Hinata: Byakurenden
Tsukuyomi vs Sasuke
Sasuke landed hard, sandals skidding across the water's surface, the ripples beneath him warping and stretching like liquid glass. The lake was impossibly still, an undisturbed mirror reflecting the sky above—the eclipsed sun, the thin, dying corona of light, the skeletal ruins of Akatsukigakure in the distance. Even the battle raging beyond felt distant here, muffled, as if space itself had been bent to carve out a pocket of silence.
His body tensed instinctively, Sharingan and Rinnegan shifting, muscles primed to react, but the paralysis was gone. His feet moved. His fingers flexed. Whatever force had bound him had been released.
Tsukuyomi stood a short distance away, perfectly balanced atop the water as though it were solid ground. His robe barely stirred, the crescent moon of his staff catching the faintest glint of light from the heavens above. His expression was unreadable, his crimson Rinnesharingan half-lidded, disinterested.
Sasuke's mind sharpened instantly, breaking down the variables, the angles, the reasoning. His voice was low, edged in suspicion.
"Why bring me here?"
Tsukuyomi exhaled through his nose, something just shy of a sigh, but not quite carrying the weight of annoyance. His grip on his staff remained light, unconcerned.
"Because my brother wouldn't enjoy fighting you."
Sasuke's Sharingan flickered. "…What?"
That was it? That couldn't be it. It was almost as if this god didn't even know who he was. Yet Sasuke remembered him. He could never forget.
That name—Tsukuyomi.
To him it was more than just the god standing before him—it was a shadow that had lived in the deepest part of his memories, one that had shaped him in ways no blade or jutsu ever could.
He still remembered that time he had been swallowed by that power. On the night his world ended. In the Uchiha Compound. A blood-soaked corridor. The stillness of bodies sprawled lifeless on the wooden floors. The distant flicker of red and black, the slow turn of his brother's figure beneath the glow of the streetlights.
It wasn't just a genjutsu.
It was him.
Sasuke had been too young to understand it then, but now he knew the truth—Itachi's Tsukuyomi had not simply been an illusion cast within his mind. It had been something more real than that. A dimension of suffering, a fractured pocket of time and space where he had been forced to relive the massacre again and again.
Because it hadn't just been Itachi's power.
It had been his power.
This god.
The very entity that now stood before him, its dispassionate eyes bearing down on him as if he were nothing.
How much of that night had truly been Itachi's will, and how much had been this deity's amusement? A sickening chill ran through him.
Had Tsukuyomi watched as he broke? Had he seen the way Sasuke had begged, screamed, clawed at the air as he watched his parents die over and over again? Had he felt the despair as Sasuke had tried to run, only for the world to reset, forcing him to witness the slaughter from another angle?
Did this god even care that his power had been used to destroy a child?
His hands curled into fists. It had taken years for Sasuke to claw his way out of that nightmare. Years of training, of chasing vengeance, of carving a path through blood and ruin just to stand here now—and the very source of that torment didn't even recognize him.
It was indifference, more than cruelty, that sent a fire roaring through Sasuke's veins. This god, this thing, didn't even see him as worth remembering.
Sasuke's gaze sharpened, his breath slow and measured, but beneath that composure, something raw and furious burned.
He would not be a child, trembling in the dark again. He would carve his name into this god's memory. He would remind Tsukuyomi that Uchiha Sasuke was not to be forgotten.
"This is what's best for all of us." Tsukuyomi's answer only seemed to further drive home the point. Sasuke was nothing to him. Just a hindrance to be dealt with.
"Susanoo enjoys battle. You don't." His gaze flickered to the faint ripples still spreading outward from where Sasuke had landed. "I can tell just looking at you. Your fights are surgical. Precise. You analyze, dissect, execute." His tone remained flat, neither praise nor insult, only fact. "My brother would be bored of you within minutes."
The surface of the lake trembled, as if in quiet agreement.
"So there you have it." Tsukuyomi lifted his gaze back to Sasuke, still unreadable. "Susanoo gets to amuse himself with your friend. My sister gets her will upheld." He exhaled slowly, the faintest downturn of his lips betraying something close to resignation. "And I get to deal with you before you become a problem."
Sasuke flexed his metal fingers. It didn't matter what the god thought. Yet he had to know the truth, that this god had truly forgotten him. "So that's it?" he said coldly. "This is all just convenience?"
Tsukuyomi closed his eyes briefly, his fingers tapping once against the crescent of his staff before rolling his shoulders, as if shaking off a weight. "If it were up to me," he admitted, "I wouldn't be dealing with this at all." His eyes half-opened again, faintly glowing. "But my siblings won't leave me in peace unless I do."
He lifted his staff slightly, the motion effortless.
The lake's surface responded. The reflection of the eclipse rippled, stretching unnaturally, the black moon's image bending across the water like an open eye.
"Let's get this over with."
Sasuke set his stance, every nerve sharp, every muscle coiled. His breath came sharp and uneven, but not from fear.
From anger.
His Sharingan traced the faint ripples in the water, the eerie stillness of the lake a stark contrast to the battle raging beyond. Every instinct told him he was outmatched. The reality of it loomed, a force as inevitable as the celestial bodies Tsukuyomi governed.
And yet so what?
He had defied inevitability before. More importantly than that he would make this god remember him.
Sasuke exhaled, slow and deliberate, forcing every ounce of anger, every shred of defiance into the coil of his muscles.
The space between them shattered as he thrust his hand forward, fingers splayed wide, chakra surging as he reached into the depths of the Rinnegan's power. Tendō. The power of Heaven's Path—the ability to repel all things.
The air trembled. The very fabric of space seemed to compress, drawn into a singularity before being violently expelled outward.
"Shinra Tensei!"
A tidal wave of raw force erupted from his palm, an invisible blast that distorted the lake's surface beneath it. The water split apart, crashing backward in massive, spiraling waves as the shockwave thundered forward, ripping through the stillness, aimed directly at Tsukuyomi.
Yet he did not move. Tsukuyomi remained exactly where he stood. The force of the Shinra Tensei should have sent him flying, should have torn apart the very space he occupied, but nothing happened.
Sasuke's eyes flickered with brief, sharp disbelief. Then he saw it. The ripples in the water beneath Tsukuyomi did not scatter outward like the rest of the battlefield. They pulled inward, bending toward him in delicate, rhythmic patterns as if he were the center of gravity itself. Sasuke clenched his jaw. His sage-enhanced senses pulsed outward, stretching beyond his immediate vision. He could feel the chakra flow of the battlefield—the heavy, suffocating pull of Tsukuyomi's existence pressing down like an anchor on the fabric of the world.
The lake wasn't just reacting to him. It was being pulled through him. The water molecules, the very particles in the air, the unseen forces that dictated motion and inertia—they were all bending toward Tsukuyomi as if he were a celestial body, not just a being. The battlefield itself had become an extension of his presence. The reason his Shinra Tensei had failed was not because Tsukuyomi had resisted it. It was because his existence itself was above it.
Tsukuyomi exhaled softly, a flicker of silver hair shifting in the aftermath. The corner of his mouth barely quirked in mild amusement, as if Sasuke had done nothing more than test a fundamental truth of the universe and found himself lacking.
"You cannot repel the moon," his silent gaze seemed to say.
Sasuke's jaw clenched. His mind shifted to a new strategy. He did not waste time lingering on failure. He had expected resistance. If force wouldn't move him, then he would take away his sight.
