"Miss Hinami, your dinner has arrived."
A handsome waiter stood at the door, pushing a cart piled high with a mountain of meat, and politely rang the doorbell.
"Enter."
The door was unlocked. As the waiter pushed it open, he heard a rhythmic crunch, crunch, crunch coming from within. The sound made his own teeth ache in phantom sympathy.
As he entered the spacious, brightly lit room, the scene became clear. On a long mahogany dining table, plates were stacked incredibly high. The silver-haired girl sat to one side, hugging a roasted beef leg larger than her own head, her cheeks bulging.
Snap!
The hard bone of the beef leg was bitten through like a watermelon rind. The waiter lowered his eyes, terrified, not daring to look further.
"Miss Hinami, the Hope sets sail in two days. Here is your ticket. It has your seat number and time; please keep it safe."
"Mm-hmm..."
She placed the ticket on the nightstand. After the waiter swapped the fresh food for the empty plates, he practically fled, pushing the cart as if escaping a natural disaster.
Hinami continued eating. Her Byakugan casually swept over the neatly placed ticket. Mermaid Pier, day after tomorrow at 1:00 PM. VIP single cabin. Sailing time: fifteen days.
Finally, she was leaving the Land of Water. A surge of emotion rose in her heart—a complicated mix of feelings. From the moment she awakened her memories until today, it had only been a week. Yet, it felt longer than a whole year of her previous life.
The nameless Anbu whose legs she'd broken on the Kaguya battlefield, Meiko, Naoko Akasaka, Mari Kurusu, Arata Okamura, Karin Douyama, Azane, Kirigarasu, Ketsuken... slaughter, ambushes, deception, life-and-death struggles, calculations.
The memories of her previous life were gradually fading. Everything felt like it happened yesterday, yet also felt like it had left her forever. Sometimes she couldn't distinguish if she was Kaguya Hinami or that middle-aged woman whose life was like a weed, who lost her loved ones in an earthquake.
But it didn't matter anymore. Whoever she was, the goal was the same: gain power, control destiny.
Konoha.
Hinami looked toward the distant setting sun. The Sharingan, Hashirama cells, Flying Thunder God, Shadow Clones, Reanimation, Reaper Death Seal, Eight Trigrams secrets... that place held countless things that could make her stronger.
She tore fiercely at the connective tissue on the beef leg, her sharp teeth greedily grinding through large chunks of meat. Her stomach rumbled as it digested the food, converting it into massive amounts of chakra. For Hinami, who could freely control her physical body, the secret techniques of Konoha's Akimichi clan—storing energy as fat and converting it back at will—were mere instinct.
The combination of the Shikotsumyaku and the Byakugan was undeniably powerful. The more she used them, the more she realized how uniquely blessed her bloodline was. At the same time, she had almost guessed the root cause of the Kaguya clan's "Bloodline Disease."
Kaguya Ōtsutsuki's abilities consisted of the Sage Eyes, Sage Body, Byakugan, and All-Killing Ash Bones, all backed by the Ten-Tails' colossal chakra source. If she were a tank, those four abilities were the cannon, the fuel tank, the chassis/radar, and the operating system.
The Senju and Uzumaki inherited the Sage Body—the fuel. Even without the cannon, they could drown people in "gasoline." The Uchiha inherited the cannon—the Sharingan—but without the fuel tank, their powerful ocular jutsu drained their life force, causing terrible side effects. The Hyūga took the radar and operating system (Byakugan), but lacking the hardware, most of the system remained locked, leaving them with only chakra control and observation.
The Kaguya clan was the most tragic. The other families took almost everything, leaving them with only the empty shell of the chassis. To fight, they had to ram people with that shell. Without a Sage Body to provide life force, every instance of self-healing or bone manipulation consumed massive amounts of vitality. Eventually, they would simply run dry. Kimimaro's disease was clearly a total depletion of life force, which was why even Kabuto and Orochimaru couldn't cure it.
Therefore, before every battle, Hinami stored massive amounts of energy to prevent the Shikotsumyaku from draining her life. The more she ate and stored, the lower the probability of the disease triggering.
But this wasn't a permanent solution. She swallowed a piece of beef that had become tasteless from over-consumption. The "All-Killing Ash Bones" that represented death were terrifying; if her bloodline ever evolved in that direction without a Sage Body's vitality, she doubted she could survive the side effects.
She had thought of three ways to solve the longevity issue:
Transplant Hashirama cells to gain Wood Style and a Sage Body.
Learn Tsunade's Strength of a Hundred Seal (Sōzō Saisei) to store excess chakra—a temporary fix.
Become a Jinchūriki to gain a new chakra source.
The first two were currently out of reach, but for the third, she had a lead.
Hinami put the empty plate aside and rang the bell. Once the waiter cleared the table and left, she locked the door. She activated her Byakugan to ensure she was unobserved.
From her clothes, she pulled out a white porcelain medicine bottle bearing the Kaguya clan crest—the same one she'd found on the battlefield. She opened it, and a deep blue chakra overflowed like a liquid current.
Hinami grew an exoskeleton on her hand and poured the contents into her palm. A dark, jelly-like piece of meat fell out, writhing and twisting against her white bone, as if trying to burrow into her body.
Through her Byakugan, she observed the meat. It was the size of a leech, yet the chakra within was greater than that of an average Chunin. This was what she had found on Ketsuken. When Kirigarasu died, this chakra had surged from Ketsuken's abdomen, granting him the brute strength to break her neck.
She had identified its source during her journey. In the Land of Water, a source of massive Water-style chakra associated with the Mist could only be one thing: the Three-Tails, Isobu.
If she wasn't mistaken, this was the Flesh of the Three-Tails.
It was one of the legendary "Six Major Cheats" of the Naruto world: Sharingan, Wood Style, Sage Mode, Shadow Clones, Tailed Beast Chakra, and Space-Time Ninjutsu. Now, she had the chance to become a Jinchūriki—or at least a pseudo-one.
Hinami looked at the writhing meat, feeling a bit hesitant. How do I use this? She knew nothing of sealing jutsu. Do I just... eat it?
Cloud Village's Gold and Silver Brothers had become pseudo-Jinchūriki by eating the flesh of the Nine-Tails. Hinami reasoned that as a direct descendant of Kaguya Ōtsutsuki, her bloodline purity was likely higher than theirs.
She licked a smudge of beef fat from her lip. She had already stored a massive amount of energy. If things went wrong, she could just cut out her own stomach and regenerate it with her Shikotsumyaku. But if it worked... she would be a Pseudo-Three-Tails Jinchūriki.
Thinking of the potential gains, Hinami finally made up her mind.
Let's do this.