The halberd swung with thunderous montum, arcs of warp-lightning tearing through the air. But just before impact, Jigen vanished, his form swallowed by a swirling portal of fractured space. The halberd sliced through empty sky, its edge crackling against nothingness.
Above, far beyond the shattered ruins of the temple, Jigen reappeared.
He hovered in the stratosphere, silent, still.
Wind howled thinner up here. The clouds below were broken and scattered from the force of the earlier battle. The stars above were distant, watching coldly. Beneath him, Haji's energy shimred, low and steady like a forge not yet cooled. The golden ring of his halo pulsed faintly in the darkness, marking his presence like a second sun waiting to rise.
Jigen stared down, breathing hard.
"That power…" he muttered. "Not of this world. Not chakra. Not science. You are a unknown… but one I can still use."
His body began to twist.
Veins bulged unnaturally across his arms and neck. His skin paled to ash white. A horn erupted from his right temple, spiraling upward with sickly grace. His left eye flared wide, revealing a Byakugan glowing with faint lavender. And on the right, a golden, black-ringed Kokugan erged, its gaze alien and unblinking.
This was no disguise.
This was Jigen's true face, his body now used beyond its limits by the Ōtsutsuki embedded within.
The ground shuddered as Haji slowly raised his head, tracking the change without surprise. He could feel the difference. Not just chakra. Not ninjutsu. Sothing deeper… sothing unnatural to this world's balance.
Jigen descended slowly, his presence warping the air around him. With each step upon the ruined stone, the force of his weight cracked the earth beneath him. He no longer walked, he imposed.
"This form…" Jigen said, voice deeper now, distorted by the alien influence within. "I didn't want to use it so soon. But you forced my hand."
Haji didn't answer. His armor shifted slightly with the breeze, the long haft of his halberd still crackling with blue-gold energy.
Jigen vanished again.
He reappeared behind Haji with a thunderclap, his fist already mid-swing. Haji spun, deflecting the blow with the shaft of his weapon, but the sheer power of the strike sent him skidding backward across the broken floor. Stone buckled under his feet.
Without wasting a mont, Jigen launched forward, following with a barrage of strikes, palms, knees, elbows, each empowered by Ōtsutsuki strength and speed. His Kokugan darted with micro-calculations, trying to predict Haji's responses.
But Haji wasn't predictable.
He sidestepped, tilted his upper body just enough to let a punch skim past his helt, and countered with a devastating knee to Jigen's ribs. The blow exploded with kinetic force, launching Jigen into a crumbling wall.
Stone shattered. Dust rose.
Jigen laughed.
"I see," he said, voice strained. "You're not a vessel… you're a threat."
He extended his hand, and black chakra rods erupted from his palm, hurled like spears. Haji raised his halberd and spun it in a blur, deflecting each rod as they whistled through the air.
Jigen surged forward again, moving with blinding speed. His Kokugan swirled, and in a flash, he shrank mid-motion, vanishing from Haji's direct line of sight.
But Haji's perception didn't rely on sight alone.
He pivoted to the side, swinging his halberd like a reaper's scythe just as Jigen reappeared in full size. The blade caught him across the shoulder, searing through cloth, flesh, and bone.
Jigen scread, his voice raw with rage, but his healing kicked in imdiately, skin knitting together far faster than any ordinary shinobi.
Warp-lightning danced around Haji as he pressed forward, unleashing a devastating series of strikes. Each swing wasn't just force, it was precision. He carved through space, bending reality just enough to catch even the slightest flicker of Jigen's movent.
And yet, Jigen endured.
He summoned black cubes from the Daikokuten dinsion, massive weapons that dropped from the sky like teors. Haji raised his palm, and a psychic barrier flared, an invisible wall of force that split the falling objects mid-air like paper.
Jigen spat, staggering. "You're just a human."
Haji didn't speak. He moved.
In a burst of speed, he closed the distance between them and drove his halberd forward, impaling Jigen through the chest.
There was no explosion. No scream.
Just a heavy silence as warp energy crackled along the embedded weapon.
Jigen coughed blood.
His Kokugan dimd. The Byakugan flickered. He tried to raise a hand, but his body no longer responded.
His form began to crumble.
Not like a man. Not like flesh.
Like sothing trying to imitate humanity… now unraveling from the inside out.
Ash spread from the wound outward, devouring his limbs. His body dissolved into fine, white powder, scattered by the wind.
And in the center of that pile of ash… only two things remained.
His eyes.
The Kokugan and the Byakugan, untouched by the devastation. Haji stared at them silently.
He had struck with enough precision to destroy the Ōtsutsuki parasite within without damaging the ocular relics. A calculated move.
Not out of sentint.
Out of preparation.
His eyes narrowed slightly behind the blue lenses of his helt. Those eyes, especially the Kokugan, were too dangerous to leave behind… and too valuable to discard without care. For now, he would store them in the miniature Containnt Pod, stored in his backpack with The Containnt Pod containing Rinnegan.
The wind howled quietly around the scorched temple ruins. The earth was cracked, the stone blackened, and the once-hidden sanctuary of Jigen lay in ruin.
Haji turned his gaze to the scorched floor. Beneath it, he could feel sothing, a presence buried deep within. His helt's sensors pinged faintly as he stepped toward what was once the altar's center.
A faint seam.
He raised his boot and stomped down.
Stone collapsed inwards, revealing a spiral staircase leading down into the mountain. Cold air, untouched by the surface battle, wafted up.
With one last look at the silent sky above, Haji descended.
The threat of Jigen was over, but it isn't over yet.
The organization behind him… it's mber is still alive… were still in motion.
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