~ Thank you, We've hit 100 Powerstones. This is the Bonus Chapter
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"Master! Master! Just as you predicted—that girl Hagoromo was in love with? She was sacrificed. He's about to snap!"
Gamamaru delivered his report with breathless urgency.
"Mm. I figured as much."
Manji's expression didn't even flicker. Completely unsurprised.
Just as he'd expected—women truly were a man's undoing. Hagoromo had been too afraid of his mother's punishment to act on his suspicions. But the moment the girl he loved was marched to the altar? All that obedience shattered like glass.
"Good. From here on—we wait for them to come to us. Gamamaru, go to the outside world and stand by. Guide them in when they're ready."
Manji spoke with his hands clasped behind his back, calm as still water.
"Yes, Master!"
Gamamaru bowed immediately, marveling once again at his teacher's seemingly prophetic abilities.
Truly the bearing of a living sage.
.....
Deep into the night.
"Haori—hang on! I'm coming for you!"
Two figures streaked through the darkness.
Hagoromo's fists were clenched so tight his nails nearly broke skin. Only one thought drove him forward—save Haori, no matter the cost.
At the base of the Divine Tree, colossal roots twisted and knotted together, forming yawning, shadowed openings—like gateways descending into hell.
"Wait, Brother!"
Hamura stopped first, drawing a sharp breath. Veins bulged around his temples as his Byakugan activated at full power.
Pale blue chakra circulated through his eyes, piercing through layers of darkness and tangled roots, reaching deep underground.
The next instant—Hamura's face went ashen. His pupils shrank to pinpoints.
"Those—those are people! They're bodies!"
He lunged forward, sprinting toward the nearest opening like a man possessed.
Hagoromo's heart slammed against his ribs. He charged in after his brother.
What greeted them below defied comprehension.
An enormous subterranean cavern stretched endlessly in every direction. Countless tendrils extended downward from the Divine Tree's root system—grasping, coiling, greedily wrapping around row upon row of cocoon-like pods. Each one was sheathed in green leaf-like tissue, stacked in suffocating, endless rows—human silhouettes faintly visible through the translucent membrane.
"Brother—open them! HURRY!"
Hamura's voice cracked with desperation.
"On it!"
Fury and fear blazed in Hagoromo's eyes. Without a moment's hesitation, he launched a Wind Release technique.
Invisible blades of air screamed through the cavern, slicing through cocoon after cocoon.
Rip—
Rip—
Hagoromo's gaze locked onto each one as it split open, his heart hammering—caught between hope and dread.
And then—one of the cocoons tore apart, and a familiar figure tumbled free.
Her simple cloth dress was soaked through with slime, shredded beyond recognition. That gentle, delicate face was drained of all color. Eyes closed. No breath.
Haori.
"HAORI!!!"
Hagoromo screamed her name—and threw himself forward, gathering her cold body into his arms.
His trembling fingers reached toward her lips, searching for breath—and found only silence.
"Haori! Wake up—PLEASE! I'm here! I came to save you—you can't be dead!!"
His voice splintered into fragments—hoarse, broken, laced with the wail of a man being torn apart from the inside. He shook her, clutched her, called her name again and again.
But the girl in his arms remained perfectly still. Eyes closed. A faint, ghostly smile resting on her lips—almost peaceful, as if she'd finally been released from something heavy.
No matter how loudly he screamed—she never answered.
"Brother…"
Hamura knelt beside him, forcing the words through a throat that barely worked.
"Haori is… she's gone."
"No—NO! That's not possible!"
Hagoromo crushed her body against his chest—as if he could meld her into his own bones and blood, as if holding her tightly enough could bring back what was already lost.
But the warmth kept fading. Her limbs grew stiff. Those gentle eyes, that soft smile—they would exist only in memory from this moment on.
Grief crashed over him like a tidal wave—drowning every shred of reason, smashing through every wall he'd ever built.
Something inside Hagoromo broke... And what rushed in to fill the void was agony beyond description—and a rage that could burn the world.
