Naruto and Sasuke grew frantic as Madara shot like a stray arrow straight toward Kakashi.
"He's heading for Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto bellowed.
But Madara moved with terrifying swiftness. In a single fluid motion, he ripped Kakashi's Sharingan clean out of its socket.
Kakashi, who was still too weak to do more than tie his footwear, didn't even perceive Madara's approach before it was over.
Once Madara implanted the eye, the Mangekyo Sharingan reactivated. It was Obito's Kamui Mangekyo, which meant that aside from the Flower Realm, this was the only ocular power capable of breaching the Kamui dimension.
A heartbeat later, however, Madara, Naruto, Sasuke, and every other formidable shinobi on the battlefield froze in utter astonishment.
A plume of dense white smoke had suddenly erupted from the exact spot where Kanon's corpse lay. Madara, Naruto, and Sasuke all locked their gazes onto the source.
"What's going on?" Sasuke muttered, his brow furrowing.
"Kanon's body... what's happening to it?!" Naruto gasped, entirely shaken.
BOOOM!!!
A colossal pillar of golden light surged directly into the highest reaches of the heavens, momentarily turning the entire night sky into blinding day. At that moment, the immense radiance illuminated the whole planet, casting even the crimson moon into dull obscurity.
Within that shimmering pillar of light, Kanon's lifeless body gradually dissolved into a faint silhouette and vanished. It was a staggering anomaly that struck awe into everyone present, and a surge of chakra so immense it caused even Madara to break into a cold sweat manifested across the world.
In this exact instant, the rising power completely eclipsed Madara's own. Naruto and Sasuke stared with sheer dread as a graceful, feminine silhouette stepped forth from the golden light.
The very second her foot touched the ground, the entire planet began to violently shudder. Earthquakes rumbled and magma erupted across the terrain, yet as if sensing the sheer terror of this absolute power, the surrounding area instantly stabilized and fell deathly quiet.
As the golden light dissolved, a young girl remained standing in its wake. Clad in a crimson Uchiha trench coat, she levitated in mid-air, radiating a breathtaking, peerless beauty!
Kanon's eyes remained closed, her long eyelashes casting slight shadows. She possessed a transcendent beauty that seemed to have gathered all the spiritual elegance of heaven and earth. Yet hers was by no means a fragile, delicate grace; by all indications, she was an invincible being who now stood above the entire shinobi world.
At this moment, Kanon had completely transcended the Six Paths, becoming the sole, supreme entity of existence.
Her expression was entirely serene, as if absolutely nothing in the world could ever sway her.
"Kanon?" Madara murmured, watching her in absolute disbelief.
With a Mangekyo Rinnegan in her right eye and a twelve-tomoe Rinnegan in her left, Kanon simply stood there, casting a bone-chilling dread over the nearby Allied Shinobi Forces.
Kanon extended her hands, inspecting her delicate, revitalized flesh. As the profound sensation of rebirth washed over her, she began to tremble slightly, a tremor born of pure, unadulterated exhilaration.
"Finally... I finally succeeded..."
"I have finally awakened a Rinnegan that truly belongs to me."
"I can feel it... a terrifying power and majesty so immense that it takes my breath away."
As Kanon whispered to herself, her body shook harder, her shoulders quivering in tandem with her trembling form.
Suddenly, a wild, hysterical burst of laughter echoed across the battlefield. It was laced with tears and punctuated by deep, bitter sorrow. No one would ever truly comprehend what Kanon had sacrificed or the sheer agony she had endured just to stand at this pinnacle. No one.
"Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! Hahahahahahahahaha!"
For Kanon, awakening this Rinnegan had been an excruciatingly arduous journey. Deprived of any guidance from the Sage of Six Paths, she had been forced to rely entirely on sacrificing her own life to attain it.
She could no longer fully trace the depth of what she had suffered to become what she was now, but in the end, she had successfully awakened the Rinnegan.
Gradually, her laughter ceased, though her body continued to twitch slightly from the sheer rush of inheriting such absolute power.
