The artificial sun, hanging high in the center of the Moon's interior vault, radiated a constant heat. Yet, its core was not molten rock, but a singular space constructed from pure, refined energy.
Deep within the magnificent castle floating in the void, rows of servant puppets lined the corridors. Inside a grand hall, the withered Otsutsuki Sakuto was guiding the young Toneri, teaching him to perceive the stellar power of the Giant Tenseigan and how to wield its might.
Suddenly, on the star map suspended in the center of the hall, the node representing the "Crab Puppet" at the passage entrance flickered out, turning a deathly, silent grey.
Sakuto, his face wrapped in runic bandages, turned toward the map. A cold, silent fury permeated the room.
"Filthy rats... they dare profane the sacred grounds of Ancestor Hamura!" His raspy voice sounded like dry leaves rubbing together.
Vroom—!
A piercing alarm instantly tore through the silence of the castle. Beneath the fortress, dozens of hidden hatches slid open simultaneously. Over a hundred combat puppets leaped out in perfect unison.
Clad in ancient-style brown robes, their faces were tightly wrapped in layers of bandages. A cloth band tied around their foreheads bore the crest of the Otsutsuki Branch House. These puppets moved with the lethal precision of wound-up killing machines, landing firmly on the backs of giant puppet eagles already hovering in wait.
The eagles, their heads covered in dark red masks, snapped their massive wings open, creating a silent surge of air.
Screech—!
The swarm of a hundred eagles and their puppet riders dived downward like a black rain of arrows, hurtling toward the barrier exit of the artificial sun.
Meanwhile, in the vast sky beneath the artificial sun, Menma's silhouette drifted in the void. His black robes fluttered in the microgravity; the levitation granted by the Tennyo (Celestial Maiden) of the Nine Masked Beasts allowed him to fly freely without external aid.
Behind him, two massive summoned beasts radiated an overwhelming pressure. To his left, the Vermilion Bird elegantly unfurled its wings, carrying Uchiha Hikari and Uzumaki Karin. Hikari's deep blue clan robes billowed in the wind, while Karin's red hair burned like fire.
To the right, the Azure Dragon coiled and spiraled, with Uchiha Shisui, Hyuga Hizashi, and Kaguya Kimimaro standing steady upon its spine. Shisui's expression was grim; Hizashi's Byakugan scanned the vault with sharp vigilance, while Kimimaro's eyes studied the sun in the sky.
The team was advancing toward that central "sun."
"Above! Enemy attack!"
Hizashi's Byakugan was the first to catch the movement. His warning cry sounded muffled and heavy in the vacuum-like environment. Before his voice faded, pale yellow points of light approached like a meteor shower.
The puppet eagle riders raised their arms in unison. Their palms instantly erupted with blinding brilliance.
Shu! Shu! Shu! Shu!
Dense spheres of chakra tore through the sky, weaving into a lethal net of light that poured down upon the team.
"Disperse! Counter-attack!" Menma's voice remained steady, yet it rang clearly in everyone's ears.
The Azure Dragon let out a roar as lightning erupted around its body. It transformed into a jagged bolt of teal electricity, narrowly evading several thick energy beams. Lightning clashed with the passing spheres, exploding into silent sparks of electricity.
The Vermilion Bird snapped its crimson wings. A violent heatwave formed a shield, detonating several incoming spheres prematurely into magnificent yet dangerous displays of energy fireworks.
Atop the bird's back, Uchiha Hikari's eyes were as sharp as blades. Her hands blurred into a series of seals.
"Fire Style: Phoenix Sage Flower Nail Crimson!"
From her cherry-red lips, dozens of blazing orange fireballs erupted like violent blooms of death, howling toward the diving puppets. At the moment of the fire's release, she flicked her wrists; over a dozen tempered steel shuriken were launched, perfectly hidden behind the churning waves of flame.
Puchi! Boom!
Fire and steel played a symphony of death. Several lead eagles were pierced by the flame-wrapped shuriken and instantly consumed by the blaze, exploding into fragments. The puppet riders and their mounts were reduced to scrap metal in mid-air.
"Macabre Bone Pulse: Ten-Finger Drilling Bullets!"
Kaguya Kimimaro leveled his arms. The skin on his fingertips burst, and ten pale finger bones glinting with a cold sheen fired like bolts from a heavy crossbow, whistling as they left his hands.
The bullets moved faster than the eye could track, trailing ten nearly straight white lines through the air.
