As Naruto stepped onto the cold, gray surface of the moon, his boots echoed softly against the silence of the empty world. The void of space stretched infinitely beyond the barren land, and yet—within that silence—stood a single figure. It was impossible not to notice her.
She stood out like a living gem amidst stone.
At just 150 centimeters, the girl was short, but her presence was anything but small. Her pale skin, tinged with a soft, silvery lavender hue, shimmered faintly under the celestial light. Her hair, a rich violet, cut to her neck, swayed gently in the void, untouched by wind yet carrying an ethereal grace. Her eyes, deep purple and gleaming with a mysterious luster, were accented with red makeup that arced above her lids like war paint, fierce yet alluring. Two curved horns protruded from her forehead, beginning in the same pale shade as her skin and darkening into a wine red at the tips—marks of her oni heritage.
She was beautiful, no doubt, but everything about her screamed danger.
A golden ornament adorned her forehead, nestled between her horns, with a bright green jewel catching the ambient light of the distant star. Her clothing was a short kimono in bluish-purple hues, adorned with swirling red patterns, especially along the elegant, tri-sleeved extensions. Green ribbons flowed loosely from her sides, fluttering as if in their own rhythm. The red sash cinched around her waist barely managed to restrain the garment, leaving her long, creamy legs exposed and offering glimpses of the metallic, provocative attire underneath.
That armor—or perhaps more accurately, that metallic lace—covered only the essentials: a thin piece of silver wrapping around her chest and crotch, connected by thin shimmering lines running to a neck choker. Her arms and legs bore similar minimalistic pieces, each etched with delicate patterns and secured around her fingers, toes, wrists, and ankles with thin straps.
On her legs, shin guards bearing oni faces grinned menacingly at her knees. Hanging from her waist were three gourds—the smallest brown, a white one likely for sake, and the third, the most ornate and massive, a translucent blue glass gourd with golden filigree. It radiated a dark, poisonous aura that even Naruto could sense across the expanse.
In her right hand, she casually held a sword, its blade a gleaming, glassy blue. The hilt was golden, and from its bottom hung a charm shaped like her gourd—a perfect match.
And there she stood, one foot casually propped atop a rock, drinking deeply from the white gourd, completely at ease, as if she were awaiting an old lover.
Then she looked at him. Her lips curled into a knowing smile, eyes half-lidded with intoxicated affection.
"Fufu... I've been waiting for you, beloved."
Her voice was honeyed and smooth, carrying a sense of familiarity and intimacy that should have been impossible.
"Would you care to join me for a drink, like old times?"
The surreal warmth in her tone almost made Naruto falter.
He didn't need Nyx to confirm it—this was the opponent. The aura of primordial darkness clung to her like a second skin, as natural to her as air to others. But what threw him off wasn't her power—it was her words. The sincerity. Her eyes looked at him like they knew him. Like they shared memories, laughs, and long nights of passion and sake.
But Naruto had never seen her before.
He stood firm, narrowing his eyes. This was one of the few weaknesses of his power—he couldn't detect lies if the person truly believed them. And this girl… this oni avatar that Nyx had created… she believed every word she said.
Nyx must have implanted false memories, carefully crafted, likely twisted versions of future possibilities or fabricated moments, to give her emotional weight in the upcoming battle. It was just like her—twisting affection into a weapon.
Still, Naruto refused to show weakness.
"My name is Naruto Uzumaki," he said calmly, voice resolute and noble, "Leader of the Golden Dawn, and the Future Emperor of the World."
He took a step forward, and his golden cloak shimmered behind him, the windless space unable to suppress the radiance of his resolve.
"I have come to challenge you in combat," he declared. "Not for drinks. Not for memories that don't exist. For my child—and for the trial Nyx has laid before me."
The oni girl tilted her head, her expression unmoved. If anything, her smile only grew softer, her eyes twinkling.
"Such a cruel man," she said in a low whisper, taking another slow sip of sake. "To forget me so easily."
Then she slammed the gourd into the ground.
