Following Madara's fall, the Gedo Mazo was released from his control, standing like a colossal piece of petrified wood on the wasteland.
Without Madara's will to anchor it, the chakra within the statue began to go berserk.
Saiki could feel it—deep within the shell, a primitive, savage consciousness was waking up.
It was the residual instinct of the Ten-Tails. It was the hunger of the God Tree, stripped of its fruit, driven by a singular urge: to devour, grow, and erase all life.
"Destroying it entirely... would be a waste," Saiki whispered.
He walked slowly toward the gargantuan statue.
The material of the Mazo and the energy it held were unique—it was the husk of the Progenitor, one of the "roots" of the chakra system.
Obliterating it would settle the matter, but it would also sever certain future possibilities.
"But leaving it as it is... is a disaster."
Especially now. With Madara dead, the statue was a rudderless monster.
If the Ten-Tails' will fully recovered, it would reflexively begin to drain the life-force of the Land of Rain and the surrounding nations. It would turn the world into a graveyard just to regrow.
Saiki looked up at the fifty-meter-tall monstrosity and rested his hand on his sword hilt.
"Fine... I'll sever the will and keep the shell. That should work."
In a heartbeat—
He drew his blade.
It wasn't the condensed, physical power he used against Madara. This was a strike aimed at the metaphysical.
Saiki gripped the sword with both hands. A pure, soft white light ignited on the steel.
It wasn't blinding; it felt cleansing and holy.
He took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
His Divine Sense flooded into the Gedo Mazo, piercing the wood-like layers and the chaotic chakra vortexes until he reached the core.
There, he found a pulsing, dark-red mass of consciousness—the heart of the beast.
It was the will of the Ten-Tails.
Chaos. Savagery. A hatred of "Separation" and a hunger for "Wholeness."
It wanted to gather the nine beasts. It wanted to regrow the tree. It wanted to taste the fruit again.
Saiki's mental "gaze" locked onto that mass.
He heard its silent roar. He felt its thousand-year hunger.
"I see..."
Saiki finally understood. The Ten-Tails' will was the primitive instinct of the tree—the desire of a "plant" to feed and grow.
When Kaguya ate the fruit, she merged with it. She was the master, but she was also the slave to its hunger.
"If I cut you down now," Saiki whispered to the void, "I wonder if I'm doing Kaguya a favor?"
If Kaguya ever returned, without the interference of the Ten-Tails' hunger, she might exist more "purely" as herself rather than as a world-devouring monster.
Of course, this was just a hypothesis. Saiki didn't care about Kaguya's future; he was making the logical choice for the present.
"Now..."
The white light on his blade contracted into a microscopic, invisible thread.
Saiki opened his eyes and locked onto the statue's chest.
He swung.
The blade did not touch the physical wood. The white "thread" detached from the steel and seeped silently into the Mazo.
One second. Two. Three.
"ROOOOOOOOAAAAAAAR————————!!!"
The nine eyes of the Gedo Mazo snapped open, erupting with a blood-red light!
The entire husk vibrated with a bone-jarring frequency. The wood-like skin groaned and began to develop thousands of microscopic fractures!
It was the final struggle of the Ten-Tails.
The desperate resistance of an ancient predator facing absolute erasure.
It was useless.
The white thread was a surgeon's scalpel. It accurately found the consciousness, severing and annihilating the "will" bit by bit.
The process was slow and methodical.
Saiki had to control his output—he had to delete the mind without damaging the structure or the chakra stored within.
This was far more difficult than simple destruction; it required a god-like level of control.
Fortunately, he was a god.
After thirty seconds, the vibrations stopped.
The dark-red glow in the nine eyes flickered and died, replaced by a hollow, dead darkness.
The unsettling aura of savagery vanished.
In its place was a pure, infinite sense of "emptiness." The statue had become a true container.
Saiki sheathed his sword.
He pressed his palm against the Mazo and sent a pulse of Sage energy inside.
This time, he felt no resistance. He didn't feel a chakra vortex.
He felt a massive, silent "battery." The chakra of the Nine-Tails was still there, along with the natural energy collected over centuries. But they were just "energy" now—raw fuel without a driver.
"This will do."
Saiki nodded. He channeled a thread of his own power into the statue.
There was no rejection.
His power flowed through the system like a drop of water into the ocean, establishing a direct link.
Saiki realized he could now command the statue to perform simple tasks or draw upon its reserves at will.
"I see... the reason one needed the Rinnegan to control this was that the Rinnegan's Yin-Yang Release could resonate with the Ten-Tails' will. But since the will is gone, the Mazo is just an empty vessel. And my power is so far above Yin-Yang Release that commanding an empty shell is child's play."
It was a significant harvest. A super-battery that could also be used as a weapon of mass destruction.
Saiki turned toward the remains of Madara Uchiha—or rather, the energy residue being consumed by his white flames.
He knelt down. Before the fire swallowed the head, he drove two fingers into the sockets.
When he withdrew his hand, he held two purple orbs.
The Rinnegan.
They shimmered with complex ripples, radiating a cold, vast ocular pressure.
