Chapter Summaries

Hyuga Xiao struck a pact with General Mifune: he would thwart the Maple Clan and Hidden Cloud conspiracy in exchange for access to the Starry Sky Altar and support from the Land of Iron. The chapter left Xiao preparing for the coming conflict and realizing he needed to discuss the Humanity Anchor ritual with Hong.

• Mifune revealed that the Pact Stone accelerated Divine Erosion and that the Humanity Stele could help balance divinity and humanity.
• Mifune told Xiao that Feng Qianye and Hidden Cloud planned to seize the Pact Stone during the Five Kage Summit, and warned that Feng possessed Stellar Armament.
• Xiao agreed to stop the Maple Clan and Hidden Cloud in exchange for Mifune opening the altar, and asked the Land of Iron to stand with him if a Starsea Alliance envoy appeared.
• Mifune explained that Xiao would need willing people with deep emotional bonds to serve as Humanity Anchors during the ritual.
• Xiao returned to the warehouse hideout and told Hong and Samui about the pact; Samui asked to face the Fourth Raikage's direct troops if they encountered them.
• As Xiao watched Hong sleep, he realized he needed to talk with her about becoming an anchor and their future.

Kurenai Yuhi was trapped by Maple Clan samurai using a formation that suppressed her chakra and movement, but her dormant Ōtsutsuki Astral Force awakened and killed them. Xiao arrived as she collapsed, discovered an Ōtsutsuki clan crest on her neck, and carried her away while a Rinnegan-eyed crow flew toward the Maple Clan estate.

• Kurenai Yuhi was ambushed in a southern alley by three Maple Clan samurai who tried to capture her as leverage against Xiao.
• The samurai used the Stagnant Air Diamond Formation to hinder Kurenai’s movement and chakra, and their leader wounded her with his sword.
• Kurenai’s Astral Force awakened, shattered the formation, and killed all three samurai.
• A complex Ōtsutsuki Clan crest appeared on Kurenai’s neck, and the power’s backlash left her exhausted and unconscious.
• Xiao caught Kurenai, treated her with Tenseigan life energy, and carried her away to conceal the crest.
• A crow with pale golden Rinnegan watched Xiao leave and flew toward the Maple Clan estate.

Hyuga Xiao and Samui discovered that Kurenai Yuhi’s awakening came from a time-linked Urashiki bloodline Seed meant to connect her to a Fatebreaker. After Hong relayed a message from a mysterious figure, Xiao vowed to sever the plotters’ causal threads and kill them if they came to collect their debt.

• Hyuga Xiao used his Tenseigan to find a symbiotic silver crystal dissolving inside Kurenai Yuhi, while Samui identified its markings as belonging to the Ōtsutsuki Urashiki Lineage.
• Samui explained that Urashiki’s bloodline Seeds used causal anchoring and that a Seed bearer would inevitably bond with a Fatebreaker; she and Xiao suspected Hong had been prepared to meet him.
• Samui said the Seed needed a Fatebreaker’s chakra and extreme emotion to awaken, and warned that the process could cause memories of its planter to return.
• Hong awoke with silver-gray eyes and described a dream of a silver-haired man with a fishing rod, who said the Seed was planted and the anchor point fixed.
• Hong relayed the man’s message that Xiao owed him a favor and that he would collect the debt when Xiao could sever causality; Xiao vowed to cut the causal threads and kill the creditors if they came.

Mifune arranged a samurai tournament that Hidden Cloud and Feng Qianye intended to use as a trap to kill Hyuga Xiao before the Five Kage Summit. Xiao discovered that Darui, presumed dead, had returned with Ōtsutsuki power and that Hidan had also registered, then prepared to enter the tournament with Hong and Samui supporting him.

• Mabui presented Mifune with Hidden Cloud’s warrant and evidence accusing Hyuga Xiao of killing three Elite Ninjas, while Feng Qianye pressured Mifune to cooperate.
• Mifune proposed a tournament whose winner could request the Land of Iron’s assistance, and Hidden Cloud agreed to use it to target Xiao.
• Xiao, Hong, and Samui discussed the tournament trap, Hong’s awakening Astral Force, and her visions of a white-robed figure they suspected was Ōtsutsuki Urashiki.
• Xiao registered for the tournament and overheard Mabui and Feng Qianye reveal that Darui had been revived, carried an Ōtsutsuki Bloodline, and would face Xiao in a sealed arena.
• The published roster included Darui and Hidan, and Xiao told Hong and Samui that the tournament would begin at dawn while they provided support from outside.