The moon trembled.
The air around her cracked with pressure as her power surged. The sword in her hand glowed with sickly blue light. Behind her, her shadow stretched impossibly wide, morphing into a massive demonic visage with glowing horns.
And yet—she looked at him with love. Or at least, what she believed was love.
Naruto tensed. This was no ordinary battle. This was psychological warfare. Nyx's avatar wasn't just strong—she was emotionally anchored to him by false memories, and possibly driven by the pain of his "betrayal."
The silence of the stars shattered as tension crackled between two beings, far beyond mortal comprehension.
The Oni narrowed her luminous violet eyes at Naruto's declaration, but the smile on her face—tender, melancholic, and beautiful—never faded. It wasn't a mocking grin. It wasn't cruel. It was filled with heartbreak... and unwavering devotion. A dangerous devotion.
Naruto felt it. The obsession. The affection. The way her eyes clung to him like he was her entire world. She wasn't lying—at least, not in her mind. She believed the memories that Nyx had etched into her soul with all her heart.
"I see that she was right," Shuten-Douji whispered, her voice like silk, smooth and almost melodic. "You've forgotten everything about us. They've brainwashed you… turned you into this."
Her grip on her sword tightened, and though her expression remained soft, Naruto could feel the anger radiating from her—not towards him, but the invisible 'they' she blamed for stealing him away.
"Such weakness doesn't suit my beloved."
"My name is Shuten-Douji, your one and only Queen. And I shall free you from this accursed fate."
The blue sake gourd on her hip shimmered and vanished, as if consumed into her body. Her sword gleamed with wicked intent as she raised it and pointed the tip at Naruto.
"Let us fight like old times… beloved."
There was no stopping her. No room for logic. No truth he could tell that would pierce through the fabricated history burned into her mind.
And then—she vanished.
Naruto's eyes widened as Shuten appeared in front of him, already mid-swing. He teleported away instantly, only narrowly avoiding her blade as it sliced through the space he had just occupied.
His hands wove seals in a blur, and he exerted his gravitational control, compressing space itself around her body—a force great enough to crush a star into a singularity. But Shuten simply walked forward through the distortion. Unharmed. Untouched.
She wasn't a mortal form of darkness—she was Darkness, wearing skin.
She moved again—appearing behind him this time—and blew a wave of poison mist toward him. Even in the vacuum of space, the aroma reached his senses. It was sweet—dangerously so. It smelled like sake and flowers. Familiar, nostalgic. Like a memory that didn't belong to him but stirred something in his soul. He felt his guard falter, like his mind was slipping.
Naruto gritted his teeth and summoned massive chakra arms, infused with nature transformation to intercept her. She was capable of becoming an element—so he matched her elemental nature with his own fusion of energy. But she slipped through his arms like liquid shadow and slashed at him again.
He met her strike with his sword, the clash sending sparks across the shattered moon's surface. He followed up with a sharp kick aimed at her abdomen, but she twisted, floating horizontally with the grace of a dancer, and spun to counter-kick him with both legs.
Anticipating her next move, Naruto manipulated the space behind her, warping it with precision and timing. A chakra arm surged from the rift, catching the edge of her fluttering kimono.
"Got you."
With a mighty pull, he slammed her down into the surface of the moon with a deafening crash, causing it to shatter beneath them, celestial rock splintering into orbit.
Without missing a beat, Naruto unleashed six Rasenshurikens, each laced with molecular disintegration, tearing at reality as they screamed toward her. He knew she could take it—she was crafted for him, a peer forged in darkness to challenge his light.
Behind the Rasenshurikens came the finishing blow—Naruto extended his palm, focusing pure Bijuu energy into a condensed spiral and unleashed a Bijuu Laser so intense it tore a path through the moon and shattered the crust of the planet below.
A shockwave reverberated through the system, and silence followed.
Then he heard her voice. Sweet. Loving.
"Just like always… you are so wonderful, beloved."
