Chapter 53: The Weeping Star's Path, A Lunar Sanctum, and the Progenitor's Core
The celestial tapestry had aligned. The "Weeping Star," a comet Kenji had tracked through ancient Uzumaki astronomical charts and his own profound sensory abilities, blazed at its perihelion, its ethereal tail brushing the upper atmosphere of their world. This was the alignment spoken of in fragmented Senju myths and obscure fuinjutsu texts, the night the veil between realms was supposedly at its thinnest.
Kenji stood upon the desolate, wind-scoured summit of the designated mountain in the Land of Frost. The air was thin, bitingly cold, and thrummed with a strange, almost imperceptible energy. The Second Shinobi World War raged far below, a distant, insignificant inferno compared to the cosmic undertaking before him. He had left Konoha under the guise of a highly classified, long-range solo reconnaissance mission into uncharted northern territories, a pretext his legendary success rate made plausible, if still audacious.
Unfurling a massive, intricate fuinjutsu array he had meticulously prepared over months – woven with Uzumaki sealing mastery, powered by his immense chakra reserves (bolstered by Uzumaki vitality and Hashirama's cells), and calibrated with the precision of his Denki Myaku and dual dōjutsu – Kenji began the ritual. The array, inscribed on a specially prepared sheet of his own crystal-infused material, resonated with the comet's passage and the unique geothermal energies of the mountain peak.
As he channeled his chakra, the fuinjutsu lines blazed with an otherworldly silver light, the very air around him warping and shimmering. The ground trembled. It was a feat of sealing arts that would have made even the greatest Uzumaki masters pause, a testament to Kenji's terrifying intellect and the breadth of his stolen knowledge. Before him, space itself seemed to tear, not into a violent rip, but into a serene, shimmering portal – a "Silver Bridge" of pure, stabilized energy, leading into a darkness pricked with unfamiliar stars. The passage to the moon was open.
Without hesitation, Kenji stepped through.
The transition was disorienting, a brief sensation of weightlessness and immense pressure, then he stood upon solid ground. The environment was breathtakingly alien. Above him, a colossal, artificial dome arced across a star-dusted black sky, filtering the harshness of space and maintaining a breathable atmosphere. Beneath his feet, the ground was a pale, luminous rock. In the distance, intricately carved structures of white stone and glowing crystal rose towards the artificial sky – the hidden sanctuary of Hamura Ōtsutsuki's descendants. The gravity felt lighter, his movements subtly different. His Byakugan and Sharingan flared simultaneously, trying to process the sheer density of pure, ancient chakra that permeated this place.
This was the domain of the Ōtsutsuki Branch Family. They were, as the user had surmised, strong and numerous. Kenji, even from his concealed entry point on the desolate lunar plains far from their central city, could sense hundreds, perhaps thousands, of powerful chakra signatures, many possessing the pure Byakugan. A direct confrontation was unthinkable, even for him. His mission was one of ultimate stealth.
He moved like a phantom, his myriad abilities working in perfect concert. His Crystal Release allowed him to create reflective camouflage that bent the strange lunar light around him. His earth (or rather, moon rock) manipulation let him traverse fissures and craters silently. His enhanced senses, now a symphony of Sharingan prediction, Byakugan omniscience, and Denki Myaku processing speed, mapped the lunar landscape and the Ōtsutsuki patrols.
He observed their society for what felt like days, though time moved strangely here. They were an ancient, ritualistic people, their lives revolving around the veneration of Hamura and the protection of a massive, pulsating energy sphere Kenji identified as the Tenseigan Energy Vessel – the collective power of countless Byakugan sacrificed over millennia, the source of their artificial sun and moon's stability.
His target wasn't a person to kill and harvest in his usual manner. That would be crude and far too risky here. He sought something more fundamental: the purest essence of Hamura's lineage, a sample of their core Ōtsutsuki genetic material, untainted by millennia of intermingling on Earth. His research had led him to believe that their most sacred sanctum, the very heart of their lineage, would hold such a source – perhaps genetic archives, samples preserved from Hamura himself, or a nexus point connected to the Tenseigan vessel where their purest chakra coalesced.
Infiltrating their central city, a breathtaking edifice of glowing crystal and white stone, was a feat that pushed even Kenji's abilities to their limit. He bypassed Ōtsutsuki sentinels with their all-seeing Byakugans by using incredibly complex light and chakra-bending fuinjutsu he'd inscribed on his own form, creating momentary sensory blind spots. He navigated their automated defenses – advanced puppet constructs and energy barriers – with his Sharingan predicting their patterns and his Lightning Release disabling them with surgical precision.
He found it: a shrine at the very core of their city, beneath the pulsating Tenseigan vessel. Inside, protected by layers of ancient, powerful seals, lay not just historical records, but cryogenically preserved genetic samples from Hamura Ōtsutsuki's earliest direct descendants, kept pristine for millennia. This was the fount, the undiluted essence he sought.
The seals were Ōtsutsuki in origin, different from anything on Earth, but Kenji, with his profound understanding of fuinjutsu principles (Uzumaki seals also having distant Ōtsutsuki roots) and his dual dōjutsu deciphering their intricate chakra pathways, found a way. It was not about breaking them, but about understanding their resonant frequency, their lock-and-key mechanism, and creating a temporary, perfectly harmonized counter-seal.
He took the smallest viable samples – a few strands of perfectly preserved genetic material, a minuscule vial of cryo-preserved cellular matter. Enough. His fuinjutsu ensured no immediate alarms were triggered, his presence a ghost in their most sacred sanctum.
His escape was as perilous as his entry. The celestial alignment that had opened his path was waning. The "Silver Bridge" would not remain stable for long. He raced back across the lunar plains, the distant, serene city of the Ōtsutsuki unaware of the monumental theft that had just occurred.
He stepped back through the shimmering portal just as it began to destabilize, collapsing behind him with a silent implosion of energy, leaving him once more on the frigid, storm-lashed mountain peak in the Land of Frost, the familiar, heavy air of his own world filling his lungs.
He had done it. He held the essence of Senju, Uchiha, Hyuga, Uzumaki, Kaguya, and now, the purest strain of Hamura Ōtsutsuki from the moon itself. The final piece of the Ōtsutsuki puzzle, as he perceived it, was in his possession.
Back in his sanctuary, Kenji gazed at the new samples. Integrating this primordial Ōtsutsuki essence would be his most dangerous, most transformative endeavor yet. It was the key to unlocking his full potential, to perhaps even forging his own unique dōjutsu beyond the Sharingan and Byakugan, a true Tenseigan or something entirely new, something that reflected his amalgamated being.
The Second Shinobi World War still raged on Earth, a distant, almost petty squabble now from his perspective. Yet, it was the perfect crucible, the perfect smokescreen for the birth of a god. His godhood felt not just within reach, but inevitable. The path was clear. The final transformation was about to begin.