At this moment, 'Sasuke', who had just recovered from the rigidity of the Lightning Release backlash, witnessed 'Obito's' tragic state, his eyes turning bloodshot.
He slammed both hands onto the ground and shouted sharply: "Wood Release!"
Suddenly, the earth surged as countless thick trees burst through the ground like giant pythons, turning into a sky-filling swarm of vine-like tentacles that coiled toward Takuno with overwhelming force, intending to bind and strangle him.
However, Takuno's figure once again vanished like a flash of electricity! Only a blurry afterimage remained in his place.
"Where... is he?!" 'Sasuke's' Three-tomoe Sharingan spun frantically, yet he could barely capture a trace of the trajectory.
The speed the opponent stimulated through Lightning Release was fast enough to induce despair!
Fortunately, the ridiculously powerful sensory ability originating from his body's instincts saved his life!
'Sasuke' instantly locked onto that rapidly moving chakra fluctuation.
He immediately formed hand seals; the familiar Fire Release seals were about to be completed.
"Fire Style: Great Fireball..."
But his movements suddenly jammed!
A terrifying thought flashed through his mind: "This Great Fireball Technique... could it also be fake? Something I cannot truly master?"
The massive uncertainty caused him to hesitate for a moment.
He subconsciously thought of imitating the Wood Release the opponent used... but while he possessed the potential to drive Wood Release, he did not know a single established Wood Release ninjutsu; at most, he could only create some crude branches and vines like he had just done.
"I must pull back first!" 'Sasuke' made a prompt decision, exerting force in his feet to dodge to the side.
However, his ankles felt as if they were locked by cold iron pincers, pinning him firmly to the spot!
Looking down, his pupils shrank. Without him noticing, a layer of crystal-clear yet iron-hard ice had silently frozen his feet!
They were standing on the water of the pool!
"Ice Release?!" 'Sasuke' identified in horror, his heart turning cold.
Too late.
Takuno's figure, like a soul-reaping Yama, was already within reach, his fingertips glowing with a deadly light.
It wasn't that Takuno didn't want to kill the opponent with a single punch to save chakra.
Rather, it was because he knew the vitality of this body well—the physical strength far exceeding ordinary people, the defensive sealing techniques inscribed within the body, and that near-perverse self-healing ability...
A reckless punch might not be enough to completely destroy him instantly; instead, it might give the opponent an opportunity to counterattack.
"Wood Release: Cutting Technique." The cold voice pronounced the end.
And so, 'Sasuke's' body, amidst the blooming of countless cruel wooden spikes, followed in the footsteps of 'Obito'.
Having resolved the threat in front of him, Takuno slowly raised his head. His cold, sharp gaze pierced through the pervasive dust and dissipating chakra like a physical substance, precisely locking onto the sole remaining figure at the edge of the battlefield.
Surrounded by sand and dust, his three-tomoe Sharingans still crimson: 'Gaara'!
Takuno's figure gradually became clear amidst the diffusing dust. He walked with steady steps, approaching the seemingly mad 'Gaara' one step at a time.
"Why?!" 'Gaara's' voice was as shrill as grinding sand, every syllable saturated with intense resentment and confusion.
He glared at Takuno, his bloodshot eyes appearing as if they were about to spray fire. "You clearly... clearly already possess such powerful strength! Why do you still torture us like playing with ants?!!!"
Takuno's pace paused.
He spoke calmly, his voice devoid of any ripples yet carrying an unshakable coldness: "Because it is not enough. What I crave is even greater power.
Your struggle, your despair, your 'existence' itself... will all become the nutrients to nourish my growth. That is all."
This understated reason revealed the cruelest truth.
"Heh... heh... Hahaha!!!" What responded to him was a sudden explosion of hysterical laughter.
'Gaara' seemed completely insane. His fingers curled like hooks as he clawed fiercely at his own forehead!
The force was so violent that it instantly tore the skin. Bright red blood mixed with fine sand, like winding vipers, gushed out from between his twisted fingers, staining half his face and making him look even more hideous.
"Just for this... this tiny, insignificant reason?!" 'Gaara's' voice trembled with pain and extreme anger. "You make us experience hellish despair?! You are so cruel!!"
"This alone is enough." Takuno's tone remained indifferent, even carrying a hint of natural mockery.
"Besides, no matter how you deny it or how you struggle, you are ultimately a part of me. If I am a bit cruel to myself, why should it not be allowed?"
