Ishiki Ōtsutsuki stood at the threshold of the dimensional rift, his golden eyes glinting with satisfaction. He had waited two thousand years for this moment, trapped in the confines of a lesser world, reduced to playing the long game against mortals who were barely worth his notice. But fortune had smiled upon him. Naruto Uzumaki—the one being capable of stopping him—had been sealed away in the dark dimension. The war raging among the remnants of the Uzumaki clan provided the perfect distraction. No one had noticed his escape.
With a final glance back at the forsaken realm that had bound him for millennia, Ishiki stepped forward into the shimmering void, vanishing into the fabric of space itself.
What awaited him on the other side was nothing short of divine majesty.
Ishiki emerged in the heart of the Ōtsutsuki realm, a world beyond mortal comprehension. The very concept of nature's laws held no dominion here. Time itself flowed as it pleased—some regions of the world were frozen in an eternal moment, while others aged and decayed within seconds. Space twisted and bent, shaped by the will of its inhabitants rather than the laws of physics.
The sky above was a kaleidoscope of shifting galaxies, spiraling nebulae painting the heavens in hues of deep violet, gold, and ethereal blue. Twin stars—one black as the void and the other radiating a cold silver light—hung in the sky, casting an eerie yet awe-inspiring glow upon the land.
The world itself was an impossible landscape of contradictions. Floating islands, each the size of continents, hovered in the air, connected by shimmering bridges of pure energy. Oceans of liquid starlight stretched across the horizon, reflecting the cosmos above like an infinite mirror. Towering spires, forged from crystalline constructs and celestial metals, pierced the heavens, serving as palaces, temples, and sanctuaries for the scattered members of his divine kin.
Ishiki Ōtsutsuki floated above the celestial bridges of the core dimension, his golden eyes narrowing as he took in the realm of his kin.
It had been two thousand years since he last stood here. Two thousand years trapped in a world where he had been betrayed, humiliated, and forced into hiding like a lowly insect. He clenched his fists at the memory.
Kaguya…
His fiancée, his chosen mate, had nearly killed him.
Worse than that—she had taken a mortal as her mate and given birth to children.
Ishiki's lips curled into a sneer. A mortal. The very idea was repulsive. The Ōtsutsuki were beyond such attachments, beyond the frailties of lesser beings. Their purpose was singular—to consume, to ascend, to reach the higher dimension where the King resided.
Yet, Kaguya had abandoned all of that. She had chosen weakness over divinity.
Her actions had forced him into hiding, something no Ōtsutsuki had ever done. He had lived among the insects, pretending, scheming, enduring. He had experienced things no Ōtsutsuki had ever known—pain, patience, and the slow, maddening burn of hatred.
And now, after centuries of surviving in the mortal realm, he had returned home.
But he was not the same as before.
The Ishiki that had once dreamed of ascending to the higher plane was dead. The Ishiki that stood here now was a man filled with hunger—hunger for vengeance, hunger for power, hunger for the destruction of the Shinobi world.
Yet even in his rage, he had not forgotten his cunning.
He should have reported the Shinobi world's rise in strength. That was the law of their people. Any world that evolved beyond its initial ranking required a stronger Ōtsutsuki to claim it. It was a rule that ensured no world could resist them.
But he had not reported it.
Because this was his prey.
If the higher-ranked Ōtsutsuki learned of it, a star-destroyer, or worse, a solar-system destroyer would be sent to devour the world. And Ishiki could not allow that. The Shinobi world had taken everything from him.
He would take everything from it in return.
Ishiki moved through the ethereal pathways of the Core Dimension, each step feeling both familiar and alien after two thousand years. The realm of the Ōtsutsuki was beyond the constraints of mortal laws—gravity was meaningless, time ebbed and flowed like an endless tide, and colors that did not exist in any human spectrum painted the sky in shifting waves. He had returned home, yet something in him had changed.
At the heart of this ever-expanding cosmos, he sought out Amateru—his closest friend, the one he had always spoken to before embarking on a new mission. She had been his equal, a fellow Large Planet destroyer, someone he could match in battle and in thought. She was never one to tolerate weakness, yet she had never looked down on him.
