The red tide of flames surged like a flood, its light cutting the battlefield into separate spaces. Everything was warped and consumed within the raging firestorm, as though they had stumbled into a red illusion where nothing felt real. Sheets of rain evaporated at once, and thick white steam blanketed the area.
"How is it? Is he dead?" Troy stared ahead, his burned face peeling to reveal red flesh beneath, making him look more like a monster himself.
As the steam thinned, his eyes widened in dread. Within the blazing red sea of fire, a distorted figure gradually became clear. The violent flames bent away as they approached him.
Yunchuan Hyuga raised one hand before his body, and an unseen repulsive force split the fire to either side. Even the rain slid away from him, while firelight licked his face and reflected in his deep blue eyes, making him seem almost divine and inhuman.
Repulsion was an ability shared by Rinnegan and Tenseigan.
"Ants." Surrounded by drifting ash, he looked at them and said quietly, "Your power is as weak as your lives."
Blue Chakra poured out and wrapped around his body like flowing robes. His feet slowly lifted from the ground, and under their terrified stares, he rose into the air.
At the same time, hundreds of meters away, dozens of figures moving through the shadows suddenly stopped. The leader looked up at the floating figure, rain soaking his white bangs that covered his left eye, while the exposed right eye narrowed slightly.
"What is that thing?"
The rain kept falling, heavier by the minute. The sky showed no broken stars at all, only a solid layer of dark clouds pressing down.
Yet unlike the surface of Ninja World, a hidden world existed inside the moon itself. There were seas and land, flowers and insects, birds and beasts, and even villages built from stone. From the outside, it looked no different from Ninja World, only far more ancient.
The only difference was that it was completely empty, nothing left but ruins. At the very center of the moon's interior, beneath a false sky, a "sun" gave off a warm glow.
Inside that "sun" was nothing but vast emptiness. Islands of different shapes floated in the air as if suspended in a starless void, everything blurred and hazy, with no ground in sight but the edge of the "sky" close enough to touch. Living in such a place for a long time made it impossible to tell up from down, and it filled the heart with a sense of nothingness.
For Toneri Otsutsuki, who had lived inside this "artificial sun" since birth, this narrow space was his entire world. He had long grown used to its empty silence.
"Father."
The young Toneri Otsutsuki knelt properly on the floor, his skin pale and his long hair a mix of blue and white. He lifted his head and faced the man before him with hollow eye sockets. "Zhangsi hasn't come for a long time."
It did not sound like a question, more like a simple statement of fact. He was only three years old and had been born without eyes, yet his powerful bloodline let him sense the world clearly.
The "Zhangsi" he mentioned was an old man who spoke gently. Like the other elders who vanished from time to time over the past three years, he had disappeared as well.
"Toneri, Zhangsi won't be coming anymore."
Toneri's father reached out and gently stroked his hair, his tone calm and soft. "You need to grow up quickly. One day, I will be gone too."
"Like those grandfathers?" Toneri Otsutsuki asked.
"Yes." Toneri's father nodded lightly. "You were born to save the world, but you still lack strength. We will become that strength for you."
"Only when a blade hangs overhead will those who go down the wrong path and destroy order truly wake up."
Toneri Otsutsuki nodded in confusion, then raised his head and asked in a childlike voice, "When that happens, will you come back?"
He did not hear an answer at first. After a long silence, his father finally spoke in a very soft voice and gave a quiet laugh. "We have always been here, so how could there be any 'coming back'?"
Hamura Otsutsuki's older brother, the Sage of Six Paths, was the founder of Ninja World and Ninshu. He had personally created the Ninja World that existed today.
When the Sage of Six Paths founded Ninshu, his original intent was for Chakra to become a force that connected people to one another. He wanted it to bind hearts together and create a world without war, where everyone could live in peace.
After the Sage of Six Paths passed away, humans turned Chakra into a weapon for killing. As time went on, wars kept breaking out one after another. The shinobi never stopped fighting, and the wars stretched on without end.
From the moment Toneri Otsutsuki was born, the entire Branch Family believed fate had chosen their side. The shinobi of Ninja World were destined to be purged, and the birth of those warlike, cruel, bloodthirsty demons was itself a mistake.
Just as Toneri's father was about to continue instilling the extreme beliefs of the Branch Family, a sudden hum filled the air.
An invisible force surged through the space, making him jolt in shock as he looked out the window. A crescent-shaped island floating in the distance was vibrating with a buzzing sound.
Without hesitation, Toneri's father rushed out of the palace and ran straight into two others. The three exchanged serious looks, nodded, and flew together toward the distant crescent-shaped island.
Very few Otsutsuki still lived on the moon. All women of suitable age had died years ago in the war between the Main Family and the Branch Family, and that brutal battle left behind only the old, the weak, and the sick.
These three, including Toneri's father, were responsible for guarding the Otsutsuki's greatest treasure. It was the so-called "giant Tenseigan."
The deeper they went through the passage into the island, the stronger the invisible waves became. Their white robes whipped violently in the air.
At the end of the passage, they entered a vast open space. At the center of several circular tracks floated an enormous eye, dozens of meters in diameter.
That golden eye was the true form of the giant Tenseigan. The ring tracks that should have been rotating steadily around it like star rings were now twisting wildly, as if stirred by unseen fingers.
"What's happening?" Toneri's father's eyes filled with panic. "Why is the Tenseigan suddenly reacting like this?"
Golden particles burst from the pupil like a swarm of fireflies spilling from a broken dam. The light flowed like blood through veins, shattered against solid objects into tiny sparks, and then streamed outward again.
Even though this Tenseigan was only a half-finished creation, nothing like this had happened in all the years before. One of the elders released his Chakra and linked it to the Tenseigan, slowly sensing the direction in which that power was flowing.
"Impossible!"
His eyes flew wide, nearly popping from their sockets, as he rasped, "The Tenseigan is responding to someone in Ninja World!"
"That can't be!" Toneri's father blurted out. "How could those demons be worthy of the sacred relic's response?"