The Branch House members guarding the Tenseigan watched Aoike, lost in blissful rapture. First they were incredulous, then veins bulged on their foreheads, and their deathly pale faces flushed red.
"What a joke!"
He had slaughtered nearly their entire family, all the way from the Ninja World to the moon! And it hadn't been to stop them from destroying the world or to seize the Tenseigan.
He had done it to kill a "future" that hadn't yet come into its own?
Even if this person was the one closest to their ancestor, they still couldn't forgive him!
"I'll show you just how magnificent the most sublime power of Hamura Otsutsuki's descendants truly is."
"You'll pay"
"for your arrogance!"
He formed Hand Seals. Countless chakra tendrils snaked through the cracks in the rock, intertwining in midair until they became thick chains that shot toward Aoike.
Reflected in his Sharingan, Aoike's figure always found the perfect path through every deadly angle.
As his escape routes were sealed off one after another, Aoike cautiously slashed at a chain with his Kunai.
It cut through more smoothly than a knife through tofu. The Kunai passed through the chain as if it were air.
As Aoike reeled in shock, one of the chains grazed his lower leg.
Immune to physical attacks?
That wasn't all.
The chains could also block chakra.
With the chakra pathways in his lower leg sealed, Aoike's nimble movements began to grow sluggish.
Having learned a little about the chakra chains, there was no point in dodging any longer. Aoike immediately summoned Susanoo.
Sure enough, in this eye-based legend, ocular power took precedence over almost everything else.
The chakra chains were stopped outside Susanoo, allowing the two to make direct contact.
Aoike used Susanoo to snap one of the chains, but more emerged from every direction, twisting around it.
The Tenseigan's wielder watched from afar without the slightest alarm. Time was on his side.
He formed several Hand Seals. The once-disordered chakra chains fell into order, circling Susanoo.
No matter how Aoike attacked, he couldn't break through.
Secret Technique: Heavenly Restriction!
The chains crossed and vanished into thin air. Aoike's heart jolted, his pupils contracting sharply. In an instant, everything around him seemed to freeze.
Under this seal, even lifting an arm was incredibly difficult, and the chakra flowing through his body nearly ground to a halt.
The Otsutsuki controlling the Tenseigan curled his lips into a smile.
Finally!
The moment of judgment had finally arrived.
With the forbidden jutsu of their clan, the Tenseigan, and the power of the remaining members, this demon was finally going to die.
Even if the Tenseigan wasn't powerful enough to destroy the Ninja World yet, erasing a single country from the face of the earth would be effortless.
At his direction, the Tenseigan lit up once more. The people connected to it spat out mouthfuls of blood.
The Tenseigan absorbed a vast amount of chakra. After they strained to channel their power, a radiant golden light gathered and burst forth.
At that moment, Aoike tasted death once more.
It was the same suffocating feeling as when the shadow of death had enveloped him shortly after joining Root.
Hong!
The golden torrent pierced his body.
The outermost layer of Susanoo was pierced as easily as chopsticks through tofu.
A gaping hole opened in his chest.
Through his blurred vision, he saw the Otsutsuki laughing wildly;
In a daze, he thought of the sinister Danzo, the aging Sarutobi, Toneri, who had just died at his hands, Ikki, the evil Hiashi... and a delicate little mushroom with Byakugan eyes.
In the silence of death, a small flame, like a soul, lit the way ahead.
The one who had given him a new life, then shown him the despair of this world, sat quietly beside the campfire, waiting for him to arrive...
Aoike's consciousness still lingered at the threshold between life and death.
Yet the world outside changed once more. The Tenseigan's energy pierced Aoike's body, bringing death—but it also contained the power of life.
If he hadn't refined Toneri, Aoike would have had no chance of turning the tables.
But now—
The Otsutsuki factor in Aoike's body took precedence over everyone else's!
The energy had reached him in such a crude manner that it had unexpectedly connected him to the Tenseigan as well.
His enhanced body swayed between destruction and rebirth.
Aoike woke from the brink of death, his gaze sharpening. For the first time, his immense, surging ocular power was fully unleashed!
Initial skeletal frame → half-body skeleton → half-body musculature
→ Tengu Form!
Just like the trump card Uchiha Itachi had used in the final moments of his life in the anime.
Silver-white armor gleamed coldly, and a conical jewel was set into its crown.
Damn it!
You demon, give up already!
Just die like a good little corpse!
One after another, the maddened Otsutsuki stopped holding back. Their lives drained away, all to kill Aoike once and for all.
The golden torrent, which had been stalled, now hurled Susanoo away with the support of their lives.
It smashed through one Moon Rock after another, until it escaped the moon's gravity and began plummeting toward Earth.
When the white demon finally disappeared from view, the numb Otsutsuki at last came to their senses.
Hoarse cries rose sporadically.
The clan leader was dead. Their future "god-child" was dead. Most of the clan was dead.
The "God Clan," once numbering in the thousands, had fought the demon from a failed world, only to be reduced to a dozen or so survivors clinging to life.
This meant their grand plan to cleanse the world had failed completely.
Several nearly drained Otsutsuki staggered and collapsed. At last, tears fell from their proud faces.
They didn't understand.
They'd only wanted to destroy Earth. What had they done wrong?
Why had fate toyed with them so cruelly?
But as they grieved in silence, the sound of something burning suddenly came from a crack in the rock wall.
Before they could react, the flare of an explosion lit up their faces.
As everyone knew, the sturdier an object's exterior, the more vulnerable it often was inside.
Aoike had been roaming around to evade their attacks, but he had already secretly planted Explosive Tags at the cave's support points.
With his knowledge of structural mechanics and mastery of hidden weapons, Aoike had left his enemies a deadly trap.
Having exhausted their chakra controlling the Tenseigan, they couldn't even dodge quickly. All they could do was watch as the boulders buried them alive.