Future Shinichi clasped his hands together. "Come," he said calmly. "Help me step onto the path of godhood."
The God Tree trembled violently.
Deep beneath the earth, massive amounts of natural energy were forcibly dragged upward into the canopy. With the God Tree at the center, every plant within a hundred-mile radius instantly withered away.
Green leaves turned yellow. Branches shrank and crumbled into ash. The earth split apart, rivers dried up, and every living thing containing natural energy was drained clean.
An enormous amount of power gathered at the top of the canopy, slowly forming a blinding sphere of light.
Time passed.
The sphere expanded and contracted rhythmically, as if breathing.
But in the end, it stopped changing. It floated above the canopy with an unstable glow, flickering constantly, yet it never fully solidified into a true fruit.
Shinichi stood atop a branch, staring silently at the sphere of light.
Then his eyes shifted from the incomplete fruit to the God Tree below, before sweeping across the dead land that had been completely drained of life.
"So that's how it is…" he muttered slowly. "The method wasn't wrong. He's the one that's missing."
Roshi lay motionless on the ground, staring blankly at the apocalyptic scene around him. He finally realized that the man before him had been trying to become a god.
But it seemed he had failed.
Suddenly, the God Tree sank back into the earth and disappeared completely. The sky remained unchanged, but the land below had been utterly transformed.
Roshi looked around in disbelief. The lush forest was gone, and the once-roaring river was now nothing more than a dry riverbed.
And all of it had happened in just a few moments.
Roshi's heart pounded wildly.
'This power…'
He swallowed hard.
'This power… isn't something a human should possess!'
Shinichi stepped forward, walking across the cracked earth toward Roshi.
Fear filled Roshi's eyes. He wanted to retreat, but his paralyzed body refused to move. He could only watch helplessly as the figure approached, its shadow slowly swallowing him whole.
The black-robed man stopped in front of him. A gloved hand shot out, grabbing Roshi by the throat and lifting him effortlessly into the air.
Roshi stared into the cold eyes behind the mask.
No…
Suddenly, he realized that gaze wasn't directed at him at all. It felt as though the man was looking through his eyes at some invisible existence beyond them.
"Wrong," Shinichi said quietly. "Everything is wrong."
After a brief pause, he continued,
"The current you… should be watching me right now, correct?"
Roshi could only choke silently in his grip.
The black-robed man stared deeply into his eyes and continued, "Listen. This path... is wrong! They are indispensable!"
With a twist of his wrist, he pulled Roshi closer.
"Let Him manifest... only by making Him a sacrifice can..."
Before he could finish his sentence, Roshi's vision went black, and his consciousness faded.
Back in the Loulan Ruins, Shinichi suddenly snapped his eyes open. His breath hitched, then grew heavy as his chest heaved. He released his grip and took a step back.
Losing his support, Roshi slumped to the ground, completely unconscious.
Shinichi looked down at Roshi, but the image playing in his mind was of his future self gripping the Jinchūriki's throat. Those cryptic words still echoed in his head.
"Heh… so that's how it is." Shinichi pressed a hand against his forehead as a faint smirk slowly appeared on his lips.
"My future self left this information for me. As expected of myself."
Although the information was fragmented, Shinichi understood everything almost instantly.
The Great Toad Sage's prophecy... 'In the end, you too shall become a god.'
The message his future self had sent across time... 'This path… is wrong… They are indispensable.'
And the incomplete Chakra Fruit he had just witnessed in that memory.
All the clues connected together perfectly.
"To reach the level of a god, I shouldn't become the Ten-Tails Jinchūriki. That's merely the old path of the Sage of Six Paths."
Shinichi muttered to himself while rapidly organizing the revelations in his mind.
"My path is to use Wood Release to reunite the chakra of the nine Tailed Beasts, recreate the God Tree, directly absorb the earth's natural energy, and condense my own… Chakra Fruit."
He paused.
"But my future self failed because the most important sacrifice was missing… an Ōtsutsuki."
The Chakra Fruit was created when the God Tree devoured a planet's energy. But that process required a core sacrifice. And that sacrifice had to be an Ōtsutsuki.
The original path required the Ten-Tails to devour an Ōtsutsuki, take root within a planet, absorb its energy, and finally produce a fruit at the top of the canopy.
But his Wood Release path was different.
Instead of becoming the Ten-Tails itself, he would use the chakra of the nine Tailed Beasts to recreate the foundation of the God Tree. Then, through Wood Release, he would directly evolve the God Tree and forcibly absorb the world's natural energy to create a Chakra Fruit.
His future self had already proven that the first half of the theory was possible.
The God Tree could indeed be recreated.
Natural energy could indeed be absorbed.
But that memory also revealed the fatal flaw in the second half of the plan.
Without an Ōtsutsuki as the core sacrifice, the gathered energy could not complete its final transformation and condense into a true Chakra Fruit.
"So, the method itself wasn't wrong."
Shinichi's gaze darkened.
"It simply lacked the proper sacrifice. As long as there is an Ōtsutsuki… as long as there is a sacrifice…"
His voice slowly faded, leaving the rest unsaid. The meaning was obvious. As long as there was a sacrifice, the God Tree could bear fruit.
And once he consumed that fruit…
Shinichi's expression remained calm, but his eyes drifted into the distance, as though he could already see the countless schemes and shadowy figures moving within the darkness.
"The missing Five-Tails… and the Ōtsutsuki… it's not like the ninja world doesn't have them."
He spoke slowly.
"But if they truly can't be found… then the Eye of the Moon Plan still has to proceed."
A dark smile gradually appeared on his lips.
"So, Black Zetsu… you'd better keep doing your part."
"And don't disappoint me."
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