"...A Tenseigan has been born in the shinobi world."
Ōtsutsuki Toneri, leaning against the massive Tenseigan beside him, clearly saw that streak of sapphire-blue light rising from the shinobi world.
"The Hyūga Clan?"
"They actually removed their own clan members' eyes and forged a Tenseigan?"
Toneri kept his eyes closed—he had been born without eyes. What he had originally set his sights on were Hyūga Hinata's eyes, which was precisely why Hyūga Hiashi had been so firmly convinced that Hinata would inevitably awaken the Tenseigan.
"If the Hyūga Clan has created a Tenseigan, and that Hyūga princess awakens her own as well..."
Toneri's mood turned complicated. If the Hyūga truly possessed a Tenseigan of their own, and Hinata awakened hers too, then for him, that would be nothing short of bad news.
But no matter how complicated his feelings were, they ultimately could not affect the shinobi world.
At this moment, within the Hyūga compound, as more and more shinobi arrived, Hyūga Hiashi—who had been standing beside the sapphire-blue Tenseigan—finally began to move.
This Tenseigan, which had absorbed nearly the entire Hyūga Clan, seemed to have formed some kind of special connection with him. Without any visible effort from Hiashi, the Tenseigan simply floated behind him.
Before its true completion, it had been somewhat irregular—after all, it was a fusion product.
But now, that Tenseigan had transformed into something like a massive sapphire. The dense blue radiance within it slowly spread over Hiashi's body, wrapping him in a faint azure glow.
"Clan Head... has it succeeded?"
"I can vaguely feel it... a power, both familiar and overwhelmingly strong, right beside me..."
One of the main family elders asked in a trembling voice. Though he could no longer see, the Tenseigan itself contained part of his contribution—he could still vaguely sense its presence.
"This kind of vision..."
Hiashi did not respond. His current perception was extraordinarily strange—the Tenseigan seemed to have replaced his original eyes, allowing him to observe himself from a third-person perspective.
"And this power!"
Hiashi merely activated the Tenseigan instinctively—
—and in the next instant, a silver tempest erupted violently.
"Not good! Fall back!"
Outside the Hyūga compound, the ANBU and members of the Uchiha Police Force—who had been advancing cautiously—shouted in alarm.
But before they could react further, the silver storm had already completely obliterated the entire Hyūga compound.
The underground chamber where Hiashi and the others had been hiding was now fully exposed.
"What... is that?"
When the ANBU and Uchiha clan members saw the blood still flowing from empty eye sockets, and the massive Tenseigan floating behind Hyūga Hiashi, all of them froze in shock.
"What terrifying power..."
Some ANBU couldn't help but glance toward the Uchiha clan members.
They were thinking of the Uchiha Clan's Mangekyō Sharingan—after all, Uchiha Keizumi and Uchiha Fugaku had already demonstrated its power before.
"The Hyūga Clan's Byakugan... can evolve as well?"
"But unlike our Mangekyō Sharingan, their awakening seems to manifest as a chakra cloak?"
Some Uchiha subconsciously treated the pale-blue chakra cloak enveloping Hiashi as something akin to Susanoo. At that moment, they realized the Hyūga Clan had undergone a change they knew nothing about.
"Go inform Keizumi-sama! Inform Tsunade-sama and the Third as well!"
One of the Uchiha shouted. Regardless of what had happened, the collapse of the Hyūga compound—with so few clan members appearing—already told him that something was terribly wrong.
"No need. I'm already here."
The first to arrive was the Third Hokage.
Sarutobi Hiruzen stood there, his gaze fixed on the Hyūga compound, his expression grave.
He had always believed that only the Uchiha Clan's eyes held such unimaginable power—but judging from what Hyūga Hiashi had just displayed, it seemed the Hyūga Clan had been hiding secrets from Konoha as well.
"With just a single strike... the entire Hyūga compound was destroyed."
"That level of power... rivals that of a Tailed Beast, or the Uchiha Clan's Mangekyō Sharingan."
"And... I can faintly smell blood. A very strong stench of it."
After all, Hiruzen was a veteran of countless battlefields. Though aged, his sensitivity to the scent of blood far exceeded that of ordinary shinobi—sharp enough to detect it from hundreds of meters away.
"Old man, what happened?"
Not long after Hiruzen arrived, Tsunade also appeared before the Hyūga compound.
Like him, after witnessing the power of the Tenseigan, her expression grew extremely grave.
"It really is the Tenseigan!"
After Tsunade spoke, Jiraiya also appeared.
Perched on his shoulder, Fukasaku stared intently at that sapphire-blue eye, his toad eyes filled with solemnity.
He had already contacted the Great Toad Sage and learned more about the Tenseigan. Now that he had seen it with his own eyes, he could fully confirm that the eye behind Hyūga Hiashi was indeed the Tenseigan.
"So even in the shinobi world, there are those who know of the Tenseigan?"
On the other side, Hiashi stepped forward slowly with the main family elders behind him.
For shinobi, losing their eyes meant losing sight—but with their other senses, they were not rendered completely incapable of movement.
Moreover, this Tenseigan contained their contributions. Through it, they could still vaguely perceive the world.
"You... are guilty."
The last to arrive was Uchiha Keizumi.
He hadn't expected that not long after returning to Konoha, he would encounter something like this.
To others, Hyūga Hiashi now appeared draped in a faint blue chakra cloak, almost ethereal and mysterious—
—but in Keizumi's eyes, the "red name" above Hiashi's head had deepened to an almost purple shade.
Combined with what Keizumi knew about the Great Tenseigan, he had already realized—
To create this Tenseigan, Hiashi had likely sacrificed the entire Hyūga Clan.
"Uchiha Keizumi?"
Upon hearing Keizumi declare him guilty, Hiashi merely curled his lips into a mocking smile.
"In your eyes, who in this shinobi world is without sin?"
"Absolute justice?"
"It sounds good—nothing more than pretty words."
"Yes, I am guilty."
"But you, who use the banner of justice to amass benefits on a grand scale—"
"Do you truly have no sin?"