It was like being plunged ten thousand ters into the deep sea and then abruptly dragged back to the surface… a sensation of separation mixed with gravity pulling his consciousness back into his body.
nma's eyes snapped open.
The scarlet Three-Tomoe Sharingan of his left eye and the Akaigan of his right eye simultaneously focused.
Inside Hamura Shrine, shattered fragnts of golden tracks hung suspended in the air, every speck of tallic dust frozen mid-explosion.
Kanon was locked in a pose with her Adamantine Sealing Chains vibrating violently. The Susanoo's arm extended by Hikari was rigidly fixed in place. Hizashi's tear of blood, streaming from his eye socket, and the trembling pupils of his Byakugan, strained from overuse, were all motionless.
Even the dark red cracks dancing across the surface of the Giant Tenseigan seed to have been paused.
Then, the flow of ti abruptly returned to normal.
The suspended tallic debris fell.
The faint cracking sounds from the depths of the shrine resud, connecting into a continuous series.
Hikari snapped back to awareness instantly. The extended claw of her Susanoo almost instinctively closed forward, seeking to shield nma's figure within its palm.
"No need."
nma's voice cut through the howling energy storm, calm as a stone dropping into water.
He didn't even turn his head, only tilting his chin back slightly in a minuscule, almost imperceptible gesture.
The Susanoo's giant claw halted in the air half a step behind nma. The boiling Chakra gradually cald. The bloody light of the Mangekyo Sharingan in Hikari's eyes dimd, but her gaze locked even more tightly onto nma's back.
The outline of her Susanoo remained in a semi-solid state, poised and ready.
"What was that just now?" Her voice carried a trace of tightly controlled tension.
The residual energy vortices within the shrine still tore at space. The sensation of that abruptly descending and vanishing white light, the feeling of being devoured, was intense enough to leave a mark on the spiritual level.
It was a power she had never seen, never even heard of!
"Nothing much." nma's voice ca through his mask, his gaze falling upon the Giant Tenseigan, its core light flickering unsteadily, covered in dark red cracks, "Just took a trip to the Pure Land and had a chat with Otsutsuki Hamura about so old matters."
The air instantly solidified.
Shuto, pinned tightly to the tal pillar by Adamantine Sealing Chains and black rod, jerked his head up!
"Ab-absurd!" Shuto's roar was rendered hoarse and distorted by the black rod piercing his shoulder blade. His body struggled violently within the chains, the tal pillar emitting a screeching friction sound!
"Hamura-sama's Pure Land, his resting place... How could soone like you-!"
nma did not turn around. He rely raised the index finger of his right hand, with extre casualness, in Shuto's direction.
Hum-!
An invisible, terrifying force of repulsion instantly descended!
"Guh-!" Shuto's furious roar was forcibly choked back in his throat!
The space around his bound body seed to instantly solidify into a prison a thousand tis harder than tal!
The Adamantine Sealing Chains snapped taut to their absolute limit!
The black rods piercing his shoulder blades humd and vibrated, forcibly disrupting the flow of his remaining chakra!
An imnse pressure crushed down on his entire skeletal structure. All struggle, all roar, all will to resist was utterly extinguished before the mountain-shattering willpower carried by that single finger.
"How is this possible... How can you... control this power-" Shuto's body convulsed violently, uncontrollably. Deep within his chest, his breathing sounded like a broken bellows.
"Twisted, fallen, utterly foolish." nma's voice remained icy and steady, each word piercing clearly through the chaotic energy currents, nailing into the core of Shuto's spirit, which is on the verge of collapse.
"The mission of the Otsutsuki bloodline on the moon has only two tenets: protect the Ninja World and protect the seal." He paused slightly. His gaze, from behind the mask, seed to pierce through the Giant Tenseigan, as if seeing a deeper secret.
"You couldn't even fulfill the most basic duty of guarding the Gedo Statue! Yet you arrogantly seek to purify the Ninja World? Administering divine punishnt with your filthy bloodline, relying on this incomplete 'eye'?"
The cold sarcasm was like a blade's edge, "Otsutsuki Shuto, which of your actions, and those of your twisted ancestors, followed Hamura's will? Which one did not defile and trample upon the beliefs he passed down through his bloodline?"
Shuto's body trembled violently.
'He knows... How does he know everything?!'
Within his body, bound by the Adamantine Sealing Chains and black rod, the last pillar of belief supporting him crumbled completely.
Within his body, bound by the Adamantine Sealing Chains and black rod, the last pillar of belief supporting him crumbled completely.
"The Gedo… Gedo Statue-" Shuto's cracked lips moved soundlessly. His empty eye sockets 'looked' in nma's direction, filled only with bewildernt.
"It was lost decades ago... I even secretly set foot in the Ninja World to search for it, but found nothing…" His voice grew lower and lower, carrying a vast sense of emptiness, the feeling of a millennia-old fantasy being utterly punctured.