"Shut up!!! I am not you! I will never be you!!!" This cold pronouncement completely shattered 'Gaara's' sanity.
He roared like a wounded trapped beast, his hands rapidly forming seals in a posture of destructive resolve!
In those blood-stained eyes, the last trace of reason was completely extinguished, leaving only a heart-stopping, pure, raging desire for destruction!
"Hm?!" Takuno's brow furrowed slightly, but in the instant the thought flashed, 'Gaara's' body underwent a terrifying mutation!
Boom! Like an inflating balloon, 'Gaara's' body began to swell frantically. The skin tore, and muscle fibers were exposed and twisted, emitting an ominous red light.
Accompanying the physical mutation was his shrill, bone-chilling laughter echoing across the battlefield: "Die! Let's die together!!!"
Within that roar of despair was his decision to completely give up. He knew well that no matter how he racked his brains, in terms of power and skill, it was absolutely impossible to surpass the terrifying original body before him.
The opponent was the original master of this body and had cultivated it for far longer than they had.
Anything they could think of or master, the opponent would absolutely have mastered it more deeply!
So rather than struggling in vain, it was better to give everything and discard it all!
He would trigger all the power that could be squeezed out of this body and this soul—unreservedly and in its most primitive form—to explode!
Oom!
A suffocating and terrifying wave of energy erupted suddenly with 'Gaara' at the center!
The space seemed unable to withstand this sudden release of a massive amount of chakra, beginning to warp and fold violently. Light became fractured and distorted within the disordered energy field.
This source of power, sufficient to warp reality, was being pushed at its destructive core toward the most violent critical point!
One must realize that Takuno's chakra volume had already reached a stat of 10 in Energy (精) long ago, and since then, he had not stopped his progress.
He had been constantly tempering his physique, and thus his chakra volume increased day by day.
Perhaps the growth in chakra in a single day wasn't much, but under his day-after-day state of almost never slacking off, his chakra volume had already reached a terrifying level.
Even looking across this entire world, his chakra volume definitely stood at the top of the pyramid, lower only than those with Six Paths power or Sage Bodies!
Therefore, a sudden explosion of such a terrifying volume of chakra could be described as world-destroying!
In the distance, the other 'Takuno' and his two memory entities, who were currently in a fierce battle, simultaneously had a massive change in expression, looking over in horror.
They never expected that the 'Gaara' personality fragment—separated from the original body and carrying painful memories—would seek liberation in such an extreme, mutually destructive way!
Facing this storm of destruction that was about to swallow everything, Takuno's gaze was frighteningly calm, as deep as an ancient well or a cold pool.
He could certainly escape. He only needed to activate Swift Release—the fruit of his fusion of Wind Release and Lightning Release—and he was absolutely certain he could escape safely a split second before the explosion's shockwave swallowed this place.
That's right; over these three years, he hadn't just mastered Ice Release, but had further explored Swift Release and... another Kekkei Genkai.
Just as he had thought, while the fusion process between two chakra attributes could not be identical, the fusion itself had commonalities.
With the experience of successfully figuring out Ice Release, the speed at which he explored other Kekkei Genkai became much smoother.
That was why he was able to successfully figure out two other Kekkei Genkai within these three years!
In fact, in the previous battles, he had also used Swift Release, albeit quite discreetly.
While activating the Lightning Release Chakra Mode and using the Lightning Armor to obscure his entire body, he used that time to carry out high-speed movement, making it impossible for them to clearly observe his actions. He had secretly layered Swift Release on top.
Were it not for this—had he let these memory entities see how Swift Release was used with their three-tomoe Sharingans, thus allowing them to also master and use that speed which exceeded the capture limit of the three-tomoe Sharingan in advance—solving them would have become exceptionally problematic.
So, as long as he used the extreme speed of Swift Release, he could escape the range of this explosion.
However, at this moment, facing the destructive radiance that could rival a small Tailed Beast Bomb and warp space, Takuno showed no intention of moving.
He seemed to have given up resistance, or perhaps... he was waiting for something.
The next instant.
BOOM-OOM-OOM!!!
The world lost its color! The destructive torrent of chakra turned into a sphere of light that swallowed everything, expanding and spreading instantly.
In an instant, Takuno's standing figure, the nearby 'Takuno', and those two memory entities were swallowed without suspense into the core of endless light and heat, impact and fragmentation...
The destructive explosion that swallowed the four did not have its violent fluctuations cease just because the targets had vanished.
