Isshiki looked down at the small red-haired child standing before him. Elric's face was completely pale—drained of all color, like a corpse that was somehow still standing upright. His wide eyes, which had been so full of life and childish mischief just moments ago, were now hollow and empty, locked onto the bleeding body of his father lying motionless behind him. His tiny frame trembled uncontrollably.
When he finally managed to force words out, his voice came out as nothing more than a faint whisper carried away by the wind. "W–Who... who are you...? Why did you... attack my dad?"
The words barely made it past his trembling lips, each syllable shaking, held together only by sheer desperate willpower.
Isshiki did not answer the question. He didn't see any need to. Instead, in the blink of an eye—without a single warning or even the faintest flicker of chakra—he vanished completely from his position and reappeared directly behind Elric.
His hand, cloaked in chakra refined to an absolutely inhuman degree of precision, touched the back of Elric's exposed neck. A single point of contact. There was no sound at all, just an immediate, total collapse of function.
Every single muscle in Elric's small body froze instantly. His limbs went completely limp, his knees buckled beneath him, and his voice, rising desperately into a scream that never left his mouth, was swallowed into absolute silence. He couldn't move at all. He couldn't speak. His mind screamed in pure terror, but his body refused to obey any commands whatsoever.
His paralyzed body began to fall backward—until a cold, steady hand grabbed his right wrist firmly. Isshiki lifted the boy effortlessly into the air with one hand, like one might casually pluck a doll off the ground. Nothing more than a lightweight object.
Elric's mind reeled in panic and confusion. I have to call for help! I have to do something! Anything! But nothing came out of his mouth. His lips moved desperately. No sound emerged. His eyes darted wildly around, catching only brief glimpses of his father—still lying completely motionless in an expanding pool of blood several meters away.
Isshiki, meanwhile, looked at him with an expression mixing both amusement and cold curiosity. "You were wasting this body's potential," he muttered, his voice like cracked ice scraping against stone. "Such an incredible waste..."
Then he slowly raised his other hand. A thin, black diamond-shaped seal suddenly burned to life on his palm—glowing with dark energy. The mark of Kāma.
Elric's eyes widened in absolute horror, but he couldn't even twitch a finger. The Kāma brand surged forward, and a searing, intense pain burst from his wrist where Isshiki gripped him. Like molten lava being poured directly into his veins, the seal snaked rapidly across Elric's body—creeping up his arm, twisting around his shoulder, diving into his chest.
The agony was completely unimaginable, beyond anything he'd ever experienced. He desperately wanted to scream, to thrash violently, to resist with everything he had. But his body felt like it had betrayed him completely. He trembled violently, spasming helplessly in midair as Isshiki's iron grip clutched him even tighter.
"You should be proud," the ancient being whispered coldly. "You are about to become an Ōtsutsuki. Even if it's only your body that transforms."
The Kāma mark etched itself deeper into Elric's skin—dark, twisted, pulsing rhythmically with raw chakra energy. A transformation had begun, not just spiritual, but deeply physical as well. Bones adjusted their structure. Cells warped and changed. DNA writhed and twisted like it had developed a mind of its own.
Normally, this entire process took years, decades even in most cases. Kāma implantation was naturally a very long process—not because it was particularly difficult for the Ōtsutsuki to perform, but because lower creatures' souls were far too weak to survive instant conversion without being destroyed. It required months, sometimes entire years, for the Kāma to slowly and carefully overwrite the host's DNA, chakra pathways, and soul.
But this boy, this vessel, was fundamentally different. With Isshiki's direct, concentrated chakra infusion flooding into Elric's body, the transformation was already somehow 90% complete in just a matter of minutes.
Incredible... this child is almost already an Ōtsutsuki.
Isshiki allowed himself a rare flicker of genuine pride. The agony that wracked the boy's small body, the complete helplessness visible in his wide eyes—it was almost beautiful in its perfection.
But that pride didn't last long at all. Because then something changed dramatically.
It began in Elric's wrist. From the base of Elric's arm—right where his father had been gripping him—a different seal suddenly began to crawl. Glowing faintly with a soft light, intricate Uzumaki script spread rapidly across his skin, flowing up his wrist, climbing steadily toward his chest like a snake made of pure chakra.
Isshiki blinked in surprise. He hadn't noticed it before at all. But now he recognized it immediately. That man—the dying father lying in the grass—he had been holding this exact hand. His brows furrowed slightly with annoyance.
It was a sealing technique. Crude in construction, but undeniably clever. Subtle enough to go completely unnoticed until it was far too late. And it was too late now.
Crafty bastard. I ignored him because he was too weak to matter...
The seal should have been completely ineffective. Ōtsutsuki were naturally highly resistant to such primitive techniques. But right now—during the active Kāma ritual—he was actively channeling massive amounts of chakra directly into the boy's body. It created a perfect pathway, an open road for the seal to travel backward into him.
And in that single moment of overconfidence, it worked.
The seal spread rapidly through Isshiki's arm and exploded violently inside his nervous system. His fingers twitched involuntarily. His knees buckled slightly beneath him. His chakra flow hiccupped—just for an instant. But that single instant was enough. His chakra transfer stopped completely.
And the exact moment it did, all hell broke loose.
The transformation reversed immediately. Or rather, it mutated into something else entirely. Because Elric's original cells—those 10% that hadn't yet been converted—suddenly turned on the foreign ones with vicious hunger. The boy's remaining human cells began consuming the altered Ōtsutsuki cells violently, tearing them apart like starving predators unleashed in a cage. Devouring them. Absorbing them. Evolving. Like a massive pack of wolves consuming a wounded lion.
The transformed cells didn't resist at all. Without Isshiki's chakra actively sustaining them, they became completely helpless prey—a side effect of forcefully converting them far too quickly. They were torn apart brutally, digested, integrated into something new.
"No... NO—this isn't possible!!" Isshiki's voice cracked with disbelief. His golden eyes widened for the first time in centuries. "How... how could inferior cells be devouring my Ōtsutsuki tissue!?" he roared in shock and rage. "How can weak, primitive cells consume divine ones?!"
While under his direct chakra control, the boy's body had accepted everything obediently like a puppet. But without his chakra guiding the Kāma anymore, the balance shifted dramatically. Elric's body, once trembling and completely helpless, now pulsed with raw, untamed energy.
It's absorbing the Kāma... and turning it into its own strength!?
"NO!!" Isshiki roared desperately. He tried frantically to pour chakra back in—force it down, overwrite everything, crush the rebellion—but it was far too late. What he found instead was Elric's chakra. Vast. Roaring. Overwhelming. Far, far greater than his own reserves. Impossibly vast for any human. More chakra than anyone on this entire planet should have ever possessed naturally. More than Isshiki himself currently had.
He reached out again desperately—but his hands trembled visibly. He felt it clearly now. Power surging completely out of control. Not from himself. From Elric. From the boy he'd tried to steal.
"Too late..." he whispered in horror.
He stared at the boy's face. The eyes were still wide with fear—but something else now flickered dangerously behind them.