Despair like thick ink completely submerged Genki's consciousness.
He squeezed his eyes tightly shut, every muscle rigid from overwhelming fear. He waited for the pain as the wooden spikes pierced his flesh, waited for the end of his life.
However, the sensation of death he imagined never came. Instead, his ears caught a dull, bone-chilling sound—
*SQUELCH!*
It was the sharp sound of wooden spikes violently tearing through flesh, heard so clearly as if it occurred right next to his ear.
The next second, warm red droplets spurted into the air, exploding like shattered plum blossoms in the darkness of night. A drop of hot liquid landed on his cheek first, carrying a sticky texture and strong scent of blood, then slowly slid down following the line of his skin.
Immediately after, two drops, three drops, four drops... warm blood fell in succession, hitting his forehead, eyelids, and the tip of his nose, burning his cold, numb skin.
The pain that never came made Genki's body stiffen, and his previously taut nerves began to crack.
Something was wrong... this blood's temperature, this familiar scent of blood—this wasn't his!
"W-what happened?" His voice trembled violently, like dry leaves caught in a storm, carrying a shaking tone he didn't even notice himself.
He mustered all his strength to slowly open his heavy eyelids. His blurred vision began to focus amidst the blood-red color, and the scene presented before his eyes instantly emptied his mind; all his breath seemed choked in his throat.
Two sharp wooden spikes were less than two centimeters from his head. At the tips of the wood still clung fragments of fresh flesh, and the cold killing intent nearly licked his skin.
However, that extremely short distance of two centimeters had become an insurmountable chasm. At the other end of those wooden spikes, two figures he knew so well had been pierced through.
Hazuki slightly bent her body, using her broad back to block the attack in front of Genki. The deadly wooden spike penetrated her chest; fresh red blood continuously flowed along the wood grain, soaking her clothes and forming a heart-wrenching pool of blood on the ground.
Her body leaned weakly against Genki. Her palms that were once warm were now cold and powerless, hanging limply at her sides.
Beside Hazuki, Izumi's small body clung tightly to her. The other wooden spike had pierced through Izumi's chest, her blood staining her brightly colored sleeve. Her head drooped weakly, still bearing traces of undried tears on her cheeks. Those eyes that always carried a gentle smile were now tightly closed, and would never open again.
"No... no... this can't be..."
A trembling voice full of disbelief escaped from Genki's throat, soft as a mosquito's buzz yet carrying heart-wrenching panic.
His entire body began shaking violently beyond control, his teeth chattering, and tears poured out like a flood, mixing with the blood on his face to form horrifying red streaks.
He slowly looked up. Beyond the two figures blocking him, he saw Itachi's face in the distance frozen in shock—Itachi, who had just finished off the Zetsu blocking his path, was running this way. His Mangekyō Sharingan were full of disbelief, yet his footsteps suddenly stopped because of this scene.
Those two figures, one adult and one small, stood like two solid mountains protecting him. With their own lives, they had blocked that deadly attack for him. The wooden spikes pierced through their bodies, but couldn't advance even one step further.
"NO... NO... NOOOOO—!!!"
A heart-wrenching cry finally burst from his throat, like the roar of a wounded beast, echoing wildly through the silent alley.
Despair and pain swept through like a tsunami, instantly engulfing and swallowing Genki completely, making every breath he took feel as painful as knife cuts.
"Mother! Sister!"
He reached out, wanting to touch those two slowly cooling figures. However, the moment his fingers touched their clothes, he immediately pulled back as if burned by fire. That bone-piercing coldness told him the cruel reality—they were gone. To protect him, they died right before his eyes.
"NO!! This isn't real! NO!!"
He shook his head madly, falling to his knees on the ground, both hands gripping his hair so tightly his knuckles turned white, almost tearing his own scalp.
But he had succeeded! He had reached an agreement with Itachi! Just a little more, and Mother and Izumi could have lived!
Why? Why did it turn out like this?
"I didn't accomplish anything..." His voice was low and full of despair, carrying boundless self-hatred, "I swore to protect them... I promised... but I didn't accomplish anything..."
At that precise moment, a burning pain suddenly exploded from his eye sockets! Instantly, fresh blood gushed from his eyes; it wasn't tears—it was pure blood!
*WUUUNG!*
An extremely vast and limitless domain erupted with Genki as its center, sweeping across the entire clan territory like a tidal wave!
Wherever the domain passed, the air instantly froze. The previously howling cold wind suddenly stopped, leaving only suffocating, despairing pressure, as if heaven and earth themselves trembled beneath this power.
The pain from despair had completely swallowed Genki's will. His consciousness floated on the edge of destruction, yet his body uncontrollably erupted with terrifying power.
Under the shower of fresh red blood, in his eyes filled with blood vessels, a pair of new Mangekyō Sharingan had bloomed with strange and horrifying light!
This was not the form of ordinary Mangekyō Sharingan—three black patterns resembling Death God's scythes slowly rotated within his pupils. Their edges were sharp as blades, carrying a deathly aura that harvested lives. Four pitch-black tomoe were each embedded at the connection points of the three scythes and at the center of the pupil, radiating a dark gleam that devoured everything.
"Magatsumi—"
"Okuninushi—"
Two ancient and mysterious names, like whispers from the depths of hell, echoed violently in the nearly shattered depths of Genki's consciousness.
That voice carried a soul-penetrating coldness, each word carved with divine majesty—one was the God of Hell who controlled Yomi's purifying flames, and the other was the God of Souls who ruled the dwelling place of spirits!
Magatsumi, capable of invoking the power of the underworld, spreading the Yomi Domain that covered heaven and earth. Every soul that stepped into that domain, regardless of strength or weakness, would be forcibly pulled from their body by invisible gravitational force, dragged into the domain's core, and transformed into a completely controlled puppet.
Okuninushi, capable of fusing all the devoured souls into the user's own body. Not only plundering lifelong memories, pure soul power, and massive chakra, but also directly inheriting the essence of eye power from their Kekkei Genkai, truly achieving the stage of "Devouring everything, and making it one's own"!