The eye wasn’t just an eye.
As soon as it left my head, it morphed, bubbling, rippling. I brought my threads around it, wrapping around the thing that had lived inside my head for years.
The eye had beco a tiny snake. It hissed, trying to wiggle free from my grip. When it couldn’t, it tried to bite.
By my side, Kumoko hissed, the coarse hair on her nape standing on end. I offered her the once-eye.
Kumoko pounced, jaws snapping shut around the thing. She shook her head like a dog, biting harder. The snake hissed back, trying to wiggle free from Kumoko, but it couldn’t. The she-devil didn’t stay. The mont she had a good grip on the snake, she vanished in a puff of smoke, back to badger land.
That was more than fine with . Let the badgers deal with that can of snakes for now. I looked again toward my sleeping Ino, then at Tsunade.
The slug princess’s eyes were on . “Hinata, your eye.”
I turned away from her and toward the hole in the wall. Now wasn’t the ti to deal with her. I pulled out another scroll, the one I used to store essential things. From there, I unsealed Mom’s gift. I didn’t think I’d need it, but I didn’t want to fight without depth perception.
Not that it would be a fight.
I took the eye from its crystal prison and gently pressed it back into my head, gluing nerves together with chakra threads and mystic palm. At the sa ti, my threads were stitching the hole Haido left in my sides. Not a complete healing, but a patch job to keep going until I could address things properly.
A lot of things made sense now. Things that I should have known about long ago. But was it really my fault when there was sothing, or soone, actively ssing with my thoughts and making sure I didn’t notice certain things?
I was going to kill Orochimaru, but right now, there were more important things to worry about.
In the end, Orochimaru had succeeded in his mad scientist plan, although I don’t think I was the result he was expecting.
But that was running short. I could feel the edges of my mind slipping. The knowledge I gained was already slipping away, gone, maybe forever. Orochimaru had succeeded, and yet he hadn’t. His goals might have been to create a new dojutsu by combining a Sharingan and a Byakugan into a single vessel he could inhabit, but he hadn’t created sothing new. He’d made sothing that already existed, even if it was flawed.
As far as I knew, there was no dojutsu combination between a Byakugan and a Sharingan, but what about a Sharingan and the Senju cells?
In all these years, I always thought that the first ability I discovered, the chakra slurping thingy when Daikoku-sensei helped sense chakra, was a trick Orochimaru left behind to prevent others from tampering with the seals inside , to make sure no one tampered with his experints. It made sense, especially once I learned about the seals.
But it was nothing like that.
I knew what it was now. Preta Path: the ability to absorb chakra in any form.
And there was another path: the Outer Path, giving access to knowledge I shouldn’t have.
Orochimaru had created with his experints a flawed Rinnegan. Two paths, instead of the Seven.
I opened my mouth wide, unhinged. The sword, following my will, slithered out and beca a blade once more. I held it. It didn’t resist . I hadn’t even considered what might happen to the sword when I removed the eye. Another oversight I couldn’t dwell on now.
On the other hand, I ford a small piece of a black material, the sa chakra receivers Pain used to control his puppets. They were a perfect material to complete my jutsu. I could feel the receivers, much like a mokuton clone, and they weren’t a temporary material. After confirming the effects, I created kunai from pitch-black material, a few dozen of them, each inscribed and ready. I tossed one to Tsunade, who was still staring at with those wide eyes.
I t her gaze. “Please keep Ino safe until I return. It won’t take long.”
With that, I moved toward where Haido had gone.
You see, I was the Outer Path, even if a flawed one, and the Outer Path presided over life and death.
Haido owed a life.
I walked through the destroyed wall. Haido was easy to spot. He was floating near the gelel vein with energy pouring from it into his body. He had grown even bigger and more monstrous, not that it mattered.
He turned to . “Still alive?” He repeated the sa question with the sa tone. The red orbs behind him rotated, ready for a fight.
This wasn’t a fight.
I threw my black kunai at him, the whole dozen of them. Haido was fast; he blocked a few, evaded others. It didn’t matter what he did; the kunai weren’t there to hurt him. I teleported to one that he had let fly over his shoulder. Before he could react, I brought the sword down, chopping off the arm with the stone embedded in his hand. The iron-like skin wasn’t a match for the sword. The arm hadn’t drifted more than a few centiters when I chopped it again and again, until I hit the stone.
Like chopping wood, only easier.
The effect was imdiate. Haido scread, his body morphed, turning back into a portly man with an annoying face and even worse hair. He fell, but I caught him with my threads before he hit the ground.
Haido was hysterical, raving about being a god, immortal, the conqueror of the world.
I pitied him. If he couldn’t deal with , what chance did he have against the true monsters of this world?
Holding Haido by one leg, I dragged him back to where I’d left Ino. I had little ti now. Most of the things I had learned when my eyes changed were slipping away, but it was going to be enough.
Tsunade was by Ino’s side when I returned. “Hinata?”