Pain exploded through Naruto's back as he realized, too late, that she had solidified the darkness around him, anchoring him in place for a split-second. It was enough.
Shuten appeared behind him, her sword shimmering with twisted, reality-bending energy.
Bone Collector.
The blade passed through him, and Naruto screamed—nearly—for the first time in decades. It was not just a wound. It was a conceptual attack, a curse that sought to rip the bones from his body—erase their structure from existence itself.
Naruto forced a seal over the wound, halting the effect with a last-second manipulation of time and space. But it came at a cost. A rib—cleanly cut—floated outside of his body, hovering near Shuten like a twisted trophy.
Blood trickled down Naruto's back, but he gritted his teeth and surged forward, his body glowing with golden chakra as his self-repair began. He didn't let the pain stop him.
With a roar, he spun, throwing a blinding roundhouse kick that crashed into Shuten's face, launching her backward. The moon's debris danced around them, caught in the aftershocks of their clash.
The battle had only just begun.
And Naruto knew—this wasn't a battle of strength.
It was a battle of identity. A struggle against a delusion born from the void. Against a love forged in darkness and written into the stars.
The silence of the void was shattered by the soft, melancholic voice of Shuten-Douji as she came to a stop in mid-flight, hovering amidst the shattered remnants of the moon. Her eyes, glowing softly with hues of amethyst and violet flame, shimmered with sorrow.
"They have made you so weak, beloved..." she murmured, voice trembling with unspoken grief. "This ability should have never worked on you. It saddens me to see you like this… so please forgive me for what is going to happen."
Naruto narrowed his eyes, sensing her power shift—no, awaken.
Her aura of darkness unfurled like wings, rippling out in every direction. It devoured his follow-up attacks before they could even fully manifest—chakra, nature energy, space—everything it touched withered.
He gritted his teeth and forced the space around her to implode, collapsing it into a crushing singularity.
But even that…
The darkness devoured it all.
Refusing to relent, Naruto summoned power from the distant stars. He compressed them into spheres of destruction, their cores reinforced with the overwhelming force of immortal chakra—divine energy given destructive form. He hurled them like meteors, painting the battlefield with celestial fury.
But as the light closed in—she awakened completely.
Her true power surged forth like a rising tide. The next swing of her blade cleaved reality itself. A single stroke birthed a wave of darkness that rolled across the battlefield, devouring the stars he had summoned and threatening to consume even light itself.
Naruto could feel the paralytic nature of her aura pressing into his soul—trying to freeze him, heart and mind. He broke free with a burst of spatial energy, bending space to appear right beside her and slashed downward with his own blade.
It wasn't just any weapon.
It was the Immortal Slayer—a blade forged to kill things that could not be killed.
Shuten's eyes flickered with brief alarm. She called forth her darkness to intercept the blade before her sword could even meet it. The tendrils of her aura caught the Immortal Slayer just enough for her to parry it a split-second later.
Naruto summoned chakra arms, their claws sharpened and reinforced, and struck her midsection with brutal precision. The blow sent Shuten tumbling through space like a comet. But he didn't let her reform—he manipulated nature itself to stop her body from turning to mist, locking her in solid form.
He raised his hands and unleashed a barrage of Bijuu Lasers—converging beams of pure annihilation from every direction, each tearing through the cosmos. At the same time, he solidified the surrounding space, preventing teleportation or dispersal.
But even that wasn't enough.
"Can't have you use that move, beloved…" her voice came again, this time from behind him. "I am sadly not that strong."
She had used a dark clone—again—escaping the brunt of the attack. Her clone had taken the hits. Naruto cursed under his breath.
They were both monsters at this level. At the beginning, he held the edge in combat skill and adaptation. But now... she had surpassed him in raw stats. Her durability, regeneration, speed—they were growing as her awakening stabilized.
Their techniques were too powerful to meaningfully hurt each other for long. And neither of them wanted the other dead.
Naruto could kill her. He knew it. He had the one weapon capable of ending her existence. But that wasn't the goal here. Victory couldn't come at the price of death.
