"Still the same as it was years ago."
Appearing on a small island, Satsuki took in the surroundings. The area was encircled by an endless expanse of sea, with distant islands distorted by the curvature of the water's surface, giving them the illusion of floating.
The moon's inner layer could not directly receive solar energy, yet all activity still required a power source. Thus, the Hamura clan had gone to great lengths to create an artificial sun within the moon's interior. The entire sky inside was decorated to mimic the feeling of Earth's atmosphere.
"How absurd—capable of creating an artificial sun and living within it, yet in times of war still fighting with cold weapons, only to be annihilated in an instant by the main faction's Tenseigan."
It wasn't just their wartime strategy that Satsuki found baffling. She felt little true allegiance to her pacifist faction. Still, sentiment was sentiment—this body's lineage came from them, and they had given her life. For that, she owed them.
Her attitude toward the system was the same. Opinions were one thing, but the fact remained: her resurrection meant she owed it a life-debt. That was why she accepted its missions without question, never asking for reasons or demanding rewards. One life was the ultimate reward; the rest she could achieve with her own talent and this body's potential.
Byakugan, open.
Out of habit, she still used the Byakugan activation method for her golden eyes, though they were now in a transitional phase toward the Tenseigan. She still called them Byakugan for convenience, and no longer bore the bulging veins of the traditional form.
She summoned a bird-shaped flying puppet, openly displaying herself as she flew toward the largest island in sight.
From her vantage point, she saw countless puppets stationed on scattered islands. Their strength ranged from chunin to special jonin—not impressive individually, but they were the lowest-tier expendable weapons here.
Yet, with their ability to unleash large-scale attacks without hand seals, powered by the giant Tenseigan's infinite energy, these puppets could wipe out nations with ease when deployed en masse.
For now, they stood idle, encased in a layer of yellow-green foam, in a dormant state. Still, their faces turned to follow Satsuki's movement. Clearly, the moon's inhabitants had noticed her arrival, though they bore no strong hostility.
In a garishly decorated, oddly styled castle beneath the artificial sun, a youth of sixteen or seventeen sat with eyes closed, sipping tea prepared by a puppet maid.
He was handsome enough, but the pairing of silver curls with pale skin gave him a sickly look. He wore the blue-and-white robes of the Hamura branch family, two pale magatama patterns set just below his collarbones.
Toneri Ōtsutsuki—descendant of the Hamura branch, and the closest living blood relative to Satsuki's current body.
"You don't need to act," Toneri said, setting his teacup down gracefully. "Let her come."
The puppet maid silently cleared the tea set and withdrew.
When the hall had gone still, Toneri opened his eyes—only to reveal two unsettling black voids.
"My dear sister… have you come to offer me your eyes this time? Or will I have to take them myself?"
…
"Host, aren't you afraid Toneri will try to take your eyes?"
In Satsuki's mind, the long-silent system finally spoke. Always restricted, often outwitted, it had been so thoroughly dismissed by Satsuki that it rarely spoke at all—showing none of the dignity expected of the so-called 'Strongest System Across All Worlds.'
"I almost wish he would try."
Satsuki had already mastered infinite signal transmission and control technology; seizing control of these puppets would be effortless. Her golden eyes, evolving toward the Tenseigan, granted her far higher natural authority than Toneri Ōtsutsuki, who didn't even possess the Byakugan.
Toneri could only command these constructs through his Ōtsutsuki bloodline chakra in conjunction with the giant Tenseigan acting as a control core, enabling him to remotely direct such vast numbers of puppets and maintain the operation of the entire castle.
If he refrained from attacking, fine. But if he did, Satsuki would show him what a real surprise was.
Before she claimed the giant Tenseigan, however, she had another task to attend to—one of the reasons her first destination wasn't the artificial sun, but this massive island before her.
After dismounting from the bird-shaped puppet, Satsuki entered an empty village. The architecture bore a style reminiscent of Arabian designs from her previous world—tiered buildings rising from low to high, though most were flat-roofed structures of one or two stories. Some abandoned buildings had massive trees growing atop them, and traces of war's destruction were everywhere.
This settlement had been abandoned for centuries. Her destination lay at its center: a site for honoring the dead and holding rituals.
Before her stood a giant statue of Hamura Ōtsutsuki, though half its body had been destroyed by war. Beneath it was an inscription in Ōtsutsuki script, and to the left, a passageway leading to the resting place of the dead.
Engraved on an ancient bell by the doorway was the old creed that would one day trigger a world-ending crisis, written in ancient pictographic script:
"When the bonds of humanity crumble, the Tenseigan shall awaken, and with the Moon's fist, mankind shall be destroyed."
Satsuki didn't think Toneri's interpretation of this was wrong. The meaning was clear enough; the question was simply who defined "when the bonds of humanity crumble."
In truth, that power of definition was obvious: whoever held the Tenseigan could decide when such bonds were considered broken.
Likely, the one who carved this vow never imagined that any other power could rival the bearer of the Tenseigan.
From Satsuki's perspective, Toneri with the Tenseigan—and a giant Tenseigan for strategic support—could easily destroy Earth and remake it. Just his Tenseigan Chakra Mode alone could sever the moon in a single stroke. In raw destructive power, even Madara Uchiha at his peak, in the later era, could not match that.
The Rinnegan excelled at manipulating life and death; the Tenseigan excelled at destruction and creation.
The contrast in sheer combat boost was stark: Toneri, with a stolen Tenseigan, could ascend to the Six Paths level the moment he adapted, controlling Truth-Seeking Balls instantly. By contrast, Madara, even after awakening the Rinnegan, still needed to become the Ten-Tails' jinchūriki to reach that level.
In Hamura's main family shrine, Satsuki stood staring at the Ōtsutsuki crest carved into the wall, lost in thought. Beneath her feet, a massive stone slab slowly shifted open, triggered by the presence of her Ōtsutsuki chakra and Byakugan.
The sound of the mechanism pulled her from her reverie. She stepped forward into the underground crypt revealed below.
The dim crypt still held the faint light of candles, though it could not dispel the damp, oppressive atmosphere. Here lay the graves of Hamura's main family—some who died naturally, many more who perished in the civil war.
And with Satsuki's arrival, the tomb began to undergo a strange transformation…