Chapter 7: The Uncanny Corpse

A dazzling azure pooled in her pupils, shifting into a mercury-like silver before cascading down, engulfing her flesh.

Crimson muscle fibers twitched like flower petals under sunlight—dancing, pulsing, swelling, and shrinking in eerie synchrony.

Soon, the liquid metal flowed back into her eyes like swallows returning to their nest. Without the dōjutsu’s power, the animated flesh gradually stilled.

The living tissue wasn’t dead—only dormant, conserving energy until its master called upon it again.

With a thought, Hikari willed her slender, pale index finger to split open. A segment of bone, stark white, wriggled free from the red sinew and dropped into her palm. The skin sealed shut seamlessly, subdermal tissue knitting itself back together with fibers so fine even the Byakugan would struggle to detect them.

Entwining, stitching, filling, fusing.

Her hollowed finger regained its structure as new bone grew, merging flawlessly with muscle.

Hikari clenched her fist.

No trace of abnormality remained. The chakra cost? Negligible.

Pinching the extracted bone between two fingers, she observed its metallic sheen.

The bones of a Shikotsumyaku awakener were impervious to kunai. By all logic, Hikari—who only knew the three basic jutsu—should’ve been powerless against material three times harder than steel.

Yet—

Her gaze sharpened.

Under the Byakugan’s microscopic vision, roughly 12 billion muscle fibers contracted in unison. Unthinkable explosive force converged at her fingertips.

Her skeletal frame groaned under the pressure.

Crack!

The bone shattered instantly, reduced to dust.

Hikari stared at the debris, exhilarated. She’d crushed steel-hard bone with bare fingers.

Pure physical strength.

And if she amplified it with chakra? How much more terrifying would her body become?

In her past life, studies suggested the human body’s 600+ muscles could theoretically generate 25 tons of force—if they could all pull in one direction. But flesh and bone would collapse under such strain.

Yet here, theory bent to reality.

Or at least, partially.

The Shikotsumyaku’s flaw was clear: bone protrusions tore through tendons and skin. The canon explanation—that users possessed rapid regeneration—never sat right with Hikari.

Biology didn’t work that way.

The human body was an interconnected system. Bones, tendons, blood vessels—none operated in isolation.

A living body wasn’t a cadaver on an autopsy table.

The Shikotsumyaku’s true horror wasn’t its indestructible bones—it was the flesh that could adapt to them.

Muscles splitting and regrowing around shifting bone.

Organs sliding aside to avoid impalement.

Blood vessels detaching and reattaching at will.

A corpse-like malleability—the "corpse" in Shikotsumyaku came before the "bone."

But something still felt… off.

Hikari combed through memories of Kimimaro and her clan. None exhibited this level of control over their flesh.

The Shikotsumyaku’s secret techniques only allowed crude manipulation of major muscle groups and adrenaline surges—nothing like Hikari’s precision, her ability to focus every fiber’s force into a single point.

The difference?

The Byakugan.

Her transformation began after awakening the Shikotsumyaku and overusing her dōjutsu while pretending to be blind.

No—not corruption. Activation.

If chakra were merely corrupting her, the flesh should’ve reverted when the Byakugan’s power withdrew.

Instead, it stayed awake.

The Shikotsumyaku had always possessed this potential—a car without a steering wheel. The Byakugan provided the missing controls.

Her earlier grotesque mutations? Just the system rebooting.

A bold theory, but not baseless.

The Sage of Six Paths’ mother, Kaguya Ōtsutsuki, wielded four powers:

• Senjutsu body (Senju/Uzumaki)

• Sharingan (Uchiha)

• Byakugan (Hyūga)

• All-Killing Ash Bones (Kaguya clan)

The Byakugan and Shikotsumyaku were split fragments of a whole.

Now, after a millennium, they’d reunited within Hikari.

She exhaled, sweat-drenched robes clinging to her skin.

What she’d feared was a deadly kekkei genkai flaw turned out to be a blessing.

Azure chakra seeped from her pores, swirling around her like mist. In the sunlight, her silhouette loomed on the wall—a distorted, divine shadow.

No halo of enlightenment crowned her. Instead, hair-thin strands of energy lashed like serpents, weaving a spiderweb of light.

Hikari smirked, silver hair crackling with chakra.

"So… this is the so-called Haretsu no Mai (Dance of the Foam)."

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