"NOOOOO—!!!"
Another heart-wrenching scream burst forth. The Mangekyō Sharingan in Genki's eyes suddenly underwent a drastic change.
The three black patterns resembling Death God's scythes shattered into pieces under the impact of what could be called terrifying eye power!
Fine pattern fragments flew and spun within the pupils, slowly solidifying into six pitch-black tomoe. These six tomoe continuously changed their arrangement within the pupils, forming strange and complex patterns that radiated light that made one's heart race.
This was the manifestation of a far more powerful eye technique, the result of condensing the essence of eye power from thousands of clan members!
However, Genki felt absolutely no joy from that power. All that remained was pain and despair that seeped into his very marrow.
His soul was torn to shreds, then forcibly fused back together by Okuninushi's power, then torn apart again, and fused once more... endlessly repeating. This pain was a thousand times more desperate than the death penalty by a thousand cuts!
The punishment of cuts at least had an endpoint, but he was forced by this power to remain alive in death's condition, only to endure this hellish torture forever.
Who knows how much time had passed, after experiencing extreme torture from his soul being torn and fused repeatedly, that mad flow of memories finally slowly subsided.
Genki was covered in blood, collapsed on the ground in a pitiful state. His breathing was extremely weak like a candle in a storm, and his limbs still trembled uncontrollably.
Just as he was about to sink completely into darkness, two familiar figures suddenly flashed through his mind—the gentle smile of his mother, Hazuki, and the warm gaze of his sister, Izumi, when giving him candy.
That was his only warmth in this cruel world, his last anchor to remain alive.
The unwillingness to leave his mother and guilt toward his sister, like a dim glimmer of light in darkness, forcibly pulled back his nearly vanished consciousness.
He mustered his last remaining strength, crawling up from the ground inch by inch with full suffering. Every movement felt as if his body would fall apart, every gap between his bones radiated piercing pain, yet he still insisted on looking up. His blurred vision fixed toward where his mother and sister had fallen, wanting to see once more those two figures who protected him until the last moment.
"Mother... Izumi... Mother..."
A hoarse and broken voice emerged from Genki's throat, sounding like wind caught in an old rusted pipe; each word carried heart-piercing pain.
The residual pain from his torn soul still surged in his bone marrow. His entire muscles twitched beyond control, and his whole body felt as if it had been shattered into pieces then forcibly reconnected. The slightest movement already made him nearly faint from enduring the pain.
However, relying solely on his obsession with his mother and sister, he used all his strength to support his trembling body.
His blood-soaked fingers gripped tightly at the stone pavement. His nails cracked, blood seeping into the stone cracks leaving horrifying red traces.
His vision was still blurred, he could only open his eyes slightly, struggling to look up toward where his memory of his mother and sister falling was located.
However, the scene presented before his eyes brought not a single drop of the warmth he longed for. All there was was a horrifying picture capable of destroying the remnants of his sanity—this scene directly pushed him into the abyss of eternal despair!
"Ugh... I... no..."
Small, hollow groans sounded from behind him, those sounds were so numerous and dense, like thousands of ants gnawing at the air. Genki's body instantly stiffened. A chill crept from his spine straight to the top of his head, making him forget the pain in his body.
His neck moved stiffly, slowly turning backward.
He saw thousands of pale blue spirit figures standing frozen within the Yomi Domain. Their number nearly reached ten thousand!
They were the clan members devoured by his Magatsumi. At this moment, their gazes were all empty and their faces stiff, like puppets that had lost their strings.
The aura of bloody resentment remaining on their spirit bodies had not vanished, but they no longer had the slightest independent consciousness. They could only sway mechanically in place, releasing groans whose meaning was unclear.
After their memories were completely devoured by Okuninushi, they had lost everything—lost the joys and sorrows of the past, lost family bonds, lost everything that made them "human." Even their names and the meaning of their existence had been completely erased.
All that remained were empty soul shells, becoming nutrients that could be controlled at will within his eye technique's domain.
Faces he knew so well passed before his eyes—the neighbor uncle who had given him candy when he was small, the clan elder who taught him how to hold kunai, friends who had played with him in the alley... each of those faces had once been alive, had once left traces in his memories.
But now, these faces only left behind stiffness and emptiness.
Looking at these spirits both familiar yet strange, a horrifying guess stabbed his mind like a venomous snake, making all the blood in his body instantly freeze!
No... it can't be!
It absolutely can't be!
He shook his head madly, trying to drive away that horrifying thought, but his eyes uncontrollably searched among those thousands of spirits.
Soon, two slender spirit figures, like two of the sharpest blades, precisely pierced his heart!
Those were two figures he would never forget for the rest of his life—one with a slightly tall body, wearing simple clothes he recognized, that was his adoptive mother, Hazuki.
The other figure was petite, the edge of her clothing still bearing blood stains that hadn't vanished, none other than Izumi, whom he had considered his real sister!
Their spirits were the same as the other clan members; their gazes empty, their faces flat without expression, no signs of them recognizing him.
Eyes that were once full of tenderness, now only left behind deathly silence. Spirits that once carried warmth, now only left behind cold emptiness. They stood still among the crowd of spirits, becoming part of his eye technique, just like the other clan members who had been devoured.
"NOOOOO—!!!"
A heart-wrenching cry exploded from his throat. His voice was so hoarse it barely sounded human, carrying absolute despair and destruction.
Genki staggered backward several steps, then fell with a thud to the ground. His limbs kicked randomly on the pavement, like a dying wild beast.
It was him!
He was the one who with his own hands had killed the people he most wanted to protect!
He thought his eye technique was hope in the midst of a dead end, but unexpectedly, this was actually the cruelest executioner!
He not only failed to protect his mother and sister, but with his own power, he had devoured their souls, severing all possibility for them to be revived!
Even with Edo Tensei, or other forbidden techniques, without complete souls and memories, they could never be brought back to this world!
The people he fought so hard to protect, in the end, died by his own hands!
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