Before long, the meteor in Natsuhoshi's hands was safely transferred into Gen Takuya's.
Gen Takuya dispersed his shadow clones.
"Then—pleasant doing business~" he said, and as if something occurred to him, he added lightly, "And don't get any ideas about taking it back later. Otherwise… I just so happen to have a few jutsu that need a volunteer for testing."
With that, he left.
Behind him, the group stood there exchanging blank looks.
After a long while…
"Let's go back," the Third Star Shadow said, his voice filled with regret—yet also, strangely, relief. "Looks like fate doesn't want us to use the Star's power again."
"Mm." Natsuhoshi nodded. Without the Star, there was no need for them to abandon the village anymore.
But her gaze drifted to her husband.
Gen Takuya's words echoed in her mind.
She wanted—desperately—to believe he'd lied to frighten her.
Yet she and her husband had already confirmed it with their own eyes.
His body… really was failing.
He pulled her into his arms and spoke softly.
"It's fine. Isn't there still a year or two? That's already enough. And who knows—maybe I'll outlive that man's judgment~"
In the end, the group returned to Hoshigakure.
And a few years later, Peacock Method vanished completely from the village's inheritance.
…
Elsewhere, Gen Takuya glanced back.
No one followed.
Looks like they'd truly given up on the meteor.
He replayed the brief clash with Natsuhoshi in his mind.
Even Rasengan hadn't gained an advantage against Peacock Method. It had only shattered the Demon Bear. In the end, it was more like a draw than anything else.
But if the fight had continued…
The winner would've been him.
No matter how strong Peacock Method was, its lack of mobility was a fatal weakness. With her companions present, Natsuhoshi couldn't even form chakra wings and flee.
Still, Gen Takuya had no interest in taking it to the bitter end.
First—his goal was the meteor. There was no need for slaughter.
Second…
The meteor wasn't that hard.
If he pushed Natsuhoshi too far, she might choose a desperate move and break it herself.
In canon, Naruto had destroyed the Star with Rasengan. Maybe that was because the Star's chakra had been drained and the meteor had become brittle—but Gen Takuya wasn't willing to gamble.
So the clash had ended quickly.
As for the shadow clones?
They'd already been lurking underground with Earth Release long before he even stepped close.
Gen Takuya looked at his palm.
The threat he'd thrown at the end wasn't entirely empty, either. He really did have a jutsu he wanted to test.
Konan had given him the inspiration—
No. More accurately, it was the moment she'd been trapped inside Water Prison that had sparked it.
He'd just have to test its power later.
With that thought, Gen Takuya signaled his crow network and returned to the experimental base via Summoning Technique.
By then, everything he'd prepared was ready.
He took the sealing scroll containing the Demonic Statue's arm and the meteor, then entered a vast, empty chamber.
This room could accommodate more than just an arm.
Even the entire Demonic Statue could fit within it.
Since he'd planned for this long ago, the space had been prepared even earlier.
He placed the Demonic Statue's arm into an enormous cultivation tank, scraped off a small amount of residue, then shaved a small portion from the hollowed meteor as well.
After collecting the samples, Gen Takuya thought for a moment—then casually tossed the meteor into the tank.
After all…
It wasn't like a meteor could swallow the Demonic Statue, right?
…
A few days later.
Gen Takuya was still brimming with energy—because what he'd observed was astonishing.
Even the severed arm of the Demonic Statue, something that looked like a lifeless object…
Was still alive.
At one point, he fed it a trace of Three-Tails chakra.
Those tiny fragments reacted like wolves scenting blood, devouring it immediately.
Only then did Gen Takuya finally breathe out.
If even fragments could do this, then the full arm would be more than enough.
Tailed Beast chakra could be cultivated.
But the Demonic Statue's essence was the God Tree.
Growing something like that would be far harder. It might require natural energy—and without a Sage Body, where was he supposed to get natural energy in the first place?
As for the meteor's residue…
Its nature was almost identical to the Ten-Tails residue—yet it carried something extra.
A kind of outward "activity."
The so-called "radiation" that the Star shinobi spoke of.
That activity was likely the energy Hoshigakure used—transferring it into their chakra, turning it into a pseudo–Tailed Beast chakra cloak.
It let them manifest chakra externally…
While pushing their bodies far beyond their limits.
And once you absorbed that activity, it clung like bone-deep poison.
You couldn't peel it away.
All signs pointed to one conclusion.
The meteor really might be a fragment of the God Tree.
It had fallen from the sky two hundred years ago—perhaps even from the moon.
After all, the Demonic Statue itself had once been sealed on the moon.
Of course, it could've come from another God Tree entirely.
But either way…
The meteor and the Demonic Statue should be able to fuse.
And even if they couldn't, there shouldn't be any harmful reaction.
As for the meteor's side effects—fatal to ordinary people—
To a descendant of Six Paths, it was not necessarily unbearable.
And for someone with Uzumaki blood, even if it was poison, his vitality wouldn't crumble like Hoshigakure's shinobi.
He could probably endure it for decades.
And decades…
Were more than enough.
At that point, a new thought surfaced—something he hadn't considered before.
Should he use the meteor to change the quality of his chakra?
Peacock Method itself was secondary. If he ever studied it, he'd need to redesign it—so the user could move while attacking, instead of standing still forming seals like Hoshigakure did.
A technique that forced your real body to remain rooted…
Was lethal once the weakness was found.
But the flight aspect of Peacock Method—
That was valuable.
Flight was rare across the entire shinobi world.
Among "normal" shinobi, the only ones he could think of were Iwagakure's users of the Light-Weight and Heavy-Weight Rock techniques.
Others relied on external means—Sai's Super Beast Scroll, Deidara's clay, Konan's Paper Person of God.
All of that pushed him toward a decision.
He would train it.
Gen Takuya entered the massive room again.
When he looked into the tank, he froze.
The Demonic Statue's arm had… changed.
It looked like it was being "supported" from all sides, a strange sense of stars surrounding the moon—
And at the center was the meteor.
It wasn't hard to imagine what would happen given enough time.
That arm would regenerate further…
And eventually form a complete living body again.
Gen Takuya hadn't expected that.
But it saved him a great deal of work.
Even without the meteor, he could've forced it into a living form.
Still—
Natural growth was always better.
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