He expected to find her as she was before, unchanged by time. But when he laid his golden eyes upon her, he felt something stir within him.
Amateru stood before him in radiance beyond his expectations.
She had always been tall, regal, her silver hair flowing like liquid stardust. But now, it burned with cosmic fire, flickering between gold and white. Her once-pristine robes were no longer just ornamental garments of tradition, but woven from pure energy, shimmering as if the very laws of existence bent around her presence. And her horns… they had changed, no longer curved and elegant but elongated, sharp, crackling with the power of a Solar System destroyer.
She had ascended to the next rank.
Ishiki had expected growth. All Ōtsutsuki pursued strength. But this? This was beyond what he had imagined.
"Ishiki," Amateru greeted, her voice carrying an unnatural weight, as if it resonated in the very fabric of the world.
"It has been long, even for our kind."
There was no hesitation in her words, no concern about his absence. It was normal for an Ōtsutsuki to vanish for millennia. But as she looked at him, something in her gaze sharpened.
"You have changed."
Ishiki smirked, masking his thoughts. Of course, I have changed. How could I not?
They walked together, their conversation fluid, timeless, as if he had never left.
They spoke of the conquests she had led, the galaxies she had stripped bare, the opponents she had crushed beneath her will. Ishiki listened, feeling pride in his friend's accomplishments. She had done what he could not—grown beyond their former station.
"The path to ascension remains as difficult as ever," Amateru mused, gazing into the void, her expression unreadable.
"Many have tried, but none have succeeded since our ancestor's failure. You recall, don't you? The one who nearly reached beyond?"
Ishiki nodded. He recalled all too well. That was why he was here—to find the remnants of that ancestor's failure.
"You still pursue power in your own way, I assume?" she asked, giving him a sidelong glance.
"Naturally," he replied, a calculated response, masking his true purpose. He wasn't here to discuss ambitions. He had come to rest, to reconnect.
And yet…
Something inside him shifted, something dark and unfamiliar.
As he listened to Amateru speak of her triumphs, a thought whispered in his mind. A thought that did not belong in an Ōtsutsuki's heart.
Envy.
It was absurd. Impossible. The Ōtsutsuki did not feel envy toward their kin. They respected strength. They honored those who climbed the ranks, even if they failed to ascend.
Yet here he was, standing before his best friend, and he could feel it rotting within him.
She had grown. He had been trapped.
She had conquered. He had suffered.
She had ascended. And he… he had barely survived.
His hands clenched at his sides, and for the first time, he had to consciously force his expression to remain neutral. The emotion was weak, subtle, but it was there, lurking like a shadow.
Amateru, ever perceptive, narrowed her glowing golden eyes.
"Is something wrong, Ishiki?"
He breathed slowly, steadying himself.
"No," he said smoothly. "Just thinking."
"Thinking?" She tilted her head slightly, as if considering something. Then, with a knowing smirk, she said, "Good. I expect much from you. It would be a shame if you had grown soft."
She was testing him.
He exhaled through his nose, allowing himself a small smirk in return.
"I could say the same for you."
By the time Ishiki left Amateru's presence, his mind was not at ease.
He had wanted to relax, to feel at home once more. But instead, he had encountered something he should not have felt—a feeling that should not exist among their kind.
It was a flaw, a taint, something he had gained from his time among the mortals.
He clenched his fists, his golden eyes glowing faintly in the eternal darkness of their world.
"I must rid myself of this," he whispered.
But deep down, he already knew the truth.
Once a crack formed, it never truly disappeared.
Ishiki drifted through the ever-shifting pathways of the Ōtsutsuki Core Dimension, but he found no peace.
The weight in his chest—an unfamiliar, gnawing sensation—refused to fade, no matter how much he tried to push it away. He had returned home after two thousand years, expecting rest, a moment of solace after being trapped in the dark dimension, after being betrayed, humiliated, forced into hiding like a mortal.
But standing before Amateru, seeing what she had become, something had taken root within him—envy, frustration, resentment.
