Chapter 95: The Price of Borrowed Power
"Such a massive amount of chakra…" The middle-aged leader's expression was grim, his composure finally cracking. The scale of the Susano'o before him was beyond anything their borrowed fragments of the Tenseigan could hope to match.
The younger man at his side turned to him, panic evident even in his eyeless face. "Clan Leader… what do we do?"
The man addressed as Clan Leader inhaled deeply, the weight of an impossible decision settling onto his shoulders. "There is no other choice. I must draw more deeply from the Tenseigan's power. It's the only way to face this 'Uchiha Madara.'"
"But that would—" the younger man's voice caught. "Your lifespan. It will drain you. Severely."
The lunar Ōtsutsuki, though bearing the clan name, were not pure enough to wield the Great Tenseigan's power without consequence. There was a threshold. Exceed it, and the cost was measured not in chakra, but in years—decades stripped away in moments.
"It must be done," the Clan Leader said, his voice hardening with resolve. "His chakra has not yet fully stabilized. That instability is our only window. We can still win."
"It's useless." The cold, amplified voice of the masked invader rolled over them like thunder. "Against this Susano'o, all resistance is meaningless."
The colossal blue titan moved.
With a sound like grinding tectonic plates, the Susano'o drew its chakra blade—a weapon tens of meters long, gleaming with condensed power. The great sword arced through the air, and a line of pure blue light bisected the world itself.
Whoosh—
The blade's passage left a trail of compressed air and spatial distortion. The line raced from the titan's position, across the ancient buildings, across the barren ground, to the very edge of the pocket dimension's horizon.
KABOOOOOM!
In the far distance, the peak of a rocky mountain—visible only as a silhouette—erupted. A dazzling blue-white flash, then a thunderous roar as the summit was reduced to fine powder, raining down in a silent, distant cascade.
The Clan Leader stood frozen, the full might of the attack having passed harmlessly beside him—a deliberate miss, a display of overwhelming, contemptuous power.
But the Clan Leader was not the only one on the field.
A blur of light green chakra shot upward from the settling dust cloud. It was the younger woman, clutching two limp, unconscious forms—the young man and the woman who had been caught in the blast wave of the near-miss. She was enveloped in a thin, translucent coat of pale green energy.
"Oh?" The masked man's voice held genuine interest. "The Tenseigan Chakra Mode? You can achieve that with merely borrowed power?"
It was unmistakable. Though the chakra coat was faint, lacking the solidity and the telltale Truth-Seeking Balls of the perfected form, the structure was there—the single horn, the black magatama patterning along the collar. It was a shadow of the true power, but unmistakably its echo.
Before he could comment further, the green streak shot away, carrying the two injured across the sky at tremendous speed, disappearing over the distant ridge.
The masked man blinked beneath his mask. 'He ran? I expected a last stand, not a retreat.'
He was just about to disperse the Susano'o and begin his search for Toneri when—
SHIIING!
A spear of emerald light, a concentrated lance of Tenseigan chakra, screamed across the distance, aimed directly at the Susano'o's crystalline core.
The titan's chakra blade intercepted it in a shower of azure sparks. The impact was immense. The great sword, forged of pure Susano'o energy, shattered into a million glittering shards that drifted down like frozen rain.
"Now that's more like it," the masked man praised, his tone one of a disappointed teacher finally seeing a student show promise. "This is somewhat befitting of the Sage's nephew. Can you go further? This level won't satisfy me!"
The Clan Leader, now wreathed in his own, more substantial Tenseigan Chakra Mode, hovered in the air. His face was twisted with fury and the visible strain of the power coursing through him. Who were they? They were the direct descendants of Ōtsutsuki Hamura, the savior of the ancient world, the eternal watchers tasked with judging humanity. They were destined to become the sword that would excise this failed world and forge a new one from its ashes!
And this… this descendant dared to mock them?
"Excellent. Excellent!" The Clan Leader's laugh was bitter, enraged. "You will regret those words! I will show you the true power of the Ōtsutsuki clan! Let's see if your arrogance survives the demonstration!"
He vanished.
A green comet, he struck the Susano'o's armored shoulder. The impact was cataclysmic. A shockwave of chakra and displaced air flattened everything for a hundred meters. The colossal titan, despite its mass, was driven back a step. The ground buckled under its heel, sending tremors through the foundations of the ancient city.
Before the Susano'o could recover its balance, the Clan Leader was already at its head, hovering directly before the crystalline prism where the masked man stood. His borrowed chakra coat blazed with effort.
"It seems," he sneered, "your ability to phase through attacks has its limits. You cannot extend it to this giant forever, can you?"
A sphere of condensed green chakra formed in his palm. With a pulse of energy, it quivered and multiplied, splitting into a ring of smaller orbs that orbited his hand like a bracelet of captured stars.
"Size is not always an advantage," the Clan Leader declared, his confidence returning. "Your Susano'o is massive, but clumsy! See how you block this!"
The Susano'o's remaining hand, crackling with reforming chakra, rose to swat the pest from its face.
"Tenseigan: Revolving Heaven Burst!"
The ring of chakra beads ignited, spinning into a blinding vortex. The Clan Leader thrust his palm forward, and a white hurricane—not wind, but pure, compressed, and rotating chakra—erupted from the epicenter.
The world became white.
The hurricane was not merely destructive; it was erasive. Where the white spiral touched, the ancient stonework of Hamura's city didn't just crumble—it was scoured from existence, atomized. The ground itself was carved away, deep gouges appearing as if the very planet had been filleted.
And yet.
When the churning white vortex cleared, the Susano'o stood within it, utterly untouched. The chakra blade had reformed. The armor was pristine. It was as if the apocalyptic attack had passed through an illusion.
"Impossible!" The Clan Leader's borrowed power flickered, his concentration shattered by disbelief. "You… you extended your intangibility to the Susano'o itself? Then—then my earlier attack that landed… you let it land?"
He understood then, with sickening clarity. The invader had been toying with him. Testing him. The hits he had scored were concessions, not victories.
"You're perceptive," the masked man's voice came, not from the Susano'o's crystal, but from directly beside the Clan Leader's ear. "You're right that size often comes at the cost of agility. But against an opponent like you…"
The Clan Leader's face drained of color. He was fast—desperately fast—but his body was already screaming from the borrowed power tearing through his life force. He barely managed to conjure a hasty Tenseigan chakra shield.
CRASH!
The Susano'o's other fist, which had been hidden from the Clan Leader's perception behind the titan's own bulk, descended like a collapsing mountain. It struck the emerald shield dead-on.
The shield held for one heartbeat. Two.
Then it shattered.
(End of Chapter)
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