Ōtsutsuki Toneri's power was terrifyingly strong—
especially after seizing Hinata's eyes, which evolved into the Tenseigan.
In this state, Toneri could fully draw upon the might of the Giant Tenseigan, empowering himself to the limit.
Without question, in this form, Toneri stood at the very pinnacle of the shinobi world.
Ordinary Six Paths–level shinobi couldn't hope to rival him;
even Uchiha Obito, as the Ten-Tails' jinchūriki, was someone Toneri dared to face head-on.
But once the Giant Tenseigan—the very source of his strength—was severed from him,
Toneri was like a fish thrown onto dry land.
At best, his current power was only at the peak of the Super Kage level.
"That guy cut off your link to the Giant Tenseigan,"
Uchiha Madara said indifferently.
"You're useless now, Toneri."
"Bastard!"
Toneri's face turned ashen, both hands clenching until his knuckles cracked.
He had always known that cooperating with Obito was like making a pact with a tiger.
More than once, he had even considered eliminating him.
After all, in his crusade to "cleanse the shinobi world," Obito was just another great calamity.
But at that time, Toneri judged that compared to Obito, Yuki Yoru was the far greater threat.
He needed Obito's power.
Never did he expect that before they could even move against Yoru,
Obito would strike first.
"People always think they can change this world,"
Madara said as he watched Toneri's unhinged expression, shaking his head,
"yet they never realize they are forever the ones being controlled."
"You're just like me, Ōtsutsuki Toneri."
No.
Compared to Madara, Toneri was merely a naïve boy.
Madara himself was the true puppet clown, the fool who had been toyed with from the very beginning.
Madara's gaze remained calm as he looked at Toneri.
His Complete Susanoo raised its massive blade high and brought it crashing down.
Toneri desperately forced the power of his Tenseigan to resist.
But without the Giant Tenseigan, how could he possibly stand against Madara?
With a single strike, Toneri's body was blown away like a kite with its string cut,
plummeting down through the void.
"It's over. This pitiful world is nothing if not cruel and merciless."
Madara turned his head, no longer sparing Toneri a glance,
and urged his Complete Susanoo forward toward the crumbling moon.
As Toneri's battered body fell, however, it was swallowed up by a twisting spatial vortex.
Madara's speed was immense, yet the distance between Earth and the Moon was not short.
By the time he reached the moon surface, the once-grounded Moon Palace was already floating aloft,
suspended above the shattered lunar crust.
Countless fragments drifted like broken stone,
the entire moon fractured into pieces—
and yet, some mysterious power was forcibly holding it together.
"So this… is the Giant Tenseigan, the root of Toneri's power?"
When Madara's figure entered the depths of the Moon Palace,
his eyes widened in awe at the colossal eye before him.
According to Obito and Zetsu's intelligence,
the so-called Giant Tenseigan had been forged from the countless Byakugan of the Ōtsutsuki on the moon.
They had been tasked with guarding the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path,
yet chose to spend the strength of their entire clan forging such a construct…
Tsk, even when they were on the moon, without any outside forces, they would still have internal strife.
Humans, in this sorrowful real world, are just like this, without any hope, without any future.
"Lord Madara, you've arrived."
Black Zetsu hurried forward excitedly as he noticed Madara's presence.
"Obito is absorbing the power of the Giant Tenseigan. Without a doubt, once he fully takes in this strength,
he'll completely make up for the missing Nine-Tails—
and perhaps become even stronger!"
"When the time comes, no one will be able to stop us from achieving the Eye of the Moon Plan!"
"The Eye of the Moon plan, huh."
Madara gave a cold snort, saying nothing more. His gaze turned toward Obito, who was continuously devouring the power of the Giant Tenseigan.
The power of that colossal eye was vast as an ocean—
the accumulation of thousands of years of the Ōtsutsuki on the moon,
the combined might of countless Byakugan.
This energy alone could raise even a powerless ordinary man to the Six Paths level.
Using it as a substitute for the missing Nine-Tails posed no issue whatsoever.
However, as Obito continued to absorb more and more of this power,
the mysterious force that had been holding the shattered moon together began to unravel.
The moon, which Minato had already broken apart, once again began to collapse.
With violent tremors that shook the heavens,
massive chunks of the moon split off, drifting in chaos through space,
and under Earth's gravity, started plummeting toward the planet.
