Like Jiraiya, Tsunade had come here driven by a last, desperate hope. Uchiha Yue's enigmatic silence was baffling. If he were truly driven solely by hatred for Konoha, he would have unleashed his full, monstrous power on the village long ago, wiping it from the face of the earth.
"What if..." she thought, "what if the Will of Fire still lives within him? What if his power has simply spiraled out of control? If I can get close to him, I can reach his heart, awaken the boy the village once knew. Perhaps then he will subdue his rage and accept justice..."
He had harmed his own people, and there was no forgiveness for that. Uchiha Yue must pay. She immediately dismissed thoughts of Danzo or Orochimaru. That was something entirely different. Danzo had always hidden behind the village's good, and Orochimaru had long since become an enemy. Yue's case—betrayal from within, the most terrible of all.
A dark thought crossed her mind: if Yue, like Konoha's White Fang, had realized his sin and condemned himself to death... it would have simplified things.
Alas, no one knew his condition or his thoughts. Even his supposed appearance was only a hazy sketch, woven from fragments of other people's memories. What he looked like now remained a mystery.
But Tsunade's hopes were destined to be dashed. With every step deeper into the cursed land, a freezing cold pierced her body. Her strength was ebbing away at a terrifying rate, her consciousness clouded. And then she bitterly realized how naive and foolish her calculations had been.
Reach Yue? Even to approach him, let alone move freely through this dead land, required an inexhaustible source of chakra capable of withstanding this all-consuming emptiness. Otherwise, she would never even see his face.
"These lands..." she whispered and fell to her knees.
The chakra that fueled the Yin Seal dried up. In an instant, the legendary beauty turned into a decrepit old woman with wrinkled, sagging skin. Her breathing became ragged, her legs gave out. She was so far away... If not for the life-saving rope tied to her waist, Tsunade would have remained here forever, embraced by the dead silence.
She tugged on the rope with her last strength, fully realizing her own powerlessness in that moment. The rope tightened, and she was pulled back, away from this hell.
As the limp body was dragged along the ground, Tsunade looked at the frozen plants. They were dead, but they didn't look rotten, they looked frozen. As if time had stood still, and a single warm ray would bring them back to life. But it was only an illusion. Tsunade, the greatest medic, felt it in her gut: there was no life here. Not a trace. No plants, no animals, not even bacteria.
An Ice Age, compared to this zone of absolute death, would have seemed like paradise. There, life still clung, survived. But here…
"Pure hell…" she croaked.
Her body was slowly dragged toward the border. It became clear: the only characteristic of these lands was their absorption of energy. Which meant, at this stage, a simple rope was enough for reconnaissance to pull the brave man back.
But this was only a temporary measure. Salvation was possible as long as there was a place to retreat. If this dead zone one day engulfed the entire planet, there would be nowhere to run.
When Shizune and the others had barely pulled Tsunade out, her chakra was completely depleted. She curled up into a ball, on the verge of fainting. No matter how much they valued Uchiha Yue's power, reality proved more terrifying than any imagination.
Fortunately, unlike Jiraiya, whose flesh began to wither from the depletion of his life force, Tsunade suffered only a monstrous loss of energy.
"Lady Tsunade!"
Shizune rushed to her. After confirming their mentor's survival, the shinobi immediately carried her away from the cursed place.
They had barely disappeared when Jigen, the vessel of Ōtsutsuki Isshiki, appeared at the edge of the dead zone.
"So this is the power of this Uchiha Yue? A mere upstart from the mortal world..." he muttered.
Isshiki cast a keen gaze over the lifeless expanse and cautiously extended his hand forward. He paused for a moment, then jerked it back, as if burned.
"How... how is this possible?.."
He recoiled, his gaze piercing the space, trying to discern the source of this power, hidden at its very core.
"Kaguya... bitch! What a surprise you left me!" he hissed, his voice seething with icy fury. "And then there's that Shimura Danzo! Excellent! I remember you, you worthless wretch!"
Extending his hand, Isshiki realized: even he, the mighty Ōtsutsuki, could not resist this absorption. This was primordial, absolute power. In that moment, he understood: the cursed native Uchiha Yue had awakened the very essence of the Divine Tree.
He looked at the slowly expanding death zone with a grim expression. For the shinobi world, Uchiha Yue was a catastrophe. But now Isshiki understood: he was a mortal threat to himself as well. Once this power covers the entire planet, even he will be erased into nothingness. All existence will turn to dust.
"It seems I'll have to intervene," Isshiki exhaled. "His power hasn't yet engulfed the world. He's not yet omnipotent. I still have a chance."
He took a deep breath. He...