"We won!"
At last, seeing Jigen collapse, Deidara shouted in delight. He flopped onto the ground without care for appearances, spreading out in the shape of a giant "大."
"Looks like I didn't need to use my last trump card after all, yeah!"
"Well done, Hidan."
Nagato let out a long breath of relief, then gave Hidan his acknowledgment.
If not for him, they would most likely have perished here.
Nagato's gaze drifted uneasily to Jigen's corpse.
Just what kind of monster was this? Not only did he wield those black rods, but he even possessed power surpassing the Rinnegan itself.
Kisame, Konan, and the others all gave their approval to Hidan as well.
"What a pity…" Kakuzu muttered with a tinge of regret as he glanced at Jigen's body—then his eyes lingered on the ruined mess of Jigen's heart.
If he could've claimed it whole, his own strength would surely have grown immensely.
"This is a huge loss."
Sasori, expressionless, stared at the shattered remnants of his puppets. Even with his puppet body, a flash of heartache crossed his eyes.
Among the Akatsuki, he had suffered the greatest loss. Years' worth of carefully collected treasures had been reduced to nothing, and even his trump card—the Third Kazekage puppet—had been destroyed, now nothing more than useless fragments.
Aside from his true body, he was left with nothing.
Back to square one. He would have to start over, crafting new puppets from scratch.
And yet, he was also the one who had gained the most. The artificial humans in the laboratory had given him great inspiration, not to mention the materials he had… "acquired."
But above all—
"Leave that body to me."
Sasori's gaze burned as he stared at Jigen's lifeless corpse. Even if it could only display half of its former strength, it would be more than enough to greatly enhance his own power.
Since there was no bounty on Jigen, Kakuzu had no reason to compete with him for it.
Besides, there were still the Fourth Raikage and the Cloud elite shinobi.
This was what you'd call a fair trade.
If Sasori could turn all of them into puppets, it would be an absolute profit.
While the Akatsuki were already busy dividing the spoils, none of them noticed the faint flicker of blue light beginning to shimmer on Jigen's corpse.
The glow was so weak at first that no naked eye could have detected it.
But the points of light gradually gathered, more and more of them condensing into a hazy, smoke-like human shape.
Before long, it grew clear enough to be seen.
"Hm?"
Of everyone present, only Nagato, with the Rinnegan, sensed something amiss.
But by the time he realized it, the misty figure had already solidified into flesh, its colors filling in. No longer just blue.
"You insects… how dare you destroy my precious vessel."
The figure now stood before them with pale skin, ash-gray hair, and, most striking of all, a pair of curved horns. His features bore a strong resemblance to Jigen's previous second form.
This was not Jigen's soul.
It was the Ōtsutsuki Isshiki who had dwelled within him.
Or rather, Jigen was nothing more than a shell. The one truly in control had been Isshiki all along.
And yet, this was Isshiki—but not the complete Isshiki. More precisely, it was only a fragment of him, an incomplete form.
Long ago, Ōtsutsuki Isshiki had come to the shinobi world together with the legendary progenitor of chakra, Kaguya. Their purpose: to harvest all life energy on this planet. The method: planting a tree. Not just any tree, but the Ōtsutsuki's unique God Tree. Kaguya was meant to serve as its nourishment to make it sprout.
But an unexpected turn occurred. Before Isshiki could sacrifice Kaguya, she struck him with a sneak attack, grievously wounding him. Then, seeking the Chakra Fruit, Kaguya instead offered Isshiki himself to the God Tree—creating the very Ten-Tails that would later appear in the main timeline.
The rest is well known:
Kaguya consumed the Chakra Fruit, becoming the progenitor of chakra and the source of all shinobi.
To resist the Ōtsutsuki, she created the White Zetsu as weapons derived from the God Tree. But in the end, betrayed by a toad guiding her sons, Kaguya was sealed in the moon's core by Hagoromo and Hamura.
And then came the story of her sons' sons—Asura and Indra.
But Isshiki's tale did not end there. He did not die. The Ten-Tails had only managed to devour most of his body. By using his dōjutsu, Isshiki shrank his form and narrowly escaped. He then digitized his own existence and lodged himself within the body of a passing monk.
That monk was Jigen.
Unfortunately, Jigen was never a suitable vessel. Nor was it easy to restore the greater half of a lost body. Possessing Jigen, Isshiki could only wield the tiniest fraction of his power.
In such a state, he could not possibly stand against Kaguya, let alone her sons or descendants.
So he chose to bide his time. Yet even after a thousand years, Isshiki still had not recovered—his power had only risen from ten percent to eleven.
Whether by fortune or misfortune, he had recently discovered another Ten-Tails he had once lost.
The moment he saw it, his resolve was set. He would gather the Tailed Beasts, recreate the Chakra Fruit—
—find a new vessel. Reclaim all that was lost.
The first to be captured had been the Eight-Tails' jinchūriki.
It wasn't as if he had wasted the last millennium. Though stripped of his strength, his knowledge remained. The Ōtsutsuki were a spacefaring clan, their technology far surpassing anything on the shinobi world.
The very base beneath their feet had been built from the knowledge he passed on to humanity.
But now, all of it was gone.
"Do you even understand what you've done?"
Isshiki's body radiated a dreadful aura. He stood like a god-demon, stripped of all the elegance he once displayed.
"Look at what you've done!"
"You destroyed the body of a god!"
"This… this power…" Kakuzu dropped to one knee. The tendrils of Earth Grudge Fear recoiled violently, shuddering in terror at Isshiki's presence. Without their support, Kakuzu felt hollow, empty.
"My body… won't move."
"Tch." Sasori wasn't affected as severely, but with all his puppets destroyed, he had almost no fighting strength left.
"Art…"
Deidara's hands trembled as he raised them. From overusing clay bombs, the mouths on his palms had swollen painfully.
Looks like I'll have to use that after all…
"Stab you! Stab you! Stab you!"
Hidan frantically thrust his spear into himself again and again, trying to kill Isshiki through his curse. But Isshiki had no physical body now—the jutsu simply didn't work on him.
Konan, Nagato, Kisame, and Neji fared little better. Only Sasuke stood somewhat steady, but alone he was far from Isshiki's match.
Even the mere aura rolling off him was crushing them.
Pressure itself was a weapon of the Ōtsutsuki.
Without a vessel, Isshiki could unleash the entirety of the fragment of Ōtsutsuki power he still retained. But without a new host, he could survive no more than two days.
His time was limited. He needed a body, and soon.
His gaze swept across the Akatsuki one by one, weighing their worthiness as vessels. At last, his eyes fixed on Nagato.
"I can feel the vitality within you. You possess the Rinnegan—though only in its most primitive state—it is just barely enough to qualify you as a vessel."
"Since you destroyed my container…"
"…then offer your body to me."