Putter-putter-putter!
It was a masterclass in precision sniping. The sounds of impact popped like dry beans. Whether it was the toughened skeletal frame or the synthetic "flesh" of the puppet eagles, anything hit by the bone bullets was pierced and torn as easily as rotting wood.
Under Kimimaro's cold, precise fire, over a dozen eagles and their riders disintegrated into a rain of debris.
Menma watched Kimimaro's performance with satisfaction. The Byakugan paired with the Macabre Bone Pulse allowed for high-precision sniping at mid-to-long ranges.
"Adamantine Attacking Chains!"
Karin's voice carried the unique chakra resonance of the Uzumaki clan. She thrust her right hand forward. Several chakra chains, as thick as a man's arm and inscribed with golden sealing runes, manifested behind her.
Instead of targeting individuals, she swung the chains like massive whips, slamming them into the densest flank of the puppet swarm.
Boom! Crackle—!
The massive force, coupled with the properties of the sealing jutsu, crushed the eagles' frames like tinder. The riders were pulverized by the raw weight of the strike. In a single blow, more than ten units were reduced to dust.
The team ascended rapidly through the fierce resistance, soon nearing the outer wall of the artificial sun, which pulsed with gargantuan energy. However, the puppet army showed no fear. They shifted formation like a well-trained swarm of hornets, charging once more with suicidal resolve.
A barrage of chakra spheres poured down like a monsoon, completely enveloping the Azure Dragon and the Vermilion Bird.
"Lord Shura! How do we break through?!" Shisui shouted. He had attempted to attack the sun with Fire Style, only to find the defensive power staggering.
Floating in the void, Menma did not answer. He simply raised his right hand.
Above his palm, the air suddenly twisted and collapsed. A terrifying, destructive energy began to gather and compress at an insane rate. In the blink of an eye, a pitch-black energy sphere no larger than an apple—dark as the abyss—took form.
It hovered silently in his palm, surrounded by high-speed, rotating Wind Style chakra that sliced through the surrounding space, creating minute ripples in reality. The ultimate compression brought an ultimate silence, as if even the light around it was being swallowed.
"Great Helical Ring (Dai Rasenringu)," Menma said, his voice flat and devoid of emotion.
With no earth-shattering preamble, he simply flicked his wrist. The black sphere drifted soundlessly toward the indestructible solar barrier.
The moment of contact—
BOOM!!!!!!
A light of destruction beyond description erupted on the surface of the artificial sun. It began as an infinitesimal white point before expanding into a pure white void that consumed everything.
The brilliance was so intense it stripped everyone of their vision. Following it was a roar loud enough to rupture eardrums, as if the very space within the Moon was wailing in agony.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
A destructive shockwave radiated outward in a perfect sphere. Wherever it passed, space vibrated violently, groaning under the strain. The pursuing puppet eagles were caught like scraps of paper in a shredder; the moment the shockwave hit, they and their riders were disintegrated and vaporized without a sound.
Even behind the protection of the Dragon and the Bird, Shisui, Hizashi, and Kimimaro felt their souls tremble at this world-ending power. Karin instinctively gripped the Vermilion Bird's feathers, and even Hikari's Sharingan squinted against the glare.
As the blinding light faded, a post-apocalyptic scene lay before them. A massive hole, over a hundred meters in diameter, had been torn into the indestructible pale-yellow barrier of the artificial sun.
Soft golden light spilled from the opening. More terrifyingly, the turbulent air from the blast faintly outlined the rising silhouette of a mushroom cloud made of dust and escaping energy.
For the first time, a look of unmasked shock appeared on Hikari's cold face. The light of destruction was reflected in her Mangekyo Sharingan. The last time she had fought Menma, he hadn't used this.
Damn it, this guy... he wasn't even trying when he fought me! She looked toward Menma with a hint of resentment.
"Go!"
Menma's icy voice broke the silence. He transformed into a black streak, shooting into the jagged wound first. The Vermilion Bird and the Azure Dragon dove into the violently torn passage immediately after.
Passing through the brief golden corridor, the scene on the other side brought an even deeper shock.
The interior of the artificial sun was not the sea of lava they had expected. Instead, they found themselves in a vast, limitless void. The space was a deep, dark blue, filled with countless tiny, glowing dust particles that suspended like stars.
In the center of this void stood the most striking sight: a massive, shattered moon.
