" Lord Hokage, you've rested for 10 minutes. These documents still need your signature for confirmation."
Shinsei turned his gaze away from the window. Looking at the stack of documents that Shizune had brought over again, he suddenly felt a headache coming on.
Let the Council discuss and decide on these less urgent documents.
Shizune frowned and continued to persuade him.
"But Lord Hokage, these have already been selected."
Shinsei scratched his head. He could totally empathize with Tsunade's reluctance to stay in the office.
The position of Hokage may seem glamorous, but it carries a heavy responsibility.
"Alright, alright, you can filter them again. Don't bother me with ordinary things."
The number of things I need to manage is increasing. If I have to be responsible for every little thing, then I, as the Hokage, won't have anything else to do.
The Hokage is meant to protect everyone, not be confined to this office.
Shizune was somewhat helpless. Shinsei, this Hokage, was even more difficult to deal with than Tsunade.
She didn't dare to offer too much advice, lest she seem to be using her senior status to bully the Hokage. So she simply opened the files and helped Shinsei review them again.
Shinsei raised his eyebrows, quite pleased with his explanation.
A white dragon head emerged from Shinsei 'Shinsei body, stretched out in front of him, and shook its head.
Shinsei reached out and patted Xiaobai's head, asking curiously.
"What's wrong, Xiaobai?"
Shinsei could sense that Xiaobai was a little impatient, but he didn't understand what it wanted to say.
Xiaobai's intelligence is still too weak; it is completely incapable of communication.
Only when Shinsei's mastery of Yin-Yang Release is further upgraded can he bestow more wisdom upon Xiaobai.
"Alright, alright, stop fooling around."
Shinsei didn't know what Xiaobai was trying to say, so he could only press it back into his body.
While Shizune was working on the documents, Shinsei quickly slipped out of the office.
After going around in circles, we arrived at the underground laboratory of Konoha Hospital.
When Shinsei sneaked into the lab, Orochimaru was laughing at the projection scroll on the wall. That laugh was unsettling.
Hinata lay on the stone bed in the center of the laboratory, her breathing steady, her face rosy, but her eyes were tightly closed. Her eyeballs moved slowly under her eyelids, as if searching for something in her sleep.
Tsunade sat down next to her, her fingertips resting on her pulse, her tense expression gradually easing.
"What's going on?" Shinsei walked over.
"The first stirrings of the Tenseigan." Tsunade didn't even look up. "After absorbing those Byakugan fragments, her body began to integrate spontaneously. This process will last for a while, and her consciousness will temporarily sink. It's not a coma, but more like a self-protective hibernation. After she wakes up, her eyes will advance to the next level."
Shinsei bent down to look at Hinata. Her face was calmer than usual, with no sweat on her forehead and no tension at the corners of her mouth. He breathed a sigh of relief and reached out to brush aside a strand of her hair that had fallen onto the pillow.
How long will you sleep?
"It depends. It might take a day or two, or it might take longer." Tsunade finally looked up. "If you have nothing to do, come and sit for a while. Don't just stand there."
Shinsei sat down on the chair beside the bed. Orochimaru turned the projection scroll towards him, his smile widening, " Shinsei- kun, you've come at the right time. I've just made an interesting discovery."
The projection displayed a gene sequence. Shinsei glanced at it and recognized a few markers as fragments related to Chakra constitution that Tsunade had taught him before. But most of them were symbols he had never seen before.
"This is a sequence comparison extracted from our three bodies," Orochimaru said, tracing a line on the projection with his finger. " The Senju, Hyūga, Uchiha bloodlines all share a common sequence that ordinary ninjas don't have. But this sequence is incomplete in our genes. Some are missing a head, some a tail, and some are broken in the middle."
"Speak like a human," Tsunade said.
Simply put, we descendants of the Ōtsutsuki all carry a 'code' from Kaguya in our genes.
However, after thousands of years of dilution, the code has become incomplete.
Therefore, the Senju couldn't obtain the Sharingan, the Hyūga didn't possess the Senju's physique, and the Uchiha couldn't develop the Byakugan.
Orochimaru licked his lips.
"If the three gene segments can be pieced together, a more complete sequence can theoretically be reconstructed."
But the human genome is too vast; relying solely on our own samples, we simply don't know which parts are missing, let alone where to supplement them.
Shinsei pondered for a moment, "So you need a reference."
"Yes. The closer the reference is to the Ōtsutsuki bloodline, the better. The most perfect reference is Otsutsuki Kaguya herself." Orochimaru finished speaking and laughed first, "Unfortunately, we don't have Kaguya. We only have Madara, you, Hinata, Tsunade, and that little bit of Byakugan fragment."
"Is it possible to use the fragments of the Tenseigan brought back from the moon as a reference?" Shinsei asked.
"Yes, but that's not a person. It's a crystallization of power, not a genetic code." Orochimaru shook his head. "The fragments can only tell us what the 'finished product' looks like, not what the 'recipe' is."
Shinsei fell silent. It was like solving a riddle without a solution. He knew the outline of the answer, but didn't know how to begin.
Just then, a cloud of white mist appeared in the corner of the laboratory.
With a soft "poof," a tiny Katsuyu, no bigger than a palm, jumped out. It first tapped its Tsunade, then turned to Orochimaru, and finally faced Shinsei.
" Lord Hokage, excuse me. The Katsuyu Sage requests your presence."
Shinsei stood up. "Now?"
"The Sage said that you should bring Lady Hinata along. If Lady Tsunade is willing, she can come as well."
The Katsuyu's voice is soft and sweet, like water droplets falling on a stone.
Shinsei looked at Tsunade. Tsunade had already stood up and casually covered Hinata with a jacket.
"It's rare for Great Sage to extend such an invitation, so let's set off immediately..."
Orochimaru chuckled from behind, "Then I won't join in the fun. The Shikkotsu Forest is too damp; it's not good for research materials."
No one paid him any attention. Shinsei picked up Hinata, Tsunade walked beside him.
The little Katsuyu hopped ahead, leading the way, and the white mist slowly dissipated beneath their feet.
The three figures disappeared from the room.