Even now, Renji found it impossibly hard to accept.
His entire worldview—everything he had thought he understood about life, about history, about the fundamental nature of power and existence—was unraveling thread by thread, like a tapestry being systematically destroyed before his eyes.
Sitting in the corner of their wooden house as dusk settled over Uzumaki Village, painting the sky in shades of orange and purple, Renji stared blankly out the window. His thoughts spiraled outward, expanding into the cosmic unknown, grappling with concepts that no shinobi training had ever prepared him for.
The world... their world...
It was nothing more than a floating rock. A speck of dust drifting aimlessly in an infinite ocean of stars. A single drop of water in a limitless sea of planets, each one potentially harboring its own mysteries, its own civilizations, its own destinies.
A billion more worlds like theirs existed out there, scattered through the black void of space like grains of sand on an endless beach. Each one spinning through the darkness, most of them completely unaware of the others' existence.
The sheer, overwhelming scale of it all made Renji's heart beat faster—not from fear, though there was certainly an element of that, but from pure, undiluted awe.
"How insignificant we really are..." he muttered under his breath, his voice barely audible even to himself.
All the wars they'd fought. All the conflicts between clans and villages. The petty territorial disputes, the struggles for power, the endless cycles of vengeance and retribution. What did any of it matter in the face of such cosmic vastness?
They were ants arguing over crumbs while galaxies wheeled overhead.
And yet, even within this insignificant world, on this tiny speck of rock, forces beyond mortal comprehension had already stirred. Ancient powers that made even the legendary Sage of Six Paths seem like a child playing with toys.
The Ōtsutsuki Clan.
Just thinking the name sent a chill down Renji's spine.
A race not of this Earth. Beings who traveled from planet to planet like divine parasites—cosmic locusts consuming world after world in their eternal hunger for power. They would arrive on a thriving planet, plant their Chakra Trees deep into the world's core, and then systematically drain the life force from the entire planet over decades or centuries.
Everything. Every human. Every animal. Every plant. Every drop of natural energy. All of it would be absorbed, converted, concentrated into a single fruit.
The Chakra Fruit.
And when the Ōtsutsuki consumed that fruit, they would gain power beyond imagination—the compressed life force of an entire world flowing through their veins. That was how they grew stronger. That was how they became what mortals could only describe as gods.
It was systematic. Efficient. Utterly monstrous.
The same terrible fate had once befallen this very planet they called home.
Two Ōtsutsuki had arrived on Earth long ago, in an age before recorded history. Their names were Isshiki and Kaguya—master and servant.
One to plant the tree. The other to become its fuel.
Isshiki, the superior, had come to rule. He should have fed Kaguya to the Chakra Tree, harvested the fruit, and moved on to the next world. Standard procedure for the Ōtsutsuki.
"Insane," Renji whispered, clutching his knees tightly as if to anchor himself to reality. "This is all absolutely insane."
It should have been too much to take in.
The idea that his son—his cheerful, lazy, perpetually unmotivated son—was carrying the power of a god-like alien being should have been impossible to believe.
And yet... somehow, Renji could accept it.
Perhaps it was because his Kagura Mind's Eye could sense souls with unusual clarity, could analyze chakra in its rawest and most fundamental form. He had searched thoroughly—again and again and again, checking obsessively whenever Elric was asleep or distracted—but there was no second soul residing in his son's body.
No trace of Isshiki Ōtsutsuki's consciousness lurking in the shadows of Elric's mind.
No foreign presence waiting to take control, no parasitic entity biding its time.
Just Elric. Only Elric.
Perhaps his son was simply too powerful now, his chakra so refined and concentrated that it masked any lingering traces. Perhaps Renji's sensing abilities had become functionally outdated when faced with such overwhelming spiritual energy, like trying to use a candle to illuminate the sun.
But the main thing that truly confirmed this matter, that made it undeniable, was how powerful Elric's soul had become.
No human soul should be this potent. This dense. This... vast.
When Renji focused his Kagura Mind's Eye on his son, it was like looking at a star—a burning core of spiritual energy so intense it was almost painful to perceive directly.
And yet, there he was—sitting at the dinner table just a few feet away from where Renji brooded—eating curry with one hand, scratching his head with the other, humming some cheerful tune like an ordinary teenager without a care in the world.
Completely oblivious to his father's existential crisis.
Renji let out a dry, hollow chuckle that held no real humor.
"If only he had the motivation to match that power..."
The words came out bitter, frustrated, tinged with a father's unique brand of exasperation.
Isshiki Ōtsutsuki hadn't come to Earth alone.
No. According to the memories Elric had inherited, Isshiki had brought a companion—a subordinate whose name would eventually become legend.
Kaguya.
Another Ōtsutsuki whose entire designated role was to serve as a sacrifice to the Chakra Tree. That was the standard protocol for their species. One Ōtsutsuki to plant and nurture the tree. The other to become its fuel, their body feeding the sapling until it grew strong enough to drain the planet itself.
But something had gone catastrophically wrong on Earth.
Kaguya, the subordinate who should have accepted her fate and died for the mission, had betrayed Isshiki instead.
She had left the mighty Isshiki on the brink of death, his body broken and his power fading.
And then, while he lay dying, she had done the unthinkable.
She had consumed the Chakra Fruit herself—seizing its god-like power for her own use, breaking every law and tradition of her species in a single act of treason.