Hyuga Xiao defeated Maple Oni and exposed Feng Qianye’s plot with Hidden Cloud during the martial exhibition. He then faced Darui in the arena, revealing his Tenseigan Prototype as a clash seemed imminent.

• Hyuga Xiao defeated Maple Oni in three moves and used the exhibition’s questioning rule to interrogate him.
• Maple Oni revealed Feng Qianye’s alliance with Hidden Cloud, and Xiao displayed memories showing their plan to capture him and take his eyes.
• Mifune demanded an explanation from Feng Qianye, while Darui challenged Xiao and said he had come to take his eyes.
• Xiao revealed his altered eyes, which Ao identified as the Tenseigan, and formed an azure chakra orb as Darui prepared to fight.

Hyuga Xiao fought Darui in a spar, using the Tenseigan Prototype’s Gravity Manipulation to counter Darui’s time powers and force a draw. The battle ended with Xiao realizing Hidden Cloud might want him for reasons tied to time, the Ōtsutsuki Clan, and something awakening within him.

• Darui used localized time acceleration and deceleration to strike Xiao, who identified the source of his ability and countered with gravity.
• Darui expanded his Time Domain across the training grounds, but Xiao disrupted its spatial anchors and struck its chakra hubs with Gentle Fist.
• Darui unleashed the Time Vortex: Stasis Cage, and Xiao collapsed its structure with a gravitational singularity.
• Mifune declared the spar a draw after both Darui and Xiao were left unable to continue fighting.
• Xiao noticed the major powers had witnessed his abilities and suspected Hidden Cloud knew something about his connection to time and the Ōtsutsuki Clan.

Hyuga Xiao evolved the Tenseigan Prototype to resist Darui’s time-stasis technique and freed the arena, then learned that Kurenai Yuhi had been prepared as a vessel for Ōtsutsuki Urashiki. Xiao and Hong left for the Five Kage Summit confrontation ahead, while Xiao’s victory intensified his Divine Erosion and brought him closer to the Tenseigan’s complete awakening.

• Darui trapped the training ground in time stasis, but Hyuga Xiao awakened a second evolution of the Tenseigan Prototype and destroyed Darui’s clone to break the technique.
• Darui revealed that he had planted the Star-Dream Seed in Kurenai Yuhi ten years earlier to turn her into a vessel for Ōtsutsuki Urashiki.
• Darui threatened to expose the Hyuga Clan as a Moon Ōtsutsuki Breeding Farm and promised to take Xiao’s eyes and Hong at the Five Kage Summit, but Xiao vowed to meet him there and oppose Urashiki.
• Xiao and Hong left the training ground together, and Darui received permission from Urashiki to move the day of harvest forward.
• On the mountain road, Xiao collapsed from the strain of resisting time stasis and discovered that his evolution had intensified Divine Erosion.
• Xiao promised Hong he would not let her become a vessel, while his chakra began rising toward the threshold of the Tenseigan’s complete awakening.

After revealing his Tenseigan Prototype, Hyuga Xiao learned that a mysterious Seed inside Kurenai Yuhi could eventually let Ōtsutsuki Urashiki take over her body. He negotiated with Kitsuchi for Hidden Rock’s support at the coming Five Kage Summit, then discovered Baki carrying Orochimaru’s Curse Mark aura and went to investigate.

• Mifune suspended the matches after Darui was carried away, and Xiao returned to the inn with Kurenai Yuhi.
• Xiao sensed a star-like Seed in Kurenai’s chakra and warned that it could awaken within three months and turn her into Urashiki’s vessel.
• Kitsuchi offered Hidden Rock’s support at the Five Kage Summit in exchange for Xiao’s promise to let Hidden Rock use the Starry Sky Altar once.
• Xiao agreed only if Hidden Rock publicly supported his right to keep the Tenseigan Prototype and used the altar only after he gained full control of it.
• Xiao detected Orochimaru’s Curse Mark aura around Baki in the inn’s rear courtyard and slipped outside to investigate.

The Five Kage gathered in the Land of Iron, where the Raikage demanded Hyuga Xiao’s death and Xiao exposed Kumogakure’s history of covert incursions. Mei Terumi then accused Kumogakure of colluding with Ōtsutsuki Urashiki, leaving the Raikage to realize the summit had become a trap set by Xiao.

