The Pure Land had utterly collapsed. Two figures floated in the cosmos, facing each other from afar.
The Sage of Six Paths and the Master of Souls — this was a clash between the deities of two eras: the sage of the old era and the god of the new age.
The void held no air, utterly silent, but it was now filled with a murderous aura.
Yuki Yoru gazed at his opponent, Ōtsutsuki Hagoromo. Countless eyes rippled across his pupils, and the surging spiritual power caused his blue-and-white Mizukage robe to flutter and billow.
He could barely contain his excitement.
The sheer power of Ōtsutsuki Hagoromo far surpassed Yoru's expectations — devouring this one would be no less than when he consumed Ōtsutsuki Kaguya.
This was a truly potent tonic, a boost capable of pushing him to the pinnacle!
However, the Ōtsutsuki Hagoromo before him did not charge over in anger as he had imagined.
The Sage of Six Paths stared calmly at Yuki Yoru, and for the first time, he truly regarded Yoru as an equal — a being on the same level as himself.
Although an inevitable and bitter battle awaited them, there was something he wanted Yoru to understand first.
"Ōtsutsuki Isshiki has been lurking in the shinobi world for a thousand years," Hagoromo said, gripping his Six Paths staff tightly, his Rinnegan fixed on Yoru.
"My mother's clan — the main family — must already have noticed something is wrong. It won't be long before they arrive in this world."
"Their goal is not just this world. You, me — everything — we are all their targets."
"Just as you devoured Mother and Hamura, when they arrive, our fate will be annihilation. The only way to survive is to unite every shred of power before they come — gather everything we can muster!"
"Yuki Yoru!" Hagoromo stretched out a hand. "Join me — for our shared future!"
"Tch."
Yoru neither agreed nor denied his words.
He didn't find Hagoromo's logic flawed. Once the Ōtsutsuki main family arrived, they would not come simply for the world — anyone who dared resist, anyone responsible for the current chaos, would be completely erased.
Could this be Hagoromo's scheme? A trick to make Yoru drop his guard so he could strike a fatal blow?
Unlikely. After all, this man had even slain his own mother. What's one brother compared to that? Even with the blood grudge between them, Hagoromo might truly be willing to let go — for the sake of the future.
However—
Yoru's gaze was calm as he regarded the Sage of Six Paths, a man praised by mortals for a thousand years.
"You're right, Hagoromo. Against those ravenous beings who devour all, no amount of caution is too much."
"As you said, only by consolidating all forces and gathering every ounce of strength before their arrival do we stand a chance at survival."
"Then why—"
"I am doing exactly that right now."
Yoru interrupted the Sage, his words leaving Hagoromo momentarily stunned.
"The Ten Tails, Ōtsutsuki Kaguya, Ōtsutsuki Hamura… and now, you, Hagoromo."
"I am 'gathering' all your powers — fusing every drop of your strength into myself, so that I alone will wield the power to stand against the Ōtsutsuki clan!"
As Hagoromo's expression darkened, Yoru raised the dark-gold spirit blade in his hand and shouted:
"So, Hagoromo — for our shared future… give me your power!"
"Nonsense!"
The Sage of Six Paths glared coldly at him, drawing in a long breath as his eyes hardened.
The pale purple light of the Rinnegan flared, and a terrifying aura erupted from his body — far more intense than that of Hamura, whom Yoru had fought before!
"If you are so stubbornly blind… then die!"
Looking at Ōtsutsuki Hagoromo, who was preparing to strike, Yuki Yoru let out a cold sneer.
In the next instant, their figures clashed violently — a wave of terrifying energy rippled through the heavens, shaking the very fabric of the cosmos.
Two forces, each capable of splitting heaven and earth, collided head-on.
A spark of black light burst forth, and even the vast, empty void of space visibly twisted — as if two meteors had crashed into each other midair.
If this battle had taken place not in the universe but on the shinobi world, that single instant of impact would have been enough to destroy more than half the world.
The raging energies plunged the surrounding void into utter chaos.
The flow of chakra became completely unstable, and the very laws of reality were rewritten under the pressure of their world-ending powers.
The dark-golden spirit blade and the Sage's staff clashed again and again.
Suddenly, behind the Sage of Six Paths, a jet-black arrow began to form.
In the blink of an eye, that black arrow pierced through the chaotic storm of destruction, tearing space itself as it shot toward Yuki Yoru.
"Indra's Arrow!"
It was the ultimate manifestation of Yin Release chakra, amplified by the power of the Six Paths!
