After saying goodbye to Hinata, the Shadow Clone hurried without stopping toward Uchiha Sasuke's residence.
The sun had yet to fully set, but the moon had already risen.
Sasuke's figure darted around the training ground. He flicked several shuriken from his fingertips, and after they repeatedly collided with one another, they struck the bullseye with pinpoint accuracy.
Then Phoenix Sage Fire engulfed all the targets.
"You seem to be working hard, Sasuke."
Aoike casually tossed a few kunai. Sasuke turned and barely dodged them. Sparks flew as the kunai clashed, making him wary enough to activate his Sharingan.
Before he could say anything, Aoike had already flashed in front of him.
Blocking the attacks was a struggle. Before he could even use Uchiha taijutsu, a familiar ache spread through both his arms. Then his knees buckled, and he dropped to one knee.
Aoike drew back his fist. The gap between his and Sasuke's strength had grown increasingly obvious.
Before Sasuke's cheat powers kicked in, suppressing him was no trouble at all.
"Taijutsu moves are attacks or defenses that anticipate your opponent's next action."
"When your opponent's eyesight, reaction speed, and physical abilities far surpass yours, failure is inevitable."
"Of course, Nintaijutsu like the Eight Inner Gates doesn't fall under ordinary punches and kicks..."
Aoike ignored Sasuke's astonished gaze and shared his experience.
"Your eyes?!" Sasuke stared at the Three-Tomoe Sharingan in Aoike's eyes in disbelief, interrupting him.
At this point, Aoike naturally had no reason to hide it anymore.
As he revealed his identity, he took the opportunity to act mysterious and indulge his own wicked sense of humor. By the law of conservation of energy, smiles and troubles could only be transferred, never erased.
"Ya fool, Sasuke~ What your eyes see, what you believe... is that really everything?"
"Konoha's darkness has no place for me. One day, it won't have room for you either."
"The curse of Uchiha love will continue through both of us."
"The so-called Mangekyo is proof of losing someone dear."
As soon as he finished speaking, Sasuke saw the three tomoe in Aoike's eyes spin continuously, linking together from the center into the shape of a lotus.
The Sharingan pattern, like Itachi's, shook Sasuke to the core. Caught off guard, he fell into a genjutsu and once again relived the fear in his heart.
By the time he came to, Aoike's Shadow Clone had already dispelled.
Stunned, Sasuke looked at the quiet surroundings and finally burst into laughter. Two tear tracks slid down his cheeks, whether from sorrow at his own weakness or grief over the loss of his blood relatives.
In his blood-red left eye, two tomoe flickered into view.
By the time Danzo learned that Aoike had defected, three days had passed. Root had a standing practice of reporting mission progress every two days, and when no report came in, Danzo had assumed something had gone wrong.
Only after the people he sent out found the body of Aoike's partner did he confirm that Aoike had defected.
At the base, Danzo flew into a rage. The squad leader responsible for training Aoike was executed, and the Hyuga Clan was called to account.
In the Hokage's office, Sarutobi Hiruzen puffed away on his pipe. Aoike's wanted poster lay on his desk.
His former schoolmates were either worried or angry...
Meanwhile, Aoike, now free, had already reached the moon.
Several Otsutsuki corpses lay behind him, from both the Branch House and the Main House.
After torturing the information he wanted out of them, he used his Sharingan to make the sole survivor take his own life.
"I didn't expect the situation on the moon to have grown this dire." Aoike sat on a nearby rock, sorting through what he had learned about this Otsutsuki clan, whose bloodline had grown so diluted.
Like the Hyuga on Earth, the Otsutsuki were divided into a Main House and a Branch House.
If the relationship between the Hyuga Main House and Branch House was that of master and servant, then the relationship between the Otsutsuki Main House and Branch House on the moon was one of outright hostility.
The Main House followed Hamura's final wishes, guarding Kaguya's seal and not interfering with Earth, while the Branch House believed the Ninja World was beyond saving and needed to be destroyed.
Their conflicting beliefs had sparked a long-running feud. The recent summoning of the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path to Earth had made their conflict irreconcilable.
Toneri's father, who had been a senior member of the Branch House, had also died in battle.
As Aoike pondered this, the power of his left eye, Heavenly Controller of Fate, ran its course. The corpses scattered across the ground turned to ash. After plundering the Otsutsuki's chakra, Aoike gained a deeper understanding of the God Tree and the Otsutsuki Clan.
The Otsutsuki and the God Tree had a twisted symbiotic relationship.
Combining what he knew so far...
After the Otsutsuki descended on a planet, they fed the God Tree by means of a sacrifice. The God Tree plundered the planet's energy and the evolutionary information contained in its ecosystem, eventually bearing fruit.
After eating the God Tree's fruit, the Otsutsuki evolved. This cycle continued until they reached the realm of godhood.
The power of Aoike's left eye, "Heavenly Fate Controller," was similar to the God Tree's plundering.
That meant that as long as he had enough targets to plunder and enough time, he no longer needed to worry about how to evolve.
The Otsutsuki he had just plundered might have been affected by degeneration and inbreeding. Their genetic codes were a mess, leaving very little useful information for evolution.
"Looks like I'll have to put in some effort." With that thought, Aoike pulled out a white mask without hesitation and fitted it over his face. It was a Sealing Jutsu mask made by a ninja tool shop. It could effectively block the Byakugan's penetrating vision and also offered a slight ability to conceal his presence. It had cost him a good portion of his savings; it was more expensive than the same weight in gold.
When traveling the world, an alias was important. Even if there was only a one-in-ten-thousand chance that some voyeur on the moon knew the technique for activating the Caged Bird Seal, Aoike wouldn't take that gamble.
Next, all he had to do was add fuel to the fire between the two sides, already locked in bitter conflict.
Having made up his mind, Aoike headed toward the area where the two sides were fighting, to sound the death knell for their doom.