Main World.
Year 27 of Konoha, winter.
Mechanical Star, Mechanical City.
Tianshu Headquarters, underground base.
The modification was complete.
Yutian stepped out of the Growth Chamber. Pale green nutrient solution poured off him, gathering into a shallow puddle on the alloy floor. His height-two meters thirty. A full head taller than Sasori. His body no longer had its former lean, civil official's build. His shoulders were as broad as a wall, his arms as thick as an ordinary person's thighs, and his chest muscles stretched his silver-white Surgical Gown taut. Beneath his skin, grayish-brown patterns faintly flowed, like parched earth, like a cracked riverbed, like rock strata eroded by wind and sand for a thousand years.
His eyes-no longer ordinary black eyes, but Drought God Eyes. Against a scarlet background, his pupils were grayish-brown. Deep within them, sandstorms spun, deserts stretched, and withered bones slumbered.
Ōtsutsuki Yanchuang's Rinnegan had been implanted—not “transplanted,” but “fused.” Yanchuang's Rinnegan had merged with Yutian's Drought God Eyes, becoming an entirely new pair of eyes—the Withered God Eyes. Grayish-brown ripples slowly revolved against the scarlet background, like mirages in the desert, like heat waves over the Gobi, like the last thread of light before death descended.
Sasori stood before the Growth Chamber with his arms folded, his two-meter-twenty frame a little shorter than Yutian's. A satisfied smile curved his lips.
"How do you feel?"
Yutian lowered his head and looked at his hands. His fingers were long, their joints distinct, and grayish-brown light flickered faintly beneath his fingernails. He clenched his fists, released them, then clenched them again. His movements were slow and steady, like a precision machine that had just started up.
"Power... is surging through me. Chakra... is circulating on its own. My body... is breathing."
He raised his head and looked at