The blue steam had completely dissipated, replaced by tiny beads of blood seeping from the ruptured capillaries across his skin.
He was far from the limit he would reach in later years; even the Seventh Gate had only been forced open early by the stimulation of Sage Chakra.
"I can... still... fight..."
Guy braced his hands against his knees, trying to stand, but his legs were trembling uncontrollably.
Minato Namikaze reached out and pressed a hand onto Guy's shoulder.
"That's enough, Guy."
Minato spoke with a stern tone, stopping him. "The coming battle cannot be settled by simply burning away your life. Your body has reached its limit; you must receive treatment immediately."
"But..." Guy looked up, the eyes beneath those thick brows filled with frustration.
"No 'buts'."
Gamakon crouched on Minato's other shoulder and reached out a claw to pat the Hokage's cheek. "Let Tsunade have a look at him so he doesn't end up with permanent damage. This guy is Konoha's secret weapon; we can't let him break here."
Gamakon turned to Guy and offered a wide grin. "Don't worry, that stag beetle isn't going anywhere. We're just going to invite a certain 'heavyweight guest' to anchor the field."
Guy paused for a moment, then immediately understood Gamakon's meaning.
Gritting his teeth, Guy finally relaxed his tensed muscles. "Then I'll head to the hospital. Please... beat that guy to a pulp!"
"Consider it done."
Minato nodded and formed a single-handed seal.
"Flying Thunder God Technique."
With a flash of golden light, Guy and Minato vanished from the spot, sent directly to the entrance of the Konoha Hospital emergency room.
Another golden flash, and Minato reappeared.
Only Minato, Jiraiya, and Gamakon remained in the forest.
Jiraiya shook the rainwater from his hair and looked toward Minato. "Is the location of the mark confirmed?"
"Very clearly."
Minato closed his eyes to sense for a moment before opening them again, a cold glint flashing in his azure eyes. "He fled outside the Land of Fire, but it isn't far from here."
"Then what are we waiting for?" Jiraiya cracked his knuckles. "Strike while the iron is hot."
"No rush."
Gamakon hopped onto the ground, his body rapidly expanding to the size of a half-grown man. "While that Isshiki Otsutsuki is on his last legs, he's still an Otsutsuki. A cornered beast is most dangerous. We need to bring that 'dutiful daughter' along."
"Most importantly, it's time to show her our power so she'll cooperate willingly."
"Princess Kaguya, huh..." Jiraiya rubbed his chin. "True, no one knows the Otsutsuki better than she does."
"Besides, this is her family business anyway."
Gamakon sneered. "An old creditor has come knocking. How could she, the primary party involved, not be there?"
Minato straightened his Hokage Cloak and looked at the two.
"Master, you and Gamakon get ready. I'll go fetch Senior Kaguya."
"Go ahead," Jiraiya waved a hand. "We'll be right behind you."
Minato's figure flickered once more and vanished into thin air.
...
Konoha Underground Laboratory.
Orochimaru stood before an operating table, holding a test tube and observing it closely against the light.
The tube contained the blood from Jigen that Gamakon had collected earlier.
"An interesting structure," Orochimaru said, his raspy voice echoing in the empty lab as he flicked his tongue across his lips. "It's human blood, but the cell nuclei have been eroded and assimilated by some kind of high-dimensional power. Is this the power of 'Karma'?"
Behind him, near a cultivation tank, Kaguya Otsutsuki sat cross-legged on the ground.
Her eyes were closed, her long hair spilling across the floor as her hands formed a strange seal, absorbing the chakra being converted within the Box of Ultimate Bliss.
Hearing Orochimaru's words, Kaguya's eyelids fluttered before slowly opening.
A faint, almost imperceptible ripple flashed within those white eyes.
"That man... was he not killed?" Kaguya's voice was cold and detached.
"He got away," Orochimaru said, turning to look at her. "However, he is severely injured. The vessel named Jigen has reached its breaking point."
Kaguya didn't speak, simply closing her eyes again.
But the originally steady flow of chakra around her body experienced a momentary disruption.
It was fear.
Even after a thousand years, and even though the opponent was extremely weakened, that name remained her nightmare.
"Senior Kaguya."
Seeing that there was no more research to be done for now, Minato spoke to the seated Kaguya. "It's time to set out."
Kaguya snapped her eyes open, her body instantly tensing.
"Where is he?" she asked.
"I left a Flying Thunder God mark on him."
Kaguya stood up. Her bare feet stepped onto the cold floor, her white robes trailing behind her.
"Take me there," Kaguya said, her tone carrying a hint of urgency. "We must destroy him completely before he can find a new vessel."
"That's the plan."
Minato extended his hand.
Kaguya hesitated for a moment before placing her pale palm on Minato's arm.
"Orochimaru, you come as well."
Minato looked at Orochimaru. "A battle of this level might allow you to collect even more data."
"It would be my pleasure."
