What Eternity Bears...

Silence.

The battlefield was shrouded in smoke, blood, and a suffocating silence, stunned into existence by the sheer brutality of what had happened.

Amid the rubble left behind by the dissipated Earth Release barrier, Uchiha Sakuya's eyelids trembled violently. A warm, metallic-tasting liquid kept sliding from the corners of his eyes and seeping into his mouth.

Blood.

But... it wasn't just blood.

An unfamiliar yet strangely familiar surge of ocular power welled up from deep within his eye sockets, flowing through his desiccated chakra pathways, repairing his shattered body and nourishing his nearly depleted soul.

This feeling...?

He snapped his eyes open!

The world before him was no longer blurry and dim, no longer on the verge of disappearing into blindness. Instead, everything was clearer than ever—astonishingly clear! It was as if the whole world had been washed clean. The path of every speck of dust and the flow of every trace of chakra stood out with unprecedented clarity!

And his field of vision seemed... higher? No, his perception and insight had risen to an entirely new level!

He raised a hand without thinking and touched his eye sockets. They were no longer empty, nor did they ache. His eyeballs brimmed with immense power. He could feel the pattern in their pupils beneath his fingertips...

It wasn't the familiar design of the Eighty Gods Mirror!

It was... a new pattern, far more complex and profound, as if it contained endless sorrow and power!

The Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan!

His younger brother's... eyes?!

The realization struck like thunder, cleaving through the chaos in his mind from the forbidden technique's backlash!

Fragments of memory surged into him all at once—his desperate charge, the forbidden technique's backlash, the genjutsu restraints, his younger brother's gentle yet despairing smile, and the words, "Forgive me, big brother... This is the last time," followed by the agony of having his eyes taken and the light of their transplantation...

"Lian...?" he murmured, his voice terrifyingly hoarse.

He struggled to sit up, his eyes urgently sweeping across the area.

He saw Haku unconscious and gravely wounded, Tie Xin and Zhua lying motionless, Fu and Obito battered, and... not far away, a huge crater reeking of charred flesh. At its center knelt a blackened figure—Shikamaru Nara.

And... hanging in the air, rapidly fading, was the chakra signature and... the fragments of his younger brother's soul that he knew so well.

There was no body.

Nothing remained.

To save him and grievously wound the enemy, Lian had chosen the most complete end imaginable... leaving not a trace behind.

"Ah..."

A whimper unlike any human sound, as if squeezed from the deepest pit of hell, escaped Shuoyue's throat.

He slowly, so very slowly, raised his head.

His newly awakened Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan, imbued with all of Lian's ocular power and life, fixed on the crater, on the blackened Shikamaru Nara, and on the Allied shinobi around them, who were recovering from their shock and raising their weapons once more.

Despair. Hatred. Vengeance. Madness.

These negative emotions surged like boiling lava, instantly sweeping away every last scrap of his reason! The truth of his brother's death branded itself into the deepest part of his soul like a red-hot iron!

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAH—!!!!!!!"

He let out a heart-rending roar that seemed powerful enough to tear apart the heavens! Terrifying chakra erupted from his body in an unrestrained tsunami—far greater, more violent, and more destructive than before!

A pillar of deep purple chakra shot into the sky, instantly scattering the clouds!

Bones, chakra pathways, flesh, armor... A Susanoo far larger, denser, and more complete than before rose from the ground at an astonishing speed!

No longer just its upper body, but a true—Perfect Susanoo!

The colossal warrior stood tall between heaven and earth, clad in ancient Chakra Armor, a pair of wings on its back, a massive chakra war fan clenched in its left hand, and a straight sword in its right, as if capable of severing fate itself! Its pressure made the earth across the battlefield groan and fracture!

"M-Monster..." "Run!" The Allied shinobi had only just been shaken by Lian's sacrifice. Now the even more terrifying Perfect Susanoo sent them fleeing in panic. The formation they had just managed to assemble collapsed instantly, and they scattered in every direction, screaming!

But Shuoyue... or rather, the demon consumed entirely by vengeance and madness, would never let them escape.

"DIE!!!!!!!!!"

The Perfect Susanoo moved!

Its right hand made a simple sweep with the straight sword!

A purple blade of light swept across heaven and earth! Like the Grim Reaper's scythe, it reaped lives without mercy! Whether they were jōnin or Genin, whether they defended themselves or fled, none of it mattered before such absolute power! Hundreds upon hundreds of Allied shinobi were instantly reduced to ash!

Its left hand swung the war fan!

"Uchiha Reflection!"

The torrent of jutsu desperately unleashed by the Allied forces was absorbed in its entirety, then reflected back with world-shattering force! The resulting explosions and death were even more catastrophic!

This was no longer a battle. It was a massacre—a one-sided, overwhelming slaughter!

Shuoyue stood at the Susanoo's brow, blood tears streaming from his Eternal Mangekyō. His eyes held nothing but coldness and killing intent. He controlled the Susanoo as it advanced step by step, leaving nothing but ruins and corpses in its wake!

At last, his gaze fixed on Shikamaru Nara in the crater. Medical shinobi had just helped him up, and a faint spark of life still seemed to linger in him!

This was all his fault! This man's schemes had killed Lian!

The Susanoo's enormous hand reached out, ignoring the Allied shinobi desperately trying to protect Shikamaru, and effortlessly seized the blackened man!

"No! Let go of Mr. Shikamaru!" A shinobi tried to rush forward.

Swish! A flash of the blade, and that shinobi and dozens around him instantly vaporized!

Shuoyue controlled the Susanoo, lifting the dying Shikamaru before him. He gazed at the blackened face without a trace of pity, his eyes filled with boundless hatred!

The Susanoo's other hand snapped off a huge flaming beam nearby and sharpened one end!

Then, under the horrified gaze of countless Allied shinobi—

Shlk!!!

It drove the sharpened beam brutally, slowly, cruelly through Shikamaru's chest and out his back!!

"Urgh..." Shikamaru's body convulsed violently. The last spark of life went out.

The Perfect Susanoo swung its arm, driving the beam with Shikamaru's corpse impaled on it into the tallest ruin at the center of the battlefield!

The corpse swayed in the air as blood streamed down the beam, a horrifying sight!

A bloody trophy. A merciless declaration!

The sight shattered the Allied forces' last shred of will to resist.

Shuoyue stared coldly down at the battlefield he had personally turned into hell, watching his enemies flee in disarray. The satisfaction of vengeance brought no relief—only a deeper emptiness and pain.

He controlled the Susanoo, extending its hand and carefully shielding the gravely wounded Haku, Tie Xin, Zhua, and Fu in its palm. Obito struggled to make his way over as well.

Kamui activated!

Space twisted violently. It was unstable, but just barely sufficient.

He took one last look at the beam bearing Shikamaru's corpse, and at the place where his younger brother had died. Carrying his boundless hatred and emptiness, along with his surviving subordinates, Shuoyue vanished into the distorted spatial vortex.

The battlefield fell utterly silent.

Only mountains of corpses and blood, burning ruins, and the towering beam with the Allied forces' brains impaled upon it remained, silently bearing witness to all that had just happened.

The Five Kage Alliance had suffered an unprecedented defeat and humiliation here.