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JST Chapter 337: When Your Sage Mode Has DLC
🕑 Added 2025-06-11 16:16:45 +0000 UTC“…What is going on, brother?” Senju Tobirama furrowed his brow, his voice heavy as he stared at the apocalyptic scene Kazuki had conjured. “
“…What is going on, brother?”
Senju Tobirama furrowed his brow, his voice heavy as he stared at the apocalyptic scene Kazuki had conjured. “Is this… really caused by Sage Mode?”
Though Tobirama had used Sage Mode himself, his understanding of nature energy was limited—he’d only achieved it with Kazuki’s chakra as support.
But the issue was…
Even with no expertise, just witnessing this chilling spectacle was enough to tell everyone—something was terribly wrong.
Whatever Kazuki had entered, it was no Sage Mode.
This was something more fittingly described as Hell Mode, or Demonic Mode—terms far more appropriate for his current form.
At that moment—
Kazuki floated in the air, his white hair blowing in the wind. His elegance was unshaken, the same striking Uchiha beauty as always.
But the scarlet base of his Sharingan—each marked with three tomoe—had grown darker and deeper, the black tomoe swirling like abysses that could consume everything. The combination of red and black reflected off the ashen sea below him, making him resemble a demon risen straight from the pits of hell.
“I don’t know, Tobirama…”
Senju Hashirama, who had been deeply concerned about the sudden rapport between his brother and the Uchiha, now wore a solemn expression. After a deep breath, he spoke in a low voice: “Normally, Sage Mode doesn’t draw this much nature energy. Even the residual energy in the atmosphere is enough to synthesize Sage Chakra for someone with my chakra reserves.”
“But Kazuki… he’s extracting nature energy directly from the ocean. And not just that—the ocean’s nature energy is responding to him, like a summoned beast bound by contract, flooding into his body at an unimaginable rate, draining the sea of its vitality.”
“I don’t know how Kazuki is doing this. To withstand nature energy on such a scale… his chakra reserves have already far surpassed mine. And more than that—he’s tamed the violent nature energy. From where I stand, that’s already beyond the realm of what a human can do…”
For the first time, the undefeated Senju Hashirama—known as the God of Shinobi—looked at Kazuki, who was ruthlessly absorbing the ocean’s energy, and suddenly felt the same sense of helplessness that his past enemies must have once experienced when facing him.
Uchiha Madara stared at Kazuki, his mind racing. He muttered to himself: “When I once plotted to reshape the ninja world and considered using Uchiha Obito as my proxy, I thought… for a Uchiha to attain ultimate power, he had to possess a heart full of kindness and sincerity. Only then would the power of the Mangekyō awaken with enough intensity to transform the world…”
“I should’ve realized it back then… A Uchiha like Kazuki, who’s kind to an extreme—if he ever fell into darkness, he would gain a power and mindset so extreme it would defy all comprehension…”
Uchiha Izuna took a deep breath. He no longer knew what to say.
He had seen many Uchiha in his life, but one who could drain the vitality of the sea itself to such an extreme… this was a first, even for him.
Beside him, Senju Tobirama had fallen silent. In that moment, he was retracing every faint clue of Kazuki's descent into extremity…
Permanent peace, truth and falsehood, the Eye of the Moon Plan engraved on the Uchiha Stone Tablet…
Tobirama exhaled a heavy breath, his heart filled with a sense of helplessness.
There had been signs, long ago. But he had failed to act on them in time…
So, who could he blame?
Could he blame himself? Tobirama felt he had already done everything he could…
Should he blame Kazuki? After all, the Uchiha clan was said to be inherently evil, destined to fall into darkness…
But Tobirama couldn’t do that.
After all they had been through together, he had seen the ninja world—and Konohagakure itself—through Kazuki’s eyes. He had witnessed the discrimination and pressure within the village, the poison of people like Shimura Danzō, who plunged Kazuki into his first spiral of doubt…
But Tobirama couldn’t fault Kazuki for that confusion. In fact, he felt deeply ashamed from the bottom of his heart.
Any shinobi with half a brain, after learning the full extent of what Danzō had done, would want to spit on the so-called Will of Fire, already twisted and hypocritically 'edited' by Hiruzen.
And what of Kazuki, a deeply emotional Uchiha, who had always tried to live by that Will of Fire? Who discovered that the higher-ups treated it merely as a tool for consolidating their own power?
The fact he didn’t turn to darkness right then and there was already a miracle.
And yet, Kazuki still chose to become the radiant inheritor of the Will of Fire—working to mend the hearts within a Konohagakure riddled with wounds.
Tobirama’s thoughts spiraled. Not just within the village—hatred outside its borders had also reached its peak.