"He has been missing for decades. I once secretly set foot in the ninja world to look for him, but found nothing—" His voice beca increasingly low, with a huge sense of emptiness after a thousand-year-old dream was completely shattered.
"As for that legendary seal… I… didn't an to..." Shuto's words of explanation were pale and feeble.
In the face of nma's precise and accurate accusations regarding their clan's secrets, the seal, and the Gedo Statue, all justifications seed absurd and laughable.
"You certainly didn't an to." nma stepped forward, the soles of his boots crunching over the cold, shattered tal tracks with crisp sounds.
He walked towards the immobilized Shuto, his voice like the pronouncent of a final judgnt: "You were rely incompetent. So incompetent that you couldn't even uphold the most basic mission bestowed upon your bloodline by your ancestors. So incompetent that your vision was blinded by narrow-minded arrogance, twisting protection into destruction. The Ninja World does not need purification. It only needs an executioner."
nma stopped before Shuto, looking down from a height.
He did not touch Shuto, but the imnse pressure emanating from the Nine-Tails' Chakra, mixed with his own will, descended like an intangible mountain, heavily pressing down upon every inch of Shuto's restrained body.
"I will end the aningless conflicts of the Ninja World. I will erase the millennia of turmoil you, the descendants of this bloodline, have personally created." nma's voice held no emotional fluctuations, only a god-like indifference, overlooking the fate of ants.
"The future of this Ninja World and this moon, whether you wish it or not-"
He raised his right hand, fingers spread, resonating with the Giant Tenseigan.
"Will all fall under my control."
Thud.
A soft sound echoed through the dead-silent shrine.
Shuto's body slowly slid down, his knees finally hitting the cold, crystal-dust-covered ground with a heavy thud.
He made no further sound. His entire head hung limply against his chest, his pale white hair disheveled, covering his empty eye sockets.
His body, pierced by chains and black rods, rely maintained its kneeling posture, like a broken stone statue stripped of all soul.
All struggle, all roars, all pride, all sches… ultimately turned to dust.
Silence, like a cold tide, drowned Shuto.
Nearby, Toneri, watching his helpless father, felt the factional ideology instilled in him begin to crumble.
The dark red cracks on the surface of the Giant Tenseigan still pulsed faintly, its pale golden glow flickering unsteadily.
Shisui and Hizashi stood at the position closest to the core of the luminous sphere, silently observing this Giant Tenseigan that not long ago had radiated world-ending divine power, but was now covered in cracks.
The air was still perated with the not-yet-dissipated Tailed Beast Chakra.
Shisui's Three-Tomoe Sharingan rotated cautiously, observing the six-petaled flower at the core of the luminous sphere. Each dimming and faintly brightening flicker made his heartstrings tighten.
The shattered edges silently spoke of the residual power from the collision between nma's chakra and the Giant Tenseigan.
In the visual field of Hizashi's Byakugan, everything was more microscopic and clear.
He could 'see' the complex energy network inside the Giant Tenseigan, the intricate structure composed of pure Byakugan's Ocular Power.
Now, it was like a spiderweb forcibly torn apart. Vast amounts of incredibly pure pupil power were seeping out, thread by thread, from those cracks, dissipating and dissolving.
With each pulse, the cracks seed to widen slightly.
A fierce contradiction tore at his heart.
'This was the power of the Byakugan's ultimate evolved form… the [Tenseigan]!'
"So the Byakugan can also evolve, like the Sharingan-" A greatness surpassing all imagination was displayed before Hizashi's eyes!
And now, this eye was crumbling before them, continuously!
"Shura-sama…" Hizashi's voice held a barely perceptible dryness. He struggled to tear his gaze away from the dizzying cracks and turned towards the black-robed figure.
"This Tenseigan... should we attempt to repair it?" His peripheral vision uncontrollably swept over Kimimaro nearby.
The Byakugan, transplanted from a Hyuga Clan's elder, now glowed faintly and bulged with veins due to sensing the homologous power. A chill crawled up Hizashi's spine.
nma's gaze swept over Shuto, kneeling like a dead thing, and landed on the divine eye standing tall amidst the wreckage.
He slowly raised his right hand, wrapped in dark red Tailed Beast Chakra. This ti, it was not an aggressive extension.
Hum-
After an extrely faint but unmistakably clear resonance, strands of deep blue, starlight-like Chakra Threads began to flow backwards along the dark red light emanating from nma's fingertips, returning into his body.
It was not absorption, but rather an exchange and confirmation of so kind of information.
"Hagoromo and Hamura are both blood descendants of Otsutsuki Kaguya." nma stated calmly, "Though their bloodlines differ, they share the sa origin, the sa flow."
The dark red Chakra at his fingertips was like living tendrils, gently coiling around the edge of a small crack.
"My chakra, to this 'eye' refined from the countless Byakugan of Hamura's descendants, is both a foreign object and an energy source." His gaze fell upon his fingertips, where faint blue starlight pulsed within the dark red glow.