He inhaled sharply, his lungs expanding with heat, chakra building in his core.
His hands blurred through familiar seals.
"Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu!"
A colossal fireball erupted from his mouth, its blinding glow searing through the dim eclipse-light, bathing the battlefield in a wave of scorching heat. The lake's surface hissed, steam rising in thick plumes as the flames surged forward.
Tsukuyomi remained still.
The fire swallowed him whole. Yet it wouldn't actually harm him, Sasuke already knew that. He just needed a moment to prepare his next jutsu.
Which was why he didn't waste even a second. He moved, body twisting through the dispersing steam, preparing the next step. He brought his hand upward, fingers curling into a precise seal, his chakra surging as he activated the Jigokudō of the Rinnegan.
The lake shuddered.
The water beneath them boiled, frothing like a great wound torn into the earth. And then it emerged.
The King of Hell.
The surface split apart like fragile glass, a towering, monstrous head rising from the depths. Its pale, wrinkled skin stretched grotesquely over a massive, inhuman skull, its horned crown gleaming under the eerie eclipse-light. The air itself grew heavy, suffused with an oppressive weight as the creature's cavernous maw gaped open, revealing an endless abyss lined with jagged, uneven teeth. A suffocating, otherworldly heat poured from its throat, as if the gates of the underworld itself had been unsealed.
Sasuke barely registered the sickening pull of his chakra draining into it, the sheer strain of summoning such a force. He could feel the weight in his bones, in his breath. But it didn't matter. He couldn't fight alone. He wouldn't survive this battle without reinforcements—and if he had to call on one of the dead to do it, so be it.
Senju Tobirama stepped forward onto the water's surface with measured grace, his blue armor gleaming faintly under the reflection of the eclipsed sun. His sharp, calculating gaze swept across the battlefield, taking in every detail—the unnatural stillness of the lake, the reflection of the heavens above, and most importantly, the god standing opposite them. His Rinnegan, a ghostly remnant of the summoning process, pulsed once as he focused on his new adversary.
"Hmph." Tobirama's expression remained impassive, though Sasuke could tell he was already analyzing the situation. "I assume this means the worst has happened."
For the past month, Sasuke and Itachi had sought the counsel of the Second Hokage, pulling his soul from the depths of the afterlife to strategize for the war. Tobirama had listened, analyzed, and advised—his sharp mind dissecting every variable, every weakness in their enemies, every potential path to victory. He was no stranger to the weight of impossible battles, nor the consequences of failure. And now, as his form coalesced outside the maw of the King of Hell, he already knew. The stakes. The enemy. The cost of losing.
Sasuke exhaled sharply. "That's right. We're fighting a god."
Tobirama's brow lifted slightly, but his tone remained dry. "I gathered as much. Though if you're asking for my help, I assume you already realize how dire your odds are."
"I wouldn't have done it otherwise."
Tobirama tilted his head, regarding Tsukuyomi with the detached scrutiny of a scientist observing a rare specimen. "So this is one of them." His voice carried no awe, only cold pragmatism. "Interesting."
Tsukuyomi, who had watched the exchange in silence, sighed as though this entire ordeal was an inconvenience. "Another one? You're multiplying. Unfortunate." His pale gaze flickered toward the spectral figure of the Second Hokage. "I suppose it was only logical that you tried something like this. No warrior, no matter how skilled, wins alone against a god."
Sasuke ignored the provocation. His mind was already at work, recalibrating strategies now that Tobirama was at his side. He needed data. He needed to understand exactly how Tsukuyomi's abilities functioned.
And for that, he needed to test him.
As if thinking the same thing, Tobirama moved first. His hands blurred through a rapid sequence of seals, his execution flawless, precise. "Suiton: Water Severing Wave!"
A razor-thin blade of water shot toward Tsukuyomi with terrifying speed, its edge honed so sharply that even the air itself seemed to tremble in its wake. It was not an attack designed to intimidate. It was meant to kill. There was no hesitation, no wasted motion. Unlike Sasuke, Tobirama did not probe. He struck with the practiced certainty of a man who had never needed second chances in battle.
Yet Tsukuyomi did not move.
Instead, the lake moved for him.
The reflection of Tsukuyomi within the water shifted, bending ever so slightly to the left. The illusion moved before the real one did, subtly guiding reality in its wake. The real Tsukuyomi remained exactly where he had been, standing undisturbed as the blade of water sliced past him, missing by the width of a hair.
At that moment, Sasuke's Rinnegan flared.
"Amenotejikara!"
In an instant, he swapped places with the water blade. The liquid projectile, which had already passed harmlessly through Tsukuyomi's illusion, was suddenly gone, and Sasuke was in its place—directly behind the god.
"Chidori!"
At the same time, with a sharp metallic hiss, his prosthetic arm shifted, gears clicking into place as lightning crackled along his fingertips, his Chidori humming violently in his left hand. He closed the gap between them in a flash, slashing his electrified limb in a precise arc for Tsukuyomi's throat.
The attack never landed.
Sasuke's eyes caught it at the last possible moment—his own reflection moved first.
The mirrored Sasuke within the water struck preemptively, a perfect imitation of his attack slashing upward from below, forcing him to twist mid-air to avoid impaling himself on his own technique. The moment of hesitation cost him. His reflection's Chidori dissipated into harmless sparks as he pivoted, narrowly avoiding self-inflicted disaster—
But the second his feet touched the water's surface, his own shadow rebelled against him, coiling around Sasuke like liquid tendrils. The shadows locked him in place mid-motion, arresting his momentum entirely. A trap.
The Chidori's light flickered wildly against the abyss of blackness crawling up his prosthetic arm. The gravitational pull intensified, threatening to consume him entirely, the shadows dragging his body down as if attempting to swallow him into an abyss.
But Sasuke wasn't done yet. He exhaled sharply, his Sharingan glinting as he adjusted his stance. He was still trapped, but Tsukuyomi had made one mistake.
He had tried to restrain him using chakra.
Sasuke's free hand snapped forward, fingers curling into a seal. A deep hum resonated through his body as his Rinnegan shifted, the power of Gakidō—the Preta Path—activating in full. A vortex of chakra absorption surged outward, tearing into the shadows gripping his limbs.
The oppressive weight lightened instantly. The black tendrils dissolved into fading embers, their energy stripped away and devoured by his Rinnegan.
The moment his body was free, Sasuke launched himself backward, flipping mid-air and landing atop the surface of the lake next to Tobirama, his sandals kicking up small ripples. His prosthetic arm hissed as its internal systems recalibrated, the last traces of absorbed chakra dissipating into his body.
Sasuke exhaled slowly, his Rinnegan burning. He had already known brute force wouldn't work against Tsukuyomi. But he could still outthink him.
Tobirama's expression barely changed, but Sasuke knew that behind those calculating eyes, a hundred conclusions were already forming.
"He doesn't dodge," Tobirama muttered. "His illusions act before he does."
"It's worse than that," Sasuke said, his breath controlled but tense. "He's not just predicting our attacks—he's controlling the conditions around him before they can land." This was exactly like how Itachi had used the ability Tsukuyomi granted him back when he had his original Mangekyō Sharingan.
Tobirama nodded slightly. His gaze flicked toward the still water, where the reflections remained perfectly undisturbed. "This battlefield is his domain," he murmured. "He doesn't react to our movements—he changes reality around him to deflect them."
