As my explosive tags surrounded me, they flashed for a moment in warning of imminent danger. I reached out.
Not with my body, but with my mind, I reached out far, far away from this battlefield, away from the danger of it, to a place far away.
And as my mind reached it, I found a bright point in the darkness, a beacon called on me, and in the last moment before the explosion would consume me, I gripped that beacon, and I pulled.
In the same instance, as Killer B was forced to call upon the power of the tailed beast inside him to shield himself, I slipped away.
From the moon, I had watched countless people; I had seen them live and die, and I had witnessed the best and worst moments of their lives. I had seen countless great men and women come and go.
There were also a few rare people I watched closely, some I barely glanced away from, afraid to miss even a moment of their lives.
One such person had been Tobirama Senju. That was despite the fact so many other important people lived in his generation, despite the other important events.
Tobirama Senju was beyond important to me; it was his research into forbidden ninjutsu that had allowed me to make my own, to pull a tiny fragment of my chakra out of my body and seal, and be reborn as Yuki Hyūga.
But that wasn't all I had seen, I had seen him make all his special ninjutsu, which included the one I used this one moment.
Flying Thunder God Technique (Hiraishin no Jutsu)
I once possessed Amenominaka, the space-time technique that allowed me to move between different dimensions at will, to teleport anywhere at any time, something far beyond even Obito's Kamui.
This meant that I had some talent for space-time techniques. Enough to feel a single beacon, a single mark, and reach it from far away, teleporting away just before death found me.
It all happened in a single instant, all while a huge spike of chakra was released from the seal, masking what happened from any form of sensing.
I landed hard, coughing and in pain all over.
I was, after all, still pretty badly hurt from fighting Killer B, but I was safe, my Byakugan detecting nothing around me; I was all alone.
It felt strange… to cut all ties, to be free from everything…
Yet I only took a moment to rest, I wasn't done just yet, not free just yet. I still had the caged bird cursed seal on my forehead, and with that, my current state as still being among the living could be tracked and confirmed.
Something I couldn't allow.
So after two decades, I finally put my bleeding fingers together as I slowly worked through the hand signs needed. Slowly, I molded the chakra towards the desired effect, moving it just right. And it flowed under my skin, towards my eyes, and the mark on my forehead.
"Caged bird, Release!"
Instantly, the seal disappeared, the chakra holding it together disappeared, and all without causing me any harm.
In fact, far from harming me, I couldn't help but gasp in shock and moan in pleasure as a rush of chakra flowed through me.
The world before my very eyes changed; it expanded tens of times. From being able to reach a few kilometers around me, I could see clearly many times more, maybe as many as twenty times.
I had long since determined that letting myself get sealed with the cursed seal shouldn't cause any damage or limit my strength, but clearly, I had been wrong.
My Byakugan felt stronger than ever, purer than ever. I focused on a bird sitting in a tree a few hundred meters away from me, and instantly, the bird exploded in a shower of feathers and blood as if hit by a great force.
"Urgh!" I covered my eyes and groaned in pain. It had worked… but clearly it was still pushing things a little.
But even then, I couldn't suppress the smile on my face. Beyond the strengthening of my Byakugan, my total chakra pool was also growing quickly, already having doubled and only slightly slowing down the growth.
My wounds also started to heal much faster. Shikotsumyaku came with a healing factor, and mine hadn't been very impressive, just like my control and strength of the Shikotsumyaku bloodline itself.
Yet now? It too grew stronger.
Then suddenly, I felt a coldness flood my mind.
A clarity.
My emotions muted, my happiness, while still present, grew far less prominent.
All my memories of the last few years lost their lustre.
The warmth and care I had once felt in my mother's arms seemed like a minor note, barely worthy of my attention. The love I had felt from Hiashi and Koji, and my feelings for them, too, grew muted.
As my chakra grew, my power swelled, I realized that an imbalance of Yin and Yang chakra was being corrected.
Shikotsumyaku was a yang-based Kekkei Genkai and Byakugan Yin-based, yet clearly the caged bird seal had suppressed my Yin chakra. Causing an imbalance.
This caused me to be overly emotional, like a budget version of Naruto.
Now that my Yin chakra could grow, it fixed that flaw in my personality, and I became more rational. I realized that I had been wasting my time playing lover with mortals.
That I really should have broken free long ago, years wasted.
And for what?
Love?
Yet… I couldn't even feel angry at myself; my muted emotions didn't allow me to go that far.
Sure, I felt disappointed, but I also understood the root cause of everything.
I looked down at my hand, opening and closing it a few times, before pointing a single finger towards a nearby tree.
My fingertip tingled with pressure as I gathered chakra at the nail. Bone shifted under my skin, flowing forward like liquid ivory. A narrow spike emerged from the tip of my finger—smooth, gleaming, a bullet sculpted by instinct rather than thought.
