The God Tree Realm Descends!

His Rinnegan—the purple eye marked with six tomoe—made its final resistance the instant that light struck him. The six tomoe spun frantically within it, trying to exclude the image of that light from Sasuke's vision, trying to use the Rinnegan's power to counter the Infinite Tsukuyomi's genjutsu. But that eye saw too much—it saw the light, what lay behind the light, and what lay behind what lay behind the light. It saw Otsutsuki Kaguya Clan, Otsutsuki Hagoromo and Otsutsuki Hamura, and a world it should never have seen, a world beyond Sasuke's capacity to endure.

Blood flowed from Sasuke's Rinnegan.

It was not blood seeping from the corner of his eye—it was a bloody streak surging outward from the very center of his pupil, like a tear. It ran from his eye and down his cheek, drawing a dark-red, perfectly straight tear track across his face. The instant that blood poured forth, his Rinnegan lost all its luster. The six tomoe turned from purple to gray, from gray to white, and from white into an ordinary grayish-white eye that was nothing at all.

But the strips of cloth still wound around him.

They wrapped around Sasuke's ankles, his calves, his knees, and his thighs. Like snakes, they slithered over his body, winding from his waist to his chest, then from his chest to his neck. At the very last moment, Sasuke's right hand reached toward Naruto—not as a plea for help, not as a farewell, but simply as an instinctive final gesture.

His fingers spread within the strips of cloth, their tips pointed toward where Naruto stood.

Naruto saw Sasuke's fingers.

Naruto was still standing.

He was still resisting. His body had already been bound by the strips—from his ankles to his calves, from his calves to his knees, from