Tsukuyomi exhaled, seemingly disappointed. "It's tedious when intelligent opponents figure it out so quickly. But I suppose it was inevitable."
Sasuke's mind worked furiously, considering the next step. If they couldn't overwhelm him through conventional means, then they needed something unexpected.
If that was the case, there was only one thing he could rely on. Although it pained him to admit it. He had never wanted to use this ability. Yet in the face of a god, what choice was there?
At that moment, Sasuke made a decision.
"Tobirama," he said sharply, his voice reflecting the weight of that choice. "I need time."
The Second Hokage didn't ask for details. He merely exhaled, his expression hardening as his hands flew through a rapid series of seals. "Then I suggest you work fast."
In an instant, the surface of the lake erupted.
"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"
Twenty identical figures flickered into existence, their blue armor gleaming beneath the reflection of the eclipse. They moved in perfect synchronization, their feet gliding across the water without so much as a ripple. It was an overwhelming display of coordination—twenty pairs of Rinnegan-enhanced eyes, twenty identical minds connected through shared vision, each clone an extension of the original.
Water gathered at their fingertips, sharpening into jagged lances, spiraling drills, and razor-thin discs of compressed chakra. Each attack wove seamlessly into the next, a relentless and suffocating assault from all angles.
Tsukuyomi's Rinnesharingan swept across them, his expression unmoved. "Do you really think this will make a difference?" His tone was not mocking, merely resigned. As if this was nothing more than a minor inconvenience. He didn't even bother to move.
The lake continued to move for him.
One of Tobirama's clones pivoted sharply, sending a spiraling column of water lashing toward Tsukuyomi's back—only for the lake to rise against it.
A perfect mirror image of the attack surged up, matching the spiral blow for blow, twisting it back with twice the force. The clone barely had time to react before the attack that had been his became his undoing.
It was mimicry beyond the Sharingan, beyond conscious thought. Tsukuyomi didn't copy techniques. Reality did.
Another clone closed in from above, his kunai gleaming as he descended for a killing strike—only for the shadows beneath Tsukuyomi to shift, snaking upward like a living tendril before snatching him mid-air. The clone convulsed. His body crumpled inward, crushed by the sheer weight of his own shadow before bursting into nothingness.
The real Tobirama narrowed his eyes. That hadn't been normal shadow possession. He had fought Nara clansmen before and what he just saw was something else.
The remaining clones adjusted instantly, splitting into two formations. Half of them darted across the surface of the lake, weaving through the battlefield in unpredictable, erratic patterns, while the others launched a barrage of jutsu—water lances, slicing currents, whips of liquid pressure that could cut through stone.
It made no difference.
The lake absorbed, reshaped, and returned their own attacks, twisted into deadlier forms.
A clone barely managed to pivot before his own reflection rose from the water, a perfect double driving a blade of water through his chest.
Another clone was dragged down without warning—no struggle, no sign of an opponent—just the water pulling him under, as if the battlefield itself had chosen to erase him.
One of Tobirama's clones got too close. For a single moment, everything stopped. Then he imploded. No impact. No external force. His body simply collapsed inward, bones shattering, limbs folding as if compressed by something unseen, something inevitable. The gravity around Tsukuyomi felt wrong, heavier, like space itself bent in his presence.
Tsukuyomi did not need to move. He did not need to react. His very existence distorted the battlefield around him, the world bending to his will before he so much as lifted a hand.
One by one, the clones fell—not by direct attack, but by their own shadows being turned against them, by their own reflections countering their jutsu with perfect replications, by the weight of Tsukuyomi's presence crushing them out of existence.
The last remaining clone unleashed a desperate, final attack—a spiraling torrent of water, its sheer force enough to carve through a mountainside.
The water stopped mid-air.
For a split second, it was as though time had frozen. The entire lake, the air itself, paused—the spiraling torrent suspended in place, hanging motionless before it was pulled backward.
The last clone barely had time to react before his own jutsu folded inward, collapsing on him like a tidal wave, drowning him in his own power.
The lake stilled. The battlefield returned to silence.
Tobirama remained standing, his expression unreadable, his gaze sharp and calculating even as his last clone dispersed into mist.
Tsukuyomi exhaled slowly, his silver hair drifting weightlessly around him. "I already tried to explain that this is pointless." He tilted his head slightly. "No matter how many times you split yourself, the outcome remains unchanged."
Tobirama scoffed, brushing the moisture from his bracers with slow, deliberate movements. "Pointless?" His Rinnegan flickered with sharp certainty. "If that were true, then I wouldn't still be standing here."
Tsukuyomi's expression remained impassive, but his Rinnesharingan shifted ever so slightly, as though studying him anew.
"For every clone you erased," Tobirama continued, his voice cool, unwavering, "the information was returned to me." He tapped his temple lightly. "Everything they saw, everything they learned—it's all here now." He exhaled, rolling his shoulders slightly. "And knowledge, as I'm sure you understand, is power."
Tsukuyomi regarded him for a moment, his unreadable gaze betraying the barest flicker of interest. "A clever justification," he mused, "if you actually think such pitiful information will allow you to close the gap between gods and mortals."
Tobirama did not respond immediately. His sharp eyes flicked toward Sasuke. His lips curled into a razor-thin smirk. "That depends on what you mean by 'mortals.'" His smirk widened just slightly. "After all," he murmured, "I wasn't just buying time for myself." He had done what was necessary. Bought time. Gathered information.
Now it was Sasuke's turn.
While Tobirama had been engaging Tsukuyomi, Sasuke had poured his chakra into the Asura Path. The mechanism within his metal arm whirred softly, the internal workings shifting and clicking into place. Plates unfolded, chakra coursing through circuits, metal reforming and reshaping—until beside him stood something unnatural.
A second him.
Its frame gleamed with the cold sheen of chakra-forged steel, its limbs reinforced with the same mechanisms Sasuke had built into his own arm. But where the rest of his own body was flesh, this one was hollow and empty.
It stood there, eerily still. No breath. No heartbeat. No flicker of self-awareness in its blank, darkened eyes.
Tobirama's gaze flickered toward it, sharp and assessing. He was not a man easily unnerved, but something about the lifeless double made his fingers twitch. "What," he murmured, tone carefully neutral, "are you planning to do with that?"
Sasuke did not answer.
His eyes turned toward his own reflection on the lake's surface, the distorted image rippling in the aftermath of their battle. The reflection wasn't just his own, however. Hanging off of him was that ghastly aura, a constant reminder that he was Indra's reincarnation. He had never liked the idea of that. Never liked what it implied. His life had always been dictated by lineage. By blood. By a cycle of war and vengeance, passed down from names he had never met, from a history written long before he was born.
He had refused to let it define him.
And yet Indra was always there. A presence lingering just behind his thoughts, his chakra woven into Sasuke's like a ghostly chain. No matter how far Sasuke had walked his own path, he could never fully escape him.
He had never relied on it. Never wanted to. But just this once he would make use of it. He exhaled slowly, pressing two fingers to his temple.
"Ningendō!"
The Rinnegan's Human Path activated.
Chakra surged violently, the gravity of the battlefield shifting around him. His metal arm shifted again with an audible click, a secondary compartment unfolding from its reinforced frame. Tendrils of luminous chakra lashed outward, wrapping around and grasping something unseen.