Naruto and Sasuke watched her with grim intensity, trying to gauge just how overwhelmingly powerful Kanon had become.
An instant later, they received their answer.
Like a flash of instantaneous light, Kanon materialized directly in front of them. Naruto and Sasuke gasped; it didn't feel like a standard Body Flicker Technique at all, but rather a sensation that the very flow of time around them had ground to a halt.
Kanon drove a sweeping kick into Naruto, sending him hurtling through the air. She decided to eliminate Sasuke right here and now.
A black receiver manifested in her hand, and she drove it straight toward Sasuke's skull.
Having awakened the power of the Six Paths himself, Sasuke rapidly activated Amenotejikara, swapping places with the air to narrowly evade Kanon's lethal strike.
The twelve-tomoe Rinnegan in Kanon's left eye flared with a profound light, its tomoe spinning subtly as she spoke with chilling indifference:
"Flower Release: Enduring Heaven."
In the following microsecond, time within Kanon's immediate vicinity slowed down several dozen times over. Neither Sasuke nor Naruto could move a single muscle, and the same absolute paralysis gripped Madara and everyone else nearby.
"This technique seems a bit too indiscriminate, affecting ally and foe alike," Kanon murmured, promptly dispelling the jutsu. She then turned her head slightly and spoke flatly to the man behind her.
"Old man Madara, go retrieve your other eye first. I'll handle things here."
Madara looked at Kanon, his emotions incredibly complex. Kanon's current strength was so immense that it stirred a trace of envy even within him.
"Kanon... you succeeded. That's wonderful," Madara said softly, before vanishing directly into the Kamui dimension.
Kanon gave a curt nod, then shifted her gaze to Naruto in the distance.
"You... Kanon, didn't you die?!" Naruto demanded, utterly bewildered.
Utilizing Amenotejikara, Sasuke materialized back at Naruto's side, staring at Kanon with a grim expression.
"Did you use some kind of forbidden jutsu?" Sasuke asked, his analytical mind working rapidly.
"Izanagi," Kanon replied, offering nothing more than those four syllables.
"I knew it." A look of desolation swept across Sasuke's face. After opening the Gate of Death, the sole method to survive was indeed Izanagi.
"Weren't you afraid that you would actually die?!" Sasuke shouted, pointing an accusing finger at her.
"Stay out of my business," Kanon retorted, her expression turning incredibly dark. "A person like you, who chose Itachi's path, has absolutely no right to lecture me."
"Because the path you are walking is wrong, Kanon! Itachi was the one who was right, enduring disgrace in the darkness to protect the entire shinobi world!"
"You should be standing by my side to carry out a true revolution!"
Hearing Sasuke's words, Kanon's expression grew even more ominous. With a sweeping wave of her hand, dozens of Rasenshuriken manifested around her, floating ominously in mid-air.
"Sasuke!"
"I know!"
Naruto and Sasuke immediately fell into perfect sync, intending to employ the exact same strategy they had used against Madara.
A Six Paths-infused Chidori crackled to life in Sasuke's hand, while Naruto conjured a Sage Art: Lava Release Rasengan.
Sasuke attempted to use Amenotejikara to forcibly swap Kanon into their crossfire, but no matter how hard he exerted his ocular power, Kanon remained completely rooted in the distance, entirely unmoved.
"How is this possible?!" Sasuke gasped in sheer shock.
"We both possess the Rinnegan, but my visual prowess completely eclipses yours. Did you honestly think a mere Amenotejikara could affect me?"
"The ocular jutsu of your Rinnegan is utterly useless against me. Have you still not realized that I have already surpassed the boundaries of the Six Paths?"
"Anything that relies on chakra as a medium can no longer harm me."
With a cold sneer, Kanon stepped forward. In a fraction of a heartbeat, she breached the gap and stood directly in front of Naruto and Sasuke, unleashing a punch shrouded in pink chakra straight into Sasuke's torso.
