Chapter 161: The Omen of the Red Sight

The countdown to the end of the Mask Mode began—ten seconds remaining.

Yuto leaned against the tree trunk, his mind wandering. He wished his sensei were here.

If the blonde woman saw him in his near-death state, she'd likely cry her heart out. In that case, lying in her arms and whispering something cheesy like, "I can't see your face from this angle," might be a beautiful scene.

Dying in the arms of a beauty or with the last drop of blood in battle—Yuto found both quite romantic.

But dying alone in an empty forest, with his eye gouged out and his brain destroyed by the curse mark, was too pathetic.

Nine seconds remaining.

Yuto sighed, placed his hand on the ground, and performed a reverse summoning.

He decided to gamble, stepping onto the marshes of the Shikkotsu Forest and flying towards a certain location like a madman.

His brain raced with thoughts.

Creation Rebirth definitely couldn't save him.

Even though this forbidden technique could instantly repair brain tissue and theoretically counteract the effects of the Bird Cage, Yuto's chakra was not endless. It could only last a few minutes before he'd die anyway.

Using Creation Rebirth to regrow his right eye was also not an option.

In the shinobi world, chakra-based organs occupied a peculiar ecological niche, where medical means had little effect on them. Once they were gone, they were gone, and not even nearsighted Sharingan could be healed.

After all, if it were possible to exploit this loophole, Madara Uchiha, with Hashirama's cells, could have repeatedly regenerated his eyes to create an army of Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan users and conquered the shinobi world, even attacking the moon.

Transplanting the Rinnegan he recently acquired also crossed Yuto's mind, but he dismissed it immediately.

Since the Third Shinobi World War broke out, he had killed many of his clan members and conducted experiments to destroy branch family Byakugan. He understood the mechanism of the Bird Cage curse mark very well.

To prevent the curse mark from activating, the thing in the eye socket had to be a Byakugan. An evolved Byakugan, like the Half-Awakened Tenseigan, would also work.

Yuto's God's Mask, in Mask Mode, was essentially an evolved Byakugan, with vast pupil power and several Six Paths abilities.

But Madara's Rinnegan was not. It evolved from the Sharingan, completely incompatible with the Byakugan, and couldn't deceive the Bird Cage. Plus, Yuto couldn't suppress it with Rinnegan's power—after leaving Mask Mode, his ordinary Hyuga chakra couldn't fully activate the Sage's power. Besides, he only had one Rinnegan!

"Who the hell developed the Bird Cage..."

Flying, Yuto chuckled bitterly.

The Hyuga ancestor who created the Bird Cage curse mark was undoubtedly a genius in sealing jutsu. Unfortunately, their intelligence was misused, aimed entirely at their kin.

Two seconds later, he reached his destination.

Quickly unsealing a hidden mark, Yuto took out a small bottle. In the turbid liquid inside, a Byakugan floated.

It was Shinosuke's Byakugan!

Opening the bottle, Yuto endured the intense pain, cleaned his eye socket, then inserted Shinosuke's Byakugan, using medical ninjutsu to connect the nerves and flesh.

Though it wasn't his own eye, it was at least a Byakugan.

Yuto was gambling.

Gambling that the Bird Cage could only determine if it was a Byakugan, but not if it belonged to the original user!

At this critical moment, Yuto's hands remained steady. Chakra threads connected the nerves and muscle tissue precisely. It was his first time performing an eye transplant on himself, but with prior experience, he did it smoothly.

The God's Mask lost its effectiveness and fell from the forehead of the branch family boy.

Mask Mode ended.

The chakra of the direct descendant of the Otsutsuki clan rapidly faded, and the Sage's power disappeared.

The vile Bird Cage curse mark reappeared.

Yuto lowered his hand. His right eye opened, bloodshot and with many nerves not yet connected. But the key circuits and tissues were connected, making the transplant barely successful.

His heart pounded as he awaited his fate.

After a long wait, nothing happened.

"No way, did this random operation actually work..." Yuto felt a surge of joy, a smile forming at the corner of his mouth.

However, he celebrated too early.

Excruciating pain erupted without warning, causing Yuto to black out and collapse.

The pain's source was the newly transplanted right eye.

In a daze, Yuto thought of many things.

When a branch family Byakugan was removed or destroyed, the Bird Cage would destroy the brain and the detached Byakugan.

The brain's destruction was understandable, as the curse mark was engraved in it.

But why would the detached Byakugan also be destroyed?

After much contemplation, there was only one possibility.

—The Bird Cage left a trace in the Byakugan!

Shinosuke's eye was indeed a Byakugan, but it was from the main family, with no trace of the curse mark.

Yuto's Bird Cage on his forehead would undoubtedly react to this anomaly.

In extreme pain, Yuto lay on the ground, his consciousness fading.

After an unknown period, he suddenly woke up.

Chakra slowly flowed through every inch of his skin and pathways, finally stopping in his eyes.

A tear of blood fell from his right eye. Yuto wiped it away with a blank expression.

Viewing through his right eye, everything was slightly blurry.

The Hyuga ancestor who developed the Bird Cage was a genius but couldn't have calculated every possible escape.

Yuto survived.

Shinosuke's eye had no curse mark, but Yuto's original left eye did!

The imbalance of chakra between his eyes made it difficult for the Bird Cage to judge. Through numerous complex mechanisms, it led to the current situation.

—Yuto temporarily survived, but the Bird Cage would slowly destroy the strange right eye. Once the erosion reached a certain level, Shinosuke's right eye would be destroyed, and the Bird Cage would fully activate!

The main family's Byakugan could only temporarily save Yuto's life.

One month? Two months? Six months?

Yuto couldn't determine yet. He could only record the erosion's speed in the future to estimate when the Bird Cage would fully activate.

When Shinosuke's eye was destroyed by the curse mark, to save his life, Yuto would need to transplant another main family Byakugan.

But the main family's Byakugan was limited.

He needed his own eyes.

Using the vast amount of fresh blood and flesh from the Hyuga clan to reconstruct his eyes.

—Only fresh blood and flesh contained active life force and chakra.

Yuto looked up at the clear sky above the Shikkotsu Forest.

He closed his left eye, viewing with only his right.

The right eye, not his own, had just suffered the first round of erosion, making the vision blurry, with blood oozing around the eyeball.

Yuto couldn't see the blue sky, green forest, white clouds, or dark marshes.

At this moment, everything seen through this right eye was dyed blood red.

(End of Chapter)