopped as well.
The moment the Giant Tenseigan stopped transmitting chakra, the golden eyes of Hyuga Lan in the Ninja World seemed to shut down too, reverting to Byakugan.
After taking control of the Giant Tenseigan, the members of the Ōtsutsuki Branch Family immediately began inspecting it, trying to find the source of the problem.
When their examination showed that nothing was wrong with the Giant Tenseigan, they turned their attention to the Ninja World. They activated the Giant Tenseigan again and used it to scour the world, hoping to find whatever had affected it.
They searched again and again, but never found anything suspicious in the Ninja World. Could the disturbance really have been a mere accident?
Night fell. Lan, lying on the ground, suddenly stirred.
Hm?
After waking, Lan looked at his unharmed body in surprise.
Feeling the abundant chakra within him, he tried to work out what had happened while he was unconscious.
There were no signs that anyone had come by. That meant whoever had saved him had likely sent him enough chakra from afar. And there was probably only one being in the world capable of doing such a thing.
Lan turned his gaze toward the full moon in the night sky. In an instant, he felt a subtle connection.
It seemed his eyes had indeed changed. Despite the vast distance between them, he could sense the Giant Tenseigan on the moon calling to him.
But when he tried to reach out to it, a deadly sense of danger welled up inside him, forcing him to stop at once.
Sure enough, an inexplicable wave silently swept down from the sky moments later, as if probing for something. Without the warning from his eyes, he probably wouldn't have noticed it at all.
The wave swept back and forth several times. Only after hours had passed and it had found nothing did it finally subside. By then, dawn had broken.
Meanwhile, wary of that powerful probing force, Lan spent several nights on his guard.
Over the past few days, an unnamed wave had swept down from the sky every hour or two. He knew it was the Ōtsutsuki Clan on the moon searching for him.
As the only person capable of activating the Giant Tenseigan from the Ninja World, he was probably on the Ōtsutsuki Branch Family's kill list.
It seemed he couldn't communicate with the Giant Tenseigan again anytime soon. If he drew members of the Ōtsutsuki Branch Family to him, he'd be in serious trouble.
A few more days passed. Beside a small river.
After noticing that the Ōtsutsuki Branch Family on the moon had finally stopped searching the Ninja World, Lan decided to examine the state of his eyes, having kept a low profile for days.
Lan looked at his reflection in the river. He saw a boy with a slightly youthful face and the Caged Bird Seal on his forehead. The boy's eyes were colorless and transparent: the Byakugan of the Hyuga Clan.
Staring at the seal on his forehead, Lan frowned. He channeled chakra into his eyes. As the veins in his face bulged, giving him a fierce expression, his already transparent eyes grew even more crystalline. It was the sign that his Byakugan had activated.
After activating his Byakugan, Lan continued to pour chakra into his eyes. The large amount of chakra made them ache faintly, and he couldn't help closing them.
Soon, the Byakugan's previously violent chakra began to change rapidly. Its strength surged, crossing several levels in the blink of an eye, but its nature grew gentler, far more pliant than before.
The most noticeable result was that the veins that had appeared on Lan's face when he activated his Byakugan began to recede and disappear, and his slightly fierce expression returned to its usual handsome calm.
Then, a faint golden light began to shine through his closed eyelids. A Dojutsu Power far stronger than the Byakugan's was about to emerge.
At the same time, the mark of the Caged Bird Seal on his forehead faded away, revealing smooth skin. This meant that the Dojutsu Power of the eye technique about to appear was already beyond the Caged Bird Seal's ability to restrain.
Clang!
When Lan opened his eyes again, a dazzling golden light shot from them.
His once-transparent Byakugan had become a strange pair of gleaming golden eyes, each pupil bearing a six-pointed diamond-shaped pattern.
Although this was a new form, these eyes were nothing like the ones he remembered. He suppressed his joy at breaking free of the seal, his heart instead filled with uncertainty.
Was this the Tenseigan?
No... Why had his eyes evolved into this?
Wasn't an individual Tenseigan supposed to be a blue Tenseigan, as vast as the starry sky?
Only after studying them carefully did Lan realize that his eyes looked remarkably like the Giant Tenseigan he remembered. Could his Tenseigan have mutated?