The power should have made her unstoppable. Invincible. The concentrated life force of an entire world flowing through her veins.
But Kaguya hadn't stopped there.
She had created two sons—powerful warriors designed specifically to oppose the Ōtsutsuki Clan itself. Hagoromo and Hamura. The Sage of Six Paths and his brother. Beings of immense power, born from a traitor goddess and raised in a world she had conquered.
But for reasons that remained unclear, those sons had eventually turned against their mother.
Perhaps out of fear of what she was becoming. Perhaps out of a sense of duty to protect the humans of Earth. Perhaps they simply recognized that her madness and hunger for power had grown beyond all reason or control.
Regardless of their motivations, the result was the same.
They had fought her. And somehow, they had won.
Together, the two brothers had sealed Kaguya away—not destroyed, because she was too powerful to kill, but imprisoned. They had banished her to a dimensional prison, a separate space where she could cause no more harm.
The moon itself served as her cage, hanging in the sky as an eternal reminder of the sealed goddess.
They had hoped, perhaps naively, to end her threat forever.
But according to Elric, who currently possessed Isshiki's complete memories and could access centuries of knowledge, Kaguya had been far too clever for such a simple solution.
She had left behind a backdoor. A hidden mechanism. A contingency plan that would activate under specific conditions.
A way to one day return.
And the key to her resurrection, the trigger that would break the seal and set her free?
The Rinnegan.
Renji's fists clenched unconsciously in his lap, his knuckles turning white with tension. His palms were cold with nervous sweat despite the warm evening air.
A Rinnegan awakening somewhere on Earth.
That was why Isshiki had rushed his plans so dramatically. Why he had transferred his power to Elric so hastily, with incomplete preparation and uncertain outcomes. It had been a desperate gamble, made under extreme time pressure.
Even though Isshiki was dead, his physical form long since turned to dust, his power lived on through Elric.
And if Kaguya was somehow revived...
Would she target Elric?
Would she see him as Isshiki's heir and seek revenge for ancient grievances?
Or would she try to consume him, to reclaim the power that had once belonged to her former superior?
Renji wasn't sure. looking at the situation logically...
They didn't look good.
Not good at all.
And the worst part, was that they had no idea who had awakened the Rinnegan.
Just the knowledge that somewhere out there, someone possessed the key to unleashing a goddess upon the world.
Renji himself lacked any special ability to detect those legendary eyes. His Kagura Mind's Eye could sense souls and chakra with incredible precision, but it couldn't identify specific dojutsu from a distance. He would have to physically see the eyes to recognize them.
It was a frustrating limitation.
Motivation without the ability—that was Renji's curse.
Meanwhile, his son, who possessed the ability to search the entire world if he truly applied himself, seemed utterly lacking in motivation.
Even if he somehow found the person with the Rinnegan through pure luck or investigation... what then?
Renji imagined the scenario with grim humor. He'd knock politely on some stranger's door, announce that they needed to discuss their legendary eyes and the potential apocalypse they might trigger, and then promptly get kicked halfway across the planet.
He'd be lucky to survive the encounter, let alone convince them of the danger.
He sighed deeply and glanced back at his son, who was now cheerfully drinking soup and engaging in an animated discussion with his mother about whether curry tasted better with or without pickled vegetables.
Elric. His beloved son.
And the work ethic of a lazy cat sleeping in a sunny spot.
"If only I could motivate him..." Renji muttered, rubbing his temples against an approaching headache. "If only there was something that could light a fire under that boy..."
He genuinely had no idea if Elric could actually beat Kaguya in a direct confrontation.
The power differential was unclear.
Kaguya had managed to bring Isshiki to his knees through a sneak attack, exploiting some weakness.
Elric was powerful, extraordinarily so.
But Elric had never truly trained seriously. Not once in his entire life.
Everything had come naturally to him. Techniques he mastered after seeing them once. Jutsu he could perform perfectly without practice. Combat instincts that seemed almost precognitive.
It had made him lazy. Complacent. Why work hard when everything came easily?
Renji closed his eyes, feeling the weight of paternal worry settling over his shoulders like a physical burden.
He hoped desperately that the power gap between Elric and Kaguya wouldn't be too catastrophically wide.
Maybe then they could negotiate with her, find some diplomatic solution. Perhaps she could be reasoned with.
But if possible, if there was any way to achieve it, it would be best to prevent her from breaking the seal in the first place.
Stop the resurrection before it could begin.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
A sharp series of knocks at the door suddenly yanked Renji from his thoughts, pulling him back to the immediate present with jarring abruptness.
"Who...?" Renji straightened up immediately, his body tensing with trained reflexes. His eyes narrowed with suspicion and wariness.
It was late evening. Most people in the village would be finishing dinner, settling in for the night. Unexpected visitors at this hour usually meant trouble.
He stood and moved to the door, pulling it open to reveal one of the Uzumaki clansmen standing breathless on his doorstep. The man was young, perhaps in his early twenties, with the characteristic red hair of their lineage. His face was flushed with exertion, and his chest heaved as if he'd run the entire way here.
"Patriarch," the young man gasped out, bending slightly at the waist to catch his breath. "Patriarch... there's big trouble coming. Big trouble."
You guys can check out my patreon with 20 advance chapter, and want to support this story.
patreon.com/LMStar666