The laboratory lay in silence, barely illuminated by the faint glow of the screens and machine lights.
Noah had spent the last few days preparing for this moment. On the analysis table, he had a vial with a new genetic serum containing the base genes of the lunar Ōtsutsuki clan needed to transform his right eye, extracted directly from his prisoner. However, Noah knew that to achieve true power he needed more than genetic material. He needed the very essence of the chakra from both lineages.
He looked toward the back of the room, where two bodies lay on separate tables.
The first was a branch member of the Hyūga clan, a middle-aged ninja he had kidnapped a couple of days ago during a mission on the borders of the Land of Fire. His limbs had been amputated to prevent any attempt at escape or resistance, and he remained unconscious through a combination of seals and drugs.
The second was the lunar Ōtsutsuki clan member he had left alive after exterminating the rest of the clan.
Noah took the injector with the serum and, without hesitation, applied it to his arm.
The serum entered his bloodstream with the familiar burning sensation. His body reacted immediately, cells beginning to rewrite themselves, incorporating the genetic material of the Ōtsutsuki. Long minutes of tremors and muscle spasms passed, with cold sweat running down his forehead.
When the process was complete, Noah opened his eyes.
It was still not enough.
He got up from the chair and walked to the two tables. The Hyūga and the Ōtsutsuki lay side by side, their breaths weak but present. Noah placed one hand on each of their heads.
—Absorption spell —he murmured.
Power flowed from his hands into their bodies. And then, the energy began to transfer.
The two individuals convulsed. Their eyes widened, their mouths opened in heartbreaking screams. Chakra flowed from their bodies like an invisible river, carrying with it not only energy but the very essence of their being. Their skin began to wrinkle, to dry out and become brittle. The screams intensified, filling the laboratory with a chorus of agony.
—AAAAAAH!
—NO, PLEASE!
But Noah did not stop. His face remained impassive, cold, as he absorbed every drop of chakra, every fragment of power their bodies contained.
When he finished, only two mummies remained on the tables. Dry skin stuck to fragile bones, mouths open in eternal grimaces of pain. The chakra of Hamura's descendants, from both the Ōtsutsuki clan and the Hyūga clan, was now combined within him.
Noah withdrew his hands and took a step back.
And then the pain hit him.
His right eye exploded in flames of agony. The veins around it bulged violently, marking his temple like roots under the skin. Extremely painful throbbing ran through his orbit, each beat hammering his skull.
—Agh! —he grunted, staggering.
He took a few clumsy steps, blinded by pain, until he reached the chair. He collapsed into it, his body trembling uncontrollably. The throbbing continued for hours as his right eye underwent a fundamental transformation.
The Byakugan began to change.
The sclera, once white, took on a deep grayish tone. The iris, previously nonexistent, began to form into a floral pattern of pale, almost silvery blue.
Around the eye, bulging veins pulsed with a faint light, marking Noah's face.
Hours passed, and the pain slowly diminished, becoming more bearable, until it became a dull, constant pulse. Noah remained in the chair, breathing heavily.
When he finally opened his eyes, his vision was different.
He stood up with effort and walked to the wall mirror.
His right eye was no longer the white Byakugan. Now it was a Tenseigan. Beside it, his left eye maintained the lunar pattern of the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan.
Two divine eyes. Two bloodline powers in a single body.
But Noah's euphoria was short-lived. Barely an instant later, he felt a new pulse in his right eye.
The Tenseigan was not a complete power. It required going through several stages of development, a process that would last approximately one month. During that time, his eye would be unstable, painful throbbing would appear periodically, and most importantly: he could not use his chakra.
Any attempt to channel energy would alter the delicate balance of the transformation, ruining the process or, worse, permanently damaging the eye.
Noah exhaled slowly.
—I think it's time to take another trip to another world. Hmmm… where should I go? A fantasy world? A science fiction one?
After thinking about it for a while, he decided on a futuristic science fiction world. It was about time to make the floating fortress he obtained from the Land of Sky functional and turn it into a proper base.
Noah directly used one hundred points of void energy and took the step into another world.
Alita: Battle Angel was a cyberpunk action movie, based on a Japanese manga of the same name.
The story of that world was not especially complex.
In the 26th century, a catastrophic war known as The Fall had devastated Earth. Three hundred years later, in the year 2563, human civilization survived among remnants of technology and cities built from scrap. In one of them, Iron City, the scientist Dyson Ido one day found, among mountains of waste, the dismantled body of a female cyborg. She retained nothing but her human brain, completely intact.
Ido decided to save her. He built her a new body and, seeing that the young woman remembered absolutely nothing of her past, he named her Alita, in honor of his deceased daughter. From that moment on, the world's story began to revolve around her.
Noah had come to that world for a very specific reason: Zalem.
Zalem was a floating city suspended above Iron City, a technological enclave far above anything that existed on the surface. Its scientific level fit perfectly with what he needed to build his future base. The city was governed by the elite of this world, genetically modified humans who had achieved technologies capable of drastically slowing aging, granting them extremely long lives.
Among them was Desty Nova.
Nova was one of the main antagonists of that world, a scientist who had lived over three hundred years. Despite his age, he maintained the appearance of a middle-aged man, with his white hair combed back and special glasses covering his eyes. In the center of his forehead, he had embedded a small triangular purple crystal, a device of his own invention.
That crystal gave him psychic abilities that allowed him to possess the minds of other people, both human and cyborg, for limited periods of time.
Asleep in his room, Doctor Nova's eyes snapped open when he felt a firm hand place itself on his face and squeeze with an impossible-to-ignore force.
Far from panicking or trying to scream, Desty Nova remained calm and began to analyze the situation coolly.
An intruder? How had he bypassed all the house's security systems and gotten here without triggering a single alarm?
He channeled his mental power and tried to invade the stranger's mind to stop him, but as soon as he tried to take control, he met absolute resistance.
He increased the intensity and tried again, but the feeling was the same, like an egg smashing against a steel wall.
Without saying a word, Noah calmly began to read his memories as he writhed, going through entire layers of information until he deeply understood the technology, systems, and resources that defined this world.
When he finished, he looked at the corpse that remained behind. He had no intention of leaving it like that. If he wanted to carry out a project as large as the one he had in mind, he would need Desty Nova's access, identity, and contacts.