The Hyūga clan's Rotation was originally a taijutsu technique meant to repel everything around the user, creating a circular defensive field.
But now, infused with the Tenseigan's chakra, this taijutsu—originally meant for defense—was erupting with utterly unbelievable destructive power.
The air itself screamed. The instant the lava beast's hand touched Hiashi, it was ground into dust.
It was as if, before this Tenseigan-powered Rotation, heat and magma alike were nothing more than a joke.
RUMBLE—!!!
High above, the pale-blue sphere—twenty to thirty meters across—began to move.
Standing at its center, Hiashi seemed to revel in this power that felt capable of destroying everything. He was now directly driving this blue sphere born from Tenseigan Rotation straight at Uchiha Chizumi.
"Interesting."
"So even without fully bringing out the Tenseigan's true power, you've managed to combine it with a Hyūga secret technique and create this so-called Tenseigan Rotation."
"And purely in terms of destructive power, this thing is almost equivalent to a self-guided Tailed Beast Bomb."
The skeletal frame around Uchiha Chizumi began to grow on its own.
Ocular power poured out from his Mangekyō Sharingan as a gigantic Susanoo rapidly took shape. The third-stage Susanoo, towering several hundred meters tall, was enough to force everyone present to look up at it.
"What a monster."
"When Grandfather fought Uchiha Madara back then, Madara's Susanoo should have been about this size too, right?"
Watching Chizumi's Susanoo in the distance, Tsunade couldn't help sighing. The more she grasped just how powerful Uchiha Chizumi was, the more clearly she understood Uchiha Madara—and the more respect she felt for Senju Hashirama.
"Doesn't it look like there's a trace of purple wrapped around Chizumi's Susanoo?"
"I don't remember that being there before."
Hiruzen frowned in confusion. He had seen Chizumi's Susanoo several times, but none of the earlier ones had that faint purple hue.
"Hey, old man…"
A little farther off, Shima called out to Fukasaku.
"Don't you think there's something off about Uchiha Chizumi's Susanoo?"
"I remember normal Susanoo topping out at just over a hundred meters, right?"
"So why is Chizumi's Susanoo already getting close to the size of Uchiha Madara's back then?"
Shima's toad face was creased with confusion. Living a long time had its advantages—she had seen a lot. Even a supreme Uchiha power like Susanoo was something she had witnessed more than once.
"But that doesn't make sense…"
"As far as I know, Uchiha Chizumi doesn't even have any siblings, right?"
"I did hear he once killed his uncle, but… his uncle's eyes weren't Mangekyō Sharingan, were they?"
Once Shima pointed it out, Fukasaku also realized something was wrong with Chizumi's Susanoo.
No matter how they thought about it, though, they couldn't figure out how he could have achieved this. Based on what they knew, evolving beyond the Mangekyō should have required stimulation from the Mangekyō Sharingan of a close blood relative.
"Hey, hey, Fukasaku-sama, Shima-sama, what are you two talking around?"
Jiraiya grumbled unhappily. He could tell the two toad sages were hiding something from him, but he couldn't make heads or tails of what they were implying.
"Little Jiraiya, there's something very wrong with this Uchiha Chizumi. Very wrong."
Fukasaku took a slow breath. It wasn't that he wanted to keep things from Jiraiya on purpose—if Jiraiya had been an Uchiha, he wouldn't have minded telling him the clan's secret.
But Jiraiya had nothing to do with the Uchiha clan, and Mount Myōboku wasn't in a position to reveal Uchiha secrets.
At the center of the battlefield, the enormous Susanoo had already collided with that pale-blue sphere.
Even with the fully formed Susanoo, the moment it made contact with the rotating orb, cracks actually began appearing across its palm.
"So its destructive power is really this high?"
Chizumi had Susanoo's other hand reach out toward the Tenseigan Rotation as well.
But as both hands touched it, he realized that the sphere Hiashi had created didn't just possess terrifying destructive force—it was also unbelievably solid.
So solid that even the power of Susanoo couldn't easily shatter it.
"It's useless!"
"The Hyūga clan's Tenseigan is far above your Uchiha clan's Mangekyō Sharingan. Even if your Susanoo rivals Uchiha Madara's from back then, there's no way you can break my Tenseigan!"
Inside the Tenseigan Rotation, a mocking smile spread across Hiashi's face.
Maybe it was because he'd been spinning too long and had finally gone a little mad, but the calm and gentleness he once carried was nowhere to be seen. In its place was naked arrogance.
"Break!"
As Hiashi spun faster and faster at the center of the Rotation, the pale-blue sphere gradually began deepening toward dark blue.
And then something unbelievable happened.
The hand of Uchiha Chizumi's Susanoo started to break apart.
"So your control over the Tenseigan just rose another level?"
Chizumi watched Susanoo's hand shatter and the blue sphere continue pressing toward him, but there wasn't the slightest trace of panic in his eyes.
He had only wanted to test exactly how much distance still remained between his current Mangekyō Sharingan—which was already evolving toward the Rinnegan—and a true Sage Eye like the Tenseigan.
And now, the answer was clear.
Even with his Mangekyō already moving toward the Rinnegan, it still fell somewhat short against the Tenseigan.
"Wood Release: Wood Golem Jutsu!"
But Uchiha Chizumi's power had never been limited to Susanoo alone.
At his shout, a gigantic wooden giant appeared in the middle of the battlefield. It stepped in and took Susanoo's place, throwing itself in front of him.
And the moment that deep-blue Rotation touched the Wood Golem, the contact point began disintegrating outright.
"This power… why does it feel a little like that old man Ōnoki's Dust Release?"
From farther away, Hiruzen frowned harder and harder as he watched Hiashi's blue sphere erase the Wood Golem on contact.
"Is no one going to focus on why Uchiha Chizumi can use Wood Release?"
Jiraiya muttered. Compared to how strong Hiashi had become, the fact that Uchiha Chizumi possessed Wood Release still seemed a lot stranger to him.