On another battlefield, dozens of people were locked in combat.
Genichiro, who was controlling a puppet, suddenly sensed danger and spun around. A Ninja Blade crackling with lightning pierced both the puppet standing in front of him and Genichiro himself, pinning them to the wall.
The lightning faded along with the force behind it. Stones and dust flew everywhere. In the final moments of his life, Genichiro could only glimpse the killer's mask.
"F-far... too fast."
In the distance, Genichiro's comrades hurriedly retreated. The puppets' cannons bombarded the spot where Aoike stood.
The Byakugan let them see what was happening through the dust. Cannons, ninjutsu, and projectiles rained down on the target without restraint, only falling silent after every attack had been exhausted.
While the Branch House members were still bewildered, the Main House elder whose eyes remained intact was already sweating coldly.
The elder, who had once observed the great war in the Land of Fire, gravely uttered a name: "Susanoo?!"
As if answering his exclamation, a hand made of silvery-white bones reached out from the dust. It swept sharply to the side, and the gale it unleashed revealed Aoike's small body standing in the crater, his expression cold as he stared at the dozens of inferior Otsutsuki.
"Don't look into his eyes...!" The elder turned and hurriedly shouted a warning, but it was too late.
Everyone who looked directly at Aoike felt a pair of blood-red eyes take over their thoughts. Their brains felt as though they had been struck by a hammer, and a ringing echoed in their heads.
When they came to, the first thing they saw was their comrades' panicked faces. Their weapons had pierced the chests of the people who had once been closest to them...
An air of despair spread across the battlefield.
Only when the bodies hit the ground with dull thuds did the survivors awaken from the hellish scene. Realizing that the demon before them was beyond anything they could fight, they scattered like birds and beasts.
"Only thinking of running now? Too late." Aoike murmured, unleashing the power of his right eye.
Takemikazuchi—Splitting Spear
A thick spear of lightning gathered in Susanoo's bony hand. It hurled the spear forward with tremendous force.
Like a flash of thunder, the lightning spear broke apart in midair, becoming countless tiny branches that pierced each person with pinpoint accuracy.
The well-informed elder clutched his wound and struggled to sit up. As Aoike appeared before him with the Body Flicker Technique, he spoke haltingly.
"The Otsutsuki... won't let you... get away with this..."
Aoike said nothing. He simply used his Mangekyo to sift through the elder's memories. The elder knew far more secrets than the cannon fodder from before.
Aoike left the elder to die.
"There's one thing you got wrong."
"I'm the one who won't let the Otsutsuki get away with this."
As his life faded, the elder's Byakugan turned gray and lifeless. Two or three short years of training with Root had made Aoike accustomed to the cold.
As far as he was concerned, a dead enemy was the only good enemy. His left eye's technique, Heavenly Controller of Fate, had doomed his relationship with the Otsutsuki to be nothing more than that of predator and prey.
He plundered the bloodlines of several Otsutsuki with especially pure ancestry, then used ninjutsu to destroy the remaining corpses and cover his tracks.
If Anbu from a shinobi village had come to investigate, they would surely have noticed something amiss. Unfortunately, the ones who came were Otsutsuki already consumed by their battle.
To them, destroying the other side was the most important thing. People blinded by rage wouldn't bother with the details.
With Aoike fanning the flames several times, he added a fierce gust to the already irreconcilable conflict between the two families.
Just as Aoike was starting to tire of Military Ration Pills, the Otsutsuki, unable to hold back any longer, finally brought the decisive battle forward.
As the two sides faced off on the battlefield, Aoike used the elder's memories to infiltrate the Main House and slaughter the forces left behind.
Under the effects of Heavenly Controller of Fate, the Otsutsuki factor in Aoike's body grew increasingly dense, and the purity of his Byakugan reached its limit.
In turn, his chakra had risen to over twenty ka, and the strain the Mangekyo put on his body had diminished considerably.
On another Otsutsuki battlefield, thousands of fighters clashed. The two families were evenly matched, and the battle had reached a stalemate, with more than half their forces dead or wounded.
By the time Aoike finished off the Main House's remaining forces and arrived, the Branch House had already brought forth a small Tenseigan, formed by gathering the Byakugan of the entire family.
The Main House, which had held a slight advantage, was driven back under the Branch House's Tenseigan bombardment, until the entire clan was wiped out.
Even after sacrificing their eyes, the Branch House members' faces still showed their fervor. They eagerly collected the Main House's Byakugan from the battlefield, intending to combine them into an even larger Tenseigan.
After witnessing the Main House's destruction, Aoike rose to his feet and brushed the dust from his clothes. Having devoured the nourishing Main House members who had been left behind, he'd outgrown his old clothes. Fortunately, the Otsutsuki had decent taste in clothing, so he simply changed into a new outfit.
From what he could tell, the Otsutsuki Branch House were far stronger than the Hyuga Clan, but not so strong as to be beyond control. If he disabled that Tenseigan first, everything would remain within his grasp.
He took a deep breath. Lightning coiled around him. His right eye's technique, Takemikazuchi, granted him control over divine thunder, and the wild lightning in his hands was more docile than a house pet.
The divine thunder transformed into a blue bow and arrow, then shot away under the Sharingan's precise aim.
A Main House member with the Byakugan might have been able to see the afterimage of the lightning. But for the Branch House, who had gouged out their Byakugan, it was simply too fast...
Only when the arrow pierced the Tenseigan and its violent energy sent the Branch House members tumbling did someone shout, "We're under attack!"
Aoike appeared on the cliff nearby as brazenly as he pleased.
"Everyone!" Aoike clapped his hands, drawing their wary gazes. Under Fire Release Chakra Mode, a crimson cloak of chakra spilled from his body.
"Now... let me see whether you have what it takes to support your ambition of destroying the world!"