Chapter 270 – A Solid Step on the "Path to Godhood"
"Gen—!"
Terumi Mei's voice trembled.
For a brief moment, she thought she was hallucinating.
The battlefield around her was chaos incarnate — Edo Tensei corpses clashing with the Akatsuki's undead, a deranged "evolutionary" shinobi roaring like a beast, and the very heavens trembling from the battle of two gods far above.
Her Mist forces were exhausted and battered. The shockwaves alone had crushed entire platoons.
If this continued, Kirigakure's army would be annihilated.
And in that desperate instant — he appeared.
Kitagawa Gen.
Silent as moonlight, he stepped before her, the golden chakra halo shimmering faintly at his back.
"Are you alright?"
His calm tone contrasted the chaos around them. He wasn't Minato — he didn't show up late.
As he turned toward the rampaging "white mark" ahead, his eyes gleamed with quiet excitement.
That distorted creature carried the White Kāma, the very power he'd been searching for.
He had expected it would take time, maybe even a struggle.
Never did he think Obito and Isshiki would deliver it to him so neatly — as if wrapped and giftboxed by fate itself.
"Perfect," he thought. "Truly… a gift from heaven."
---
"I'm fine," Mei finally managed to say, catching her breath.
"But, Lord Fifth—be careful of that thing!"
Gen froze.
Lord Fifth?
He sighed inwardly. "The Third's not even dead yet," he thought. "Why does everyone talk like I already succeeded him?"
Still, he smiled and replied softly:
"Don't worry. As long as I'm here—none of you will be harmed."
---
Before he even finished speaking, the White Kāma bearer roared — a monstrous, primal scream that made the air itself vibrate.
"Aaaaahhh!!!"
Dark tendrils surged from the ground, swallowing the man whole.
An instant later, he reappeared directly before Gen, swinging a fist powerful enough to shatter stone.
BOOM!
The strike missed — the sheer pressure alone split the earth apart.
But Gen and Mei had already vanished, reappearing safely to the side.
The shockwave drew every gaze on the battlefield.
---
"Kitagawa Gen is here…"
The members of Akatsuki turned grim.
Even the undead under Orochimaru's command went tense.
"He really came," Obito muttered, his Sharingan glinting behind the mask.
He felt a strange mix of excitement and unease.
He wanted this — Gen versus the "evolutionary." That was the entire purpose of this setup.
And yet…
Gen's expression told him everything.
He wasn't taking this seriously.
"Tch… so arrogant. You really think you can handle it that easily?"
Obito scowled. Still, it wasn't necessarily a bad thing.
If Gen fought, Obito could use the chaos to retrieve the Six-Tails' jinchūriki.
Watching gods fight was pointless anyway — he couldn't even understand what was happening up there.
"Someday…" he whispered to himself. "Someday I'll stand on that level too."
Meanwhile, deep in Obito's consciousness, Isshiki frowned.
"Strange… why does Kitagawa Gen's aura feel weaker than before?"
It wasn't drastic — but compared to when he'd crushed Obito earlier, something was off.
"Could it be… he's underestimating my White Kāma?"
Isshiki muttered, but before he could analyze further, another wave of power erupted in the distance.
---
On the ravaged plains, dust clouds billowed skyward as Ōtsutsuki Urashiki staggered to his feet.
Sweat dripped down his pale face as he glared at the sky.
The golden radiance above him was suffocating.
That divine silhouette descending through the moonlight — terrifyingly serene, impossibly strong.
"How… how did it come to this?"
Urashiki's mind reeled.
He was Ōtsutsuki. He was meant to destroy worlds, to harvest, to rule.
Never had he imagined becoming the prey.
Never imagined being hunted — and by a fellow clansman.
And never dreamed he could lose so completely.
"Why… why is he so much stronger than me? His chakra isn't even greater than mine!"
Confused and furious, he barely had time to react before the air rippled again — Gen was descending, golden light trailing behind him like divine wings.
"Stop! Enough, Genshiki!" Urashiki shouted hoarsely.
"Do you really want to defy the entire clan? To wage war against your own blood?!"
Gen's eyes softened slightly — as if pitying him.
"That's why," he said quietly, "you'll never measure up to Isshiki."
Urashiki's face twisted.
"You—!"
