The crimson moon hung high, descending slowly with crushing pressure, suffocating everyone below.
At the epicenter, Kaguya Sousuke's face paled. He sensed the moon had locked onto him—escape was impossible.
"Tsukuyomi turned into a physical attack?" Uchiha Yao, watching from afar, felt the moon's devastating power.
Unwilling to die in foreign lands, Kaguya Sousuke desperately tapped his bloodline's strength.
His bones surged, elongating rapidly. He towered meters taller, morphing into a bone giant—his body a mosaic of ashen bones bristling with jagged spikes.
"I, Kaguya Sousuke, won't die to some kid!" he roared from the giant's chest, crazed.
Uchiha Gin, unfazed by the transformation, stared coldly at the falling red moon with scarlet eyes. Blood gushed from his sockets, his robust frame visibly withering.
This was the cost of burning life force for chakra. Even if he won, he wouldn't survive long.
The bone giant raised a hand, forming a spiraling bone lance. With thunderous force, it charged the moon.
The lance met the moon, unleashing a blast of air that blinded onlookers.
To everyone's shock, the giant's lance halted the moon's descent. Sousuke's lips curled into a cruel smirk.
Crunch!
A sharp crack froze his smile. The bone lance disintegrated from the tip, a fracture racing down to shatter the giant's body.
Kaguya Sousuke, proud and untamed, vanished into ash without a word as the giant crumbled.
"Gin, stop it!" Uchiha Yan, the only one still lucid, shouted in horror. The moon, having crushed the giant, kept falling.
Gin, unresponsive, stood woodenly, blood caking his face, death's aura cloaking him.
Half-conscious, he'd lost control of the moon.
It slammed into the ground, the colossal explosion hurling everyone back with its shockwave.
As the dust settled, Yan lifted his head, stunned by the devastation.
A massive crater scarred the Uchiha clan's heart. The clan head's mansion was flattened, countless homes ruined, survivors' wails echoing.
Gin lay face-up, blood seeping from every pore. Uchiha Hikari, frail, staggered to her feet, stumbling toward him.
The blast snapped Uchiha Tajima from his grief over his wife and sons. Feeling the surging power in his eyes, he shut them in pain.
"Betsutenjin? What's the point?" Opening them, his face twisted bitterly—the cost of these legendary eyes was too steep.
"Clan Head, what happened?" Uchiha Miao, arriving late, gaped at the ravaged homeland, the central pit beyond comprehension.
"You two, explain," Tajima demanded, unaware of prior events.
"Gin and I had the intruder under control, but…" Hikari, still lucid, glanced at the昏迷 Gin, recounting the incident.
"You lost control, unconsciously using your Mangekyo's power?" Miao interrupted when Hikari described her blackout, using Yachihoko to drain everyone's chakra and turn the Kaguya against each other.
Hikari nodded—she'd been powerless then.
"Ever happened before?" Miao, a researcher, frowned, sensing this wasn't random.
"Yesterday, Uchiha Yao had me assist in an experiment. I passed out, and afterward, I had… unpleasant memories," Hikari said honestly. "They resurfaced during the loss of control."
Miao pondered, recalling retrieving an unconscious Gin from Yao's lab yesterday.
He eyed Gin's battered form. "What's with him?"
"It's him—everything here is his doing," Yan cut in, unhinged by trauma. "He used a jutsu I've never seen, summoning that red moon, leveling our home."
"No! Gin was saving us!" Hikari protested. "And you—if you hadn't drained the clan head's wife's chakra, she wouldn't have died to that Kaguya."
Yan turned his rage on her.
"Cough… who turned off the lights?" Gin stirred, waking to the argument. Struggling to open his eyes, he saw only darkness, forcing a weak joke.
"Gin, you okay?" Hikari rushed to him, overjoyed.
"Hikari, you alright?" Gin, barely lucid, recognized her voice, asking urgently.
"I'm—" Hikari started, but Miao stopped her.
An expert on the Sharingan, Miao saw Gin's blindness but needed answers. "Gin, do you remember what you did?"
"I saw…" Gin began, then fell silent.
He'd watched his aunt, who treated him like her own, die brutally, along with his three younger cousins.
"I'm sorry—I couldn't protect them," Gin said, ignoring his blindness, rolling to kneel and slamming his forehead into the dirt.
His sincere apology met Tajima's silence.
"Waaah… Clan Head, punish the one who wrecked our lands!" Survivors gathered, weeping to Tajima.
As more arrived, someone shouted, "Uchiha Gin destroyed the clan grounds!" The crowd spiraled, doubts turning to vicious curses.
"Clan Head, this ties to Yao's weapon project," Miao whispered to Tajima. "He mentioned de-willing two subjects. Their blackouts likely stem from his experiments."
Tajima nodded slightly, processing.
Hikari helped Gin up. Blind, he pieced together his rampage from the clan's murmurs.
"We just wanted to save everyone… guess we overdid it," he muttered.
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