Deep within the forests surrounding the Leaf Village, a natural cave had been temporarily converted into a safehouse.
Hyuga Xiao laid the unconscious Hyuga Rei flat on a stone platform covered in thick blankets. The Caged Bird Seal on the girl's forehead gave off a dim blue-black gleam in the darkness. The violent Hashirama Cells inside her were clashing fiercely with her Byakugan bloodline. Fine, wooden-thorn-like patterns occasionally bulged across her skin before being swiftly suppressed by chakra.
"Hold on."
Xiao's voice was calm, but his hands moved so quickly they left only afterimages.
He bit his fingertip and drew sealing formulas on Rei's chest, abdomen, and forehead—not the Four Symbols Seal commonly used in the Leaf Village, but the Star-Meridian Suppression Lock he had exchanged from the system, a simplified version of a basic sealing technique from the Ōtsutsuki Clan. Blood mixed with chakra traced intricate spiral patterns across her skin. With every stroke, the rampaging cellular activity within Rei weakened a little.
Three minutes later, the seal was complete.
The wooden-thorn patterns on Rei's skin vanished completely, and her breathing gradually steadied. But Xiao's Byakugan saw clearly—it was only temporary suppression. The Hashirama Cells had formed some bizarre symbiotic relationship with her Byakugan meridians. Forcefully removing them would directly destroy her chakra system.
"Three days."
Calculating how long the seal would last, Xiao took out the experimental records he had seized from the laboratory and quickly flipped to the final page.
[Subject Zero: Interim Report] [Fusion Success Rate: 17.3%] [The symbiote displays a specific affinity for Hyuga Clan chakra. It is suspected that a certain factor in the Byakugan meridians has catalyzed a reaction with the Hashirama Cells. Hypothesis: if guided with complete Tenseigan-level chakra, stable symbiosis may be achieved, perhaps even...]
The remaining words had