Chapter 170 – Ashura
"That's right. Through the Rinnegan's Paths, one can summon the Gedo Statue. It serves as the vessel for the Ten-Tails," Hatake Yusuke explained.
"Hmph, I get it now. Come with me—I'll take you to find the Rinnegan," Ōtsutsuki Indra said.
As soon as the words left his mouth, Indra's figure vanished from Yusuke's sight. Yusuke followed a moment later, disappearing into thin air and leaving the Great White Snake Sage frozen in place, baffled.
"You've got to be kidding me… They destroyed Ryūchi Cave, and now I'm the one stuck cleaning up this mess."
Just then, four divine guardians of the sacred cave appeared beside the White Snake Sage.
"Spread the word. From this day forward, Hatake Yusuke is an honored friend of Ryūchi Cave. His status is equal to mine," the Sage said with a commanding tone.
"Understood, Great Sage."
— — —
Elsewhere, Yusuke and Indra had arrived at a desolate ruin.
Activating his dōjutsu, Indra opened a dimensional gate. The two stepped into a space that felt eerily ancient.
"This place…?" Yusuke glanced around, curiosity in his eyes.
"These ruins once belonged to the Ōtsutsuki Clan. It's also where Ashura rests in eternal slumber," Indra replied solemnly.
They continued forward until they stood before a gravestone.
"Ashura… Are you doing well? Back then… all of this was my fault. I'm sorry," Indra said quietly, voice trembling with guilt.
For someone as prideful as him, the word sorry did not come easily. Yet here, standing before the only person he had ever truly cherished—his younger brother—he meant every syllable.
"You don't have to carry all the blame. Maybe… Ashura never truly held any resentment toward you. I have a younger brother too, and I've made plenty of mistakes while trying to protect him. But he never once blamed me. I'm sure, in Ashura's eyes… you'll always be the brother he looked up to," Yusuke said, his gaze gentle.
Indra gave a slow nod before opening another dimensional gate, this time leading to the inner sanctum of the tomb.
Inside, a young man's body lay at peace.
Indra walked forward and gently brushed his hand through his brother's hair, his touch filled with affection and unspoken sorrow.
Then, slowly, he opened Ashura's eyelids—revealing a pair of blue Rinnegan.
"This is what you were looking for. Take them. I don't need them anymore," Indra said quietly.
He could've used those eyes to return himself to life… but he no longer had the desire.
Even though he had awakened the Rinnegan during his final years, after Ashura's death, all the hatred he once carried was buried along with his brother. What lingered now was only a deep resentment toward the figure in the black robe.
Yusuke didn't rush to take the eyes. Instead, he stepped closer to Ashura's body and extracted a drop of his own blood.
In the next instant, he vanished—and when he reappeared, he was dragging along a struggling figure.
White Zetsu.
"Y-Yusuke-sama? What's the meaning of this?" Zetsu stammered in panic.
"Oh, nothing much. I just thought… maybe it's time your existence served a better purpose. I never expected I'd become a stepping stone for someone else's dream," Yusuke said with a crooked grin, almost mocking himself.
He began forming a series of hand seals. Glowing runes appeared across the ground. Using a technique similar to Indra's, White Zetsu's body slowly began to morph… until it fully transformed into Ashura.
Ashura's eyes fluttered open.
Far away, Naruto—who was in the middle of training—suddenly felt a jolt. Every single one of his shadow clones vanished in an instant.
"What's wrong, Naruto?" Jiraiya asked with a frown. He didn't sense any spike in Kurama's chakra.
"I… don't know. Just now, I felt a strange ripple inside me. It only lasted for a second, but it was incredibly powerful," Naruto replied, still dazed.
Meanwhile, deep within him, Kurama stirred uneasily.
That aura… it was unmistakable.
— — —
Ashura opened his eyes.
"…Nii-san?" he murmured, stunned as he looked up at Indra.
Then his gaze shifted to the man beside him.
"Who are you? You're even more handsome than my brother," Ashura said in awe, staring at Yusuke with admiration.
"Oh? You've got good eyes, kid. Name's Hatake Yusuke—the devilishly handsome one," Yusuke beamed proudly.
Indra facepalmed, nearly losing his composure. His brother had just been resurrected, and this was his first reaction?
And Yusuke… didn't even flinch while calling himself "handsome," referring to Ashura as "kid," despite the fact that Ashura had lived centuries before even their ancestors were born.
"H-Hello, my name is Ōtsutsuki Ashura," he said sheepishly, scratching the back of his head.
"So, uh… Nii-san… I'm alive again? Is this reincarnation or something? But… it feels different. My body's restricted… and I don't have a heartbeat," Ashura noted, quickly picking up on his strange condition.
Yusuke explained everything to him—the Edo Tensei, the forbidden reanimation jutsu invented by his own descendants, and the long history between Ashura and Indra.
"Hehe, I knew it! There's no way Nii-san was the bad guy. So all of this happened because someone was manipulating everything from the shadows?" Ashura said with a bright grin, his demeanor just as innocent and cheerful as Hashirama's.
Indra stayed silent, overwhelmed with a mix of joy and guilt.
"Alright, you two can catch up as much as you want. In return, allow me to borrow these eyes," Yusuke said with a grin, extending his hand toward Ashura's original body. With utmost care, he extracted the Rinnegan from the corpse.
Using the powers of the Darkness-Darkness Fruit and the Operation Fruit, he began fusing and assimilating the eyes into his own body.
Inside, Yusuke was practically giddy.
These weren't just ordinary Rinnegan. Indra's eyes had mutated—a Rinnegan with nine tomoe—though it only existed in one eye.
He suspected that when Indra awakened his Rinnegan, he had implanted part of his will into Ashura's eyes.
With the Sage's body and chakra, the eye had evolved. But since Ashura had been dead for so long, the tomoe pattern remained dormant.
Now awakened… it was more complete than ever.
After thirty minutes, the fusion was complete.
Yusuke opened his eyes.
Twin blood-red Rinnegan with nine tomoe swirled in both pupils—Nine-Tomoe Rinne Sharingan.
The pressure radiating from them was suffocating. Even Indra and Ashura—now just spirits—could feel the overwhelming dread clawing at their souls.
From these eyes, Yusuke unlocked three new abilities. One was a unique technique from Indra. The other two were born from the evolved tomoe—Infinite Tsukuyomi and another technique so absurdly powerful that it even caught Yusuke off guard.
Suddenly, a chill swept through the air as an icy mirror materialized before Yusuke.
He glanced at his reflection.
"Ugh… gross. Too many tomoe. Looks weird," Yusuke grumbled.
With a sigh, he deactivated the tomoe pattern and turned both eyes into ordinary blue Rinnegan.
"There. Much better."
Indra could only sigh in resignation. He already knew Yusuke could devour dōjutsu… but watching it firsthand made him want to punch that smug face.
Ashura, meanwhile, was stunned.
Rinnegan… at this level? Even stronger than their father's? And this man could casually take someone else's eyes and make them stronger?
And Yusuke wasn't done.
He swapped his eyes again—this time to Tenseigan.
But something was different. They resembled Toneri's Tenseigan from the future… only vastly more powerful.
Yet, a faint yellow hue still lingered in his irises, a sign that the fusion of powers was still incomplete…
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