The curve of Orochimaru's lips widened as he set down the test tube and walked to Minato's side.
"Steady now," Minato murmured.
Chakra flared.
The three figures instantly vanished from the laboratory.
...
On the border of the Land of Fire, within a dense forest shrouded in mist.
*Bang!*
A battered figure crashed through three thick ancient trees, slamming heavily onto a moss-covered boulder amidst a flurry of wood chips.
It was Jigen—or rather, the dilapidated shell named Jigen that housed Isshiki Otsutsuki.
Panting heavily, he leaned against the rock and pulled a crude ceramic bottle from his robes with a trembling hand.
Inside was a medicinal liquid he had spent centuries refining from herbs gathered across the shinobi world, just barely capable of suppressing his body's collapse.
However, though he uncorked the bottle, he didn't drink.
Because his jaw was completely shattered.
Across that once-stately face, dark red muscle tissue was hideously exposed, twitching slightly with his ragged breaths.
Terrifying cracks, like those in a broken porcelain doll, spread all the way to his eyes; his left eye was a blurry mess of blood.
"Damn it... damn it..."
Jigen's fingers tightened, and the fragile ceramic bottle shattered into dust with a crack.
The crimson medicine flowed through his fingers, dripping onto the withered leaves and mud with a hiss, corroding the ground and releasing a pungent white smoke.
This body had reached its absolute limit.
The space-time jump he had forced earlier had been interrupted, causing him to drop into this wilderness.
Now, even maintaining basic chakra flow had become exceptionally difficult.
"These damned natives!"
Jigen gritted his teeth. Within his remaining eye, fury burned enough to set the forest ablaze, but it was overshadowed by an indescribable lingering fear.
Kaguya's presence had been a mere trap; if he stayed there any longer, he might not live to find a new body. He had to relocate immediately!
But where?
"I haven't found it yet... I still haven't found a vessel capable of hosting me..."
An unprecedented sense of despair surged in his heart.
If he forced his reincarnation into some random mortal now, he might survive, but most of his original Otsutsuki power would be lost due to the vessel's poor quality, and he might even collapse again within days.
Just as he forced his chakra to attempt opening a Yomotsu Hirasaka to escape this place—
An unnatural wind suddenly gusted through the silent forest.
A familiar, loathsome chakra fluctuation was mixed within it.
Jigen snapped his head up, his single eye filled with alertness. "Who is there?" his voice rasped.
Not far away, a specially-made kunai engraved with a Flying Thunder God formula was buried deep in a tree trunk.
Golden light erupted.
Minato Namikaze appeared like a ghost, one hand pressed against the trunk. His Hokage Cloak billowed in the night wind, the words 'Fourth Hokage' shimmering under the moonlight.
Immediately after, two more presences descended almost simultaneously.
To the left, Orochimaru slowly emerged from the shadow of a tree, his golden, slitted pupils glinting with greed and curiosity.
To the right, a figure in snow-white robes floated in mid-air. The cold moonlight bathed her, making her look as if she were coated in frost.
Kaguya.
The three formed a triangle, pinning the heavily injured Jigen in the center.
Jigen's gaze swept past Minato and Orochimaru, finally locking onto the white-clothed woman floating in the air.
The air in the forest seemed to freeze solid at that moment.
On Jigen's shattered face, his expression shifted from shock to disbelief, and finally settled into a look of extreme, twisted mockery.
"So that's it."
"A momentary lapse in judgment, and you managed to leave a space-time formula on me."
Jigen braced himself against the rock and struggled to stand, brushing off the mud and dead leaves in an attempt to maintain the last of his Otsutsuki dignity.
Looking at Kaguya, he spoke with a voice made harsh and grating by his damaged vocal cords. "I was wondering who gave these lower lifeforms the courage to hunt me. It was you after all, Kaguya."
Kaguya didn't say a word.
She watched Jigen silently, her pure white eyes reflecting a frigid glint under the moon.
She looked at the man who was once her superior, the partner she had feared, and the one she'd had to betray with a sneak attack just to defeat.
Now, in this muddy forest, he looked so pathetic.
Broken body, fading aura—like a stray dog with its back snapped.
"Why aren't you speaking?"
Jigen took a step forward, the dry branches snapping beneath his feet. "A thousand years have passed, and you've become even more degenerate. Mingling with these lower beings? Even relying on such mortal methods to return?"
Jigen pointed at Kaguya's current state and then at the humans surrounding him, his eyes filled with nothing but disdain.
"As an Otsutsuki, you are willing to sink this low? Is this your plan? To use these natives against me?"
Jigen spread his arms wide. Though his body was swaying, the arrogance inherent to the Otsutsuki remained. "Do you truly think these monkeys living in the mud can kill me?"
Kaguya remained silent.
She simply turned her head slightly to look at Minato Namikaze.
