During the chaos in the southern Hot Water Country, a man leading many strange, puppet-like constructs raced toward Konoha.
His name was Akira Ōtsutsuki—patriarch of the Moon's surviving Ōtsutsuki clan lineage.
Akira, now, nearing thirty years old, was the direct descendant of Hamura Ōtsutsuki, the brother of the Sage of Six Paths.
Centuries ago, Hamura had led his followers to the Moon to guard the Ten-Tails' remains, which had become the Moon itself.
His clan's duty was to ensure the Ten-Tails' remains would never again endanger the world below—and to "protect" humanity as Hamura had decreed.
But after Hamura's death, that command became the source of endless dispute.
Protect what, exactly?
Humanity's peace from external threats?
The world's balance by eliminating dangerous anomalies?
Or humanity itself—by watching over it from afar, both literally and figuratively, and, if necessary, guiding or even controlling it from above?
The message was vague, and over time, its meaning fractured.
Eventually, the clan split in two: the Main House, which believed in quietly observing Earth from afar and protecting it only from external threats and potentially world-ending internal anomalies, and the Branch House, which decided that humanity was too far gone to save—and that only direct intervention and correction, in some form, could fulfill Hamura's will.
The Branch won, and from then on, they watched Earth with growing hatred.
War after war, century after century, the same story repeated.
To Akira's clan, humanity had proven only endless greed, endless bloodshed, twisting Hagoromo's teachings and Hamura's ideals.
And the final betrayal came when the Gedo Mazo, the Ten-Tails' empty shell, was recently also stolen from the Moon and used on Earth.
That theft shattered whatever patience they had left.
Now, Akira had come to reclaim what was lost and to punish the world that had dared to steal it, because this time, finally, there was a good opportunity, the right circumstance, and timing to start doing the necessary steps.
Originally, doing something like that was easier said than done, or else they would have already done something a long time ago.
It's because over the centuries, close to a millennium, living in the harsh environment of the Moon had drained their strength and vitality.
Humanity was simply never meant to survive there.
Generations of isolation had forced the clan into interbreeding, leading to severe genetic weakening.
It preserved some of Hamura's purest essence, unlike the Hyuga, who had diluted theirs among mortals, but it came at a cost.
Births grew rarer, vitality thinned, and the chance for new anomalies, whether miraculous or disastrous, rose.
Akira was one of those few "positive" anomalies, a rare spark of talent born into a fading line.
Tremendous potential, but among the last of his generation in total and one of the youngest in the clan.
Even Hamura's original Giant Tenseigan, the massive energy core formed from the Byakugan of countless generations to sustain their life and power there, had begun to weaken with passing time.
Nearly a millennium had passed, and with each generation, the clan's numbers dwindled, and the eyes feeding the Tenseigan grew fewer still, like a negative loop.
Alongside his clan's dwindling numbers, now only countable on two hands, and mostly elders, that would soon perhaps lead to full extinction before they did anything.
But the Hyuga on Earth still carried Byakugan, and Akira obviously knew he needed them.
Not only to try and improve and restore the Giant Tenseigan's full power, to an extent, but to awaken his own personal Tenseigan, a transformation he was told he had enough talent for by his elders once, too.
This wasn't their first attempt. During the Warring States era, his ancestors had launched repeated raids on the Hyuga, harvesting their eyes until the clan was forced to develop countermeasures, the cursed seal, and their own energy vessel, a crude imitation of the Giant Tenseigan.
That vessel, crafted with fragments of Hamura's ancient manuscripts and refined through the Byakugan's natural biological compatibility with such constructs, became the Hyuga's greatest defense.
Those defenses, combined with the vast distance between Earth and the Moon and the constant energy loss from their own lunar vessel, had stalled the raids for centuries.
But Akira was patient.
From the Moon, using the Giant Tenseigan as his planetary eye, he had watched Earth for a long time, since he was the patriarch and had the control keys of it: every war, every great power, every shift in the shinobi world.
And now, the perfect opportunity had finally come.
Most of Konoha's strongest, those who might have defended the Hyuga had he struck, were gone now, scattered across distant battlefields, fighting not only the ongoing war but even turning their blades against their own.
