Revolving Will

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In his heart, Naoki had already reached a conclusion.

From the conversation between Mitsui and Anko, he could roughly tell what the so-called "special mission" Mitsui had given Oda and Anko had been. They were likely sent to make contact with a Konoha spy planted among the Sand shinobi.

But why would the village assign that kind of secret mission to two chunin who were still under screening?

No matter how he looked at it, it made no sense.

That meant Anko's instinct was right. This so-called special mission was a trap. The village might truly have abandoned Orochimaru's former subordinates and started using plausible methods to purge them one by one.

'Was it Danzo? The Third Hokage? Or the Fourth?'

The first person Naoki suspected was Danzo. Orochimaru's early defection was tangled with hidden motives. Naoki could not judge exactly what role Danzo had played in it, but there was no question that Danzo had benefited the most. By the logic of following who profited, Danzo was very likely the culprit who had pushed Orochimaru into defecting early.

If that was true, then Danzo and Orochimaru had probably broken with each other completely. In that case, Danzo moving against Orochimaru's old subordinates who refused to join Root made perfect sense.

The Third Hokage could not be ruled out either. He was the kind of person who could do many absurd things in the name of stability. That much could be seen from the way he allowed the White Fang to be driven to suicide, and later from the way he would pressure the Hyuga Clan after a clear act of self-defense to avoid conflict with Kumogakure, force Hizashi Hyuga to die, and let Naruto, the Fourth Hokage's orphaned son, grow up under the discrimination and abuse of the entire village.

As for the Fourth Hokage, Naoki felt it probably was not him.

That was not because Naoki blindly trusted the Fourth's character. It was because the Fourth had risen from the ranks of civilian shinobi. He had no clan of his own supporting him, and the Third had not fully handed over power. At the moment, the Fourth likely did not have enough influence to arrange something like this.

At the same time, given the advantage of his youth, the Fourth had no urgent need to purge dissenters inside the village.

In any case, whoever was directing the purge from behind the scenes, Naoki had already become a target. Danger now hung over his head and could fall at any time.

Day after day passed. One week after Anko's ambush, Naoki finally made it safely through the Tenseigan's adjustment period.

The dizziness and stabbing pain disappeared completely, replaced by a comprehensive strengthening of his vision.

The Tenseigan possessed part of the Byakugan's ability, and in fine observation, it far surpassed the Byakugan.

With ordinary observation alone, Naoki could roughly judge an opponent's next movement by the flow of chakra in their body and the contraction of their muscles.

Aside from insight, the greatest change was his chakra volume.

By a conservative estimate, Naoki guessed that his current chakra was forty to fifty times what it had been before injecting the genetic solution. It had already surpassed the chakra volume of an ordinary jonin.

He also faintly sensed that his body had awakened other abilities. But inside the outpost, every move he made was monitored by Captain Chuichi Mitsui, so it was not convenient to explore them one by one.

Suppressing his excitement, Naoki finally waited several days until he had a chance to patrol alone.

"Hah!"

At his soft shout, the yellow sand in the distance surged toward his outstretched right hand like floodwater bursting through a broken dam.

With a shift of will, the sand rushing toward him seemed to collide with a hurricane and was blasted far away.

Standing alone in the remote desert, Naoki looked at the sand that came when summoned and scattered when dismissed, and the corner of his mouth lifted slightly.

This move combined the principles behind Pain's Shinra Tensei and Bansho Ten'in: attraction and repulsion. In Naoki's hazy memories of his previous life, Toneri Otsutsuki on the Moon had also used this ability.

"Since it's a Tenseigan ability, I'll call it Revolving Will."

After trying Revolving Will several more times, the first rush of excitement faded, and Naoki gradually noticed its weakness. Its effective range was only about fifteen meters, and the farther the target was, the weaker the effect became.

He panted, brows drawing together.

Most offensive ninjutsu above C-rank had an attack range greater than twenty meters. Some could even reach fifty. Kunai, shuriken, and other thrown weapons from a skilled user could also easily be lethal beyond twenty meters.

In other words, once an enemy opened up distance, Naoki's current Revolving Will could only serve as defense or interference.

He set aside the short range for the moment and discovered another shortcoming while he was still catching his breath: the chakra volume that had made him so happy.

The forty- to fiftyfold increase had thrilled him at first. But after using Revolving Will several times in a row, he was shocked to find that his chakra was already running low.

Only then did Naoki realize what he had overlooked.

That massive multiplier had interfered with his judgment and made him overestimate his own reserves.

In truth, his original chakra level had been an ordinary genin standard, far too mediocre. Even after increasing by forty or fifty times, the total was not absurdly high. It merely exceeded the level of an ordinary jonin.

That was very different from the fantasy of throwing ninjutsu around without restraint. Compared to Toneri Otsutsuki, who also had the Tenseigan and could treat the moon like a toy, there was no comparison at all.

Naoki had been using Toneri as his reference point, and reality had struck him hard.

'Why is it like this?'

'Where did the problem come from?'

'Was my method of evolving the Tenseigan wrong?'

Questions rose one after another in Naoki's mind.

After being trapped in confusion, anxiety, and even panic for a long while, he finally calmed down. Once he changed the way he looked at the problem, all his earlier doubts unraveled.

In the memories of his previous life, the only person who had possessed the Tenseigan was Toneri Otsutsuki. Because of that, Naoki had subconsciously assumed that once he possessed the Tenseigan, he would possess the same strength as Toneri.

But once he thought about it, even kekkei genkai differed from person to person.

Even with the Byakugan, many Hyuga of Naoki's age had been stronger than him. Likewise, with the Sharingan, most Uchiha were nothing but fodder before Madara.

Toneri Otsutsuki had been the last surviving heir of the Moon's branch, a true genius who possessed all the inheritance Hamura Otsutsuki had left on the Moon. Even before awakening his own Tenseigan, Toneri had already been Kage-level.

Someone like that could not be compared to Naoki, who had only been genin-level.

Once Toneri obtained the Tenseigan, reaching a level beyond Kage was the natural result of everything already in place.

Naoki, who had started from a completely different line, could not realistically expect to catch up to Toneri's beyond-Kage level with a pair of Tenseigan alone.

After understanding that, Naoki tried several Tenseigan techniques Toneri had used in his memories. Sure enough, he could not enter Tenseigan Chakra Mode. As for the move Toneri had used to cut through the moon, or the Truth-Seeking Balls that served for both attack and defense, those were even further beyond him.

'Huh. Does entering Tenseigan Chakra Mode require hand signs?'

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