These fragments were colossal—
some even larger than the entire Land of Fire or any of the other Five Great Nations.
If such meteors were to fall upon the shinobi world,
the destruction would be catastrophic.
The entire world could very well be annihilated beneath the impact of the moon's remains.
...
"Did we succeed?"
In Kirigakure of the Land of Water, Tsunade and the others looked up at the shattered moon, and at the same time, they also received a message from Hikari Uchiha.
Minato had staked his very life to hold back Ōtsutsuki Toneri.
The moon had been destroyed successfully,
but Uchiha Madara and Obito had appeared as well.
No one knew what those two would attempt in this situation,
but now that the moon had shattered, the immediate crisis was clear:
they had to stop the falling fragments.
At the same time, they had to brace themselves for a possible desperate ambush
from Obito and Madara.
The Shinigami captains and the Sternritter fought tirelessly,
shattering incoming fragments of the moon.
Though Kirigakure's fighting forces had once been nearly wiped out by Obito,
Orochimaru's Project No. 3 had succeeded,
allowing certain Shinigami to achieve Hollowfication, dramatically boosting their strength.
In addition, Miroku's techniques could grant life to inorganic matter,
further bolstering Kirigakure's side.
Before long, every fragment that threatened to fall toward Kirigakure had been destroyed.
But countless more fragments had already plummeted elsewhere across the shinobi world,
bringing unimaginable devastation—
a true natural disaster.
"I really don't know whether what we've done is right… or wrong."
Standing on the shore of Kirigakure,
Tsunade stared into the distance where massive moon fragments crashed into the sea.
After today, most of the shinobi world would likely be reduced to ruins.
No one knew how many could possibly survive such a calamity.
Uzumaki Kushina wiped away her tears.
This was the result that Minato Namikaze had exchanged with his life.
Shinigami were nothing more than transformed souls;
once they died, they truly vanished—
body and spirit, gone forever.
"Everything will be alright," Tsunade whispered as she gently embraced Kushina,
"It will all be alright…"
...
Land of Wind
Rumble…
Countless fragments of the moon rained down into the endless sands,
smashing the Land of Wind's cities and structures into dust.
Without Rasa, without any true high-level combatants, Sunagakure now had nothing to rely on but the aged body of Chiyo.
The village no longer had the strength to resist the destructive power of the moon's collapse—
all they could do was pray for luck,
hoping fewer fragments of the moon would crash upon them.
Chiyo and the Suna shinobi struggled desperately to resist,
but their efforts yielded almost nothing.
The countless citizens of Sunagakure could only scatter and hide,
placing their fates in the hands of fragile chance.
Kumogakure's situation was equally dire.
The only difference was that, in terms of sheer strength,
the Cloud still fared slightly better than the Sand.
In the end, however, the only nations that could meaningfully withstand this calamity,
aside from Kirigakure,
were the Land of Earth and the Land of Fire.
"Dust Release: Detachment of the Primitive World Technique!"
The light of the kekkei tōta that disintegrated everything
shot into the heavens,
reducing the core of one of the largest lunar fragments into mere atoms.
But even so, the massive debris surrounding it
still hurtled down toward Iwagakure.
"Earth Release: Earth-Style Rampart!"
"Earth Release: Earth Flow Ramparts of Ten Thousand Li!"
"Earth Release: Clay Giant!"
Countless Iwa-nin unleashed Earth Release techniques,
raising walls and titanic barriers to shield themselves from the incoming rain of stone.
...
Land of Fire
The moon's collapse shook them as well.
But with Hiruzen Sarutobi and Shimura Danzō,
two powerhouses who had already stepped into the semi–Six Paths realm,
the fragments posed little threat to Konoha.
Only a few scattered shards fell,
landing harmlessly in the barren outskirts of the Fire Country.
...
Within the Ōtsutsuki dimension, Jigen looked at the heavily injured Toneri Ōtsutsuki. He couldn't help but extend a hand and place it on Toneri's forehead.
The rich chakra stabilized the injuries on Toneri's body, and it also allowed Jigen to more clearly feel the Tenseigan in Toneri's eye sockets.
"An excellent Byakugan variant, but unfortunately, it's too immature."
As a member of the main Ōtsutsuki family, Jigen had seen many Byakugan variants, such as his own Black Eye and the Jōgan that was activated using Hanabi, etc. Those eyes all had extremely powerful dojutsu.