Sasuke crossed his arms in a desperate bid to block the incoming strike. The moment the fist connected, a look of absolute horror washed over his face as the sheer weight of the impact registered.
It was a single, basic punch, yet it cleanly shattered dozens of his ribs even while he was sustained by the Six Paths state. Vomiting a massive torrent of blood, Sasuke was sent blasting backward, violently obliterating a distant mountain into pulverized dust.
"Sasuke!" Naruto roared.
"Worry about yourself first, Naruto." Kanon thrust her hand forward. Naruto frantically manifested his Truth-Seeking Balls to form a defensive barrier, but to his utter horror, the black spheres instantly disintegrated into fragments the moment Kanon's hand touched them.
Her fingers clamped ruthlessly around Naruto's throat. With a powerful swing, she slammed him down, carving a massive crater into the earth. Before Naruto could recover his bearings, Kanon seized him firmly by the leg.
"What are you—"
"Take a guess," Kanon cooed with a sweet, lovely smile that stood in chilling contrast to her brutal actions.
Naruto let out a ragged scream of agony as Kanon swung him left and right, ruthlessly bashing him against the terrain and leaving a trail of bloodstains and deep trenches in the shattered earth.
To finish the assault, she drove a massive Rasengan directly into Naruto's abdomen, blasting his crumpled form far across the battlefield.
"Damn it..." Naruto spat, gritting his teeth in intense pain.
"I won't kill either of you," Kanon stated coldly. "In the dream of the Infinite Tsukuyomi, the two of you can peacefully drift into an eternal slumber."
"Within that dreamscape, there will be the version of me that lives up to your desires, and the version of Itachi that lives up to his."
Sensing the weight of her words, Naruto forced his trembling body back onto his feet.
"What do you mean, 'the version of you that lives up to my desires' or 'the version of you in my dreams'..."
"Kanon! No matter what you become, you are exactly as I imagined you in my dreams!"
Naruto's voice boomed across the expanse, carrying so far that it caused Kanon to momentarily freeze.
But a heartbeat later, the memory of Naruto holding Hinata's hand while leading the Allied Shinobi Forces to reject her ideals flashed through her mind, plunging her expression back into a dark, murderous shadow.
Traversing the space of the Flower Realm in a single stride, she materialized in front of Naruto almost instantly and delivered a brutal stomp that cleanly snapped his arm.
"Aaagh!"
Naruto screamed in agony, but she wasn't finished. Kanon delivered a follow-up kick that completely shattered his leg bone.
In the next instant, a towering, hundred-meter-tall Complete Susanoo erupted from the fractured mountainside, it was Sasuke's armored titan.
Naruto gritted his teeth. Sustained by his Six Paths Mode, his physical regeneration was exceptionally potent. Seizing the momentary distraction as Kanon's attention shifted toward Sasuke, Naruto rolled away and used his remaining Truth-Seeking Balls to open up a safe distance.
In a flash of blinding light, a colossal golden Nine-Tails avatar materialized alongside Sasuke's Complete Susanoo. The two titanic entities stood shoulder to shoulder, looming over Kanon.
The Nine-Tails unleashed a thunderous war cry, the sheer acoustic force causing the surrounding earth to splinter with deep fractures.
Standing atop his Complete Susanoo, Sasuke stared down at Kanon's Mangekyo Rinnegan and twelve-tomoe Rinnegan, his expression growing exceptionally grim.
"No matter what... you are still my little sister, Kanon. I will stop you here, by any means necessary."
"You've become far too dangerous... I will do whatever it takes to halt your path, even if it means I have to kill you."
Seeing Sasuke's unshakeable resolve, Naruto looked at Kanon's form as countless cherished memories of their time together rushed through his mind. Yet, at this critical juncture, he knew he could not afford to waver.
"Then... no matter what happens, Sasuke! What we have to do remains exactly the same!"
————
NOTE: This fic has been completely translated. If you want to read the whole story head over to my p-atre-on: p-atre-on.c-om/Overgod [Just remove the hyphen to access normally]