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"WHAT—??"
The Branch patriarch's reflexes fired a fraction of a second too late. His body tried to jerk backward, but the signal from brain to muscle arrived after the moment had already passed.
Manji moved.
Not quick. Instantaneous. The gap between "standing still" and "standing beside the Branch patriarch" didn't exist. There was no in-between. No technique anyone present could identify, analyze, or even perceive.
The Main patriarch's expression hadn't finished shifting to alarm when the scream tore through the air.
"AAAGH—!"
A wet, sharp sound. The Branch patriarch crashed to one knee, both hands clamped over his right eye socket, blood streaming between his fingers in dark rivers, his entire body convulsing with agony.
Manji stood exactly where he'd been standing.
In his palm, the Tenseigan floated gently, its gold-white radiance casting soft patterns across his fingers.
"Looks like you couldn't hold onto it after all." His tone was the verbal equivalent of a shrug.
The Branch patriarch's remaining eye burned with hatred so concentrated it could have set fire to stone. But his legs wouldn't obey him. His body had been pushed past every threshold it had left.
"LORD PATRIARCH!!!"
The Branch Family fighters saw their leader broken and bleeding, and something snapped. Fear of the unknown stranger evaporated under a flood of loyalty and rage. They charged as one—dozens of them—palms blazing with Gentle Fist chakra, attacking from every angle simultaneously.
"Don't waste your lives."
Manji said it the way someone might comment on the weather being slightly overcast.
He had no interest in killing these people. Centuries of living had ground the appetite for bloodshed down to nothing. These were Hamura's descendants. His grand-disciple's family. Misguided, certainly. Dangerous, temporarily. But not evil in the way that warranted extermination.
His target had always been the Tenseigan. Nothing more.
"Sage Art: Yatagarasu Illusion."
The Rinnegan flared. Sage energy and ocular power merged into a single technique that expanded outward like a silent shockwave, blanketing the entire battlefield in an invisible net.
Every charging Branch Family member froze mid-stride. Eyes glazing over. Bodies going rigid. Then, one by one, they toppled like dominoes, collapsing into dreamless unconsciousness before they hit the ground.
The lunar surface went quiet.
Only the Main Family remained standing. Barely. Most of them looked like they'd forgotten how their legs worked.
........
Manji turned to the Main patriarch.
"Main Family patriarch."
"Y-yes! What does the Sage require?"
The old man bowed so fast he nearly threw out his back, voice pitched several octaves above its natural register.
Manji clasped his hands behind him and delivered the news with the casual authority of someone who'd been making unilateral decisions about the fate of civilizations for longer than anyone present had been alive.
"Effective immediately, the moon falls under Mount Myōboku's jurisdiction. Main Family and Branch Family will merge into a single administrative unit. You may retain your internal governance structure, but ultimate authority rests with Mount Myōboku."
The Main patriarch's face went through a rapid succession of expressions, settling on "deeply uncomfortable."
"With respect, I cannot agree! Our ancestor Hamura entrusted us with guarding the moon! There are things buried at its core—terrible things—that we cannot allow outsiders to—"
"You're talking about the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path."
The patriarch's mouth snapped shut.
Manji knew. Of course he knew.
"Your people will continue guarding it. That responsibility doesn't change. You simply do it under Myōboku's oversight."
The patriarch wrestled with it visibly, jaw working, eyes darting. "The other elders... they won't accept this."
Manji's gaze swept across the assembled Main Family members. "Do any of you object to Mount Myōboku's governance?"
A beat of silence.
Then several elders stepped forward in quick succession, voices crisp and unhesitating.
"AGREED!"
"WE ACCEPT!"
"NO OBJECTIONS!"
The patriarch spun around, staring at his own council in blank-faced bewilderment. "Why would you—??"
Manji wasn't remotely surprised. Several of those elders had been Mount Myōboku sleeper agents for years. Planted during Hamura's era, maintained through generations of careful succession. Waiting for exactly this moment.
"Good."
Manji nodded at the stunned patriarch.
"Your position stays the same. You're still clan head. You still run daily operations. The only thing that changes is who sits at the top of the chain. Think of it as gaining a benefactor rather than losing autonomy."
The patriarch's face cycled through resistance, calculation, and reluctant acceptance. His authority was intact. His people were safe. The Branch Family had been neutralized without a massacre. All things considered, this was far from the worst possible outcome.
He drew a long breath and bowed.
"As you command. May I know your name, Sage?"
Manji's disguise dissolved. The wrinkles smoothed away. The white hair darkened to black. The stooped posture straightened into the frame of a young man, features so refined they seemed carved from light itself.
The face that appeared was one every person on this moon had seen a thousand times. Painted on scrolls. Carved into temple walls. Described in bedtime stories and ancestral prayers.
The Main patriarch's legs gave out.
"You're... you're a GOD??"
"ALL HAIL THE SAGE OF SIX PATHS!!!"
"ALL HAIL THE SAGE OF SIX PATHS!!!"
Every Main Family member within visual range hit the ground simultaneously, foreheads pressing into lunar dust, voices raised in worship that echoed across the barren surface.
Manji looked at the sea of prostrate bodies and suppressed a sigh.
'Should've just led with this. Would've saved twenty minutes.'
........
Senju territory.
The wooden veranda of a clan elder's residence.
Senju Uzuki's fist slammed against the railing hard enough to crack it.
"WHAT?? You want me to marry into the Uzumaki Clan??"
Her voice hit a register that made nearby birds evacuate the trees. Chakra flickered around her body, responding to the fury pouring off her in waves.
Her father, Senju Tai, stood across from her with the rigid posture of a man who'd known this conversation would be terrible and had come prepared to endure it.
"Yes."
"Who decided this?? I REFUSE! I'll die before I agree to this!"
Uzuki stepped forward, chest heaving, eyes blazing.
"The clan head. Every elder. Unanimous decision."
Tai's voice was heavy, but his expression left no room for negotiation.
"The Uzumaki and Senju share ancestral roots. Our alliance goes back generations. Sending you—a daughter of the main line—is the strongest gesture of commitment we can offer."
Did it tear him apart to say this to his own daughter? Of course it did. Uzuki was brilliant. Talented beyond her years. The pride of the new generation. But the clan's needs outweighed one person's wishes. They always had. That was the deal you accepted the moment you were born into a shinobi family.
"NEVER! Not in this lifetime! NOT EVER!"
Uzuki's scream ripped through the compound.
And behind the rage, behind the indignation, a face surfaced in her mind that she couldn't push away.
Uchiha Kitsune. The skinny, stubborn, infuriating boy who'd somehow become the only person in the world she wanted to see.
They were enemies. Senju and Uchiha. There was no future in it. She knew that. She'd always known that. But knowing something was impossible didn't stop you from feeling it, and the thought of marrying a stranger from a different clan while that impossible feeling still burned inside her was more than she could bear.
"This is not a request, Uzuki!" Tai's voice became more intense. "You are a daughter of the Senju. You were raised with privilege and opportunity that came at the clan's expense. When the clan needs you to give something back, you do not get to refuse! The Uzumaki are a powerful, respected family. This marriage dishonors you in NO way!"
"For the clan..."
The words landed on Uzuki like a physical weight. The anger drained from her face, replaced by something worse. A slow, grinding helplessness that settled into her features like shadows at dusk.
She'd been hearing those words her entire life. For the clan. The answer to every question. The justification for every sacrifice. The invisible chain that had been locked around her ankle since the day she was born.
She couldn't break it. She'd never been able to break it.
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