However, Kiyomi quickly composed herself after hearing the shocking truth.
Without a moment of hesitation, she summoned her own perfect, complete-body Susanoo.
Ancestor or not, mystery or not, it didn't matter.
Ryusei wanted this existence erased next, for some reason, and that was enough for her.
She would fight beside him without question.
The massive black construct rose into the air, way smaller than Indra's but equally majestic, its wings of chakra spreading wide as it hovered beside Ryusei's formation.
Ashina followed immediately, summoning forth his largest Adamantine Sealing Chains, dozens of them, each glowing with runes of divine restraint as they shot toward the colossal enemy.
Beside him, Nagato's golden Rinnegan blazed to life as he unleashed his newly mastered ability, Nature's Avatar.
A giant figure of condensed natural energy formed around him, mirroring his every motion.
A translucent, radiant guardian that fought like a living embodiment of nature itself, amplifying his strength and defense to godlike levels.
Pakura moved next, her hands flashing through seals as countless blazing orbs, miniature suns, flared into existence and rained down in rapid succession.
The air rippled with heat, turning the sky into molten glass.
Renjiro joined in as well, his sword cleaving arcs of white lightning and wind through the air, each strike now tinged with faint black streaks of natural energy that crackled with new power.
Kanae, meanwhile, stayed close beside Ryusei, observing quietly, his weight-lightening ability allowing her to fly on her own.
She wasn't a long-range fighter, and with the battle already shifting into the air, her role was to guard his immediate flank.
Her focus was absolute, eyes tracking every motion above as her chakra gathered calmly, ready for the moment she'd be needed most.
Seeing the incoming lance of lightning forming within Indra's Susanoo, its power escalating beyond anything they had encountered before, seemingly casually dealing with their previous attacks, Nagato reacted instantly, changing his offensive avatar into a defensive dome. "Natural Energy Barrier!"
A massive barrier of condensed natural energy expanded around them, its translucent surface humming with life.
The barrier absorbed the brunt of the storm as it struck, feeding on the incoming chakra to reinforce itself instead of breaking.
At the same moment, Ashina slammed his palms together, forcing his newly mastered peak seal of his life, his sealing chains erupting from the ground in a spiraling pattern. "Heavenly Seal Reflection Barrier!"
The chains wove into a complex lattice, forming a mirrored seal that both deflected and absorbed impact, glowing brighter with each hit.
The combined force of the two defenses held the line, shaking but unbroken.
Kiyomi seized the opportunity.
Her Susanoo surged upward through the thinning haze of the barrier, its black armor glinting as it cut through the smoke.
Beside her, Pakura unleashed her strongest plasma lance, a beam of blinding, molten light so powerful that it tore through the sky like a falling star, striking the same point with a thunderous explosion.
In that very instant, Kiyomi's entropy-based Mangekyō also flared to life as she moved her physical position downward from inside her susano toward the enemy's larger Susanoo.
Space itself warped around the impact zone before Pakura's attack hit, twisting and unraveling the molecular structure of Indra's colossal armor.
The combined assault and explosion burned, fractured, and began eroding the Susanoo's outer layer piece by piece.
Ryusei moved in alongside them, ready to follow up on the assault.
Behind him, Renjiro and Kanae stood poised, their chakra focused and killing intent steady, waiting for the opening that was sure to come.
However, Pakura and Kiyomi, now being closest to Indra, suddenly froze mid-air.
In the same instant, they both felt as though their entire bodies were being assaulted from every direction at once, an invisible barrage striking them in countless places simultaneously.
Pakura's current new Sensory Mode barely caught the origin of the attack; it came from the cultist-like figures clustered within the center of Indra's Susanoo, but it moved with such impossible speed that evasion wasn't even an option.
Then something else hit them again.
"Miasma of Despair!"
A wave of pure Yin Release, impossibly fast for some reason, almost like skipping in time, and refined, erupted from the heart of Indra's Susanoo.
It wasn't genjutsu in the conventional sense; it was Yin Release so dense it became visible, black and fluid like living ink spreading through the air.
The surge enveloped them before they could even react.
Their vision twisted. Emotion collapsed into chaos. Inexplicable frustration and anger started slowly rising first.
It didn't attack their chakra; it attacked their minds directly, eventually dragging their consciousness into full-on illusory worlds built from their deepest fears, guilt, regrets, and grief. Every feeling they had ever buried resurfaced with unbearable clarity, without escape.
Even Kiyomi, with her Mangekyō Sharingan, couldn't resist for more than a few seconds before her senses blurred
The wave spread outward. Renjiro and Kanae, standing near Ryusei, faltered next, their expressions freezing as the darkness crept over them too.
Ryusei alone remained untouched.
He could see the black current of Yin chakra threading through the air, sharper and 'purer' than anything he had ever witnessed.
But his defences held: his Yin Release: Soul Bastion, his Byakugan's perfect chakra vision, and the constant, natural energy world-best sensory buffer of his unique Slug Sage Mode, all fortified by the acidic resistance of his recently restructured chakra system.
