"This… is my final strike."
Hagoromo pressed both hands against the back of Rashōmon.
In a single instant, lightning climbed across its surface, and the pitch-black, massive slab of metal flared to life—brilliant, blinding—like an incandescent bulb driven far beyond its maximum output.
In the depths of night, it radiated an unnatural allure.
Anyone who witnessed it could no longer look away.
Not even the gaze of the Rinnegan.
Because that attraction came from the purest essence of destruction.
Those with special abilities were usually excellent at quantifying and evaluating their own condition—espers even more so.
But at this moment, Hagoromo had no clear understanding of what state he was in.
Rather than "activating" his ability, what he was doing now was closer to forcing himself into an uncontrolled overload.
And for Hagoromo, that was enough.
He didn't need to understand himself.
He only needed to know one thing—
That the mass of metal before him had to be aimed at the designated target and fired.
A super-sized Lightning Release technique was still a Lightning Release technique.
Imperial Lightning Garden – Heavy Kingdom: Rashōmon
was still Raien Jūkoku at its core.
This was his bread-and-butter technique.
There was no reason he couldn't do it.
…But was that really true?
At this scale, quantitative change had already crossed into qualitative transformation.
If one added together the mass of every Lightning Release technique projectile Hagoromo had ever fired in his life, it still wouldn't come close to Rashōmon's weight.
As Rashōmon grew brighter and brighter, the summoned beasts buying him time vanished all at once—
Not by command, but by instinct.
The destructive pressure behind them triggered an automatic retreat back to the summoning realm.
If Hagoromo had needed to cancel the summoning himself, he wouldn't have had the time.
Danger.
An unexpected, overwhelming danger.
Nagato—hidden somewhere far away—could both sense and estimate the scale of the "technique" Pain was about to face.
Inside this sealed space, there was nowhere to run.
Nowhere to hide.
So Nagato made an instant decision:
He temporarily concentrated the power of all Six Paths into Deva Path, assuming the strongest possible individual form—
Not to attack.
But to defend.
Only defend.
At that moment—
Everything seemed to fall silent.
A crimson-white beam erupted, instantly consuming all oxygen within the sealed space. Every living thing inside felt as though an invisible hand had closed around its throat.
Blades of compressed air spiraled around the square slab of metal, cleaving open the ground and carving deep, glowing-red scars.
The trajectory stretched forward—
Far, far beyond the visible horizon.
The so-called "unbreakable" barrier laid down by Pain collapsed instantly, like paper before an inferno.
Electromagnetic acceleration of an object this massive should have been impossible—there was no way it could reach even Mach 3.
And yet—
The first time Rashōmon was used this way—
It was unstoppable.
Even Shinra Tensei, pushed to its absolute limit, could not halt it.
The destructive power of a Lightning Release technique depended not only on speed—
But even more so on mass.
Once the barrier shattered, air rushed back into the space, and sound itself seemed to return all at once.
The hiss of evaporating moisture was especially sharp.
Within the deep scar left by the Lightning Release technique, soil and metallic elements had fused together, glowing a dark red from extreme heat.
At this moment, Hagoromo's path back—
Seemed completely unobstructed.
And yet—
He stood motionless.
The consequences of overusing his abilities had exceeded even his expectations.
The damage wasn't limited to his body.
More critically—
It was his mind.
He stood there as if unconscious.
Silent.
Still.
Perhaps five minutes passed.
Perhaps ten.
Then—
A slender black chakra receiver was hurled horizontally at tremendous speed.
It struck Hagoromo's right shoulder, the impact knocking him backward.
Then another—left shoulder.
Then another—right abdomen.
Then another—left leg.
Four consecutive hits.
Hagoromo was flung back like a torn sandbag, rolling violently before crashing into a tree trunk.
…Under the super-sized Lightning Release technique's attack, all of the Paths of Pain had been erased.
Completely.
So thoroughly that not even a trace remained.
All—
Except Deva Path.
By concentrating all power into defense, Deva Path had survived—though barely. Like a rubber ball trapped between the low chassis of a racing car and the asphalt, he had been dragged for several kilometers in utter disgrace, until his defensive power was finally exhausted.
But that was enough.
