Hagoromo and Hamura exchanged a glance.
There was no hesitation left in either brother's eyes.
Hamura suppressed the compassion welling up inside him, while Hagoromo's gaze became as cold and unyielding as steel.
Together, they charged forward without the slightest retreat.
Having sealed the Ten-Tails within himself, Hagoromo's power underwent an unimaginable transformation.
The pressure radiating from him became as vast as the cosmos itself, almost completely eclipsing Kaguya's.
The balance of the battle had tipped decisively.
Hagoromo now held absolute control.
Only a few exchanges later, he seized upon the smallest opening—created by Kaguya's declining strength and wavering emotions.
The violet glow of his Rinnegan condensed to its peak.
His hands flashed through the final—and most intricate—series of Hand Seals faster than the eye could perceive.
An indescribably vast force poured from his palms, as though invoking the very fundamental laws of heaven and earth.
"Six Paths: Planetary Devastation!"
As Hagoromo uttered those cold, resolute words, a blinding violet radiance engulfed the space surrounding Kaguya.
"Urgh—!"
Kaguya's body shuddered violently.
The crimson eye upon her forehead—the Rinne Sharingan, symbol of her supreme power—snapped shut as though forcibly sealed.
At the same time, the boundless Chakra that had once shaken heaven and earth receded like an ebbing tide.
In the blink of an eye, the Rabbit Goddess, once revered as the Progenitor of Chakra and ruler of the world, lost all of her power.
She floated helplessly in the sky like an ordinary mortal—
No.
Even weaker than that.
She could scarcely maintain her posture.
"Brother!!"
Hamura cried out in disbelief, his face filled with shock, panic, and anguish.
He rushed forward.
"H-how could you...?"
"How could you do this to Mother?"
"Wasn't sealing the Ten-Tails enough?"
"Why did it have to come to this?!"
Hagoromo offered no answer.
His expression remained as cold as eternal ice.
Silently, he watched everything unfold with the detached composure of someone carrying out an unavoidable duty.
Deprived of her power, Kaguya slowly began drifting higher into the sky.
As she ascended, the earth below responded.
Countless rocks, sand, and shattered mountains broke free from gravity itself.
They soared upward toward her as though summoned by an invisible force.
More and more stone gathered around her.
Layer after layer formed immense rocky shackles that enveloped her body, carrying her ever higher into the sky .
Through the thickening shell of stone, Kaguya's calm voice drifted downward.
There was no anger left.
Only a chilling sorrow that reached to the very soul.
"I was betrayed by my husband..."
"I was betrayed by my people..."
"And now..."
"I have been betrayed by my own sons."
Her voice echoed through the sky, carrying the bleak resignation of someone who had accepted the cruelty of fate.
"So it truly is..."
"This world..."
"...is nothing but a world of betrayal."
"Mother..."
Hamura lowered his head.
His fingers clenched so tightly that his knuckles turned white, his nails digging deeply into his palms.
He could no longer bear to watch as his mother disappeared into the ever-growing sphere of stone.
His heart was consumed by endless guilt, grief, and helplessness.
He had joined the rebellion...
But he could not accept how it ended.
Hagoromo, however, remained unmoved.
Looking up toward the sky, he spoke each word with absolute clarity, as though declaring his conviction before heaven and earth.
"To save this world..."
"To stop your destruction..."
"I had no other choice."
He offered no direct rebuttal to his mother's accusation of betrayal or to her bleak judgment of humanity.
Yet the unmistakable resolve in his eyes—
His quiet rejection—
His unwavering certainty that his own path was just—
Was answer enough.
He believed he had saved the world.
He did not believe he had betrayed it.
Kaguya seemed to understand that silent answer.
She neither grew angry nor rebuked him again.
Just before the last layer of stone completely enclosed her body, her gaze seemed to pierce through the countless layers of rock and fall upon Hagoromo one final time.
There was no hatred left within those eyes.
Only an emotion too complex to describe.
Perhaps the sorrow of a mother.
Perhaps a glimpse into the fate awaiting her son.
Or perhaps simply the final confirmation of the world's cruel nature.
When she spoke again, her voice was calmer than before.
It sounded less like a farewell...
And more like a prophecy that would echo across time.
"The flaws of this world run too deep, Hagoromo..."
"You cannot stop them."
"One day..."
"You will regret this."
"You, too..."
"...will be betrayed."
"And betrayal..."
"...will become this world's eternal refrain."
"No one will escape it."
"Because that darkness..."
"...is already rooted in every corner of this world."
"It lives within the bones of every living being."
Hagoromo remained silent.
He simply watched as the colossal sphere of stone enclosing his mother continued to rise.
Higher.
Farther.
Until it finally settled high above the world, becoming a solitary celestial body suspended in the sky .
The moon had been born.
As it drifted farther away, the sky above the Shinobi World seemed strangely emptier.
Quieter.
The battle was over.
The dust settled.
The god who had once ruled the world had been exiled.
The brothers who had overthrown that god remained behind upon a land scarred beyond recognition, left to rebuild what had survived.
With Kaguya's sealing and the birth of the moon, one era came to an end.
Another began—
An age ushered in by Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki, the Sage of Six Paths.
It would be an era filled with hope...
With uncertainty...
And with countless unseen thorns lying ahead.
Within the Heavenly Curtain, as the enormous sphere imprisoning Kaguya disappeared completely into the depths of the sky, the cataclysmic war that had ravaged the world for what felt like an eternity finally came to its end.
The tension that had kept Hagoromo on the brink finally eased.
The immense Chakra surging around him gradually receded back into his body.
Peace returned.
Yet within his newly awakened Rinnegan remained a profound weariness—
Along with a trace of guilt that could not be erased.
It was not guilt over sealing his mother.
Perhaps...
It was guilt for all that had been lost along the way.
He turned toward his younger brother.
Hamura still stood motionless.
His vacant eyes remained fixed upon the place where their mother had vanished, as though he wished to see through the empty sky itself.
His fists remained tightly clenched.
The joints of his fingers protruded white beneath his skin.
The oppressive sorrow surrounding him was so heavy it was almost impossible to breathe.
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