Chapter 41

Naruto did not stop. He caught up and threw another three punches, each one landing solidly, every strike carrying explosive chakra. "Had enough?"

The impostor suddenly smiled. He caught Naruto's fist with one hand and twisted it hard. With a crack, the agony of his dislocated wrist made Naruto suck in a sharp breath. "Everything you can do, I can do too. No matter how strong you are, I'm stronger."

The other man leaned close to his ear, his voice light as a feather, like a blade scraping across bone.

Naruto grunted, lifted his right leg, and kicked the man in the stomach, using the recoil to spring backward.

He grabbed his dislocated right wrist with his left hand, shoved and pulled hard, and with another crack, the bones snapped back into place.

The Third Hokage shouted from afar, "Don't get tangled up with him! Focus on guiding the Dragon Vein! Once you completely absorb it, he'll disappear on his own!"

Naruto bit his thumb and drew a blood seal on his palm. "Fine. Then let's see who can absorb it faster."

Within the void, the sleeping shadows opened their eyes one after another.

They had not sensed such an aura in far too long.

It was not chakra, nor senjutsu, but some older, more primordial power seeping through from the other end of the river of time. Like a knife, it gently sliced open the dreams they had slept in for hundreds of millions of years.

The first to speak was the figure seated at the highest point.

His entire body was shrouded in a grayish-white halo, his features impossible to make out. But those eyes—

They were three-tomoe Rinnegan. "Someone has touched the rules."

His voice was soft, yet it reverberated throughout the entire space like the ringing of a bell.

The remaining figures awoke in succession. "It's an aura from the lower realm."

"No. It's farther than the lower realm. It feels like... a remnant from another spacetime."

"There is no record of this power in the Otsutsuki Clan genealogy."

The one seated highest slowly raised his hand. A sphere appeared in his palm, reflecting countless scenes—the shinobi world, Kaguya's seal, the Ten-Tails' husk, the Divine Tree's remaining roots.

He swept aside the images, turning through them layer by layer.

When he reached a certain point, his fingers stopped.

The image froze on a young figure.

The man stood amid ruins, surrounded by fallen enemies. The energy flowing through his body resembled chakra, yet also something denser and sharper, gradually bending even the air around him. "This person..."

He narrowed his eyes.

The image inside the sphere suddenly shattered, as though forcibly cut off by an invisible force.

His fingers trembled. "He is not from this world."

A female voice rose beside him, carrying a trace of hoarseness. "You mean..."

"His path is not one we arranged."

The entire space fell deathly silent.

After a moment, another voice sounded, low as thunder. "Then cleanse him ahead of time."

"No."

The one seated highest shook his head, and for the first time, his tone carried a hint of gravity. "He is not strong enough yet, but that thing inside him... I cannot identify it."

Cannot identify it.

Those four words silenced every awakened figure.

The Otsutsuki Clan stood at the peak of all worlds. They had seen countless kinds of power, consumed countless fruits, and even the Divine Tree on this planet had been planted by their own hands.

Yet they could not identify the energy flowing through one person's body.

That alone was an answer. "Let the pieces below test him first." The one seated highest withdrew his hand, and the sphere vanished from his palm. "See just how far he can go."

He paused, then added, "Do not let him go too far."

In the same void, at another corner.

This place was deeper still, where even light was distorted.

Several figures sat around a stone table. Floating above it was a crystal sphere the size of a fist, replaying the same scene over and over—

One person, one punch.

No hand seals, no technique, no traces of chakra circulation.

Just one simple punch that reduced a fully formed Ten-Tails clone to powder. "Play it again."

The speaker was an old man with a long beard. His eyes were pale violet Rinnegan, and the wrinkles at their corners were as deep as knife cuts.

The scene replayed.

The instant the young man threw his punch, an extremely brief ripple burst from his body, like the ring of waves spreading across water after a pebble fell in.

The old man caught that instant.

He abruptly reached out and pressed his hand against the crystal sphere. "Stop."

The image froze at the point where the ripple spread outward.

He leaned closer, and his pupils suddenly contracted.

Within that ripple was an incredibly faint, nearly invisible golden gleam. "Gold..."

His voice trembled. "A color that only appears within the Divine Tree's primordial bloodline."

A younger figure beside him frowned. "Impossible. The Divine Tree on this planet is degraded. That useless Kaguya could not even cultivate a complete fruit. How could something like that possibly be born?"

"It did not come from this Divine Tree."

The old man rose to his feet. His robe fell away, revealing six Truth-Seeking Orbs hanging at his waist, trembling violently at that moment. "It came from within him."

He turned toward the others, his expression darker than it had ever been. "Inside this person is a bloodline parasitic to an era that does not belong to this one."

"It... is devouring the rules we planted."

The entire space erupted. "Devouring the rules? Impossible!"

"The Otsutsuki rules are a network of laws spanning the heavens! Even a rebel like Kaguya could only break free from part of them. She could never devour them!"

"What gives him the right?"