"Ocular Power, in the end, is the ultimate manifestation of spiritual power. Just as Chakra is refined from physical energy and spiritual energy, so too is Ocular Power refined."
"The highest authority of this Giant Tenseigan... perhaps it also carries Hamura's acknowledgnt. Who knows."
[Authority]
This word struck Hizashi and Shisui's hearts like a silent clap of thunder.
They snapped their gazes towards the core of the Tenseigan, towards that six-petaled floral symbol that had seed utterly withered just monts before!
Now, at the edges of its pale golden glow, an extrely faint ring of pale red ripples was quietly spreading, covering it!
nma withdrew his hand, and the starlight threads at his fingertips vanished.
His gaze turned to Hizashi. Through the eyeholes of the mask, it felt as if he could directly pierce through the struggle within Hizashi's heart.
"Repairing this giant Tenseigan is not an unattainable goal." nma's voice was not loud, "Since its foundational building blocks are 'countless Byakugan', then-" He slowly raised his left hand, palm facing upward, as if holding an intangible model, "We shall use new 'building blocks' to nd the old cracks."
An indifference stemming from the very essence of life instantly enveloped Hizashi!
'Is he going to…' Hizashi rembered his initial fear.
But the next sentence dispelled Hizashi's worries.
"Cloning technology can already mass-produce Sharingan. Mass production of the Byakugan has also seen breakthrough progress. Repairing this Giant Tenseigan is only a matter of ti." nma turned, his back to Hizashi and Shisui.
'Mass production... of the Byakugan?!'
Hizashi seed to see the scene sketched by these simple words.
Countless identical white eyeballs, growing in cold containers, being harvested, then fed into the core of this Giant Tenseigan!
"His eyes are also clones." nma said with a slight tilt of his head towards Shisui.
Hizashi looked at Shisui in disbelief.
Shisui did not deny it, only giving a heavy nod. The shock in Hizashi's heart intensified.
"Kanon, Hikari." nma suddenly addressed Kanon and Hikari, "You will take over the castle and the main control room of the lunar ecosystem. Take Shuto and Toneri to the central core. Gather all intelligence regarding seals, control matrices, and the secret techniques of the Otsutsuki Clan."
His gaze swept over Kanon, "After analysis is complete, attempt to relocate the main anchor point of the lunar spatial channel to within the borders of the Land of Stars."
"Yes!" Kanon gave a slight bow.
She released several of the chains binding Toneri and Shuto.
Simultaneously, nma spread the fingers of his right hand, recalling the black rod piercing Shuto's shoulders.
Having lost his authority over the Giant Tenseigan and any will to resist, Shuto no longer posed any threat.
Hikari stepped forward silently without a word, standing at Kanon's side.
Her dark combat outfit made her face appear even paler under the shrine's gloomy light, and even colder.
She did not look at the captured Shuto and his son, her gaze instead fixed on the open arched door.
Soon, only four people remained in the center of the shattered Hamura Shrine.
nma stood alone in the faint light, enveloped by the vast, swaying shadow cast by the Giant Tenseigan.
The flickering golden light flowed over his dark red Tailed Beast's Chakra Cloak, projecting twisted, demonic patterns dancing wildly on the black floor and walls.
"Let's go. There's nothing more here for now." Repairing the Giant Tenseigan wasn't sothing that could be done quickly. nma also prepared to leave the Hamura Shrine.
Buzz-!
Suddenly, an extrely faint resonant frequency spread from nma's left eye!
The sudden, strange pain made nma raise his hand to press against his mask. The three tomoes of the Sharingan in his left eye seed to be rotating.
The three tomoes gradually ford an ouroboros-like ring, flashing deep within the pupil before vanishing.
"Shura-sama!" Kimimaro was the first to notice nma's abnormality and hurried forward, simultaneously growing wary of Shisui and Hizashi.
"I'm fine." nma pressed down on his mask. When he looked up again, he had returned to normal.
'Strange, there was no intense emotional stimulus, yet the Sharingan evolved? Could it be the influence of Ocular Power?' Feeling the change in his left eye, nma guessed it might be due to his refined control over spiritual power and pupil refinent after mastering Yin-Yang Release.
After all, according to the bloodline theory in this world, as long as the bloodline is pure enough and one's strength reaches a certain level, directly awakening a higher-level Dojutsu seed quite reasonable.
For example, Madara gradually awakened the Rinnegan after integrating Hashirama's cells.
Or Toneri, who gradually awakened the Tenseigan after transplanting Hanabi's eyes.
Shisui and Hizashi halted their steps. The Three-Tomoe Sharingan and the Byakugan turned towards him, sensing that beneath the white three-eyed fox mask, an even vaster power seed to be brewing!
'Is that—the Mangekyo-?' Shock appeared on Shisui's face because this power was all too familiar to him.
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