Even after Kazuki attained immense strength and developed all kinds of modern ninja tools, he didn’t choose a preemptive strike to crush one of the other villages. Instead, he showed weakness on purpose—to test whether the other Hidden Villages truly desired peace.
But the results… were chilling.
When Kazuki voluntarily proposed a peace treaty, the other villages smiled on the surface, signed it, and returned home—only to unite in secret and launch a coalition war, aiming to obliterate Konohagakure and wipe out its entire people.
Whether within or beyond the village, it seemed there were hardly any decent people left.
And it wasn’t just this era.
Led by Mount Myōboku—the birthplace of the so-called 'Child of Prophecy'—even the Three Great Sage Regions had quietly aided the Sage of Six Paths, who had invaded Kazuki’s body in silence. Their goal: to help break Kazuki’s mental defenses.
From the present day to ancient times… not a single righteous soul could be found.
Tobirama thought back to Kazuki’s journey—the pressure he had endured. Even under such enormous burdens, he had always treated those around him with as much gentleness as he could. He worked to build a stronger village and, at worst, would only sigh and share his exhaustion with Tobirama from time to time.
In the end, Kazuki had chosen to seal the Sage of Six Paths alone, never dragging Tobirama down with him. And even at the brink of death, he chose to resurrect Tobirama.
Tobirama truly didn’t know what he could possibly blame Kazuki for…
If he were in Kazuki’s position—facing all that suffering—even without the emotional nature and bloodline of the Uchiha, Tobirama doubted he could have endured it all…
Not retaliating against the world would already be an act of grace. Maintaining Kazuki’s former gentleness would be nearly impossible—let alone, like Kazuki, still choosing to sacrifice himself to save the very world that had shown him only its ugliest face.
“It’s not that Kazuki is extreme… it’s that this world drove a good man insane.”
Tobirama whispered heavily, “At this point, all we can do is watch. We’re all sinners…”
High above them in the sky—
Uchiha Sasuke’s eyes had widened to the limit.
This method of absorbing natural energy… he had seen something similar before—at the Valley of the End, after the Fourth Great Ninja War, during his final battle with Naruto, when both still bore the residual powers of Yin and Yang bestowed by the Sage of Six Paths.
To strengthen himself, Sasuke had drawn upon the power of eight and a half Tailed Beasts, elevating his Susanoo to a level that even Kurama deemed comparable to the Sage of Six Paths.
In response, Naruto and Kurama had chosen to enhance themselves by absorbing nature energy from the Earth itself.
Uchiha Sasuke strained to recall the details.
“After Naruto absorbed nature energy, the earth beneath him did seem a bit drained… but it was nothing like this. And besides, Kurama only helped him draw from the surrounding surface of the Valley of the End. This… this guy is draining the entire ocean!”
Sasuke looked out into the distance. With the clarity of his Six Tomoe Sharingan, all he could see in every direction was a boundless sea of withered water, roaring as it spiraled into a massive vortex, radiating devastating might.
“Is he… a humanoid Ten-Tails? Wait, he sealed Kaguya inside himself—so is he Kaguya’s jinchūriki? No, that can’t be right. Maybe Kaguya is his jinchūriki…”
For a moment, Sasuke couldn’t make sense of it at all.
Kazuki had originally taken over Kaguya's body—but after being driven back by Momoshiki and Urashiki, he had somehow returned in this form… A being more terrifying than Kaguya even at her peak, after absorbing the Ten-Tails.
And in the Pure Land—
The Sage of Six Paths and Ōtsutsuki Hamura, who had been concealing his presence until now, both fell into stunned silence.
The ninja world had exceeded even their imagination.
“This ninja world my brother created… it’s produced some monstrous individuals,” said Hamura, speaking through Toneri’s body, his expression twisted in conflict as he watched the scene unfold. “To think a mortal more terrifying than our own mother has appeared… Is this what successful independent evolution looks like?”
The Sage of Six Paths fell into a long, deep silence.
Though he had always claimed to believe in the mortals of the ninja world, in truth, he’d never truly trusted that without his guidance, Kaguya—once freed—wouldn’t destroy the world all over again.
That’s why he’d always seen himself as the architect of peace. It was the title he had given himself when he met Naruto and Sasuke in the original timeline—and the foundation upon which he’d established the Pure Land as a contingency.
But today…
He had seen with his own eyes that his mother’s kin truly had come knocking on the ninja world’s door.
And even more incredibly, a mortal from the ninja world had fought back against Kaguya’s devouring power—had even gone further, treading a path more extreme… someone who had, without any instruction, awakened and mastered the power of the Six Paths Yang Force.
What was he supposed to do now?
The Sage of Six Paths, who had always treated Kaguya as the ultimate threat, now found himself lost in the face of Kazuki’s existence.
After preparing for over a thousand years, how had something like this appeared right under his nose—a monster capable of devouring Kaguya?