Minato wore a faint smile, completely ignoring Jigen's mockery. The special kunai spun lightly at his fingertips, its golden light tracing dangerous arcs in the night.
"Senior Kaguya."
Minato spoke, his voice gentle yet carrying an undeniable confidence. "It seems this Otsutsuki gentleman has some misunderstandings regarding the power of shinobi."
Kaguya withdrew her gaze and looked back at Jigen.
She finally spoke.
"Isshiki."
Kaguya's voice was soft, yet it cut through the wind and reached the heart. "Let us settle this here today."
Jigen's expression froze.
"For these thousand years, you've hidden inside that monk's body, clinging to life like a rat in a sewer, without even a proper follower to your name."
Kaguya pointed at Jigen's shattered face, her tone indifferent to the point of being cruel. "Look at you now. Beaten to this state by the 'monkeys' you speak of, unable to even flee back to your own dimension, forced to crash-land in this wasteland."
"What right do you have to talk so big?"
Kaguya's words were like a sharp knife, precisely stabbing into Isshiki's pride.
At this moment, he was truly isolated and helpless.
Jigen's face twitched violently, the killing intent in his eyes nearly turning physical.
"Shut up!"
Jigen roared, the surrounding trees trembling from the chakra he released. "If you hadn't ambushed me back then..."
"A loss is a loss."
Kaguya interrupted coldly. "Whether it was then or now."
She lowered her hand. In those white eyes, the fear she once felt for her superior was gone, replaced only by a frigid intent to kill.
"My current state has indeed not returned to its peak."
Kaguya said. "In a one-on-one fight, perhaps I could not kill you."
She paused, a very faint curve appearing at the corner of her lips—the smile of a victor.
"But when did I ever say I was going to fight you alone?"
As Kaguya's words fell.
The space behind Minato rippled violently once more.
"Summoning Jutsu!"
Minato formed a seal and slammed his hand onto the tree trunk.
*Poof!*
A massive cloud of white smoke exploded, the shockwave snapping several thick branches.
A massive purple toad crouched atop the tree canopy, a piece of foxtail grass he'd found somewhere dangling from his mouth as he looked down at Jigen.
Immediately following, Jiraiya's figure appeared.
He stood on the toad's head with his arms crossed, his Sage Mode markings appearing particularly fierce and powerful under the moonlight.
"Yo, isn't this the Otsutsuki who got beaten by lower lifeforms?"
Gamakon spat out the grass and let his golden, horizontal pupils roam shamelessly over Jigen. "What a unique look. Your jaw is all cracked—Guy's kick did that, didn't it? Tsk tsk, looks like Guy's youth was a bit too intense for you; he nearly kicked your old bones to pieces."
Jiraiya snorted, his gaze as sharp as a blade. "Doesn't look like much. Reduced to this state by a single kick from Guy, yet you still have the nerve to shout about destroying us?"
Jigen's face darkened until it looked as if it might drip ink as he watched the two newcomers and the toad.
He was surrounded.
In this land he had looked down upon, he was faced with Kaguya and the Hokage in front, and a white-haired ninja in Sage Mode with a weirdly powerful toad behind him.
And then there was the man off to the side, hissing and looking at him with eyes that seemed to be dissecting a specimen.
"Is this your trump card?"
Jigen looked at Kaguya and laughed in his rage. "You think bringing a bunch of helpers will let you win?"
"Whether we can win or not, why don't you try it and see?"
Gamakon hopped down from the tree, landing in the clearing not far from Jigen. He cracked his knuckles, the joints popping loudly.
"Guy was just the warmup."
Gamakon said with a grin, baring his pearly white teeth. In the dim forest, it looked particularly unnerving. "Now, the main course is just beginning."
Kaguya took a timely step back, floating onto a higher branch.
She didn't rush to attack.
As an Otsutsuki, she knew exactly how troublesome Isshiki could be.
Even if Isshiki looked like he was on his last legs, a cornered beast was the most dangerous. Who knew if he had some suicidal trump card left?
Since these Konoha people were willing to lead the charge, she would let them wear him down first.
She would see if the 'technology' and 'ninjutsu' of these mortals could truly kill a desperate Otsutsuki.
"Let me see your methods," Kaguya said coldly, her attitude aloft.
Looking at this, Jigen's fury burned to the absolute limit.
Kaguya didn't even deign to strike?
No, her current body was even weaker than his; she was afraid.
"Good... very good!"
The black rod in Jigen's hand suddenly lengthened, transforming into a sharp spear.
His chakra began to run wild, and black markings rapidly spread across his body—Karma Stage Two.
Though his body was screaming and every cell was protesting, he had no choice.
Since he couldn't run, he would kill them all!
"Don't get cocky, you lower lifeforms!"
Jigen roared. The rock beneath his feet instantly shattered as his body transformed into a bolt of black lightning, vanishing from sight.
In this mist-shrouded forest under the moon, the battle was triggered in an instan