Saiki frowned. He could feel the power within them—it was closer to the primordial source than the chakra in the Mazo.
But the nature of the power was twisted and dark.
"Indra's legacy... born from centuries of waiting and despair," Saiki critiqued. "Strong power, but it's a crystal of negative emotion."
He held them in his palm. His other hand hovered over them.
Pure white Sage energy poured out, forming a miniature, translucent sphere that encased the eyes.
The sphere began to rotate, its surface covered in microscopic runes—a sealing array to maintain the eyes' vitality and prevent decay.
"I'll keep them. They might be useful later."
He walked into the cave.
He wasn't worried about the Mazo being stolen—everything for two kilometers had been leveled by his duel with Madara. Not even a rat remained alive.
He entered the tunnel.
The interior was spacious and dim, lit by guttering oil lamps.
The floor was littered with scrolls, lab equipment, and... rows of glass jars filled with fluid.
Saiki walked to the jars.
Most were empty, but a few held floating eyeballs—three-tomoe Sharingan.
"A decent haul."
They would make excellent fuel for Izanagi if he ever needed it.
He found a clean jar filled with a translucent green nutrient solution.
He placed the sealed Rinnegan inside. The white light of his seal shone through the green liquid, making the jar look like a piece of high-end art.
"This should keep them fresh for a long time."
He sealed the jar and the other Sharingan into a scroll.
Then, his gaze turned to the deepest part of the cavern.
There, beside the shriveled corpse of Nagato, was a mass of wooden vines wrapped into a tight cocoon.
Saiki knelt and touched the wood.
His Divine Sense pierced the layers. Inside, he felt a weak, flickering spark of life.
Konan.
She was alive, though she had been held in stasis for a long time.
He raised his palm. White light flashed.
CRACK... SNAP...
The vines were severed by an invisible edge, falling away to reveal the prisoner.
Short blue-violet hair. Pale cheeks. Closed eyes. And the signature black cloak with red clouds.
She was in a state of deep coma from chakra exhaustion and trauma.
Saiki performed a quick scan—no lethal injuries, just weakness.
"Lucky girl."
He scooped her up in his arms. She was light—so light she felt like a piece of fragile porcelain rather than a ninja.
He could feel her shallow breathing and smell the faint scent of paper and ink clinging to her skin.
Without a second thought, Saiki gathered everything of value in the cave and walked out.
He laid Konan gently on a patch of level ground outside the tunnel.
Then he turned to face the cave.
He closed his eyes, his mind spreading out like a net as he reached deep into the bedrock.
Ten meters. Twenty. Fifty.
There. In the deep dark, he saw them—thousands of white humanoid entities.
The White Zetsu Army.
Ancient humans transformed by the Infinite Tsukuyomi over a thousand years. Mass-produced weapons hiding in the dark, tethered to the Gedo Mazo for survival.
There were at least a thousand of them.
"Kaguya's 'inheritance,' I suppose..."
Saiki opened his eyes. He raised his right hand and formed a fist.
Then, he punched the ground.
The motion was casual. Unhurried. It didn't even make much noise.
But in the next microsecond—
"BOOM-RUMBLE————————!!!"
The earth buckled and shook!
Not on the surface, but deep in the foundations of the planet.
A wave of pure, tyrannical Sage power erupted from his fist, rippling through the rock layers like a shockwave.
The White Zetsu hidden below didn't even have time to scream. The moment the energy touched them, their biological structures were pulverized into pulp.
Seconds later, the tremors stopped.
The ground returned to silence.
But Saiki knew that the thousand-strong army was now nothing but fertilizer for the hills.
The cleanup was complete.
He turned back to the Gedo Mazo.
The massive husk stood silent in the moonlight, a giant without a soul.
Saiki pressed his hand against its leg.
His power flooded the system, establishing a root-level connection.
Then, he issued a command.
The wood-like skin of the statue began to writhe and contract with a screeching sound.
The fifty-meter giant shrank at a visible rate, eventually becoming a miniature carving no larger than a man's palm.
Saiki picked up the mini-statue and examined it. Since it had no consciousness, miniaturization was an easy task.
"Much easier to carry."
He slid the mini-Mazo into his pocket.
Finally, he picked up the unconscious Konan and ascended into the clouds.
He hovered in the air, taking one last look at the scarred battlefield, the cave, and the distant silhouette of the Rain Village.
"Time to go."
The Auspicious Cloud accelerated, carrying him and Konan toward the Land of Wind.
Madara was dead. Akatsuki was a ghost. The Eye of the Moon was finished.
But Saiki's plan was just beginning.
If Madara had wanted to collect the Nine Beasts to become a Jinchuriki... why not do it himself?
Not for the Infinite Tsukuyomi. Not to rule the world.
But to leave the Leaf—and this world—with an ultimate trump card.
A card that could stand against the Otsutsuki clan when they inevitably descended from the stars.
Saiki looked down at the girl in his arms, then toward the golden horizon of the desert.
The target was clear: The One-Tail, Shukaku.
The cloud turned into a streak of white light, vanishing into the sky.