Ōtsutsuki Isshiki, hidden within Jigen's body, instantly grasped the essence of what was happening.
"Kaguya... the despicable traitor!"
The report whistled to the floor. Jigen's face twisted into a grimace of pure rage.
"Unthinkable... How is this possible? A pathetic native, a nobody with a drop of the Divine Tree's blood... accidentally awakened its primordial power?!"
Jigen paced the temple, his hands clasped behind his back. His movements were tinged with anxiety, his expression frozen in bewilderment. Unlike the inhabitants of this world, he, the powerful Ōtsutsuki, immediately grasped the true scale of the threat: a man named Uchiha Yue was capable of single-handedly destroying the planet.
To endlessly drain the planet's life force, growing ever stronger—that was the essence of the Divine Tree. It was this ability—absorbing the life of entire worlds and cultivating the fruits of chakra—that transformed their clan from an ordinary race into rulers of the universe.
But such terrifying power had always been the exclusive preserve of the Tree itself. The constant, costless absorption of energy on a planetary scale—even for the Ōtsutsuki clan, it was beyond the pale.
And now he was faced with it. On this damned planet.
"Damn it! How could this happen?! I haven't yet attained my true body! I haven't yet fulfilled my vengeance! And now I must die at the hands of some savage?! Kaguya, may you be damned forever!"
At this thought, even Isshiki, who had maintained icy composure for centuries, lost control and spewed out a foul curse. Rage overwhelmed him. His plan, built over centuries, was crumbling before his eyes. Everything was going perfectly: he was hiding, imbuing Karma with natural energy, creating an organization, searching for a vessel...
And at this very crucial moment, the local savages gave birth to a monster that seized the Divine Tree's primary power.
An event, theoretically possible but practically improbable, had happened to him. The likelihood of it was as slim as if a slave from a side family, meekly awaiting death for millennia, dared to raise a hand against a master from the main family.
It was as if the universe itself had turned against him. Why him?!
"Shimura Danzo..." The culprit's name surfaced in his memory, and Isshiki nearly choked on the absurdity of it all. This entire catastrophe, this entire existential horror—all because a fool named Shimura Danzo desired to destroy some Uchiha clan.
If that idiot hadn't touched the Uchiha, if Yue hadn't survived that blow, he would never have awakened his power! After all, according to reports, before acquiring the Mangekyō Sharingan, Uchiha Yue was weaker than any genin. Anyone with a kunai could cut him down.
The realization that he could perish on this planet for such a trivial reason overwhelmed Isshiki with a sense of disgusting, nauseating absurdity. It was as absurd as if the world had ended because a small-time clerk spilled coffee on a control panel.
"No, this can't be! A pathetic savage... even with a particle of the Tree's blood... how could he awaken its primordial power? Impossible! I must see this Uchiha Yue with my own eyes!"
On the verge of panic, Isshiki Ōtsutsuki rushed toward the Land of Fire. On the one hand, the lowly being he despised had become a walking Divine Tree. On the other, if this truly was his primordial ability, then allowing this monster to gain power would be tantamount to signing his own death warrant.
Dying at the hands of Kaguya, a lowlife from a branch house, was unthinkable. But dying at the hands of a savage from the shinobi world would be a humiliation that even death could not erase.
While Isshiki raced toward his fate, Tsunade and her squad of shinobi reached the edge of the dead zone.
"So this is it... the power of Uchiha Yue?"
They froze. The space before them distorted, vibrating, as if the air had turned into a dense, shimmering haze. Tsunade cautiously extended her hand, and her expression instantly changed: she felt the chakra begin to leave her body in an unstoppable flow.
She was bound with a strong rope, the other end of which was held by Shizune.
"Ms. Tsunade, are you sure?" the student asked anxiously. She didn't understand why they were taking the risk. Wasn't Lord Jiraiya's fate warning enough?
Tsunade merely shook her head.
"Shizune, if I fall or anything goes wrong, pull me out immediately."
Having given the order, she glanced at the anomalous zone again. Unlike Jiraiya, she had studied all the available information. In fact, the solution was depressingly simple: a safety line. The zone merely drained energy, not physically attacked. Once you lost your strength, you couldn't move, but you could be pulled out.
Jiraiya, in his eternal arrogance, had neglected reconnaissance and charged in blindly. If he had had the same safety net, he wouldn't have met that terrible fate.
Tsunade took a step, and was immediately overwhelmed by a feeling of rapid weakness. Her strength was draining from her body like water through a sieve. After walking just a few meters, she was finally convinced: as long as this zone existed, they would never reach Yue. Awakening the Will of Fire within him was out of the question.
Even simply reaching him and dying at his feet was a task only the strongest shinobi could accomplish.