So he made a decision.
The Immortal Slayer shimmered in his grip and transformed, its shape liquifying into a flowing mass of molten silver before forming dozens of razor-sharp tentacles, each radiating an aura of fatality.
The weapon pierced through the void, lashing out in every direction like a sentient beast. Shuten was fast, faster than anything else in this universe—but even she couldn't react to all of the attacks. Two of the spears found their mark, one stabbing through her abdomen, the other left shoulder.
At the same time, her own blade arced around and slashed into his back with full force.
Naruto's chakra arm struck her, sending her flying, but he winced and nearly collapsed mid-air.
He had been deboned completely.
His entire skeletal structure had vanished, erased by her cursed blade.
Pain unlike anything he had ever felt—not even death—ripped through him. His muscles strained to hold his body together without bones to support it. His skin, chakra, and sheer willpower were the only things keeping him functional.
"Tch… That's a new level of hell..." Naruto muttered as he bit his lip, blood spilling into space.
But even that couldn't stop him.
His healing factor kicked in with a blinding flare of golden chakra, and his bones began to regenerate, cell by cell, from the marrow outward.
He stabilized.
But so had she.
The two gaping holes in Shuten's body bled, yet she stood tall, unfazed. Her face was serene, expression almost… proud.
They were equals—two celestial titans, neither capable of falling.
'I didn't want to use this but… let's do it,' Naruto thought, his voice echoing in his inner world.
'Go for broke. We have no choice here,' Kurama replied, his tone grim but resolute.
The air trembled, as Naruto began to channel chakra on a scale far beyond anything he had used so far—something so devastating it could not be undone once unleashed.
His eyes burned bright gold, and Kurama's power surged beside his own, shaping something that could tip the scales. Something ancient.
And as he locked onto Shuten, her eyes shimmered with recognition.
She smiled.
"Yes… show me, beloved. Show me our final dance."
In the cold vastness of space, where silence ruled supreme and stars blinked like distant spectators, Naruto stood—battered, but undaunted.
He had long ceased to be the boy who once struggled with control. Over the past year, he had evolved beyond even his own expectations. A thousand clones, each grinding away day and night across thousands of parallel experiences. The accumulation of a millennium's worth of training, crammed into a single human life.
And it showed.
He had pushed into realms that most immortals never dared tread. He understood space like a craftsman, bent gravity like a sculptor. He could touch souls, manipulate molecules, and even walk the threshold between life and death.
And now—he had brought death itself into the fight.
Around Shuten, a storm brewed—not of nature, but of unmaking.
A swirling, screaming maelstrom of grey wind, infused with the raw essence of mortality. It clawed at her, howling with the voices of those long passed. The storm didn't just cut—it reaped. It didn't just hurt—it sought her soul. The effect gnawed at her essence, suppressing her spirit, making her bleed in more ways than one.
Even Naruto had to resist it. The storm was a double-edged sword, one he held at arm's length by sheer force of willpower.
As he focused through the pain and chaos, he summoned the apex of his combined mastery—an attack with no name, a conceptual weapon meant to erase existence through everything at once.
Burning flame, freezing ice, shocking volts, molecular disintegration, soul destruction, pressure of gravity, scythe of death, vacuum of space—each layer fused into one condensed orb of oblivion.
A final gambit.
But fate wasn't kind.
Even as the ultimate attack came to life, Shuten appeared from the storm—smiling like a mad immortaldess, eyes blazing with love and bloodlust.
And then—
She stabbed him.
The blade pierced clean through the orb, through him, through space itself.
Naruto's eyes widened—not in fear, but in acceptance.
Then the orb exploded.
A thunderous wave of reality-rending force shook the void, spreading across the battlefield in a surge that made even distant planets tremble in response. When the smoke of spatial rupture faded, they were both a mess.
Shuten was laughing.
"Hahahaha! Wasn't that a funny little accident? Beloved getting hurt by his own attack looks so cute."