The lake rippled violently, its eerie stillness shattered as a shape flickered into existence.
Indra. Not just his chakra, but the traces of his will that had always clung to Sasuke's soul.
It burned with an ancient, unrestrained fury. A swirling maelstrom of raw power, flickering between reality and memory, between history and the present. For a split second, his form was indistinct—a blur of fractured energy of a long-dead warrior pulled back into the world.
Sasuke gritted his teeth. Not enough. It wasn't stable. He turned and forced it into the clone he had prepared. There was a surge of chakra. A crackling, unstable hum as the soulless body jolted.
For a breath, the whole world seemed to tremble, the past and present colliding in violent discord. The air thickened, a pulse of unseen energy rippling outward as the construct stood motionless, a hollow shell waiting to be filled.
Then came a single, shuddering twitch. Its fingers spasmed, metal joints creaking unnaturally, as if the body were resisting the presence forcing itself inside. Another jerk followed—a violent lurch of its shoulders, its frame stiff and alien, like a marionette straining against invisible strings. The seams of its plated limbs flexed, metal grinding as chakra pulsed erratically through the artificial veins.
Then it exhaled. Not the cold, mechanical hiss of steel expanding, but a breath. Slow. Measured. Real. The transition was seamless. One moment, the body was an empty husk, the next, it became Indra.
His movements lost the stuttering, lifeless quality. His spine straightened. His hands flexed, deliberate and fluid, no longer testing the limits of his vessel but commanding it. The cold sheen of the artificial body no longer felt unnatural—it radiated power, his mere existence filling the battlefield with an aura of overwhelming certainty, as though the world itself had simply adjusted to accommodate him.
The ancient Mangekyō burned red, deep and endless, like a forge that had never cooled. He studied Sasuke for a breath—unreadable, evaluating, deciding. Then, slowly, he tilted his head. Just slightly. A motion so small, yet so absolute.
"It was wise to call upon me," Indra murmured at last. His voice was smooth, carrying no arrogance, but only certainty. "It's a decision I would never have been capable of making."
The words hung between them, weightless yet heavy. Sasuke felt his muscles coil, his mind parsing each syllable, each shift in Indra's expression, seeking intent.
Was this praise? Or something else?
Indra tilted his head slightly, his Mangekyō gleaming in the dim eclipse-light. "But then… you were never meant to be like me, were you?" His smirk faded, his expression smoothing into something colder, more thoughtful. "I see now." He gave a long, drawn-out breath. "You learned well from Asura."
The name struck like a low chime in the air, soft, but resonant. Sasuke stiffened, irritation curling in his chest at the implication. The way Indra spoke—as though this had always been the only outcome. As though Sasuke's path had never been his own, merely another iteration of a story that had already played out. A lesson he had been intended to learn.
His hands twitched at his sides, fingers flexing before curling into a fist. He had spent years rejecting the idea that his fate was tied to Indra's, resisting the notion that he was merely an echo of a cycle dictated by lineage and history.
And yet, Indra looked at him now not with disappointment or scorn, but with something close to recognition. As though, in this moment, Sasuke was something neither entirely Indra, nor entirely himself.
He hated that.
He scoffed, dismissing the weight of the words with a sharp glance. "Enough." His Rinnegan burned as he turned his attention back to Tsukuyomi. "Focus on the enemy in front of us."
Indra hummed, neither offended nor deterred. He followed Sasuke's gaze to the silver-haired god who still stood in absolute stillness, watching them with quiet intrigue.
"You can relax. This is not the first god I've dealt with," Indra noted dryly.
Sasuke shot him a glance, the question obvious. He hadn't known this, despite having reason to call on his power.
"You've killed a god, you say?" Tobirama's sharp gaze studied Indra, scrutinizing the newly manifested warrior with an analytical coldness. He had never met the true progenitor of the Uchiha Clan before, yet the moment Indra's eyes met his, the sensation was eerily familiar.
It was the same as that of Uchiha Madara.
The raw intensity, the quiet arrogance, the presence of someone who did not believe in the concept of inferiority. And yet, there was something even more unyielding about Indra—his confidence was not just pride but certainty, the assuredness of one who had never known doubt.
Indra, in turn, regarded Tobirama with something bordering on amusement, his Mangekyō Sharingan spinning lazily as he examined the Senju. "I recognize you," he murmured, tilting his head slightly. "You are the brother of Asura's last incarnation, are you not?" His gaze flickered to Sasuke briefly, considering the connection before settling once more on Tobirama. "How fitting."
Tobirama's expression remained unreadable, but his arms crossed as he studied Indra with his own piercing scrutiny. "And you are the forefather of the Uchiha," he stated flatly, as if confirming an equation. "There is no mistaking it. The power… the presence… it is reminiscent of Madara." He frowned, his tone tinged with something unreadable. "It is no wonder you were capable of beating a god."
Indra smirked faintly at that, the corner of his mouth lifting just enough to convey the amusement in his eyes. "In my lifetime, my father once tasked me with hunting down Kagutsuchi." His tone was utterly matter-of-fact, as if discussing an errand rather than a battle against the divine. "A god who had escaped to our realm. The order was simple—I was to eliminate him." His gaze flickered. "And I did."
Tsukuyomi's expression changed. Not in shock, but in recognition. "Kagutsuchi," he murmured, his voice barely louder than the whispering wind over the water. His Rinnesharingan studied Indra anew, a thread of something unreadable passing through them.
The moment lingered, delicate as a taut thread, before Tsukuyomi finally spoke again. "That was my younger brother."
Sasuke's muscles tensed slightly.
Indra, however, remained utterly unbothered. His expression did not shift, nor did he tense for battle. He merely watched Tsukuyomi with the same casual, unshaken confidence.
"Will you seek revenge for him?"
Tsukuyomi let out a soft, almost wistful sigh, shaking his head. "No." He glanced at the moon's fractured reflection upon the water, his fingers flexing slightly against his staff. "That was a long time ago. And such things are of little concern to me." His gaze flicked back toward Indra, sharper now. "However… Kagutsuchi was by no means a frail being. So it does mean I may have to take this more seriously."
The air grew heavier.
The tension shifted, not like the fury of an oncoming storm, but the slow and inevitable movement of celestial bodies falling into alignment.
Indra rolled his shoulders as though shaking off centuries of dust. His mechanical limbs hummed faintly, adjusting to his presence, chakra conduits shifting with each movement. He lifted one hand, flexing his fingers experimentally. The steel gleamed in the dim eclipse-light, but as he willed it, the faintest threads of chakra crackled across the surface. It obeyed him.
His lips curled. "Good."
Sasuke and Tobirama remained beside him, both tense, both poised to strike. Indra could feel their anticipation, their readiness to move. But he lifted a hand, stopping them before they could act.
"Stand back."
Sasuke turned sharply. "What?"
Tobirama frowned, his sharp eyes flickering with immediate calculation. "This isn't the time for solo theatrics."
Indra ignored both of them. He took a single step forward, the lake's surface rippling beneath his feet. His mechanical frame barely made a sound, save for the quiet shift of metal flexing, adapting. He could feel the flow of chakra pulsing through it, as seamless as blood through veins. An extension of himself. A perfect vessel.
His smile widened.
"I need to test this body," he said, his voice low, almost amused. He tilted his head toward Tsukuyomi, whose expression remained eerily passive, unreadable. "And he will make a fine opponent with which to do so."
