A glint of light flickered in the eyes of the creatures hiding in the shadows.
They were once the descendants of nobility, once destined to rule the shinobi world. But they had been forced into hiding, terrified of the earth-shattering power wielded by Neji, Naruto, and Sasuke.
They had watched helplessly as the great nations their clans painstakingly built were destroyed in an instant.
Once, every civilian and shinobi alike had been nothing more than pawns in their ancestors' hands.
That is, until a man named Neji appeared among the shinobi.
He dared to share knowledge with the ignorant rabble—those commoners, and those shinobi who only knew how to fight and kill over scraps of paper.
Because of him, the daimyō and noble families—once revered as gods—were dragged to the gallows by mobs they had long treated as nothing.
Because of him, they were exiled, cast out to the fringes of the shinobi world.
But now, salvation had descended.
Ōtsutsuki Momoshiki, a heavenly god, had come to earth—giving his life to slay both Sasuke and Neji.
This reignited the faith of countless noble descendants who had once evaded reformation thanks to the infighting and ambition that still festered in the shinobi world.
They believed once again: they were born noble.
They were chosen by the gods themselves, appointed to rule and enslave the worthless masses.
Divine Right!
After the deaths of Sasuke and Neji, the Shinobi World United Government continued to operate under the new order they had helped build, welcoming exceptional civilians into its ranks.
But its strength had declined drastically.
As the old generation of battle-hardened Kage-level powerhouses passed with time, the noble remnants, long smoldering like ashes, eagerly began reviving their former glory.
Their stronghold: the Land of Water.
With Sasuke and Neji gone, there was no one with the strength or reputation to fully control the fledgling United Government.
The alliance, formed not through war but out of desperation under the external threat of the Ōtsutsuki, began to lose its drive the moment Momoshiki—seemingly the last Ōtsutsuki—was sealed away.
Even the elites raised under the new training systems, once paragons of merit, sank into luxury and indulgence once they reached high office, abandoning their convictions...
Naturally, the relief effort for the severely damaged Land of Water ground to a halt halfway through. What replaced it was endless political squabbling—an excuse to funnel vast resources generated by the shinobi world into the pockets of the elites and emerging noble families.
But the descendants of the overthrown nobility seized the opportunity.
Using their secretly hoarded supplies, they erected idols of the three Ōtsutsuki, then built temples in their honor. They handed out thin porridge and salted fish to disaster victims and even gritted their teeth to help build simple shelters for the commoners, all while preaching their faith.
Soon, a new faction emerged around the Land of Water:
The Cult of Ōtsutsuki Worship.
Though Ōtsutsuki Urashiki had been ambushed and slain by Uchiha Kirin in the past, and Kinshiki had been sealed in Ryūchi Cave by the White Snake Sage, reduced to Orochimaru's test subject...
Momoshiki had only been sealed.
A centipede does not die easily.
Though incomplete in his ascension, Momoshiki had once been the most prominent among the younger generation of the Ōtsutsuki. He had encountered many paths and powers.
Though his form was now grotesque, within the seal, he discovered a new path:
Faith.
He had always disdained this form of growth, but to survive, he struggled endlessly on the second moon, wrestling with the lingering wills of Sasuke and Neji.
Then one day, he detected a small crack in the seal—through which he heard the voice of a believer from the outside world.
A surge of power known as faith poured into his body.
Momoshiki immediately realized this energy might not only help him shatter the seal, but also reshape his body—perhaps even offer a way to resolve the grotesque fusion with the God Tree.
So he siphoned off a strand of this newfound faith and, through the flaw in the seal, returned it to the devotee.
That believer, as it happened, was a descendant of the Fire Daimyō. Once pampered, ruined by drink and lust, then exiled and plagued by disease.
The power from Momoshiki did not grant him special abilities—but it healed his long-standing illnesses.
The formerly bloated and sickly man suddenly sprang back to life, full of vigor.
This miracle made him the center of attention among the noble remnants. He became a walking miracle for their propaganda and public appearances.
And he, too, seized the opportunity.
Not only did he proclaim himself the earthly representative of the Ōtsutsuki, but he also reclaimed the highest authority within their organization.
Soon after, under his guidance, Momoshiki was canonized as the God of Health, worshiped by more than half the population around the Land of Water.
At first, this belief was just a mental crutch—a way for those abandoned by the indifferent alliance to find comfort.
But as time passed and word spread, more and more people reported miraculous recoveries and even bursts of talent in ninjutsu.
The faith centered around Momoshiki—and by extension, Urashiki and Kinshiki—began to flourish throughout the southern regions of the shinobi world, where humid air and rheumatism were common.
People began setting up altars at home, praying daily to their Ōtsutsuki gods.
Some towns even erected public statues in their honor.
As Momoshiki's resistance against the lunar seal grew fiercer, his power began leaking out and cycling back through the faith network. This feedback loop allowed the Cult of the Ōtsutsuki Gods to start spreading northward, edging toward a full shinobi world conversion.
Worse still—a centipede does not die easily—the fallen noble heirs used the fragments of Ōtsutsuki power granted by Momoshiki to establish academies.
From their followers, they hand-picked the most talented individuals to indoctrinate and train.
These recruits were then funneled into the Alliance government—slowly replacing the idealists and civilian-backed officials.
Across many regions, universal education policies were halted.
Instead, outdated, convoluted teachings with little practical value were reinstated—paired with brutally high elimination rates.
Even the once-ubiquitous Breathing Art of the Sage Path was officially banned from further dissemination.
Though some tried to resist, most had only practiced the breathing technique for fitness. Even the best barely reached chūnin-level taijutsu—softened by years of peace.
They were all systematically hunted down by the elite ninja trained using Ōtsutsuki power.
In areas where resistance flared, the rebels were branded as heretics spreading false Ōtsutsuki teachings—then wiped out completely.
Thanks to high-level operatives already embedded in the Alliance leadership, these regions quickly became private territories of noble families—churning out elite believers, loyal only to the Ōtsutsuki and their aristocratic overlords.
With the fall of most Kage-level and above shinobi, the decay of the Shinobi Alliance accelerated beyond anyone's expectations.
Under the machinations of noble descendants and power-hungry conspirators, the Cult of the Ōtsutsuki Gods rose.
A new era—the Post-Ōtsutsuki Decadence—is dawning!
...
But no matter how thick the cover, paper cannot hide fire.
As these power-hungry forces manipulated the Ōtsutsuki name from the shadows...
Those who inherited the will of the fallen heroes began to gather once more.