"Good — come!"
A faintly amused look flickered across Yoru's face.
That attack — in the original story, it had been Sasuke's strongest strike.
Yet now, the Sage of Six Paths wielded it with effortless grace.
Raising his left hand slightly, Yoru activated the power of Takamimusubinokami, meeting the oncoming Indra's Arrow head-on.
A vast suction force erupted outward — yet the arrow did not vanish as expected.
Instead, it resisted fiercely against the pull of Yoru's devouring power, its form twisting and energy flaring wildly in defiance.
"Hm?"
Yoru's brows lifted slightly.
He gathered his strength once more, and a tremendous power sealed the arrow in place.
Even so, it continued to tremble violently, refusing to yield.
A brilliant radiance of spiritual power surged from his palm.
Under its crushing force, the jet-black arrow disintegrated into countless particles and scattered into nothingness.
A thoughtful expression crossed Yoru's face as his calm gaze fell upon Ōtsutsuki Hagoromo in the distance.
That last attack — Indra's Arrow — had revealed something peculiar to him.
Though Hagoromo and Hamura were brothers by blood, the powers they wielded were utterly different.
Ōtsutsuki Hamura's power closely resembled that of their mother, Ōtsutsuki Kaguya — almost a perfect replica, identical in nature.
But the power Hagoromo displayed now went far beyond that.
In addition to the might of the Ōtsutsuki bloodline, Yoru could sense a vast quantity of natural energy coursing through Hagoromo — the energy of the world itself, known as Senjutsu Chakra, the same power once wielded by the Great Toad Sage.
"How interesting…" Yoru murmured, his eyes narrowing slightly.
"So this is your hidden trump card."
He had experienced Hagoromo's power once before — during the disaster of the Nine Tails.
Back then, the old man had intervened and attacked him directly.
At that time, Hagoromo's strength had felt grand and pure — the ultimate form of chakra, identical to that of the Ten-Tails Obito, Ōtsutsuki Kaguya, and Ōtsutsuki Hamura.
At this moment, however, the power that Ōtsutsuki Hagoromo displayed was even more vast — and far more complex.
The clash of Indra's Arrow had lasted but an instant, yet their hand-to-hand combat never ceased.
Clang!
In a flash, the Sage's staff shifted shape, transforming into Sword of Nunoboko, the divine blade of heavenly creation.
It slashed downward, the edge grazing across Yuki Yoru's chest.
Yoru leaned his upper body back, his legs bending slightly, and then drove his knee upward toward Hagoromo's chin.
Hagoromo managed to dodge — but Yoru's counterattack came immediately.
With a flick of his wrist, he unleashed Hadō No. 96 – Ittō Kasō (Single-Blade Cremation).
A roaring blaze cleaved across the Sage's body, slicing half of him apart in a torrent of flame.
The waves of fire surged forward, unstoppable!
Though Ōtsutsuki Hagoromo was the Sage of Six Paths — the ancestor of chakra and the saint praised for millennia — his actual combat experience was not much greater than Yoru's.
In truth, Hagoromo's station was far too lofty.
The battles he had experienced were mostly grand confrontations of overwhelming power — pure collisions of sage power and ability.
When it came to raw fighting instinct, he was nowhere near Yuki Yoru, who had clawed his way up through countless shinobi wars, step by step from the bottom.
Under normal circumstances, Hagoromo's battle methods might have been fiercer and more efficient.
But at their current level, the fight between Yoru and Hagoromo had devolved into something almost primitive — a brutal hand-to-hand brawl.
After several exchanges, realizing that his taijutsu could not compare to Yoru's, Hagoromo began to deploy his Truth-Seeking Orbs and divine powers to aid in battle.
Several orbs shot forth at uncanny and unpredictable angles.
At the same time, he thrust out one hand, and an immense gravitational force erupted from his palm.
"Divine: Universal Pull (Shinra·Banshō Ten'in)!"
The overwhelming pull was so strong it could shake the very fabric of the world itself!
Upon reaching the Six Paths level, most combatants rarely relied on the innate powers of the Rinnegan, preferring their own unique techniques instead.
Only someone like Nagato, who possessed the Rinnegan without fully understanding it, would treat those abilities as a trump card.
But not using them often did not mean they were weak.
In fact, when backed by sufficient power, the Rinnegan's inherent abilities could unleash truly terrifying might.
"Hmph. You think you're the only one who knows that trick?"
