What Yakumo was seeing was not the Ten-Tails.
It was not even a true projection.
The shape looming beneath the blood-red moon was something Sasuke had cultivated deliberately, modeled after the Karura clan's infamous inner demon. A construct born to force the awakening of the Mangekyō, shaped through long restraint and longer preparation.
He had not stumbled into it.
He had built it.
Through meditation, Sasuke trained himself to clear his mind until it became still water. But once that state was reached, he would reverse course, prying open the sealed layers beneath. Desire. Impulse. Hunger. Rage. Everything normally buried was drawn out, magnified, sharpened.
He even guided the process himself.
Those impulses were then gathered, refined through illusion, and compressed. Year after year, the pressure accumulated.
And finally, something answered.
A shadow pulled from the depths of the Uchiha bloodline.
"Do you understand what you're asking?" Yakumo said, her voice tight with urgency. "If you do this, those emotions won't remain abstract. They'll become a second self. A true dark personality. It could overwhelm you. Take you over."
She knew better than most what her bloodline could do.
Illusion was only the surface. Her true power lay in the crossing point between falsehood and reality. What she imagined could become real. What she feared could gain form.
She had once lost control herself.
That shadow had nearly destroyed her.
"Let's seal it," she said quickly. "That was the plan before. You asked me to help you suppress it."
She hesitated, then added quietly, "Suppressing darkness isn't the same as erasing it. Everyone has shadows. If you crush them outright, they come back sharper."
Sasuke listened without interrupting.
Then he shook his head. "It will be sealed. Just not yet."
Yakumo looked at him, stunned by his calm.
"I know the risks," Sasuke continued. "And I know what it could become. But it won't consume me. I won't allow that."
He met her gaze. "Its power will be mine."
What he sought was not to create a true beast, nor to summon something beyond himself. The shadow was still rooted in him. An echo. A reflection.
Only Yakumo's ability could give it substance.
Only then could it be bound properly.
"This isn't about losing control," he said. "It's about defining it."
She swallowed. "Sasuke…"
"Trust me, Yakumo."
For the first time, his tone carried weight. Resolve, stripped bare.
"I still carry the Uchiha name," he said. "I still bear what was taken from us. Until that debt is settled, I won't fall. Not to enemies. Not to myself."
Silence followed.
Yakumo looked once more at the writhing shadow beneath the crimson moon. Then at Sasuke, standing straight despite the pressure radiating from his own mind.
"…All right," she said at last.
"I'll begin."
Her hands moved quickly.
"Genjutsu: True Manifestation."
The inner world convulsed.
The sky tore open. The blood moon fractured, scattering like broken glass. The land collapsed inward as violent currents surged from every direction.
The shadow absorbed it all.
Rage. Craving. Cruelty. Instinct. Every twisted impulse was drawn in, layered upon itself, compacted until the shape became solid.
The Ten-Tails' outline sharpened.
A massive form rose, vast enough to swallow the horizon.
Yakumo gasped.
The pressure was overwhelming. Emotions slammed into her consciousness in waves. Pain. Hatred. Hunger. Fear. And beneath it all, a single, dominant impulse.
Consume.
Even her chakra was being drawn toward it.
Sasuke stepped forward without hesitation, placing himself between Yakumo and the beast. The oppressive force broke around him, diverted by his presence alone.
The monster opened a single eye.
A crimson Sharingan stared back at him.
Sasuke did not flinch.
Man and monster locked gazes, neither yielding.
Then the beast began to shake.
Cracks spread across its body. Chunks of flesh, half-organic, half-wooden, sloughed away. Its colossal form shrank, collapsing inward as if something within could no longer hold the shape together.
Bit by bit, it fell apart.
When the last fragments dissolved, something else was revealed at its core.