Not to mention, many of the strongest Hyuga, including their current Patriarch, were also away from Konoha because of the war.
Hiashi had taken many Main Branch members with him, on his front, those with the finest quality eyes, the most valuable targets to him, but they were under his direct protection.
That left the remaining Main Branch members still inside the compound, unguarded and vulnerable. After all, the Hyuga would never send all of their precious bloodline heirs to war.
Akira planned to strike before Hiashi could return.
In the past, he had always hesitated, wary that the Hokage, other elites, or even Konoha's overwhelming number of shinobi might stall him long enough for Hiashi to come back and intervene, after turning on Hyuga's own energy vessel, exposing Akira's and his clan's most important purpose too early in the process.
After all, there had also been other wild cards to consider, Madara Uchiha's lingering shadow.
But now, with the chaos of war spreading across nations and Konoha weakened by its own internal divisions, that risk had been minimized, while the potential reward remained as high as ever.
The timing was perfect. For the first time in centuries, it was truly worth it.
The Hyuga, who had once deliberately kept to the shadows and maintained a low profile in Konoha ever since the Warring States era ended, now stood almost completely undefended.
The Hyuga compound stood exposed.
Akira could strike swiftly, harvesting the finest, purest Byakugan for his own awakening of personal Tenseigan dojutsu, while also gathering a larger number to strengthen the Giant Tenseigan, and taking the chance to study the Hyuga's own lesser energy core up close.
As for Earth itself, he no longer saw it as worth saving.
The Moon, slowly being pulled out of orbit by the Giant Tenseigan's power, was already on a collision course with the planet.
The impact was still decades away, but Akira intended to make sure nothing stopped it.
No more new Hashiramas, no more Madaras, no more monsters born from chaos, as he feared might emerge from this latest war.
Individuals like Ryusei Senju, Minato Namikaze, and even the strange revival of Ashina Uzumaki unsettled him deeply.
The recent reveal of the existence of a technique like Edo Tensei, which could so perfectly defy life and death, was disturbing enough on its own.
But then there was the recent Nagato Uzumaki's use of the Gedo Mazo, and even Hiashi Hyuga firing the clan's energy vessel against Ryusei; each of these events sent ripples through Akira's passive planetary awareness inadvertently.
He couldn't watch everything perfectly at once, if ever.
His observation relied heavily on focus; through the Giant Tenseigan's power, he could only monitor specific points in detail, while the rest of the world appeared as faint, shifting impressions in the background.
Blind as he was, it also wasn't like true sight, more like perceiving chakra signatures and fluctuations through the Tenseigan's vast network.
But lately, those fluctuations had multiplied. Too many newly powerful beings were stirring passively, their chakra radiating across the planet, disturbing even his distant senses on the Moon automatically.
Once, Akira might have waited, content to let the Moon's slow descent fulfill the mission through future generations, more precisely at the hands of his own ethereal-like young child.
One born with purer blood, white hair, and a gift surpassing even his own, the brightest of their lineage in history.
But he could no longer trust that future to Toneri.
Now he knew better. If he didn't act soon, these growing powers might find his clan first—and the collision, the grand design of centuries, would be ruined before it even began.
Now was the time to act preemptively.
This would be his first step, rising in power so he could gradually tighten his grip on Earth, ensuring that by the time the destined moment arrived decades from now, no one would be left capable of saving it.
He reasoned that even if he couldn't find a Byakugan pure enough to awaken the Tenseigan outright in this generation, this time around, he could still forge one of the multiple ones he would take from the Main Branch.
By fusing multiple eyes using the advanced Byakugan-merging technology his clan somewhat possessed, from the beginning and recently mastered, he could create a composite powerful enough to resonate with his own bloodline and Sage-body half.
It would take time, months, perhaps, but the result would be worth it.
Akira stepped through the ancient and ancestral Moon portal some time ago, created by Hamura himself, his cloak whipping in the wind as he emerged within the Land of Fire.
The puppets followed in silence, their chakra eyes glowing faintly blue.
Konoha wasn't far.
And this time, the Moon had come to collect more essence from their "fallen" cousins.