• Mifune greeted the five Kage as they arrived and insisted that Hyuga Xiao remained under the Land of Iron’s protection.
• Xiao sensed the Kage and numerous spies watching him, then told Kurenai Yuhi that he would shatter the Kage’s authority at the summit and promised to find a way to remove her Seed.
• Xiao entered the council hall with Kurenai Yuhi as the assembled villages scrutinized him.
• The Raikage demanded Xiao’s death, but Tsunade and Mifune challenged his accusations and confirmed that Xiao had won the sanctioned duel against Darui.
• Xiao confronted the Raikage over Kumogakure’s repeated incursions into the Land of Fire and admitted that he had killed Kumogakure shinobi.
• Mei Terumi accused Kumogakure of hosting Ōtsutsuki Urashiki and concealing a Seed, prompting the Raikage to realize Xiao had turned the summit into a trap.

At the Five Kage Summit, Hyuga Xiao disproved the Raikage’s accusation that he had released Mōryō and defeated him in a one-move duel. The summit resumed with the Kage shaken by Xiao’s power, while Xiao learned that his Tenseigan’s growing erosion made strengthening his bonds essential.

• The Raikage presented a chakra memory showing Hyuga Xiao at Mōryō’s sealing site and demanded that the Land of Iron detain him.
• Hyuga Xiao projected a clearer memory showing Kakuzu destroying the seal and planting the false evidence, while Tsunade confirmed that Shion’s letter credited Xiao and Kurenai Yuhi with helping stop the Yomi Sect.
• The Raikage challenged Xiao to a duel, and Xiao proposed that each make one move, with retreat or injury deciding the loser.
• The Raikage attacked with Lightning Release: Heavy Current Violence, but Xiao absorbed the blow with a miniature Truth-Seeking Orb and blasted him into the wall.
• The injured Raikage withdrew Hidden Cloud’s accusations, and Mifune resumed the summit as Xiao received a system warning that Divine Erosion had reached 41%.

Hyuga Xiao defeated the Raikage’s strongest attack, but the Starry Sky Altar summoned him into the Humanity Stele. Xiao rejected its trial and paid a bloodline cost to return within minutes, then urged the Five Kage to resume discussing the Moon Ōtsutsuki and the Seed before collapsing.

• Hyuga Xiao and the Raikage exchanged their strongest attacks, and Xiao remained standing after the clash while the Raikage yielded and withdrew Hidden Cloud’s accusations.
• The Starry Sky Altar activated on its own and transported Xiao away, while Gaara explained that the Humanity Stele could hold him for ten years and Tsunade warned that Hong’s Seed would awaken within three months.
• Inside the Humanity Stele, Xiao refused its trial so he could return to Hong, accepting reduced Otsutsuki bloodline purity, a regressed Tenseigan Prototype, and unhealed injuries as the price.
• The altar returned Xiao to the arena less than five minutes later, and Hong rushed to treat him as he asked Tsunade to resume the summit’s discussion of the Moon Ōtsutsuki and the Seed.
• Xiao lost consciousness while holding Hong’s wrist, leaving the Five Kage and Mifune stunned.

Hyuga Xiao passed the Humanity Stele’s trial by rejecting a future in which he turned his loved ones into puppets, but learned that the Fate Weaver had marked their bonds. He began using the altar’s three days to absorb his accumulated power and prepare to awaken his True Name.

• Hyuga Xiao was drawn into the Humanity Stele and forced to face illusions in which Kurenai Yuhi, Samui, Hinata, Tsunade, and Mei Terumi died or became bound to him as puppets.
• Hyuga Xiao rejected the stele’s offer of perfect, obedient companions and declared that he would protect his loved ones without surrendering their humanity.
• Hyuga Xiao broke the illusion and passed the first stage of the trial, choosing to carry his humanity alongside his growing divinity.
• The Humanity Stele warned Hyuga Xiao that the Fate Weaver had marked his bonds and that he needed to awaken his True Name to sever the Threads of Fate.
• Hyuga Xiao learned he had three days in the altar, equivalent to about six hours in the Shinobi World, and began digesting his accumulated powers.

Hyuga Xiao rejected the Humanity Stele’s demand to abandon his bonds and received an inheritance that let him anchor his connections and pursue a True Name. As he emerged from the altar, Ōtsutsuki Urashiki attacked to retrieve the Pact Stone, and Xiao confronted him with the newly altered power of the stele.

• Hyuga Xiao rejected divine perfection and received the Humanity Stele’s inheritance through the Pact Stone.
• Hyuga Xiao formed soul anchors to Hinata and Hong, then learned that three altars could awaken his True Name and that Lunar Overseers might arrive within three months.
• Hyuga Xiao learned that the Overseers would target him and the Pact Stone, but chose to face them rather than abandon his inheritance.
• Ōtsutsuki Urashiki’s Time Clone shattered the altar’s defenses while the Five Kage watched, and his Time Fishing Rod hooked into the altar to seize the Pact Stone.
• Hyuga Xiao emerged in a pillar of golden light and challenged Urashiki as the Humanity Stele’s power reshaped the Pact Stone.