Floating diagonally above the crescent moon, further away from the group, sat a towering, exotic castle. It was constructed entirely of massive, cleanly cut grey-white stone. Its lines were cold and sharp, its high spires piercing the void. The style was unlike anything in the Shinobi world, carrying an ancient, detached European aesthetic.
Countless meteorite fragments of various sizes circled the shattered moon and the lonely castle like loyal sentinels, forming a massive, slowly rotating asteroid belt.
"That is..." Karin murmured, the cold, lonely castle reflected in her pupils.
"The castle of the Moon's Otsutsuki clan," Menma's voice came, cold and certain.
The team adjusted their course. The Dragon and the Bird accelerated, launching a charge toward the fortress. However, as they entered the asteroid belt, a sudden change occurred.
Hum! Hum! Hum!
Dozens of blinding searchlight beams ignited from the dark sides of seemingly dead meteorites, locking onto the intruders. Immediately after, the surfaces of the asteroids cracked open, and monstrous four-barrel anti-air turrets rose and calibrated.
Combat puppets manned these batteries. The black muzzles instantly gathered a terrifying, blinding chakra light.
Shish! Shish! Shish!
A net of fire ten times more violent than the eagle riders' erupted. Dense, powerful chakra spheres rained down like a metallic storm from all directions—above, below, left, and right. There was no room to dodge.
"Break through!" Menma barked, dark red chakra surging around him.
But a crimson shadow was faster than him. Standing atop the Vermilion Bird, Uchiha Hikari's deep blue robes danced wildly in the turbulence. Her three-tomoe Sharingan instantly shifted into the eerie patterns of the Mangekyo!
"Hmph! Obstacles!" she spat, her voice cold and laced with killing intent.
Without hesitation, she stepped out, leaping off the back of the Vermilion Bird.
"Hikari!" Karin's cry was drowned out by a silent explosion.
The moment Hikari detached from the summon, a torrent of crimson chakra capable of making space itself tremble erupted from her petite frame. The violent chakra soared upward, instantly manifesting into the massive, skeletal silhouette of a red giant.
But that was only the beginning.
The skeleton was rapidly encased in flowing red chakra, filling out and taking shape. In an instant, a Perfect Susanoo, dozens of meters tall, stood proud in the void. A pair of titanic wings made of pure chakra snapped open behind its back, looking like a flame demon from myth descending to deliver destruction.
In the giant's hand, a massive katana forged from dark red chakra shimmered with a light that looked ready to cleave the stars.
"Susanoo!"
The giant's gargantuan body moved with a terrifying speed that defied its size. It became a red lightning bolt, tearing through the void and hurtling toward the incoming web of light beams and the asteroid belt.
The crimson giant unfurled its wings, physically tearing a hole through the dense rain of energy bullets. Facing the turret positions on the meteorites ahead, the giant raised its celestial blade high. With an aura of supreme power destined to sever karma and annihilate all things, it swung.
"Break... for me!"
Hikari's voice sounded like a final judgment, echoing through the void via the Susanoo. The massive chakra blade fell. There was no fancy technique—only absolute, unadulterated violence.
Rumble—!!!
The massive dark-red blade light acted like a world-splitting axe, slamming into the light net and the meteorites. Wherever the blade passed, tracking beams were severed like fragile threads. The hardened meteorites were sliced and pulverized as easily as tofu.
Boom-boom-boom-boom!
A series of deafening explosions rippled through the asteroid belt. The meteorites and their anti-air turrets were reduced to nothingness by the violent blade qi and chakra storm.
The crimson Susanoo became an indestructible spearhead, forcibly carving a path of blood and fire for the team. With every swing of the giant blade, meteorites wailed and puppet turrets were utterly annihilated.
The team followed closely behind the red giant, hurtling through the flashes of explosions and the flow of metal fragments, drawing ever closer to the pale castle that radiated a chilling, ancient aura.
Uchiha Shisui watched the Susanoo with a complex gaze. He could feel that Hikari's strength had refined even further, while he...
Standing on the Azure Dragon's back, Hyuga Hizashi kept his Byakugan active, staring intensely at the approaching castle. Beneath the bulging veins at his temples, his pure white eyes held not just intense vigilance, but a surging, complicated emotion that was difficult to name.
His Byakugan saw through the puppets, and he realized with horror that these humanoid machines... seemed to have once been living people.
Was this the aftermath of the war between the Moon's Main and Branch houses?