The old man raised a hand for silence. Once every gaze had settled on him, he slowly spoke. "What gives him the right is the bloodline within him. It is older than ours."

The air around the stone table dropped below freezing.

That young man had just suggested letting the pieces below test him, to probe his depths.

But now, the old man felt that he had said it far too lightly.

Test him?

What if, after testing him, that sleeping bloodline fully awakened?

"Notify every clansman on this plane."

His voice was grave. "From today onward, list him as the highest-priority target."

"At any cost, destroy him before he fully awakens."

Naruto World, border battlefield.

Madara Uchiha stood atop a protruding rock, his eyes fixed on the enormous sphere floating in the air ahead.

The thing emitted a ghostly blue light all over, its surface coursing with countless patterns, like a living planet. "The Tenseigan... So this is what the Otsutsuki Clan left behind on this land."

Madara licked his lips.

He could feel that the power contained within that sphere was more terrifying than all of the Nine-Tails combined.

It was not merely the quantity of chakra, but its quality—a pure power that was almost on the level of rules. "As long as I obtain it..."

Madara took a step forward.

The rock beneath his feet instantly exploded. His entire body became a black afterimage as he shot toward the giant Tenseigan.

Halfway there, more than a dozen white puppets descended from the sky, each gripping a chakra lightsword as they slashed at him. "Move."

Madara did not even shift his eyes.

With a sweep of his arm, a blue Susanoo skeleton appeared out of thin air and smashed the puppets directly into fragments.

The fragments burst apart in midair, like a rain of white.

He continued his charge.

Less than a hundred meters remained between him and the Tenseigan.

Then a golden beam blasted in from the side.

Madara twisted aside. The beam grazed past his shoulder and struck the mountain wall behind him, blasting a huge hole through half the mountain. "Who?"

Madara stopped and turned to look.

In the distance stood a white-haired young man, his right hand still held in a swinging motion, smoke rising from his palm.

Naruto Uzumaki. "You cannot touch that thing." Naruto said in a low voice, "If you take that Tenseigan, this world is finished."

Madara raised a brow. "With just you?"

"Not just him."

Another voice came from the other side.

Sasuke Uchiha stepped out of the shadows, a Kusanagi Sword in his hand. His Sharingan was already active, its three tomoe spinning at high speed. "You two brats..." Madara's lips curled. "Perfect. I'll take care of you together."

He formed hand seals. "Fire Release: Great Fire Annihilation."

An ocean of flames swept toward the two of them, so hot that the air itself warped.

Naruto clapped his hands together. Nine-Tails chakra instantly covered his entire body, his golden cloak streaming behind him. "Wind Release: Rasenshuriken!"

He raised his hand, and a rapidly spinning sphere of wind flew from his grasp, crashing straight into the flames and tearing open a path through the sea of fire.

Sasuke moved at the same time.

He charged along that path, his body held low, black Chidori lightning coiling around the Kusanagi Sword in his hand. "Chidori Blade!"

He slashed down.

Madara shifted aside and blocked with a kunai.

The clash of metal exploded, scattering sparks everywhere.

They locked eyes for a second, then retreated at the same time, widening the distance between them. "Interesting." Madara rotated his wrist. "But not enough."

As soon as he finished speaking, his eyes transformed into Rinnegan, violet ripples spreading across his pupils.

Naruto and Sasuke both felt an immense pressure, as though an entire mountain had fallen onto them. "So this is the power of the Rinnegan?" Naruto gritted his teeth, his body trembling.

"That's right." Madara looked down at them. "You have no idea what you are facing."

He raised his hand toward them. "Almighty Push."

An invisible shockwave erupted.

Naruto and Sasuke were blasted away, rolling more than ten meters across the ground before coming to a stop.

Naruto's chest tightened, and a trace of blood seeped from the corner of his mouth. "This guy... is too strong."

"We need to find a way to get close." Sasuke wiped the blood from his mouth. "Close combat is our only chance."

Naruto nodded.

The two exchanged a glance and moved at once.

Naruto created more than a dozen Shadow Clones, charging from the front.

Sasuke used the Body Flicker Technique to circle around to Madara's rear flank.

Madara gave a soft laugh. "You dare embarrass yourselves with such childish tricks?"

He brought his hands together. "Planetary Devastation."

The ground began to tremble violently. Countless rocks tore free from the earth and flew into the air, forming a massive gravitational core.

Naruto's Shadow Clones were sucked in instantly, along with the debris from the ground, compressed into a huge sphere.

Sasuke was also caught by the gravity, his body drifting uncontrollably into the air. "Damn..."

At that moment, a golden light descended from the sky and struck the gravitational core directly.

Planetary Devastation instantly collapsed.

The enormous sphere in the air exploded, and shattered rocks fell like rain.

Madara's pupils constricted. "Who?"

A figure slowly descended, landing in front of Naruto and Sasuke. "Looks like I arrived just in time."

Madara stared at that person's back, his expression turning grave. "Hyuga... Hinata?"