Tobirama's frown deepened, his fingers twitching as though he wanted to make a hand sign, but he held himself still. Sasuke, however, scowled. "Don't be a fool. You have no idea how strong—"
Indra didn't wait for him to finish.
With a single push of chakra, he launched forward.
The lake exploded beneath his feet, a shockwave rippling outward as he propelled himself toward Tsukuyomi, his mechanical body responding with exhilarating precision. He barely had to think, the energy thrumming through him like a second heartbeat, amplifying every movement, every flex of power.
A body forged of steel and chakra, built to withstand the impossible.
Yes. This would do.
Indra's hands blurred through hand signs as he inhaled deeply. The metal plates along his arms shifted, vents along his back snapping open, releasing a low hiss of steam as his chakra surged.
"Katon: Great Fire Annihilation!" A roaring inferno poured from Indra's iron lungs, a torrential wave of fire so intense that the very air twisted in its wake. The lake hissed violently as the flames devoured the surface, evaporating an entire layer of water in an instant. Steam burst upward in thick, suffocating clouds, a blinding veil swallowing the battlefield.
The reflection of the eclipse and the shadows that Tsukuyomi wove into existence were both temporarily concealed.
Indra's smirk widened. No reflections meant no tricks. Meaning this battlefield was no longer Tsukuyomi's perfect domain.
Without hesitation, Indra surged forward, diving into the shroud of steam. His body adjusted instantly, sensors flickering in his artificial limbs, tracking movement even through the obscured vision. He could see the faint disturbance in the air ahead—Tsukuyomi had not moved yet.
Good.
Indra's right arm shifted. Metal plates along his wrist split apart, the mechanism within his forearm twisting and reforming until his entire arm became a sword. A chakra-forged, gleaming steel blade.
He swung.
The blade cut through the mist, a flash of silver cutting toward Tsukuyomi's throat.
And for the first time Tsukuyomi moved. The god's Rinnesharingan flickered, and with a quiet exhale, he tilted his staff just enough to intercept the strike.
Steel met celestial iron.
The clash rang through the battlefield, a deafening impact that sent a ripple of force tearing through the steam. Sparks scattered as the blade scraped against divine metal, Indra pressing forward, his weight behind the strike.
Tsukuyomi's grip on his staff remained light, unbothered, yet there was no denying the truth.
He had been forced to react.
Indra's smirk sharpened. "Not so untouchable now, are you?"
Tsukuyomi didn't rise to the taunt. "Could the same not be said for you?" He made no grand effort, nor show of force, just a simple flick of his wrist.
Indra's blade screeched as it was deflected. The flick of Tsukuyomi's wrist might have been minimal, yet the force behind it was anything but. The moment their weapons parted, an invisible shockwave rippled outward, distorting the very air between them. Indra barely had time to brace before the impact hit him like a celestial hammer—his feet skidded violently across the lake's surface, carving deep trenches into the water as the sheer force sent him careening backward.
His mechanical frame groaned under the sudden pressure, internal systems recalibrating to keep him upright. Before he could fully regain his footing, Tsukuyomi was already there.
The crescent tip of his staff arced downward, cutting through the mist with unerring precision, aimed directly at Indra's unguarded flank—a killing blow, executed with the inevitability of gravity itself.
"Amenotejikara!"
Then in the blink of an eye, Indra was gone.
The staff slammed against something solid—not Indra, but Sasuke. He stood where Indra had been a fraction of a second earlier, his Rinnegan pulsing faintly as his metal arm braced against the strike. In his palm, a barrier of swirling chakra absorbed the impact, its translucent surface rippling with the telltale glow of the Gakidō.
Indra reappeared a short distance away, his mechanical frame adjusting mid-air before landing with a muted clang. His crimson Mangekyō flickered in surprise, his fingers twitching instinctively, still primed for a counter that would never come.
Sasuke's chakra flared and with a sharp twist of his fingers, he extended his will outward—not toward Tsukuyomi, but toward Tobirama.
"Banshō Ten'in!"
Tobirama's stance shifted instantly as he felt the invisible force yank him forward. There was no time to question Sasuke's intent. He adjusted mid-air, shifting his momentum, his keen mind already understanding the purpose of the technique before he even landed.
He did not resist. He embraced it. His hands blurred into rapid seals. Paper bombs scattered in every direction, twisting through the air, before detonating in a deafening cacophony of explosions.
The thick steam that had veiled the battlefield now ignited into a sudden, blinding inferno. The sheer force of the perpetual detonations created overlapping shockwaves, disrupting the space between them all, distorting even Tsukuyomi's reflections.
In the midst of the destruction, Sasuke's voice cut through. "Are you done messing around?" Indra, having landed just outside the chaos, turned toward Sasuke with a raised mechanical brow. Sasuke's Rinnegan gleamed, his voice sharp. "It's time for some teamwork—unless you still haven't learned anything after all those centuries."
A beat of silence. Then Indra smirked. He flexed his fingers, his mechanical frame thrumming with power, his blade reforming into a normal hand as he turned his gaze back toward the battlefield.
"Hmph. Perhaps," he admitted, tilting his head slightly, the heat of the explosions reflecting in his ancient Mangekyō. "It might not be so bad… to fight alongside someone." He had clearly underestimated Sasuke. A mistake he wouldn't make twice.
His chakra surged as he rejoined the fray, his mechanical limbs thrumming with chakra.
Tobirama's sharp voice cut through the chaos. "We need a strategy!" The Second Hokage's gaze darted across the battlefield, his mind already running calculations at lightning speed. "Even with all our power, we've barely scratched him. If we keep fighting like this, it's meaningless."
Sasuke didn't argue. His eyes narrowed as his Rinnegan analyzed every detail, seeking an opening that simply wasn't there. He could already feel it. Tsukuyomi was adjusting, recalibrating his battlefield control, preparing to put an end to their brief moment of advantage.
Indra, however, smirked. "Leave it to me."
Tobirama and Sasuke both shot him skeptical glances, neither looking particularly thrilled at the prospect of trusting his word alone.
"Really?" Sasuke's tone was dry. "Because the last time we left something to you, you nearly got yourself killed."
Indra rolled his shoulders, his amusement unfazed. "That was just a test. Now I have a better understanding of this body." His ancient Mangekyō gleamed. "This will be different."
Before either of them could press further, the battlefield shifted. A deep, resonating force pulsed outward from the mist—not an explosion, not a gust of wind, but something far more absolute.
The haze that had veiled them, the detonations that had rattled the air—all of it was swept away in an instant. A tidal force rippled through the lake, not as a crashing wave, but as a sheer, oppressive shift in reality itself. The steam dispersed instantly, the remnants of fire flickered and died, and the very air seemed to still, as if held in Tsukuyomi's grasp.
The god exhaled slowly, his silver hair drifting weightlessly, his Rinnesharingan reflecting the growing light of the waning eclipse.
"I have granted you leeway enough."
The lake trembled. The reflection of the eclipse above shuddered in the water, its edges warping unnaturally, like ink spreading through an unseen current. Tsukuyomi's grip on his staff shifted, tilting it slightly—a movement so subtle, yet it carried the weight of absolute certainty.
Sasuke's jaw clenched. The battlefield had reset in an instant, the thin illusion of momentum they'd gained erased by Tsukuyomi's sheer presence. No matter what they did, the god was always one step ahead, his domain shifting to neutralize every advantage.