"Isshiki would never beg," Gen continued coldly.
"You talk of rules, but all I see is a coward clinging to them."
"You're really going to betray the Ōtsutsuki? You'd break the sacred law?!"
Gen's smile deepened.
"That's why I admire Isshiki. He was the first to defy the law… and he taught me something vital."
He raised his hand, golden energy coiling around his sword.
"Rules," he said, "are nothing but chains for those too afraid to ascend."
And with that, he moved.
A single slash of golden light — silent, merciless — tore the night apart.
"To shatter the chains," Gen's voice echoed, "is to stand above gods!"
"You're insane!!"
Urashiki screamed, body splitting apart into countless crimson paper cranes to escape the blow.
When he reappeared, his eyes had changed — the crimson tomoe now replaced by cerulean Rinnegan.
Time itself shimmered around him.
Gen's next strike grazed only the hem of his robe.
Urashiki sneered, breath ragged.
"You won't do as you please now… I'll kill you, even if it means erasing you from existence!"
Gen tilted his head slightly, unfazed.
"You sound confident," he murmured, stepping forward again.
"But confidence means nothing when it's built on fear."
His next slash was aimed at Urashiki's head — clean, decisive.
Urashiki managed to evade, the blade carving a shallow line across his cheek.
Yet again, he didn't counter.
He only fled.
Gen sighed softly.
"Pathetic," he said. "A fool with power, but no courage."
"A hollow god… nothing more than a strong idiot."
Ōtsutsuki Urashiki had fought countless battles throughout the stars.
But in truth, they were all massacres, not wars — effortless purges of primitive worlds and weak civilizations.
Among the Ōtsutsuki, conflict between kin was forbidden.
So Urashiki had never faced a true equal.
Never fought another of his own blood.
And certainly never encountered someone like Gen Kitagawa —
a man who had clawed his way up through blood and fire, who had honed every technique, every strategy, every drop of his power until it became absolute mastery.
---
"Did you really think I wouldn't see through you?"
Gen's voice cut through the chaos like the blade in his hand.
Even as he pressed forward, he kept talking — not taunting, but dissecting.
"Your ability is time reversal. Crude, though — it doesn't last long, and the window is shallow."
The golden sword flashed again.
Another strike. Another wound carved into Urashiki's body.
"To think you can reverse time and still end up this broken…"
Gen's tone turned cold as the void.
He blurred forward — his blade a streak of molten gold.
"Tell me, how did a weakling like you survive this long?"
---
"Damn it!"
Urashiki's pupils constricted.
He'd barely used his power, and already this lunatic had seen through it completely.
That realization sent a shiver through his bones — a primal fear he hadn't felt in centuries.
If this continued, he knew how it would end.
He would die here — reduced to a stepping stone for this madman's so-called "shared dream" with Isshiki.
---
"Spacing out during a fight…" Gen's voice came from right beside his ear.
"You really are too weak."
Urashiki barely had time to react — the golden sword descended again.
SLASH!
He tried to rewind time once more, but the blade caught him mid-transition.
A burst of blood painted the air — his chest split open, deep enough to show bone.
"Accept your fate."
Urashiki staggered backward, clutching his chest.
Gen didn't pursue immediately; he only watched — eyes like cold fire.
"Your destiny was sealed the moment you stood before me."
"To become a solid step on the 'Path to Godhood'—for me and Isshiki—that's quite an honor, don't you think?"
---
The air shuddered as Gen's chakra surged again.
He vanished — a streak of light cutting through the night — resolute, relentless, unstoppable.
And just as the final clash was about to ignite—
The space behind them twisted.
Two figures stepped through a rift of blue-white light.
Senju Hashirama and Senju Tobirama.
They had arrived.
---
The instant they emerged, both were struck by the overwhelming pressure —
a tide of chakra so dense it warped the very air around them.
They looked up.
High above, two white-clad figures wove and collided like gods in a storm, their every movement tearing through the sky itself.
For a moment, both Hokage stood in silence, watching.
Then Tobirama's lips curved into a knowing smirk.
"So… I was right after all," he murmured.
The ground trembled beneath their feet, the heavens roaring with the clash of deities.
And from below, humanity could only look up at the blazing heavens —
witnessing the birth of a new god.