Hyuga Xiao emerged from the Starry Sky Altar and swiftly drove off the Hidden Cloud and Maple Clan forces attacking it. After Urashiki's clone warned that Kurenai would become his vessel in ten days and an Observer Envoy would pursue them in three months, Xiao prepared to attack the moon.

• Hyuga Xiao landed amid the siege and found Mifune's samurai, Kurenai, and Samui wounded while Darui's Hidden Cloud forces and the Maple Clan attacked the altar.
• Xiao wounded Darui with a miniature Golden Wheel Reincarnation Explosion, forcing the Hidden Cloud ninja to retreat, then blasted the Maple Clan samurai away with a weakened Almighty Push.
• Urashiki's clone attacked Kurenai with his fishing rod, but Xiao caught the hook and made the clone abandon it before it vanished.
• Urashiki's clone warned Xiao that Kurenai's Seed would turn her into a vessel in ten days and that the Observer Envoy would pursue them in three months.
• Mifune told Xiao the altar's barrier could hold for at most three days, and Xiao told Kurenai and Samui to recover so they could knock the moon down.

Hyuga Xiao stopped Feng Qianye from summoning the Starry Sky Alliance, then recovered the complete Starfall Decree from the altar. Xiao escaped into a hidden chamber with Hong and Samui, while Raikage A arrived and ordered his troops to seal the Land of Iron and hunt him down.

• Feng Qianye sacrificed himself to open a rift to the Starry Sky Alliance, but Xiao used the Tenseigan Prototype to sever and reverse the covenant, causing Feng Qianye to explode into light.
• Mifune identified the half-token left behind as a Starfall Decree and explained that the other half was hidden in the altar's core.
• Xiao used the aura of his Covenant Stone Fragments to unlock the altar's seals and retrieve the other half, completing the Starfall Decree and discovering its exchange list of forbidden knowledge.
• After Hong noticed energy fluid leaking from Xiao's eye, Xiao went with Hong and Samui into a hidden chamber beneath the altar to avoid incoming Hidden Cloud reinforcements.
• Raikage A arrived at the altar, detected the Tenseigan's aura, and ordered Darui to seal every exit from the Land of Iron and find Xiao dead or alive.

At the reconvened Five Kage Summit, Hyuga Xiao exposed Kumogakure’s secret deal with the Starsea Alliance and negotiated the creation of a Shinobi World Joint Response Group. The Five Kage accepted his conditions, but Xiao revealed that three Observer Envoys would arrive in three months, while the Starsea Alliance dispatched a Cleanup Squad with authority to use planet-destroying weapons.

• Hyuga Xiao presented evidence that Kumogakure had traded test subjects and resources to the Starsea Alliance, and Darui admitted he had become one of its observation samples.
• Gaara, Mei Terumi, and Ōnoki condemned Raikage A’s dealings, while Tsunade proposed a joint group to counter threats from the stars with Xiao as its chief advisor.
• Xiao agreed to advise the group and share research if he received crisis command authority, access to the villages’ classified archives, and control of Kumogakure’s Starsea Alliance assets.
• Xiao warned that Darui’s Astral Brand would detonate in eleven months and that the Moon Ōtsutsuki Observer Envoys would arrive in three months; the Five Kage agreed to his terms and to send two elite shinobi each.
• On a distant planet, three golden-eyed figures ordered the Cleanup Squad to recover or destroy the Covenant Stone Fragments and eliminate Xiao and his allies within ninety standard days.

Hyuga Xiao negotiated a unanimous agreement with the Five Kage to establish a Lunar Threat Response Joint Task Force, while securing a month to address Hong’s transformation crisis. Mei Terumi assigned Xiao to investigate a dangerous underwater ruin in the Land of Water, where he suspected he might find clues to True Name Awakening; the chapter ended with Mei discovering a warning about something sealed there and wondering whether Xiao could survive it.

• Xiao warned the Five Kage that the Lunar Overseer would arrive in three months and presented terms for a joint task force, including the suspension of warrants against him and Kumogakure’s release of experimental captives.
• Ōnoki, Gaara, Mei Terumi, and Raikage A agreed to Xiao’s terms, and the Five Kage established the task force with Tsunade overseeing it while Xiao spent a month resolving his companion’s crisis.
• Mei Terumi required Xiao to lead the task force’s first field investigation at an underwater altar ruin, whose entrance would open in eight days, and Xiao accepted while requesting its coordinates.
• Xiao told Kurenai Yuhi that she and Samui should stay behind to monitor Hong and the Five Kage; Kurenai reported that Hong could be kept stable for only twenty days and made Xiao promise to return alive.
• Mei Terumi used a crystal mirror to reveal a warning that the ruin sealed the remains of something whose touch would cause people to be forsaken by the gods, then heard a roar from the shaft below.