Indra's confidence grated on him, but the truth was undeniable—Sasuke had summoned him to help. If he refused to trust him now, then what was the point?
Sasuke exhaled sharply. "Tobirama!" His Rinnegan pulsed as he snapped his gaze toward the Second Hokage. "We're doing this. Follow Indra's lead."
Tobirama's lips pressed into a thin line, but he gave a sharp nod. He didn't like it, but he wasn't about to waste time arguing.
They moved. Sasuke surged forward, Indra on one flank, Tobirama circling the other. The three of them converged in perfect synchronization, their chakra signatures weaving together in an intricate dance of misdirection and destruction.
Sasuke's Rinnegan flared, "Amenotejikara!"
At that precise moment, Tobirama nodded sharply. A fraction of a second before the swap took effect, his hands blurred through a rapid sequence of seals, his chakra surging into the lake beneath them.
In an instant, Sasuke and Tsukuyomi switched places.
The god barely had time to react before the water beneath him twisted violently. The moment his feet touched the surface, the lake collapsed inward, as if an unseen force had coiled around him.
Tobirama's chakra pulsed and the trap sprang shut.
A spiraling vortex erupted, water folding in on itself like the jaws of a massive beast. The lake bent unnaturally, its flow governed not by physics but by Tobirama's space-time chakra, shaping the liquid into an inescapable spherical prison.
Water did not merely encase Tsukuyomi—it devoured the space around him. The sphere compressed, tightening with a crushing force that made even the air outside tremble. Not just a Water Prison, but something far more refined—
A fusion of Suiton mastery and Hiraishin principles, a technique that made movement within meaningless, trapping the target in a suspended boundary where escape was impossible.
For a single breath, it seemed like their teamplay might have worked. Then a deep fissure splintered through the sphere. Then another. Then the entire vortex detonated outward.
The explosion ripped through the lake, sending razor-sharp shards of ice and scalding steam spiraling through the air. The sheer force of the counterforce shattered the water's form, rendering Tobirama's perfected jutsu into little more than mist and broken droplets.
At the center of the devastation, completely unscathed, Tsukuyomi exhaled. His grip on his staff remained effortless, his divine gaze flickering toward Sasuke. "Have you learned nothing? This world is mine. Your movements are predictable, your techniques futile." His gaze flicked between them with almost bored detachment. "This cycle will only repeat—"
Suddenly he staggered.
Tsukuyomi's body lurched, his balance faltering as though space itself had momentarily betrayed him. A flicker of uncertainty crossed his face—something he had not felt in centuries. His hand lifted to his shoulder, his fingers brushing against the afflicted area where something had just—
A second impact.
This time, his form wavered slightly, a disturbance rippling through the air like a disrupted reflection on water. His breath hitched, not in pain, but in surprise.
Sasuke and Tobirama both halted, their gazes snapping toward Indra, who stood perfectly still, his Mangekyō spinning with quiet calculation.
Indra exhaled through his nose. "So even gods are susceptible," he mused, tilting his head slightly. "How fascinating."
Tsukuyomi's expression darkened, his gaze locking onto Indra. "What… was that?" His voice had lost its previous detachment, replaced with something taut and wary.
Indra offered no immediate answer. Instead, his eyes gleamed with quiet satisfaction. "You are powerful," he admitted, as if indulging a trivial curiosity. "But you have made one mistake."
Tsukuyomi's grip on his staff tightened. "And what is that?"
Indra lifted his hand. His fingers curled slightly, as though commanding an unseen force. It was at that moment both Tsukuyomi and Sasuke reacted—their gazes sharpening, their Rinnegan shifting focus, adjusting to something just beyond normal perception.
Tobirama's brow furrowed. "What's happening?" His keen eyes scanned the battlefield, but there was nothing there. No flicker of chakra, no distortion in space. "I don't see anything." Despite possessing the Rinnegan himself, it was merely a borrowed power, something shared with him by the King of Hell. Meaning he lacked the means to truly wield it.
Sasuke's breath came sharp. His own Rinnegan pulsed, the sensation gnawing at the edge of his awareness. Whatever it was, it wasn't here—not fully. It lingered just beyond their realm, brushing against reality without fully manifesting.
It reminded him of Kamui. His realization struck just as Tsukuyomi jerked forward, his balance momentarily disrupted—an impact that should not have been possible.
"A clone…" Sasuke murmured, his grip tightening. "No—not just any clone. It's something else." His mind raced through the implications. "It's in another plane of existence, barely interacting with this one."
Tobirama's eyes flicked toward him, his sharp mind already piecing it together. "A parallel realm," he stated, voice edged with rare intrigue. "Like an imprint running alongside our own."
Sasuke nodded grimly. "And it can strike from there."
Another impact. Tsukuyomi's shoulder buckled slightly, his Rinnesharingan flashing as he finally registered the unseen assault. Indra exhaled, a quiet satisfaction lacing his words.
"Limbo: Border Jail."
Tsukuyomi barely had time to register the existence of the clone before it struck again. The blow landed soundlessly, bypassing every layer of his defenses. There was no reflection to predict it. No shadow to intercept it. No reality for it to alter.
Tsukuyomi's gaze flickered with realization. This clone was beyond his domain, meaning it existed where his laws did not apply.
Indra smirked faintly, his voice a quiet murmur of certainty. "Your dominion means nothing to that which stands outside it."
Tsukuyomi's expression remained unreadable for a moment, then, with almost imperceptible tension, his shoulders squared.
"Then it seems," he murmured, "that I must truly acknowledge your power after all."
The shift was immediate. One moment, Tsukuyomi was still, his expression unreadable.
The next the physical reality of their world itself began to collapse. The lake lurched violently, not as a wave, nor as a ripple, but as if the very fabric of reality had twisted. Water did not simply move—it defied physics, spiraling into vast, rotating whirlpools that tore skyward, vanishing into the heavens like inverted waterfalls. Cyclones of mist and crushing force howled into existence, carving through the battlefield as if drawn by the pull of some impossible celestial body.
The air bent as space itself rippled, stretching like an unseen force was warping the battlefield from above.
Sasuke barely had a second to react before the sky cracked open. The pull of Tsukuyomi's power did not stop at the earth. It stretched further, reaching beyond the clouds, beyond the atmosphere—upward, to the moon.
Something wrenched at the heavens. A shuddering groan echoed through the world as the celestial body fractured, splintering apart like cracked porcelain.
Then the first shadow fell. A jagged wound tore across the sky. Massive shards of lunar rock, ripped straight from the moon's surface, plummeted toward the battlefield like divine retribution. Fragments of frozen dust ignited on reentry, streaking downward in blazing arcs, their fiery descent turning the heavens into an inferno of falling stars.
The sky burned.
A storm of celestial ruin, jagged shards of the fractured moon wrenched free from their cosmic prison, hurtling toward the battlefield in a relentless downpour of destruction. Their descent was deafening—an orchestra of apocalyptic thunder, the air itself screaming as gravity dragged them downward. Each rock, a monument to Tsukuyomi's power, streaked through the sky like divine hammers, threatening to pulverize the world below.
Sasuke's mind snapped into overdrive. His metal arm shifted, the inner plates rotating with a sharp mechanical click as his chakra surged outward, raw gravitational force compressing around his outstretched palm. The space around him twisted, bending to his will.
"Chibaku Tensei!"