No matter how much he tried to suppress it, it clawed at him, demanded retribution.
Until he found a way to take back what was his, he would not be at peace.
His hands curled into fists, his golden eyes burning with quiet resolve.
"I must move forward."
If he could not match Amateru now, if he could not take revenge on the Shinobi World, then he needed to do something that no one had done before.
And for that, he needed answers.
Ishiki's path led him toward Ryoshin, a being who was neither warrior nor conqueror but an observer, a keeper of the knowledge of their kind. The Ōtsutsuki did not have historians—they had no past, only an endless march toward the future, toward ascension. But there were those who remembered, who studied the failures of their species, who collected knowledge not for conquest but for understanding.
Ryoshin was one of them.
He resided in one of the void palaces, a vast structure that floated in the nothingness of the Core Dimension, its walls made of crystallized stars, glowing with the dying embers of collapsed worlds. Unlike others of their kind, Ryoshin did not seek to ascend—he simply sought to know.
And right now, Ishiki needed that knowledge.
Inside the palace, Ryoshin hovered above a swirling mass of galaxies, his long, flowing robes woven with threads of pure existence itself. He had eyes, like Ishiki, but unlike warriors, his gaze was distant, unfocused, as though he was looking through Ishiki, beyond him, into something far greater.
"You return, Ishiki," Ryoshin said without turning, his voice smooth, unshaken, ageless. "Two thousand years in the mortal realm must have changed you."
Ishiki ignored the remark.
"I need information," he said. "About the ancestor who failed to ascend."
Ryoshin finally turned to him, his many eyes narrowing ever so slightly.
"Why do you seek this knowledge?"
"Because I wish to learn," Ishiki answered carefully. "When my time comes, I will not fail as they did."
It was half a lie. Ishiki had no intention of ascending—not yet. He wanted to use this knowledge for something else, something vengeful, personal. But he could not let Ryoshin know that.
The elder Ōtsutsuki regarded him for a moment before speaking.
"Ascension is not as you think it is," he said, floating toward a towering monolith of shifting, glowing symbols—a record of those who had nearly reached beyond but perished in the attempt.
"To ascend is to surpass the multiverse itself. It is to step beyond its endless cycles, its infinite laws. But to do so, one must endure the full weight of existence."
Ryoshin raised a hand, and in an instant, a vision engulfed Ishiki's mind.
He saw an Ōtsutsuki—one unlike any other.
Their form was breaking apart, unraveling into the very fabric of reality itself. They were neither dead nor alive, trapped between existence and nonexistence, unable to move forward, unable to return.
"He was one of our greatest," Ryoshin murmured. "But he could not withstand the power of the multiverse in its entirety. It crushed him, scattered him across all of creation."
Ishiki's jaw tightened.
"Then where did he fall?"
Ryoshin studied him carefully.
"Why does it matter?"
"Because I wish to learn from his failure," Ishiki said, his voice steady. "If I know where he fell, perhaps I can understand what went wrong. I will not be crushed as he was."
For a long moment, Ryoshin said nothing. Then, he turned back to the monolith.
"His remnants are scattered across the lower realms. But his core, his essence… it is said to have collapsed upon itself, drawn to a place where existence is weakest."
Ishiki felt a chill run through him.
"Where?"
Ryoshin's eyes glowed.
"In a world now known as the Shinobi World."
Silence.
Ishiki stilled, his golden eyes narrowing.
"That world...?"
"Yes," Ryoshin said. "It is no coincidence that your mortal prison was that world. It is no coincidence that it has begun to rise beyond its natural rank. That world has something buried within it—something ancient, something that once sought ascension and failed."
Ishiki's fingers curled into fists.
So the very world that had trapped him, humiliated him, taken everything from him—was also the resting place of an ancestor's failure?
"Tell me everything you know."
For the first time, Ishiki did not feel envy.
He felt purpose.
If he could find the remains of this fallen ancestor… if he could extract its power… then perhaps, when the time came, he could not only reclaim what was his—
—but become something far beyond what he was ever meant to be.