He thought of Haori's peaceful acceptance of her fate. He thought of the magatama necklace she'd placed around his neck. He thought of his mother's lies. The Divine Tree's insatiable hunger. The dead earth. The wasteland.
Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki pressed his lips into a razor-thin line. Silent.
Every trace of warmth drained from his eyes—replaced by glacial cold and seething, incandescent fury.
That towering Divine Tree—his mother's "sacred, untouchable relic"—was nothing more than a monster gorging itself on human lives.
Those "rules" were nothing but chains his mother had forged to feed her own desires.
Gamamaru's words echoed again. The desolation around the Divine Tree flashed before his eyes. Haori's tender, hopeless smile refused to fade.
Every doubt. Every fear. Every shred of reverence—it all collapsed in a single, catastrophic instant.
"AAAAAAHHH——!!!"
A gut-wrenching howl erupted from Hagoromo's throat.
The tidal force of emotion ripped through his body, and an unprecedented power surged from the depths of his eyes.
His irises blazed red. Black tomoe spun violently in his pupils—condensing, crystallizing—until three fully formed magatama hung suspended in fields of crimson.
The Sharingan.
Three-tomoe Sharingan—blazing with an eerie scarlet glow that illuminated Hagoromo's grief-stricken face and cast its light across the countless cold corpses that surrounded them.
In this moment, the gentle warmth that had once defined him was gone—extinguished entirely. All that remained was boundless sorrow, volcanic rage, and the flame of vengeance.
"Brother—your EYES!"
Hamura stared at the crimson wheels spinning in his brother's gaze, too shocked to form words.
He had never seen eyes like these. He had never felt an aura this terrifying radiating from his brother.
.....
By the time dawn broke—a pale sliver of light creeping across the horizon—
The brothers had been moving through the night without rest. Their feet were slick with morning dew as they raced toward the mountain peak where they'd first met Gamamaru.
The horror beneath the Divine Tree. Haori's lifeless body. The alien, terrifying power of the Sharingan now burning in Hagoromo's eyes. And their mother's years of deception.
Every thread knotted together in their minds—an unbearable tangle that demanded answers.
"GAMAMARU! Where are you?? I need you!"
Hagoromo's voice echoed across the empty mountain valley—hoarse from a sleepless night.
The words had barely faded when a burst of smoke erupted before them—and Gamamaru's round figure bounced into view.
The toad wore his usual air of mysterious composure. "No need to shout. I've been waiting here for quite some time."
Hagoromo frowned sharply. "How did you know I'd come?"
"Hehe—because my Master told me so."
"My Master is all-knowing and all-seeing. He predicted you'd come find me long before you even thought of it yourself."
Gamamaru puffed out his chest, practically glowing with pride.
"Your master? Who is he?"
Hagoromo pressed, his curiosity ignited.
Gamamaru's lips curled into a cryptic smile. "Come—I'll take you to him. In fact… you should already know who he is. You might have even met him."
He paused, studying their stunned expressions, and added: "After all—you two grew up listening to stories about my Master."
"Grew up listening to—??"
Both brothers froze—then the color drained from their faces as a single name exploded simultaneously in their minds.
MANJI!!!
Their mother's lifelong hero tales. The portrait in the temple they visited every year. And that mysterious man by the frozen lake—fishing in the snow, vanishing into thin air.
Every piece of the puzzle snapped into place at once.
"Could the man we met that day—the fisherman—actually be the Manji from Mother's stories?"
Hagoromo's pupils contracted. The words fell from his lips in a stunned whisper.
"Could it really be…"
Hamura's entire body trembled, disbelief flooding his features.
That man's face had been virtually identical to the portrait in the temple—only tempered by an air of quiet depth and composure that came from unfathomable years of experience.
The figure their mother had enshrined as a hero. The man whose memory inspired enough guilt to build an entire temple. He was real—and they'd already shared a bowl of fish soup with him.
"Heh…"
Gamamaru watched their shell-shocked reactions and couldn't suppress a grin. He waved a front leg. "Follow me."
The brothers swallowed their tidal wave of emotions and fell in behind the toad.
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