Even as gravity dragged him forward, Yoru's lips curved into a mocking smile.
A surge of violent repulsive force exploded from within him.
"Shinra Tensei!"
Gravitational pull and repulsion collided — and even the fabric of space itself warped under the strain.
After a brief moment of deadlock, both forces dissipated into nothingness.
"What a troublesome opponent," the Sage muttered under his breath.
If Yuki Yoru's power were merely that of a so-called "Shinigami," Hagoromo would not have cared.
But after devouring multiple Ōtsutsuki and mastering their powers, Yoru's strength had overlapped greatly with Hagoromo's own.
They were, in a sense, disciples of the same master — one could not easily overcome the other's techniques.
The battle raged on, but compared to before, their clash had escalated to an entirely new level.
"Six Paths - Tengai Shinsei!"
Ōtsutsuki Hagoromo suddenly raised the Sword of Nunoboko in his hand towards the boundless starry sea of the universe.
Under the pull of his immense Sage Power, dozens of colossal meteors were torn from the dark expanse of space and hurled down upon Yuki Yoru.
Each meteor was massive beyond comprehension, and strengthened by sage power, their density rivaled entire moons when fused together.
"A pointless attack."
Yoru let out a cold laugh. Dazzling radiance burst forth from his entire body, soaring spiritual power roared out, and the spiritual pressure on his surface abruptly transformed into the figures of five giant dragons.
Facing the incoming colossal meteors, the five dragons roared!
"Hadō No. 99 — Goryūtenmetsu!" (Five Dragon Destruction!)
BOOM!!!
An indescribable, terrifying spiritual pressure, seemingly capable of crushing the entire world, erupted violently. Five terrifying spirit dragons, formed from vast spiritual pressure, slammed directly into the enormous meteors.
Spiritual power ran rampant. The entire meteor shook violently under the roar of the five dragons, continuously cracking and shattering until it broke apart into a sky full of rubble!
The attack was destroyed — yet Ōtsutsuki Hagoromo's expression remained calm and composed.
He had never expected those meteors to actually harm Yuki Yoru.
What he sought was to use the countless fragments born from their destruction… to launch a far deadlier strike.
Chakra surged through the void.
The shattered fragments of rock around them suddenly began to tremble, drawn by some invisible force.
Hagoromo's arms stiffened, his hands came together sharply — and an overwhelming wave of chakra erupted from his body.
"Six Paths - Chibaku Tensei (Planetary Devastation)!"
A mysterious chakra flared within the meteor fragments, and Yuki Yoru — caught amid the debris — suddenly felt his movements constricted.
Then, from the broken stones around him, an immense gravitational force burst forth.
The pull intensified — countless fragments were dragged back together, seeking to entomb Yoru completely at their core.
Yet instead of retreating, Yuki Yoru advanced.
The dark-golden spirit blade in his hand flared with dazzling brilliance, its radiance piercing the heavens as he raised it high above his head.
The Golden Blade split the void!
In an instant, the once-mighty Chibaku Tensei (Planetary Devastation) — the same technique that had once sealed away the Rabbit Goddess herself — was sliced apart like tofu beneath the golden sword's edge.
With a thunderous roar, it shattered, and the fragments cascaded down on either side of Yoru like falling stars.
The golden blade's arc tore through the sky, its power undiminished, and continued to surge straight toward Ōtsutsuki Hagoromo!
"Hamura's power…" Hagoromo murmured, a trace of sorrow flickering in his eyes.
Though his heart was hard as stone — hard enough to seal away his own mother — his bond with Hamura had endured for over a thousand years.
They had shared a brotherhood deeper than blood, and now they were forever separated by life and death.
"I won't let your sacrifice be in vain, Hamura…"
Facing the oncoming Golden Wheel Reincarnation Explosion (Kinrin Tensei Baku) — a force so mighty it could cleave the universe in two — Hagoromo gripped his Sage's staff tightly and struck it down upon the void.
Behind him, a blinding radiance erupted.
The light split into five parts, and the nine Truth-Seeking Orbs that floated at his back aligned around them like stars orbiting a radiant moon.
At that moment, Hagoromo's power surged to unimaginable heights — his form expanding within the divine glow until he seemed no longer mortal, but a true god.
And as the roaring Golden Wheel descended upon him, he simply raised one hand.
In the next instant, the blade that could sever all creation — the Golden Wheel Reincarnation Explosion — was caught in his palm.
A soft sound echoed.
Crack—
And then, it shattered.