The So-Called Mangekyo, Proof of Losing One's Beloved

After bidding Hinata farewell, the Shadow Clone headed straight for Second Pillar's residence without pause.

The sun had not yet fully set, but the moon had already begun to rise.

Sasuke's figure darted across the training ground. Several shuriken flew from his fingertips, striking the bullseye with precision after a series of constant ricochets.

The Phoenix Sage Fire that followed engulfed all the targets.

"Looking quite diligent, Sasuke."

Sasuke reflexively threw a few kunai behind him, dodging in a rush as he turned. The sparks from the clashing kunai prompted him to activate his Sharingan in alarm.

Before he could even open his mouth to speak, Aoike had already flashed before him.

The block was strenuous. Before Sasuke could even employ Uchiha taijutsu, a familiar soreness surged through his arms, and his knees buckled, forcing him to one knee.

Aoike withdrew his fist; the gap in strength between him and Sasuke was becoming increasingly apparent.

Before Sasuke's cheat code arrived, suppressing him was effortless.

"Taijutsu techniques are about predicting your opponent's next move to execute an attack or defense."

"If your opponent's perception, reaction speed, and physical prowess far exceed your own, failure is inevitable."

"Of course, ninjutsu-taijutsu hybrids like the Eight Inner Gates don't fall into the category of ordinary fisticuffs..."

Aoike ignored Sasuke's shocked gaze, recounting his own experience.

"Your eyes?!" Sasuke stared in disbelief at the Three-Tomoe Sharingan in Aoike's eye sockets, interrupting him.

At this point, Aoike naturally stopped hiding things.

While revealing his identity, he naturally had to play the part of a riddle-monger to satisfy his own dark sense of humor. According to the law of conservation of energy, smiles and troubles only shift; they never disappear.

"Oh, foolish Sasuke~. Is what your eyes see, what you believe, truly everything?"

"The darkness of Konoha cannot contain me, and one day, it will not be able to contain you either."

"The Uchiha curse of hatred will continue within both you and me."

"The so-called Mangekyo is merely the proof of losing one's beloved."

As soon as he finished speaking, Sasuke saw the three tomoe in Aoike's eyes spinning rapidly, connecting from the center into the shape of a lotus flower.

The patterned Sharingan, just like Itachi's, dealt Sasuke a massive shock. Caught off guard, he fell into a genjutsu, reliving the terror in his heart once more.

By the time he snapped out of the genjutsu, Aoike's Shadow Clone had long since dispersed.

Stunned, Sasuke looked at the surrounding silence and finally couldn't help but burst into loud laughter. Two tear tracks slid down his cheeks, whether grieving for his own weakness or mourning the departure of his kin.

In his scarlet left eye, two tomoe flashed by.

It was three days later when Danzo learned of Aoike's defection. Root's protocol was to report mission progress every two days; having received no news, Danzo had assumed some accident had occurred.

It wasn't until the men he sent out found the corpse of Aoike's partner that he was certain Aoike had defected.

In the base, Danzo flew into a rage. The squad leader responsible for training Aoike was executed, and the Hyuga clan was interrogated.

In the Hokage's office, Sarutobi Hiruzen puffed on his pipe, the warrant for Aoike's arrest lying on his desk.

Former companions from the academy were either worried or furious...

Meanwhile, the escaped Aoike had already arrived on the moon.

Behind him lay several corpses of the Otsutsuki, some from the branch family and some from the main house.

After extracting the desired information through torture, the only survivor took his own life under the manipulation of the Sharingan.

"I didn't expect the situation on the moon to be this dire." Aoike sat on a nearby rock, sorting through the information on this group of thin-blooded Otsutsuki.

Just like the Hyuga on Earth, the Otsutsuki were divided into a main house and a branch family.

If the relationship between the Hyuga main and branch families was that of master and servant, then on the moon, the Otsutsuki main and branch families were enemies.

The main house followed Hamura's will, guarding Kaguya's seal and refusing to interfere with Earth, but the branch family believed the Ninja World was beyond saving and had to be destroyed.

The two sides, with their conflicting ideologies, had begun a long struggle, especially since the recent summoning of the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path to Earth, which had pushed their contradictions to an irreconcilable point.

Toneri's father, a high-ranking member of the branch family, had already fallen in battle.

As Aoike pondered, the ability of his left eye, Heavenly Controller of Fate, concluded. The corpses covering 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 shared a sort of perverse symbiotic relationship.

Combining the known information:

After the Otsutsuki descend upon a planet, they feed the God Tree through sacrifice. The God Tree plunders the planet's energy and ecological evolutionary information to bear fruit.

The Otsutsuki complete their evolution after consuming the God Tree's fruit, repeating the cycle until they reach the realm of gods.

Aoike's left-eye ability, "Heavenly Fate Controller," was similar to the God Tree's plundering.

This meant that as long as he had enough targets and time, he would no longer need to worry about his path of evolution.

The few Otsutsuki he had just plundered were perhaps due to degeneration and inbreeding; their genetic coding was chaotic, and there was too little information useful for evolution.

"Looks like I'll have to put in some effort." Thinking this, Aoike didn't hesitate to take out a white mask and fasten it to his face—a sealing-art mask from a ninja tool shop. It could effectively block Byakugan X-ray vision and even carried a slight effect of concealing his aura. It wasn't cheap, costing a portion of Aoike's savings—more expensive than its weight in gold.

When walking the world, a disguise is important. Even if there was a one-in-ten-thousand chance that the peeping tom on the moon knew the technique to trigger the Caged Bird Seal, Aoike wouldn't gamble on it.

What he needed to do next was add fuel to the fire between the two sides already at each other's throats.

Having made up his mind, Aoike began to head toward the area where the two sides were locked in battle, ready to toll the death knell for their end.