The instant the command left his lips, the black core of the technique exploded into existence above him, an orb of all-consuming gravity that dragged the meteors into its grasp like a ravenous void. Shattered fragments veered off course, their trajectories stolen, pulled into the swirling maelstrom at the technique's center. One after another, they slammed together—collapsing, condensing, compacting.
The sky churned as chaos became singularity. A single meteor, forged from the impact of countless others, a titanic monolith of obliteration, now hovered in the storm-ravaged heavens.
And Sasuke threw it. The sky split apart as the meteor screamed downward, an avalanche of gravitational force aimed directly at Tsukuyomi.
Tsukuyomi didn't even seem to care. With nothing more than a flick of his staff, reality once again shuddered. The meteor unraveled as the air around it bent, rippled, and collapsed inward, as though the very fabric of its structure was being rewritten. It peeled apart, layer by layer, reduced to drifting remnants, as if Tsukuyomi himself had decided it had never been whole to begin with.
A tide of pulverized stone hovered weightlessly, suspended in an unseen current, their momentum stolen as they littered the battlefield at varying intervals.
Yet Tobirama was already adapting.
The battlefield was a storm of chaos—collapsing meteors, spiraling whirlpools, and towers of water stretching skyward. Any normal shinobi would have been swallowed whole, lost to the shifting tides of destruction.
But Tobirama was not normal.
He moved with impossible precision, darting across the landscape with the effortless grace of a man who had long since mastered the impossible. He leapt from the shattered remnants of meteors, his sandals barely brushing against the floating debris before pushing off to the next. When the rocks became scarce, he adjusted mid-air, twisting into a sharp dive toward an ascending cyclone.
At the last moment, he kicked off the rising water itself, his speed only increasing as he shot forward, weaving through the battlefield's destruction like a phantom dancing through a storm. His hands blurred into a series of signs, too fast to follow.
"Suiton: Five Sharks Frenzy!"
The lake erupted, five monstrous sharks, each forged from pure, condensed Suiton, surged from the depths. Their colossal bodies twisted through the air, spiraling around the battlefield like living, aquatic warheads. They devoured the incoming debris, swallowing massive chunks of shattered meteors and whirlpools, absorbing their destructive force only to return it tenfold. Each one twisted mid-air, jaws gaping wide, and hurled their newly consumed projectiles at Tsukuyomi.
Tsukuyomi's Rinnesharingan glanced at the incoming sharks, his expression calm and untroubled. There was no flicker of irritation, no sign of strain—only the faintest shift in his expression, something resembling amusement.
The sharks struck, their sheer momentum carrying enough force to annihilate mountains. And yet they passed through him like mist cutting through moonlight, slicing nothing but the fractured space he had abandoned an instant before impact.
Tsukuyomi lifted his staff in a single, fluid motion. The air around the weapon rippled, space bending like fabric drawn taut, and the sharks halted. Not just stopped, but inverted entirely. The sheer force they carried, the chakra-laced destruction woven into their very being—all of it reversed in an instant.
Their bodies convulsed, the water composing them no longer surging forward, but folding backward, collapsing inward—like time itself had turned against them. One by one, the monstrous creatures unraveled, dissolving into the lake without a trace, their very existence discarded.
Tobirama exhaled slowly, his sharp gaze unwavering. He had known from the beginning it wouldn't work. No matter how carefully he constructed the attack, a god who could manipulate cause and effect at will would never be brought down by brute force alone.
But that had never been the point.
Tsukuyomi's Rinnesharingan flickered toward him, the briefest shadow of curiosity passing through their depths. Tobirama met the gaze and held it. The trap hadn't been meant to kill him. It had been meant to keep him distracted long enough for Indra to make his move.
Power surged through the Uchiha progenitor, ancient and volatile, the weight of centuries finally unchained. His Mangekyō spun violently, both eyes igniting at once. It was an overwhelming surge, not the mere doubling of power, but an exponential explosion of it. The space around Tsukuyomi warped. The light itself flickered, as if struggling to process what had just occurred.
They emerged not with a flicker, nor a ripple, but with the imperceptible inevitability of shadows that had always been there, lingering just beyond the reach of reality. Four Limbo clones, invisible to all but those with divine gaze, their presence unannounced, their strikes unavoidable.
And they moved as one. The first attack came like a whisper in the wind, a testing blow, a feint that drew the barest flicker of movement from Tsukuyomi as his staff rose, intercepting the strike with effortless precision. The sound of impact rang hollow, the force perfectly negated, his expression remaining undisturbed.
But the true assault had only just begun. The second strike landed a breath later—a hammering fist to the ribs, the sheer force distorting the air, sending waves rippling outward. The third followed instantly, an elbow smashing into his spine, bending the divine form in a way no mortal hand ever had. Then came the fourth—a palm strike aimed directly at his core.
Tsukuyomi twisted under the onslaught.
His silver hair snapped in violent arcs, caught in the invisible storm of power, his form distorting beneath the sheer pressure of blows that landed from a plane he could not preempt. His robe fluttered wildly, the air groaning beneath the burden of forces unseen, while his celestial presence wavered—not broken, not destroyed, but bent.
The battlefield felt it.
The whirlpools surged and buckled, their perfect synchrony momentarily disrupted. The floating debris trembled, caught between converging gravitational tides. Even the sky, fractured and vast, seemed to darken in response to this impossibility—a god being struck.
Yet, even as his body reeled, even as his form yielded to the force pressing down on him, Tsukuyomi's expression did not crack. Instead, he spoke. And the heavens obeyed.
"Enough."
The word was not shouted, not snarled, not roared—it did not need to be. It was an edict, a simple decree of a being who had decided reality itself had tolerated this foolishness long enough.
A pulse of power erupted from him, raw, violent, unrestrained. The Limbo clones were hurled back in an instant, sent careening through the battlefield like meteors, their very existence momentarily disrupted.
Tsukuyomi rose, his form drifting upward, his robes rippling in the absence of gravity, his staff gleaming beneath the fractured sky. The destruction around him—the whirlpools, the floating islands, the burning remnants of the meteor storm—all twisted in his wake, drawn to him like celestial bodies unable to resist his pull.
Then he twisted, stretching impossibly, his very presence expanding as though space itself was struggling to contain him. His silver hair shimmered like the light of an eclipsed moon, but his eyes—the spiraling Rinnesharingan—burned with an unnatural glow.
He was growing. Not through illusion. Not through trickery. Through sheer divine expansion.
Tsukuyomi's towering figure loomed over them, his very presence casting long, inescapable shadows over the battlefield. The whirlpools in the lake deepened, warping into gaping maws of darkness, dragging at the very fabric of reality. Above, the sky churned, and once again—the heavens broke.
The eclipse had ended.
The shadows that had stretched across the world began to recede as the moon drifted from its perfect alignment. The sunlight pierced through the gloom, splitting the sky open with golden fire. The battlefield, once shrouded in eternal twilight, flared beneath the sun's renewed brilliance.
But just because the moon no longer blocked it did not mean its power had waned. It still hung high above, existing as an equal alongside its celestial sister. Two opposing forces—one wreathed in flame, the other cloaked in shadow—neither diminishing the other.
Meteors rained down, drawn by his pull. Unlike before, they came in waves, pulled from the shattered lunar surface in a relentless barrage of celestial destruction.
Shadows erupted from his feet, writhing and twisting like living tendrils, stretching across the battlefield, devouring the light beneath them. They lashed outward, seeking purchase, converging on the three warriors below.
