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"Twenty years after Ninshū's dissolution, the shinobi clans stand divided, and warlords rise across the land."
"Every major clan fights for territory and resources. The strongest among them remain the Senju and the Uchiha."
"But they're far from alone."
"Hyūga, Uzumaki, Sarutobi, Ōtsutsuki branch, Nara, Akimichi, Yamanaka, Aburame, Shimura, Inuzuka, Kaguya, Yotsuki, Fūma, Kurama, Hōzuki, Hatake..."
"Among them, both the Senju and Uchiha have produced prodigies."
"Uchiha Senichi. Senju Shūichi."
"Two young men of extraordinary talent and terrifying potential."
Mount Myōboku. Historical Records Hall.
Black Zetsu and Fukasaku hunched over their desks, documenting the latest developments.
Not a blockbuster year in terms of singular events, but the small fires were multiplying fast. Clan rivalries that had simmered politely during the Ninshū era were now boiling over into open conflict. Some clans hadn't wanted war. Didn't matter. Circumstance pushed them there anyway. When the current carries you toward the waterfall, your opinion about waterfalls becomes irrelevant.
Worse, shinobi clans had begun partnering with samurai forces and civilian armies. Joint military campaigns. Combined operations. The scale of violence was escalating at a pace that would've been unthinkable under Ninshū's umbrella. Back then, the order's sheer presence had kept a lid on things. Minor skirmishes, sure. But full-scale warfare? Nobody dared, knowing the response it would invite.
That lid was gone now. The pot was boiling over.
Black Zetsu stared at the pages of military records spread before him. Campaign after campaign. Raid after raid. The ink was barely dry on one conflict before the next one started.
He let out a slow, heavy breath. "This is what real chaos looks like."
Fukasaku lifted his clouded toad eyes from his own stack of scrolls.
"Human suffering. Innocent lives destroyed. You and I are recorders, nothing more. We watch. We write. We don't interfere. No matter how ugly it gets."
A trace of genuine sorrow flickered through those ancient eyes.
Both sages sighed. Then, as if by mutual agreement, they set aside the weight of the world and drifted into lighter conversation.
"So. Senju Shūichi and Uchiha Senichi. Think they're the first reincarnations?"
Black Zetsu's tone carried the confidence of someone who'd already made up his mind.
Fukasaku's brush paused mid-stroke. He nodded slowly. "Almost certainly. The temperaments. The talent levels. The way they're drawn toward each other like magnets with opposite poles. It's too precise to be coincidence."
"Granted, a reincarnation won't match the original's full power. It's never a perfect copy. But the pattern is unmistakable."
"Heheh..."
Black Zetsu chuckled, something sly and entertained dancing behind his dark eyes. "Give it a few more years, and we'll get to witness the first round's results firsthand."
"Indeed."
Fukasaku nodded, then added with a longer, heavier sigh: "I just hope their fight doesn't drag too many bystanders into the flames. This world's already burning. It doesn't need more fuel."
"Doesn't matter. The Grand Sage will step in if things go too far."
Black Zetsu said it the way you'd mention that the sun would rise tomorrow. Simple fact.
..............
Mount Myōboku, Grand Sage Hall.
Sage energy saturated the air so thickly it was almost visible.
Manji sat on the ancient stone throne at the hall's center, eyes closed, the Rinnegan turning slowly behind his lids. Pale gold Sage chakra coiled around his body in lazy spirals as he continued the work he'd been doing for centuries—compressing, harmonizing, fusing the disparate Sage traditions into a single cohesive system.
"The first reincarnation cycle has already begun. It won't be long before the first winner is decided."
His eyes opened. His gaze cut through the ambient mist and landed on the stone tablet standing against the far wall—the one carved with Indra and Asura's totems.
He rubbed his temples lightly. His thoughts were calm water.
He had no intention of meddling in this contest beyond the bare minimum. This was Indra and Asura's game, played across lifetimes. The moment Manji put his thumb on the scale for either side, the competition became meaningless. Whoever he backed would win automatically. No drama. No stakes. No point.
And right now, Manji existed in a class by himself. The gap between him and everyone else wasn't a gap. It was a canyon.
His Sage chakra settled back into its resting rhythm.
He would remain what he'd always been: the neutral arbiter of this thousand-year grudge match. The silent guardian ensuring the world's foundations held together while everyone else tried their best to tear them apart.
Then something changed.
A spark of awareness. A subtle shift in the energy flowing through his meridians.
Manji's eyes sharpened. A quiet murmur left his lips.
"Something new."
He raised his palm. A pattern materialized on his skin. A diamond-shaped mark, geometric and precise, glowing with a light that seemed to contain multiple colors folded into one.
This was the product of centuries. The fusion of Mount Myōboku, Shikkotsu Forest, and Ryūchi Cave Sage Arts, compressed and refined into a single transferable power source.
Manji studied the mark, turning his hand slowly. Then he named it.
"Six Paths Power."
If he bestowed this on another person, the recipient would instantly ascend to the absolute peak of combat capability.
Massive Sage chakra reserves, instantly accessible. The ability to perform Sage Arts without any prior training. Seal-free, instant-cast ninjutsu of every element. Flight. Sensory perception spanning entire continents. And techniques that could not be absorbed by any known method.
The same concept as when Hagoromo had given power to Naruto and Sasuke in the original story. Except Manji's version was several times more potent.
If it had been Manji handing out power-ups during the Fourth Great Ninja War instead of Hagoromo, Naruto alone could have sealed Kaguya without breaking a sweat. No team required.
"Even against Kaguya herself, I could handle her solo now."
Manji raised an eyebrow, quietly satisfied. His actual combat power had long since surpassed Six Paths tier fighters. The problem was that the System still had him locked at the Beyond-Kage ceiling.
His 'output' was Six Paths. His 'classification' stubbornly refused to update.
"Though I'll admit, developing techniques that can't be absorbed cost me a solid century of research. Worth it, though."
The Rinnegan's most broken ability had always been chakra absorption. Any technique made of chakra could be swallowed whole. And since virtually everything Manji did was Sage chakra-based, he'd been hard-countered by his own eyes.
That had bothered him for a long time.
But now that he actually possessed the Rinnegan, he understood the absorption mechanism from the inside. Combined with his knowledge of how Karma absorption worked in the Boruto era, he'd cracked the problem.
The logic was elegant in its simplicity.
The Rinnegan absorbed chakra. A Water Dragon made of chakra? Absorbed. An ocean made of chakra? Absorbed.
But what about an ocean made of actual water? No chakra content. Just hydrogen and oxygen molecules.
The Rinnegan couldn't absorb something that contained zero chakra. It was designed to eat energy, not matter.
So Manji had developed a method of channeling his techniques through natural forces rather than pure chakra constructs. Push the ratio far enough toward natural energy and away from chakra, and the Rinnegan's absorption simply... couldn't find anything to grab onto.
A Water Dragon composed of real river water, propelled by Sage energy woven so deeply into the natural current that it became indistinguishable from the water itself.
A lightning bolt pulled from an actual thundercloud, guided rather than generated.
The Rinnegan could devour a chakra-made sea. But it couldn't drink the Pacific Ocean.
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