Together, they made him the single most genjutsu-resistant being alive, even against Indra's perfected Yin art.
But there was no time to think.
The giant Susanoo above them began to change, forming countless new arms, each wreathed in weapons and lightning, preparing to crush the four who were now trapped within their own illusionary nightmares.
Inside the construct, Indra's eyes narrowed, his voice echoing coldly through the storm. "Susanoo: Thousand-Handed Avatar."
The titanic form spread its arms wide, a terrifying reflection of Hagoromo's creation mode and Asura's legendary multi-armed Wood Release strikes, a creation born of rivalry and pride.
This was Indra's answer to his brother's physical might: infinite offense through chakra itself.
Every hand moved independently, blades and spears swirling like a divine storm, the overwhelming force of the technique poised to crush everything standing before it.
It was Ryusei's first time witnessing anything like this, a Susanoo that moved like a living deity, but that wasn't what unsettled him most.
'All of his attacks are impossibly quick and sudden, for some reason, not just powerful… what's going on? Is that his Mangekyō ability? Only that could explain it so well...' Ryusei thought further sharply, eyes narrowing.
He recalled how Kiyomi's and Pakura's strikes had also inexplicably faintly slowed right before impact, just now, losing most of their momentum.
'Wait… could his ability be manipulating time itself? One eye to accelerate, the other to slow?'
A chill ran through him. 'This is bad.'
Without wasting another second, Ryusei moved, instinct taking over before thought could catch up.
He slammed his palms together. "Creation Clone Technique: Slug Division!"
Four perfect copies of his body appeared around him, true divisions of his being rather than chakra projections.
Each carrying a deliberate fraction of his chakra now, but unlike shadow clones, these were also fully as durable and alive as his own body, each sharing the same power and vitality through the network of his Slug Sage connection, just like Katsuyu's slug clones operated.
In an instant, the four clones intercepted the descending Susanoo arms, sent toward his allies, their blows shaking the air as they punched through the incoming strikes like real Ryusei would, using all his current 'taijutsu' might.
Simultaneously, they extended streams of Yin chakra from their palms, invoking Soul Bastion within the minds of their trapped allies right away as well, precisely with their Byakugan breaking the layers of illusion one by one.
They continued to absorb the brunt of the onslaught themselves, their Slug Sage Mode allowing them to "merge" seamlessly with the surrounding air and even natural energy to some extent.
The connection was so precise that they could draw in ambient energy in real time, natural energy for perfect real-time replenishment, elemental energy, and even Yin energy from their enemies, just like now.
They could effortlessly dissolve hostile chakra or repurpose it for their own use, thanks to their bodies' special internal acids, born from the black pools of Shikkotsu Forest, breaking it down on contact and converting it into energy.
In essence, every attack against them had the potential to become their fuel.
As his allies began to wake, Ryusei's clones immediately redirected their chakra, linking their networks to his teammates' systems.
Indra's spiritual assaults were intensifying, but Ryusei adapted instantly, drawing the brunt of the attacks toward himself while simultaneously channeling his own protective chakra into each of them in real time, shielding their minds and stabilizing their inner flow perfectly once again.
After all, Ryusei's chakra transmission was likely the best in the world by now.
He could share his healing, chakra, and even sensory input with his allies just like the so-called 'Katsuyu batteries', best through contact, but also through proximity alone to an extent, especially during his Sage Mode.
That's why they were now immune to Indra's influence.
They had become part of his network thanks to his clones, just like fragments of Katsuyu herself, linked together, sharing strength and awareness as if they were organs from a single body.
Thanks to those Shikkotsu forest special acids continuously refining his cells, Ryusei's body was evolving beyond normal limits.
Each battle, in fact, only pushes him closer toward an exaggerated, perfected state, a form approaching Ōtsutsuki godhood.
His sensory perception had already reached that level; there was almost nothing left in existence that he couldn't feel when in his active Sage Mode.
Indra saw it all, genuinely surprised a bit.
He'd had every one of them on the brink of death instantly, great sacrifices too, until Ryusei Senju unleashed those bizarre, slug-based techniques promptly.
If not for that interference, the battle would already be over.
Those disgusting sage regions, he would see them all burned soon enough.
However, Indra pivoted quickly with brutal speed.
He slammed his Sharingan acceleration ability into two vast swathes of Yin chakra and hurled them like living weapons next as well, targeting Nagato and Ashina, who were not protected this time.
One chunk condensed into an enormous, obsidian-black dragon that lunged straight at Nagato, scales crackling with void energy.
The other unfurled into a wave of ghostly Uzumaki apparitions that swarmed toward Ashina, shapes pulled from his deepest guilt and grief, whispering the clan's ruin until the memories themselves felt like drowning.
Both attacks arrived in an instant. Nagato and Ashina braced, but the strikes were designed to overwhelm, to wash them under before they could respond.