The Lightning Release technique continued onward.
Deva Path remained.
Hagoromo still showed no sign of consciousness.
And so Deva Path—Yahiko—walked forward, step by step.
Total defense had been impossible. The corpse had suffered catastrophic damage. If this were a living body, it would have been dead beyond doubt.
But as long as the black receivers remained embedded—
The corpse could still move.
"You did well," Deva Path said calmly.
"But everything ends here."
With a flick of his left hand, a black receiver appeared once more.
It thrust toward Hagoromo's heart.
At that moment—
Hagoromo finally moved.
Still half-seated, his right hand snapped up like lightning, breaking the receiver and driving forward toward Deva Path's chest.
But it wouldn't go in.
Instead—
The immense torsional force shattered Hagoromo's right arm, bone snapping segment by segment.
This was the Rinnegan's last remaining power.
Nagato's chakra was nearly depleted.
The ocular power would require significant time to recover.
"…So it finally activated."
Hagoromo's right arm hung uselessly.
Yet Deva Path did not follow up.
Instead, he stepped back.
He stared into Hagoromo's reopened eyes—
And froze.
"Dōjutsu?"
Did Hagoromo possess ocular techniques as well?
Originally, his eyes had been blue, much like Minato's.
But now—
Azure faded into pale violet.
Violet bled into faint crimson.
Flat as a mirror-lake.
Cold.
Dead.
Within those unfathomable pupils lay a hollow abyss—an unfillable void of heaven-blue emptiness.
"A dōjutsu… yes," Hagoromo said softly.
"Though more accurately, this is a causality weapon."
Within the vision of these eyes—
By making contact in a specific physical manner, anything could be erased:
Life itself.
Objective existence.
Even abstract concepts.
That was its power.
But whether as a contractor, an alchemist, a mage, or a shinobi—
To gain something, one must lose something.
Not necessarily equal exchange.
But exchange, nonetheless.
At this moment—
Hagoromo's final trump card,
His other ability,
Activated for the first time.
At its core, it had no direct offensive power.
And yet—
It was a true S-rank, game-breaking existence.
It was because of these eyes—
That Hagoromo had come to this world at all.
It was called a talent, not a skill.
Not because of heredity—
But because it could not be used at will.
Though "granted," activation still required a near-death experience.
Even for someone who had already died once.
To see death—
His new body had to experience it again.
Hagoromo once believed he would never use this ability.
Later, he desperately sought it—and failed.
If he had possessed these eyes before tonight, things might have been far simpler.
But there were no "what ifs."
"Near death" was an ambiguous, immeasurable concept.
Humans didn't have HP bars.
When did critical health begin?
Was "red health" already near death?
There was no way to quantify it.
Worse still—
It depended on both objective condition and subjective will.
When he pursued it deliberately, nothing happened.
Only when he truly wanted to avoid death—
Did he finally touch it.
"These are the demon-banishing eyes used by the Exorcist Clan," Hagoromo said.
"But for killing gods…"
"They're perfect."
If using his Electrokinesis placed an immense physical burden on his brain—
Then these eyes imposed a far worse pressure upon his spirit.
Their awakening and use were accompanied by extreme agony.
So intense—
That even now, Hagoromo felt an overwhelming urge to gouge his own eyes out.
But he couldn't.
Instead—
He had to adapt.
The aftereffects of Electrokinesis overload were still present. His thoughts were sluggish, his body ravaged by repeated trauma.
He couldn't focus enough to see points of death—
Only lines.
But for now—
Lines were enough.
The super-sized Lightning Release technique had exhausted both Hagoromo and Deva Path.
Yet because of this new awakening—
They were no longer on the same level.
Hagoromo now looked down upon his enemy.
"One arm for one arm. That's fair," Hagoromo said quietly.
"But unfortunately, the world was never meant to remain fair."
Both of them now had only their left arms functional.
Hagoromo staggered forward.
Then swung.
A simple knife-hand strike traced along the revealed death-line.
No resistance.
None at all.
Deva Path's left arm was severed and flung away.
And then—
The rest of his body followed.
Hagoromo worked carefully.
From an objective standpoint—
He performed a flawless dismemberment.
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