Hovering in the air, hair and crimson mantle streaming, Moke studied the two severed legs wrapped in a sheath of spatial force.
One was flesh-colored, still dripping. The other was bone-white, its break like a splintered tree trunk.
Thanks to the Nine-Tails' memories, the gore barely drew a frown. Mostly he was annoyed the blood might stain him. The cut had been perfect, clean enough to give him plenty of cells without dragging along any awkward bits of gear or cloth.
"How was that one, Kushina. Cool enough for you"
"It was fine."
Her voice was low. Off.
"What's wrong. Did someone mess with Naruto again. Tell me who."
"It's not that. I went to…" She caught herself. "You are so annoying. And that move was not cool at all. Even the name is ugly."
"…?"
Three slow question marks appeared in Moke's head. She sounded normal again, so he let it drop. After today, even the blind in Konoha would stop pointing at Naruto.
He had other knots to untie.
"Kushina," he asked in the quiet of his mind, suddenly careful, "say I need new power. If I used this leg and a few death-row inmates for human experiments, not by my own hands, would you accept it"
He had been raised to believe human experimentation crossed the line. That was why Orochimaru and his ilk sickened him. Children, villagers, anyone within reach, there was no floor to their cruelty.
But if he drew Shisui and Itachi to his side and still could not cure a Mangekyo's decline, then testing with Spiral Zetsu tissue might matter. Ninja tech looked primitive until it wasn't. Transplants and cloning made a mockery of common sense. Spiral Zetsu, the most special of its brood, was priceless. In Moke's eyes it outclassed plain Hashirama cells.
Find the technicians, start with transplantation, move to cloning, then mint Eternal Mangekyo and Wood Release like stamped coins. Six Paths Sage, your wish for your sons' bloodlines to reconcile, let me grant it for you.
Trouble was, there were not many good technicians. Root had a few who once held beakers for Orochimaru, but after he fled they had produced nothing worth a sigh.
He had already drafted plans the moment the leg hit his palm, yet he wanted a friend's answer. When you know a thing is wrong, and still you debate it, it means your heart already leans toward doing it.
"Unacceptable."
Kushina's refusal was instant. Even in a brutal world, human testing was taboo in daylight. Then images rose for her as well. The mask that night. Her fists useless against a tailed beast. Friends on battlefields. Little countries like Uzushio torn to shreds.
Everything seemed to trace back to one lack. Power.
She wavered.
"If the subjects are monsters who already threw away their humanity, and if the flesh belongs to enemies like the masked man," she said to herself as much as to him, "maybe that is… tolerable."
Ninja were never saints. Could she stop Moke anyway
"If this is vital to your plan, promise me you will never use innocents," she said at last. "Otherwise, I will punch you in the head, even if I lose."
"And I do not want you personally doing those experiments. People say Orochimaru used to be gentle. For his research he became worse than the enemies he fought."
She had heard in passing that one of the Sannin had defected over human testing. Two decades in Konoha, and the village felt like a stranger.
"I do not want to lose another friend," she whispered, so quiet it was only for herself.
She had not gone to visit old friends after the shrine. Not even Mikoto. Whatever excuses they had, the fact remained. For years no one had reached for Naruto. She did not know what face to wear before them.
Moke brightened at the earlier part of her answer. He had already chosen, but a friend's conditional blessing lightened the weight.
"Of course. Ninja lands have plenty of scum. And who am I, to get my own hands dirty"
He pulled out a sealing scroll Kushina had taught him to make on slow days and stored Spiral Zetsu's leg away. As for Obito's human leg, he flicked it in disgust, then erased it with Hadō 31, Shakkahō. In his creed, deeds are what matter. Whatever pain Obito had known, he had still murdered the teacher and the teacher's wife. Let him die a hundred times, it would not be too many. He was not Naruto, ready to proclaim, "The Obito who wanted to be Hokage is the coolest." Cool your head.
Given the chance, he would scatter even the ashes.
He took a breath and measured himself.
If Obito was quasi super-kage and, with Spiral Zetsu riding him, barely crossed into super-kage, then Moke sat as a solid super-kage with Bankai and the Crimson Tyrant form layered on top. He should not be weaker than Nagato while Nagato's life-force still ran high, though the gulf to Madara and Hashirama was not small. Even so, against the current Five Kage the difference felt like a change of dimension.
He could suppress Obito, but Obito's survival kit was second only to Orochimaru's. Kamui space and phasing were shameless arts. A Mangekyo at kage level had stolen a taste of Yomi.
He did not gloat over the two legs. Today had been a proving ground. And Obito already wore another man's half. One more missing limb meant little. Just do not lose the third.
His own flaws were obvious. Few finishing techniques. Clunky transitions. Reactions that fell short of instinct. What he had was a sea of chakra and obnoxious ways to stay alive.
That was Obito in a mirror. The only difference was that three years ago Obito had learned not to grab strangers with his bare hands and drag them into Kamui.
Still, landing Nova pleased him. It was an ultimate art he could only use when Bankai and the Crimson Tyrant ran together. He mixed Crimson force and a Tailed-Beast Bomb one to one, then used Bankai's swollen spatial authority to stack and compress the sphere. Compress until it was a point. Separate powers, never fond of one another, went rabid in the narrow pen and transmuted, weeping a blue-white heat.
Nova could blow in an instant and become a fat Ivan that erased the map, or, under the Grand-World's leash, burn like a real star and hold steady output for a short span. It had room to grow. It summed his entire system. Its might would swell as each limb of his power swelled. The strong often clear a path with one move.
Look at Prince Naruto with his one meatball, spun into dozens of tricks until the dungeon said uncle.
He skimmed the harvest of the day and looked down at the Death Forest, now a sheet of permafrost and charcoal with seams of dark red magma bleeding through. He could have left it as it lay, but he felt the heat of the gazes at the edge of the waste. Konoha's spine, the jōnin, were all watching. He still had chakra to spend. Bankai could hold a while longer.
Why not show them one more miracle.
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