I took a slow breath. My Byakugan traced every vein in the tree ahead, every knot of wood and strand of sap. The world was a lattice of weakness.
I flicked my finger.
PCHK! — the bone bullet shot out with a whip-crack hiss, faster than an arrow. It punched clean through the trunk, splinters bursting outward in a shower of bark and sap. A heartbeat later, the sound caught up — KSHHH! — as a fine line split across the bark, and the whole section slumped inward like something punched by a giant fist.
Another breath. Another spike slid from my fingertip, the process smoother this time. My chakra molded it with less effort, the recoil less biting.
I fired again. PCHK! PCHK! PCHK!
Three white streaks snapped through the air, hammering the tree in a tight cluster. Each impact sent another violent shudder through the wood, holes blooming across its surface like sudden rot. The trunk groaned and tilted under its own weight.
A smile ghosted across my lips.
I lowered my hand, half-dried blood still covered the pure pale skin, but the flesh had all closed back up, not a hint of the wounds that had once caused all that blood.
"Good," I murmured, voice flat but satisfied.
Next, I turned towards my still growing chakra pool, once it was respectable, not quite enough for being a ninjutsu-focused fighter, but now? That was no longer the case; with this amount, I could throw out plenty of strong ninjutsu without running low.
I quickly used a wind style ninjutsu, it was almost like a chakra armor, but it just shot out sharp winds from all over my body, shredding my clothes into bits, causing them to fall off, leaving me naked in the forest.
But I felt no shame, no hidden desire, nothing really.
Next, I used water prison on myself, trapping me in a rotating sphere of water that washed all the blood, dirt, and sweat off of me.
And all without using a single hand sign.
Despite my chakra growing this rapidly, my chakra control hadn't suffered; in fact, it grew better. It was one of the rarely noted benefits of the Byakugan; it enhanced chakra control.
After that, I pushed my control to the limit, mixing fire and wind to dry myself as the water collapsed, leaving me both clean and dry.
With a chakra string, I pulled a sealing scroll into my hand and quickly unsealed another scroll. From there, I unsealed a new outfit. One I had commissioned in secret and finally gotten rid of the witnesses, including the person who made it.
I quickly got dressed, feeling the soft fabric around me. My sleeves were wide and filled with special pockets for sealing scrolls. So I put my master scroll in there, but not before pulling out a blindfold and tying it around my head.
Walking around with the Byakugan on display would get me more attention than I wanted. I wouldn't hide away, wouldn't crawl around in the shadows like a rat, but that didn't mean I would invite undue attention to myself.
My Byakugan pierced effortlessly through silk, flesh, wood, and stone. To anyone else, I was a blind woman wandering the wilderness. Yet if they thought it a weakness, they would suffer for it.
I adjusted the sleeves of the robe, feeling the weight of my scrolls secure against my skin, the fabric swaying with every subtle motion. Regal, commanding, untouchable. No longer bound to the clan, to the village, to their games.
I was free.
For the first time since my rebirth, I did not feel the leash of others tugging at me. No Hokage, no elders, no cursed seal smoldering on my forehead. The Inuzuka boy who called me partner, the Hyūga who called me bride-to-be — even they had no claim on me anymore. They had been diversions, perhaps necessary for survival, but diversions nonetheless.
Yuki… she was dead, died fighting against Killer B, died a hero's death. Now… now I was once more Kaguya, the once and future goddess of this world.
The silence pressed close, broken only by the drip of water from the wounded tree. I turned slightly, feeling the air itself yield around me, bowing in deference to the chakra that rolled off my form.
I took a single step forward, and the forest seemed to recoil, every blade of grass bending as if afraid to cut against my robe. As I walked, I willed my chakra to move, and behind me, the area filled with my blood and clothes burst into fire.
Burning away the last proof of Yuki being here, the evidence that Yuki had survived.
Away walked someone greater, stronger, and free.
With my newfound strength, I didn't fear running into anyone. Didn't need to keep a low profile. Few could threaten me now, not even Killer B could do that.
The difference between Yuki and me… it was night and day.
Chakra… chakra was the key to power; it was what divided shinobi from civilians. Skill did matter, but no Genin could kill someone like the first Hokage of Konoha; he was too strong.
And the source of this strength was two-fold: chakra and blood.
My blood, my chakra.
And now… it was starting to return.
Double the blood, triple the chakra, it pushed my strength firmly into the level of an S-rank shinobi, a Clan Lord, a kage, or whatever measure one used. I was at the very top… and that was just perfect, for my plan required it.
And as the mist curled through the trees and the blindfold's silk tightened against my brow, I whispered the name I had chosen to carry into this new life — a name that belonged to no clan, no village, no man.
"Kaguya-hime."
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(End of chapter)
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