She was a terrifying sight—right arm gone, left leg missing, huge chunks of her chest and abdomen torn away. Yet her smile was unshaken, and her eyes were still full of fierce emotion.
Naruto, meanwhile, stood firm—his armor shattered, right hand erased, and his energy flickering like a failing sun.
But his will?
Unbreakable.
"It is a funny little thing…" he said, his voice calm, his spirit burning with unwavering light. "But I have won."
He stepped forward, one foot after another, unshaken, as golden chakra swirled slowly around him.
"Shuten… declare your loss. Before we kill each other for real."
She stared at him for a long moment, blood dripping from her lips. Her shoulders trembled. Not from fear or fatigue—but from emotion.
A crooked grin spread across her cracked lips.
"Give me a kiss," she whispered, "and I might do it."
The void held its breath.
Her eyes—mad, broken, and in love—met his with the intensity of a dying star.
Naruto stood still, paralyzed not by pain or exhaustion—but by truth.
The whispers in his mind had always been subtle. Shadows. Echoes. But this one had cut deeper than any sword:
"Your child."
And it clicked.
That feeling… that hesitation… that strange resonance he felt in battle—it wasn't Shuten. It was something within her.
Something of him.
Naruto's golden eyes narrowed as he finally saw her—past the rage, past the darkness, past the swordplay. And what stared back wasn't just the warrior who had pushed him to his limits.
It was his daughter.
His voice broke the void, roaring with realization, fury, heartbreak:
"You fucking whore!"
He wasn't cursing from hatred—but from a pain so deep it scorched his soul. Nyx… she had done the unthinkable. Manipulated time, stolen blood, warped dimensions—it didn't matter how. What mattered was she had taken his child, forged her in silence, and weaponized her against him.
A false life. A fabricated path. A child who never got to choose.
How long had she been raised like this? What memories were hers? What emotions were planted? What loyalties were real?
Naruto was strong. Immortal. The embodiment of a immortal in flesh.
But this?
This shattered him more than death ever could.
Nyx's voice slithered into his mind, soft and playful, but laced with an undertone of genuine affection—dangerously close to mockery.
"Ah, I love that expression. But why worry? She has a strong mind. Just convince her to your side, that's all. I'm giving you a light serving of this course... it could have been worse if done by someone else."
Naruto's fist clenched. The chakra around him trembled violently, stars dimming as they felt the weight of his emotion.
'Don't think I can't feel you're up to something. This isn't the end of the surprise, is it?'
Nyx giggled like a lover watching her man stumble in the dark.
"That's my man. You're certainly correct in your assumption. You'll be free soon… so let us enjoy a new experience."
And with that, the darkness swelled.
Not just around them—but within.
Shuten's aura pulsed with renewed power, thick with something far more ancient and twisted. Yet her expression remained calm, almost sad.
Naruto looked into her eyes, not with rage, but with pleading desperation.
"Shuten, stop. If you love me—then don't fight anymore. I'll accept you. I'll fix this. Just stop."
There was a flicker in her gaze.
A pause.
But then she shook her head slowly, her voice soft but firm:
"That is not the right way, beloved. You need to earn it—and you need to be free from the chains cast by the oppressors."
Chains? Oppressors?
The words made sense to her—but to him, they were soaked in delusion, indoctrination.
She was gone… too far gone.
His daughter, turned into a blade. A tool for someone else's ideology. A soul crafted not to live, but to prove a point.
And now…
Now he had to fight her.
Because if he didn't—he might lose her forever.
Because if he held back—she might die.
This wasn't a battle for victory anymore.
It was a battle for salvation.
Naruto's eyes glowed—not with power, but with resolve so pure it threatened to tear space apart.
"Forgive me… my daughter."
He whispered, then raised his hand.
This was worse than Sasuke. Worse than Kurama's loss. Worse than any war.
This… was the pain of a father forced to fight his own blood—to save her from herself.
The battlefield fell silent.
And then—
The fight resumed.
But this time, Naruto wasn't fighting to win.
He was fighting to save.