The torrent of energy was like an out-of-control tide, constantly surging and spreading outward until it completely swallowed the scene of "Turtle Island" within the mental world.
However, Turtle Island was ultimately just a background projection in the spiritual realm, not a truly existing behemoth.
No matter how terrifying the momentum of this wave of destruction was as it shrouded the entire island, it was destined to not harm the original body behind the background in the slightest.
The laws of the spiritual world manifested here; it was both a usable sandbox and a canvas that could be restored in an instant.
After a long time, the roar that shook space finally subsided, and the warped light and shadow along with the rampaging energy slowly receded.
The water surface, the air, and even the sky that had been torn apart by the explosion were like back-flowing ink, rapidly re-condensing and outlining the familiar silhouette of Turtle Island.
The traces of destruction were smoothed over by an invisible power, and the environment returned to its original state, as if that breathtaking self-destruction had never occurred.
The dust cleared completely, and the standing figure gradually became clear.
Takuno was still standing on the water's surface.
His clothes, symbolic of power, had parts that were charred and damaged. His exposed skin bore burns of varying depths and marks from the energy impact.
These injuries appeared significant; the places where skin and flesh were torn throbbed with pain, and blood slid down his arms, dripping onto the water and spreading out into faint red stains.
However, while such injuries might cause death for anyone else, for him—possessing an extremely terrifying physical recovery power—they were merely minor wounds.
Relying on his formidable strength, he had endured the terrifying explosion that nearly swept the entire core area!
Not far away, another figure stood unharmed: his memory projection, 'Takuno'.
Thanks to a subtle offset of the explosion's core area, only the original Takuno bore the most direct impact, while the scars on 'Takuno' appeared lighter, his state noticeably better than the original's.
But for the other two, it was a completely different scene.
Those two memory entities were now half-kneeling on the water in a pathetic state.
Their bodies were covered in hideous gashes and charred marks, looking like clay figurines that could shatter at any moment.
Blood constantly overflowed from the corners of their mouths, and every heavy breath was mixed with groans of pain. Their bodies trembled violently due to intense pain and the exhaustion of their power.
They tried to support their bodies but could only barely maintain a kneeling posture, their eyes filled with incomprehension and deep despair.
Takuno walked with steady steps to the front of the two dying memory entities. His gaze was as calm as water, yet carried a kind of indifference that saw through everything: "Do you feel despair?"
Two pairs of eyes were raised with difficulty, filled with confusion and resentment.
They stared intently at the Takuno before them, not understanding. Since they originated from the same body and possessed an equal starting point, why were they so pathetic under that world-destroying attack?
Why was it that despite the original bearing the core of the explosion, his injuries were actually lighter than theirs at the edge? This was definitely not luck!
They growled hoarsely: "Why... just what power are you hiding?"
Takuno's voice was not loud, yet every word was clear, striking the strings of their hearts which were on the verge of collapse: "This is exactly the root of why I chase power and spare no expense."
He paused slightly, as if to let this cruel truth pierce deeper into their souls: "Do you see clearly now? Even if you are willing to burn your lives and sacrifice everything to launch an attack, you still cannot kill me.
And I—am doing this precisely so that I never again have to experience what you are enduring right now: this despair and powerlessness originating from weakness.
This is the fundamental reason why I created you."
"Weakness..." One of the memory entities seemed to have been hit by an invisible heavy hammer, repeating it in a low voice. The light in his pupils flickered violently before finally turning into a death-gray realization, "...Weakness is the original sin."
"Exactly," Takuno's voice was cold and certain.
"If your power surpassed mine, even if I had fixed your life trajectories, you would still be able to use absolute strength to tear through the shackles and overturn your established fates... unfortunately, you are weaker than me."
A faint, almost pitying arc curled at his lips as his gaze swept over the two faces filled with pain and resignation.
"Even if you are unwilling to admit it, deep down you will inevitably understand this obsession. Because... you are ultimately a part of me.
No matter how my memories are painted over or reshaped, the ultimate craving for power in my bones—that essential core of pursuing supreme strength.
It—can never change!"
The two memory entities opened their mouths as if they still wanted to say something, but in the end, all words were stuck in their throats, turning into silent sighs.
They closed their eyes in resignation, their bodies no longer tense. The last sliver of life, like a candle burnt out, quietly extinguished.
This time, they chose to end themselves, without needing Takuno to deliver the final blow.
The once-active consciousnesses returned completely to silence, and they vanished from this mental world.