But most of these Byakugan variants were better in terms of their 'mechanisms'.
But the Tenseigan was different.
This pair was all about raw violence—
a pair of pure battle eyes.
If he could obtain them,
even at his peak,
such eyes would be a formidable asset.
"Though the Ōtsutsuki are forbidden to kill one another,
as the descendant of that wretched Kaguya,
to become my vessel will be your honor."
Muttering softly, Jigen duplicated his own Karma seal,
embedding it into Toneri's body.
It was stable!
A good fit!
Just like with Uchiha Madara,
Toneri's body also resonated perfectly with Jigen's Karma.
If he willed it,
he could reincarnate using Toneri's vessel.
Another contingency secured.
Centuries of lying in wait had tempered the arrogance of the Ōtsutsuki within him,
replacing it with a more human caution.
And one can never have too many contingencies.
...
Meanwhile, Obito continued to devour the endless energy.
The enormous Giant Tenseigan began to shrink,
and eventually dissolved entirely.
A terrifying power surged outward from Uchiha Obito's body.
Though he had not undergone the dramatic transformation
of his earlier ascension to Six Paths or Ten-Tails jinchūriki,
an unmistakable pattern of tomoe appeared within his eye sockets—
In the next moment, the thin slit at Obito's brow suddenly opened, revealing a Rinnegan with nine tomoe!
"That is…"
Uchiha Madara's gaze was immediately drawn to the eye, and even he felt an overwhelming pressure radiating from it.
"It's finally here!"
Black Zetsu, upon seeing the eye, could no longer contain his excitement.
The Nine-Tomoe Rinnegan, also known as the Rinne Sharingan, was the ultimate form of the Sharingan—its origin tracing back to the God Tree itself.
This special dōjutsu could only be awakened by consuming the chakra fruit of the God Tree.
Its appearance combined the traits of both the Rinnegan and the Sharingan:
the ripple pattern of the Rinnegan, the crimson hue of the Sharingan, and nine tomoe encircling it.
It possessed the powers of both—the progenitor eye from which all Sharingan and Rinnegan derived.
Ordinarily, only members of the Ōtsutsuki clan who had devoured the God Tree's fruit could awaken such eyes.
Thus, the awakening of this eye represented not only the pinnacle of ocular power,
but also that its wielder had ascended to the second stage of the Kekkei Mōra,
the realm once held by the progenitor of chakra herself—Ōtsutsuki Kaguya.
Only by reaching this realm, only by awakening the Rinne Sharingan,
could one establish contact with Kaguya—sealed away by the Sage of Six Paths—
and aid in unsealing her.
Yes.
This was the only method to release Kaguya Ōtsutsuki.
The moon itself was irrelevant.
Though Hagoromo had used Chibaku Tensei to bind Kaguya,
even shattering the moon would not free her.
The true seal was forged by the chakra of the Sage and his brother.
The moon was merely an auxiliary byproduct of the "Six Paths Chibaku Tensei."
For thousands of years,
Black Zetsu had waited,
worked tirelessly for this very moment.
And now, at last—it had succeeded!
"Mother, wait for me… soon I'll set you free!"
Black Zetsu screamed inwardly.
All that remained was to gently guide Obito,
or at the right moment reveal the truth and take control.
One way or another, the Rinne Sharingan had awakened—
the endgame was at hand!
Uchiha Obito slowly opened both eyes.
At this moment, he felt as though he himself had become a god.
His gaze fell upon Black Zetsu.
It fell upon Uchiha Madara.
And even upon the distant Earth itself.
"It all ends here."
Obito's expression was calm, almost divine.
Now that he had awakened the Rinne Sharingan,
it was as if all chakra in existence bowed before him as its sovereign.
Every motion, every breath,
could shake the heavens and command all creation.
This was the true god.
The true sage.
The very source of power itself.
"And what do you intend to do?"
Madara's scarlet eyes studied him coldly.
"The moon has already been shattered.
You no longer have a target upon which to cast Infinite Tsukuyomi, do you?"
"The moon? Merely a trivial matter."
Obito's expression did not change.
Raising his palm slightly, a terrifying gravitational force erupted outward.
The countless moon fragments scattered across space
suddenly reversed course—
all of them hurtling back, converging toward Obito's hand.
In only a matter of moments,
those fragments condensed together into a colossal new satellite,
slightly smaller than the original moon.
With a single gesture—
Obito had created a new moon.