I cast one long look at her, then looked back at Ino.
My Ino.
Haido’s screams were bothering . With one thread, I plucked through his head, ssing up his brain. Not enough to kill him, but enough that he wouldn’t keep the ruckus.
I dragged his body until he was near my Ino.
The Outer Path could bring Ino back. I knew it could, but it had a price. Pain had sacrificed himself to bring the people from Konoha back to life after being affected by Naruto’s talk no jutsu. But the user didn’t need to sacrifice themselves. It mostly happened because the amount of chakra required to drag soone back from the pure lands was more than anyone, except for the sage of the six paths, could pay. But I wouldn’t pay for all of it, at least not alone.
I rummaged through the pouch and took the stone I had extracted from the wolf woman. I kneeled beside Ino.
“What are you doing?”
I ignored Tsunade. I would deal with her in a mont.
With an effort of will, I pushed the stone into Ino’s body. It passed through her skin, lodging where her heart was, but not precisely in the sa place. Then I grabbed Haido and pulled from inside the truths I knew and was forgetting.
I was the Outer Path. And Haido owed a life.
I burned his soul and, with the energy it generated, I used it to connect the stone inside Ino to the gelel vein. With all that done, I pushed through the barrier between here and the Pure Lands, searching for Ino’s soul.
Pain laced through . Worse than I ever felt before, but I welcod it. I was using my own body as a conduit to funnel the gelel energy into bringing Ino back to life. I wouldn’t let Ino pay the price.
I placed my hand over the injury in her stomach, coaxing so of the energy to heal her body. While I was there, I infused her body with a bit more of that sa energy. It wouldn’t make Ino terribly strong, but if she kept training, she would be stronger than she would have been normally. There was a minute thought I should have asked permission before doing it. I dismissed that. Ino wanted to be strong. I would make her strong.
Seconds stretched into eternity. The gelel energy restored Ino’s body to pristine condition, and once all of Haido’s soul had burned, I found Ino’s soul in the Pure Lands. I pushed the generated energy to bring her back.
There was this mont when the world was still. The pain grew exponentially. The act burned most of my chakra reserves and the vein stored energy. The gelel vein, that had looked majestic and full of energy before, now looked more like charcoal than the shining crystal it had been.
Ino gasped, a haggard, deep breath.
I smiled.
“Hinata?” Tsunade’s voice reached my own ears. It sounded distant.
Ah, yes, I still had to deal with her. I leaned down. Kissed Ino’s forehead. She stirred, but didn’t wake up. That was fine. Ino needed her sleep. I got up, turned to Tsunade.
Her eyes followed until I was standing in front of her. She was still trembling.
I sighed. For so reason, I wanted to be angry with Tsunade, but it wasn’t her fault. None of this was, but I wouldn’t let her off the hook. I closed my eyes. My threads touched her body. Coaxing the dwindling energy I used to heal Ino and myself, I healed Tsunade from the damage she’d done to herself with her regeneration technique. Turned the clock, so to speak. If she wanted to look like a young woman, I’d make her a real one, not just that crappy illusion. Then she’d have to live long enough to repay . Heh. Was I evil for making soone live longer and for keeping them away from their loved ones in the Pure Lands?
With the last dregs of that knowledge that I wasn’t sure I would ever have again and the almost spent gelel energy, I found two souls. The exchange was quick. Once they consented, I pulled them temporarily into this world. I didn’t have enough chakra to bring them back fully. I had no idea how Nagato managed to bring back everyone in Konoha. Even bringing back Ino was almost beyond .
In shimring, flickering lights, Nawaki and Dan were around Tsunade. Tsunade gasped, then started crying.
I turned back to my sleeping Ino and pulled her into an embrace, cradling her in the gentlest hug I could.
Part of that knowledge shoved into my head when my eye awakened, vanished, or was removed, I wasn’t sure; it wasn’t important. What really mattered was that Ino was alive and whole.
There were sobs and whispering conversations behind . I hoped Tsunade found her peace. My head drooped. I wanted to sleep, but I couldn’t, not yet. Chapters first released on novel·fire·net
Healing Ino had taken almost all of my chakra. I couldn’t leave things like they were, but with Orochimaru gone from inside my head, the bone and heart seals made sense now. They’re still too complicated to be entirely disabled right now, but I just needed a quick fix to avoid dying. Extensive modifications were for later.
My threads dug inside my body. A small change here, a connected wire there. Cutting off this chakra pathway here, isolating this other node.
When it was done, I had crippled the seal. The bomb was still there, but now isolated and inert, not a danger anymore. The seal on my heart, which I now finally understood what it did, was also isolated, unable to influence my chakra. That also cut most of my ability to generate wood chakra, but that was fine for now. It was an easy fix once I had ti to inspect it and wasn’t so tired. It was enough for now. I didn’t have ti for anything else.
Darkness claid .
I never let go of Ino.
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