The moon's barren surface lay silent, like an eternally unchanging realm of cold death.
Silvery dust drifted quietly through the void. There was no wind, no sound, only solitude.
And now, that stillness was shattered.
Otsutsuki Toneri stood atop a towering cliff, his short silver hair glinting in the cold light, his eyes dark and icy.
Before his eyes, his puppet army, once a symbol of the moon's guardians, had been torn apart in an instant by Yemu's blade.
As he watched the scenes unfolding in the Shinobi World,
a trace of unease appeared in Toneri's eyes for the first time.
That man, Yemu.
With a single strike, he had destroyed the guardians Toneri had spent decades painstakingly creating.
Toneri should have been slumbering within the moon.
Yet Yemu's sudden appearance had been like the thunder of a war drum, forcibly dragging him out of his sleep.
Even now, he could still feel that piercing tremor.
The Dragon Blade had sliced through the void with a thunderous roar, making him think the entire moon was about to split apart.
And that blazing chakra, burning like the sun, had told him instinctively that he would be swallowed up in an instant if he tried to withstand it head-on.
Toneri drew a deep breath, his gaze icy.
"What a dangerous man..."
His low voice echoed through the deathly silence like an incantation.
That fleeting clash had already shown him how terrifying Yemu was.
Yemu's power lay beyond his understanding-
it was neither a mere kekkei genkai nor Six Paths power, but something more ancient, something perhaps connected to the very origins of the Ōtsutsuki Clan.
That was why he had not recklessly confronted him head-on.
Toneri knew full well that a direct confrontation might not go his way.
And so, he turned