Kurenai Yuhi chose to risk eroding the Seed inside her to gain intelligence and become strong enough to fight beside Hyuga Xiao, while Xiao prepared a dangerous mental anchor to protect her. Hong uncovered the lunar altar’s use of Hyuga Branch House members and drew the attention of Ōtsutsuki Urashiki, as the Starfall Decree revealed that his true body would arrive in about seventy-two days.

• Kurenai Yuhi told Hyuga Xiao she would try to erode the Seed from within rather than risk removing it, and asked him to prepare a safeguard in case she lost control.
• Hyuga Xiao used the Covenant Stone Fragments to create a crystal anchor point that could freeze Hong’s chakra if the Seed took over, at the cost of destroying her consciousness if he could not save her in time.
• Hyuga Xiao’s Starfall Decree revealed Ōtsutsuki Urashiki’s true body would arrive at the lunar altar’s Third Observation Station in seventy-one days, twenty-three hours, and forty-seven minutes.
• Hong entered her Mindscape and forced information from the Seed, seeing that the lunar altar used the eyes and life force of Hyuga Branch House members to sustain its Tenseigan.
• Ōtsutsuki Urashiki’s projection detected Hong and tried to devour her consciousness, but she woke in the hospital and resolved to grow strong enough to survive and help Xiao.

Hyuga Xiao reunited the Starfall Decree and unlocked the Humanity Stele’s Time Chamber, where he began cultivating Humanity Anchors. He learned the stele’s creator was Hyuga Tennin, who revealed dangers surrounding the Caged Bird Seal, the Covenant Stone Fragments, the Moon Ōtsutsuki, and the Fate-Breaking System, while Hidden Cloud’s forces advanced toward the Starry Sky Altar.

• Hyuga Xiao used the Covenant Stone Fragments and half of the Starfall Decree to open the altar’s sealed passage and reunite the decree above the Humanity Stele.
• Hyuga Xiao received the stele’s authorization, learned its Time Chamber ran at one-tenth the outside speed, and entered to cultivate a Humanity Anchor based on Kurenai Yuhi’s soul fluctuations.
• Hyuga Tennin appeared in the Time Chamber and revealed that he was a Branch House Hyuga who had broken the Caged Bird Seal and left the Humanity Stele behind.
• Hyuga Tennin explained that Kaguya Otsutsuki’s Harvesting Protocol lay behind the Caged Bird Seal, the Covenant Stone Fragments could drain Xiao’s soul at thirty percent purity, and the radical Pure Eye Sect planned to invade within ten years.
• Hyuga Tennin warned Xiao to beware the Fate-Breaking System before his remnant consciousness vanished, and Xiao resumed cultivating an anchor based on Samui’s soul fluctuations.
• Tsunade received intelligence that a Hidden Cloud secret unit had reached the Land of Iron’s border and was targeting the Starry Sky Altar.

Xiao learned from Tennin Hyuga that the Hyuga Branch House had been cultivated as eye-power crops and that the Giant Tenseigan would soon drain them to prepare the Shinobi World for invasion. After inheriting Tennin’s memories and promising to free the harvested souls, Xiao left with Ryūchi Cave revealed as his next destination and returned toward Leaf Village to settle scores.

• Tennin told Xiao that the Caged Bird Seal transferred Branch House eye power to the Giant Tenseigan and recounted his failed rebellion against the Ōtsutsuki and the Starsea Alliance.
• Tennin revealed that the Starlight-Devouring White Snake in Ryūchi Cave had fought Kaguya and might be able to restrain Ōtsutsuki power.
• Tennin warned Xiao that the Giant Tenseigan would activate within three months, killing Branch House members and enabling a full invasion of the Shinobi World.
• Tennin asked Xiao to free the harvested Branch House souls from the Ōtsutsuki Eye-Power Vault, and Xiao promised to do so.
• Tennin transferred his memories and techniques to Xiao, warning him that the system inside him was a mark tied to powers beyond the Ōtsutsuki.
• Xiao left the altar with the Starfall Decree, learned it could secure an audience with the White Snake Sage, and headed back toward Leaf Village after planning to help Hong in three days.