“Wha—?!” Shizune’s mouth dropped open.
Tonton let out a startled “Puyo” and buried his head in the crook of her arm.
The dust gradually settled.
Souji stood in place, his right hand hanging at his side, his palm slightly reddened, but his expression calm.
Where the rock had stood, there was now only a massive crater and a carpet of crushed stone fragments spread across the ground.
He tilted his head slightly toward Tsunade, his tone as calm as if he had just brewed a cup of tea.
“Was that right, Tsunade-sama?” The silence was deafening.
Tsunade stared at him, her golden pupils swirling with complex emotions: shock, wariness, scrutiny, and a hint of barely concealed excitement.
She had seen it clearly.
This kid’s chakra control, that compression speed and precision, wasn’t what a normal 12-year-old should have.
It wasn’t even what a normal jonin should have.
Was it because of those eyes?
At the moment Souji began compressing his chakra, Tsunade caught a subtle detail: something beneath his blindfold had flashed.
Very faint.
Very brief.
But in that instant, through the black cloth, she had seen two brilliant points of light, like stars suddenly igniting in the dead of night.
Those eyes had opened.
Not the bulging-vein gaze of the Byakugan.
Not the eerie crimson spin of the Sharingan.
It was something entirely different.
Cold and precise, as if they could pierce through all appearances and reach the very essence of everything.
Tsunade suddenly recalled what this kid had said in that alley back in Tanzaku Town: I can see a lot.
“Those eyes of yours,” Tsunade spoke slowly, her voice low, “what are they, exactly?” Souji was silent for a moment.
He raised his hand and lightly touched the blindfold.
“Something I was born with.
I call them the Six Eyes.” “They do allow me to see many things: the flow of chakra, the pathways of the chakra network, and the structure of techniques.” “When you demonstrated that strike just now, I saw every detail of your chakra compression.
So I tried to imitate it.” He said it lightly, but Shizune was stunned speechless.
“Just imitating it?” she murmured.
“Yes.” Souji nodded.
“I just imitated it more carefully.” “Just more carefully?!” Shizune’s voice cracked.
“That was your first time using Chakra Enhanced Strength!
Your result was better than mine after two or three years of practice.
You call that just imitating?” Souji thought for a moment, then said seriously, “Shizune-san’s chakra is very fine, but you focus too much on even distribution.” “What Chakra Enhanced Strength needs is unevenness: to cram all your power into a single point, leaving the rest empty.
It’s like…” He searched for the right words, glancing at Tsunade.
“Like betting everything on a single roll of the dice, instead of splitting your bets between big and small.” The analogy was so apt that Shizune found herself unable to argue.
Tsunade suddenly laughed.
Not mockingly.
Not coldly.
It was a complicated laugh, carrying a hint of relief.
“The Byakugan mainly sees the body’s meridians.
The Sharingan sees chakra and predicts movement.
Your eyes…” She paused.
“They can directly analyze the essence of a technique.
Three eyes, three ways of seeing.
You eye-freaks just keep getting more absurd.” She stepped closer and, before Souji could react, reached out and pulled the black cloth from his eyes.
The afternoon sunlight blazed down, illuminating the eyes suddenly exposed to the air.
Shizune gasped.
What kind of eyes were those?
A pale blue base, but deep within the pupils seemed to hold countless tiny points of light, like stardust frozen in ice, or the complex refractions inside some kind of crystal.
There was no visible focal point in them, yet they seemed to be observing everything at once.
They were so deep they were almost impossible to meet directly.
The strangest part was that the eyes seemed to be moving.
Not the eyeballs themselves, but those points of light deep within the pupils, slowly rotating and recombining, flickering with a strange, rhythmic cadence, as though they were constantly calculating.
“The Hyuga Clan’s Byakugan can see through anything.
The Uchiha’s Sharingan can replicate anything.
And your eyes…” She narrowed her gaze, enunciating every word.
“They seem to be able to analyze anything.” “When I used Chakra Enhanced Strength just now, you didn’t just see the flow of chakra.
You also saw the sequence in which every single muscle in my body exerted force, how that force was transferred through my skeleton, and even the instant deformation of my chakra pathways.
Am I right?” Souji said nothing.
He didn’t deny it.
Tsunade released the cloth.
It fell back into his hands.
She turned and strode back to Shizune, pulling out her sake flask and taking a swig.
“Shizune, don’t compare yourself to him.” She wiped her mouth.
“Comparing your talent to this monster’s is just asking for pain.
Keep practicing.
When you can shatter that rock with one palm, then you’ve passed.” Shizune looked like she was about to cry, but she nodded obediently and resumed her battle with the rock.
Souji slowly retied the blindfold, covering those too-noticeable eyes.
He looked at Tsunade’s back and spoke.
“Tsunade-sama.” “Hm?” “Thank you for not asking me about the origin of my eyes.” Without turning around, she scoffed.
“Would you have told me if I asked?” “…No.” “Then that’s settled.
I’ll just assume you were born with them.” She still didn’t look back, taking another gulp of sake.
“The Ninja world is a big place.
Everyone has secrets.” “I’ve seen plenty of strange dōjutsu.
Let alone whatever these ‘Six Eyes’ of yours are.
As long as you don’t use them to do anything I can’t tolerate, I don’t care.” She paused, her voice carried to him on the wind.
“But kid, your eyes…
don’t let too many people see them.
The Byakugan and Sharingan are already coveted enough.
Your eyes are more trouble than both of them combined.
Understood?” Souji bowed slightly.
“I understand.” In the distance, Shizune continued her struggle against the rock, thuds echoing one after another.
Tonton lay in the shade at her feet, dozing lazily.
The afternoon sun remained fierce.
The hills of the Land of Gold rolled on.
The distant squeak of ore carts drifted through the air.
Souji stood still, feeling the lingering sting in his right palm and the chakra fluctuations slowly settling within him.
Chakra Enhanced Strength…
learned.
But Tsunade’s last words still weighed on his mind.
The value of the Six Eyes.
He understood it better than anyone.
The ability to analyze the essence of techniques.
What did that mean in the shinobi world?
It meant every Forbidden Technique, Secret Art, and Kekkei Genkai, if witnessed in full, could be imitated, deciphered, or even improved upon.
These eyes were indeed more troublesome than the Sharingan and Byakugan combined.
He raised his hand and lightly touched the area around his eyes through the blindfold.
He had to become stronger, and quickly.
Tsunade could protect him for now, but not forever.
At his current level, he could probably face an ordinary Kage-level opponent without being outmatched.
But that wasn’t enough.
There were too many powerful figures in this world.
The Cursed Technique System was his foundation.
For now, he had more or less figured out how it worked.
Only by killing shinobi with chakra could he increase his Cursed Energy.
It could not be increased through any form of cultivation or training.
And once his Cursed Energy reached a certain threshold, the system would grant him more rewards through lottery draws, including Innate Techniques.