Sasuke, Tobirama, and Indra were forced to move.
Indra was the first to react, his thrusters igniting in a violent burst, launching him forward as he met the advancing tendrils head-on. His chakra-coated limbs tore through them, severing their grasping forms before they could ensnare him, each strike a blur of mechanical precision.
Sasuke moved next, his Gakidō flaring, absorbing the surging waves of chakra before they could reach them, nullifying the attack as he redirected the stolen energy into his own reserves.
Tobirama flickered in and out of existence, his form slipping between points in space, each reappearance marked by the rapid blur of his hands forming seals.
"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"
A dozen identical figures erupted into being, their movements flawlessly synchronized. The clones dispersed across the battlefield, weaving between Indra's Limbo selves, splitting the battlefield further, forcing Tsukuyomi's attention to divide.
The three regrouped atop a fractured platform of rock, its jagged edges floating precariously within the churning waters of the lake. Tobirama's clones and Indra's Limbo forms bought them seconds. No more.
They needed a plan, one with a way to deal lasting damage.
Sasuke's gaze flickered between the battlefield and his two allies, his Rinnegan pulsing as his mind churned. "We can't keep up like this. No matter how much force we throw at him, he just warps reality to undo it. We need something that will actually stick."
Tobirama's eyes gleamed with sharp calculation. "Then we open a path." His hands flexed, as if already working through the seals in his mind. "Only Indra's Limbo clones have been able to damage him directly. If we create an opening, maybe he can land a fatal blow."
Indra scoffed. "No." Both Tobirama and Sasuke turned to him, brows furrowed. "It has to be Sasuke."
Sasuke's expression flickered with confusion. "Me?"
Indra tilted his head, watching him expectantly. "You summoned us, didn't you?"
A sharp beat of silence. Then, it clicked. Sasuke's eyes widened—because he understood. The Ningendō.
Indra smirked at the realization dawning in his counterpart's expression. "I can land blows on him, but that won't be enough to stop him. Only you can sever him from that form entirely." His gaze turned toward Tsukuyomi's massive frame, assessing it with an unsettling calm. "That body isn't truly his, it's just a vessel—a construct Amaterasu forged for his return." In other words, his soul was only anchored to that of nothing more than a mere baby.
Tobirama exhaled sharply, his fingers tightening. "Then if Sasuke uses Ningendō to extract his soul—"
Indra nodded. "He'll be forced out. Cut off from this plane."
Sasuke clenched his jaw. He had used Ningendō before to do incredible things, such as bring forth these two allies. But against a god? Against something like this?
Tobirama met his gaze, sharp and unwavering. "Can you do it?" Sasuke inhaled, his Rinnegan gleaming. He didn't answer immediately, but there was no time. Tobirama gave a single, decisive nod as if to force the issue. "Then it's settled. Indra and I will open the path. You take the shot."
Sasuke exhaled. "Easier said than done."
Indra smirked, rolling his shoulders. "Then you'd best keep up, my other self."
Together, they turned toward the battlefield. Indra and Tobirama exchanged a silent nod—no words were necessary. They understood the stakes, and there was no hesitation in their movements as they surged forward, the surface of the lake splitting beneath the sheer force of their combined charge.
Tsukuyomi loomed over them, his colossal form casting an impossible shadow over the battlefield, but neither warrior faltered. In perfect unison, they launched their assault.
Indra's Limbo clones surged into action, unseen by mortal eyes, their strikes breaking against Tsukuyomi's reality-warping defenses without resistance. But they weren't meant to land. They were distractions—harbingers of something far greater.
"Suiton: Water Dragon Jutsu!"
From below, Tobirama summoned forth a monstrous, towering water dragon, its body composed of the turbulent waves themselves. It twisted through the air, a serpent of liquid devastation, its jaws opening wide as it crashed against Tsukuyomi's colossal frame. The sheer force of the impact sent tremors through the battlefield, obscuring everything in a torrential explosion of water and mist.
Indra followed through, his clones attacking from all angles. The Limbo strikes bypassed the constraints of physical space, making it impossible for Tsukuyomi's preemptive mirages to counter in time. This time, his body jerked slightly as he felt the pressure of an unseen force slamming into him, distorting his frame.
And in that moment, when his balance was disrupted, when his form flickered under the weight of attacks from a realm beyond his dominion—
Sasuke struck.
"Amenotejikara!"
Reality twisted. In the space of a breath, he materialized behind Tsukuyomi, his Rinnegan pulsing, his metal arm shifting with a sharp mechanical whir. His fingers snapped forward, pressing against the god's back.
"Ningendō!"
The world buckled. A surge of power erupted, raw and violent, as Sasuke pulled. He wrenched at the divine soul bound within the vessel, his entire body straining against the sheer weight of the god's existence. The force of the extraction was unlike anything he had ever attempted—like trying to unmake something that had never been meant to be separate.
Tsukuyomi's very being resisted. Not just his body, but his presence, coiling tight around his form like bands of iron, refusing to yield.
Sasuke gritted his teeth, muscles locking as the world itself seemed to groan under the strain. His arm trembled, the Rinnegan blazing with power, but the pull was wrong. The body beneath his fingers wasn't flesh. It wasn't even chakra. It was softening, like shadows unraveling.
Sasuke's breath hitched. His Sharingan flickered in warning, but it was too late.
The colossal form of Tsukuyomi crumpled, his body folding inward like discarded fabric, writhing darkness spiraling away into the battlefield. Not vanishing, but shedding its husk, leaving behind nothing more than an afterimage.
Sasuke's eyes flicked across the battlefield, his Sharingan scanning through the haze of destruction, while his Rinnegan pulsed, sweeping through shifting chakra flows, piercing through the layers of heat and mist—but Tsukuyomi was nowhere.
Then he felt it.
Inside his shadow, something was shifting and breaking free. A whisper of movement, and a ripple in the darkness.
Sasuke spun, despite already knowing he wouldn't make it in time.
Tsukuyomi was there. Emerging like a serpent from his own shadow, his Rinnesharingan eerily calm, as though this moment had been fated from the start. There was a flash of silver, the crescent-moon staff arcing in a perfect strike.
Cold. That was the first thing Sasuke registered. Not pain. Not even shock. Just cold.
Tsukuyomi's staff was buried deep, piercing through flesh, muscle, and bone—straight through his heart.
Sasuke's breath caught, blood bubbling at his lips.
And only then did the pain come.
Chapter End
AN: Tsukuyomi was a little more difficult to decide what to do with, as there are a lot fewer legends and stories about him than his siblings. So I just made his abilities based on things like what we saw from the Tsukuyomi ability in Canon and also tied them to "moon-like" powers, such as tides, gravity, shadows and reflections.
Kagutsuchi was briefly mentioned in this as well as Tsukuyomi's younger brother, who was killed by Indra. I made a nod to him, because in the anime, Indra's Mangekyō, like Sasuke's, was tied to that god. However, since this story has made a point of invoking the gods not being a viable use of power, I decided to change it and make Indra's Mangekyō ability Limbo, which in Canon was Madara's unique Rinnegan power. I chose Limbo, as it's not an ability tied specifically to a Japanese god, allowing me to get around that self-imposed limitation.
The ending of the last few chapters have all been pretty bleak, but we'll start turning that around in the next one so please look forward to that!