Kakashi: Godless Ascension

Chapter 283 - 283: Ch283: The heavenly tribunal

Three days later, in the silent, airless void beyond the world's atmosphere, three figures floated. They were silhouettes against the vast blue and white marble of the planet below, their forms radiating a cold, alien majesty. Momoshiki Otsutsuki, his pale face framed by horns and marked with arrogance, stared down with disdain.Beside him loomed Kinshiki, a mountain of muscle and silent menace, his axe-like weapons floating near his hands. To his other side, Urashiki twirled his fishing rod idly, a smirk playing on his lips.

"The chakra signature of this world is… aberrant," Momoshiki stated, his voice carrying through the vacuum without need for air. "Dense, but chaotic. Tainted. Our investigation, Urashiki. Report."

Urashiki's smirk widened. "Oh, it was quite enlightening, Lord Momoshiki. The strongest lifeform here is not Kaguya, as we presumed. It is a native. A male. His name is Hatake Kakashi."

Momoshiki's brow furrowed slightly. A native? Stronger than a full-fledged Otsutsuki? Preposterous.

"And?" Momoshiki's tone grew colder, a hint of warning in its timbre. "Do not play games with me, Urashiki. Speak the rest."

Urashiki chuckled, a sound like tinkling ice. "And… it seems our wayward Princess has sunk to new depths. This 'Kakashi'… Kaguya is one of his wives. She has even borne him a child."

The silence that followed was more profound than the vacuum around them. Kinshiki let out a low, rumbling growl of disgust. Momoshiki's composure shattered. His Byakugan blazed with a fury that could ignite stars.

Kaguya, a member of the divine Otsutsuki clan, consorting with a lower lifeform? Breeding with it? It was an obscenity, a stain upon their lineage more grievous than her betrayal.

"That insect," Momoshiki hissed, the space around him warping with his rage. "He has defiled our blood. He and his mongrel spawn will be erased. Kaguya will be executed for her transgression, and this world will be purified with a new God Tree. We will descend. Now."

Their decision made, the trio began their descent, piercing the atmosphere in streaks of violet and crimson light, intent on delivering divine wrath.

They never reached the surface.

The moment their auras brushed the upper stratosphere, four other presences locked onto them. Not just detected them, seized them.

It was a sensation the Otsutsuki had never experienced, a pressure so fierce, so dense with predatory intent, that it felt like the planet itself had opened jaws to swallow them. Kinshiki immediately raised his weapons. Urashiki's smirk vanished. Momoshiki halted, his eyes wide with sudden, primal caution.

Before them, space rippled. A vertical tear of golden light appeared, not a conventional portal, but a doorway of pure, reconstructed reality. From it, four figures stepped out into the sky as if walking onto solid ground.

Hatake Kakashi led, dressed in simple black, his silver hair unmoving in the high-altitude winds, his eyes were very calm. To his right was a young man with silver hair and dark eyes, Raiden, his son.

To his left stood Naruto Uzumaki, the Seventh Hokage, his cloak billowing, face set in uncharacteristic grim determination. And beside Naruto, Sasuke Uchiha, his Rinnegan spinning slowly, his expression coldly analytical.

"You're early," Kakashi said, his voice effortlessly carrying. "We were expecting you next week. Bad intel, I suppose."

Momoshiki recovered from his shock, his arrogance reasserting itself over his unease. "Natives. You dare obstruct the Otsutsuki? We are here to execute the traitor Kaguya and reclaim this planet for the God Tree. Stand aside, or be harvested along with the rest of this wretched biomass."

A soft chuckle escaped Kakashi. It was a dry, humorless sound that made the very air temperature drop. "So," he said, the chuckle dying into something lethally quiet. "You want to kill my wife."

Everyone present, Naruto, Sasuke, Raiden, even the Otsutsuki, felt it. The chuckle hadn't been one of amusement.

It was the sound of a lid being lifted off a bottomless well of murderous intent, so potent it vibrated in their bones. Momoshiki actually took a half-step back, his instincts screaming.

Naruto stepped forward, placing himself between Kakashi and the Otsutsuki trio. "Sensei," he said, his voice firm. "Leave this one to me." He pointed a finger at Momoshiki. "Just by lookin' at him, I've got this unbelievable urge to beat the smug right off his face."

Kakashi's intense focus shifted from Momoshiki to Naruto. He gave a slow, approving nod. "Don't forget what I told you."

Naruto nodded seriously. "I won't." He turned fully to face Momoshiki, closing his bright blue eyes. When they snapped open a moment later, they were no longer blue. They were the deep, concentric circles of the Rinnegan, glowing with a soft purple light.

This was Kakashi's gift, bestowed years ago: a masterful, impossible merging of Uzumaki vitality with synthesized Uchiha lineage, catalyzed by the Indra chakra within Sasuke to force an evolution that transcended both bloodlines.

But Naruto wasn't done. He clasped his hands together. "Sage Mode." No visible transformation overtook him, no snake-like features, no scales like when he was a kid.

Only two delicate streaks of luminous, sage-green eyeshadow appeared above his cheeks, symbols of a mastery so complete that the power was internalized, refined to its absolute essence. Around him, the natural energy of the world sang, drawn to his will.

Momoshiki stared, his arrogance now mixed with genuine confusion and alarm. A native with a Rinnegan? And that Sage Mode that felt… purer than anything he'd sensed?

"No more talk," Naruto declared, his voice echoing with dual tones, his own and the deep resonance of Kurama. "Let's go!"

He didn't move. He simply appeared in front of Momoshiki, having crossed the hundred-yard gap in zero time. His fist, encased in a swirling vortex of orange Kurama chakra and crackling sage energy, was already driving towards Momoshiki's gut.

BOOM!

The impact sounded like a thunderclap. Momoshiki folded around the fist, a shocked oof forced from his lips as he was launched backward through the sky, carving a trench through the clouds. Before he could recover, Naruto was above him.

"Shinra Tensei!" Naruto commanded, his Rinnegan flaring. A colossal, invisible repulsive force slammed Momoshiki from above, accelerating his fall toward the ocean below.

"How dare you!" Momoshiki roared, righting himself in mid-air. He flung out a hand, and a storm of black rods, the same material used for the Six Paths' receivers erupted towards Naruto.

Naruto didn't dodge. "Banshō Ten'in." The gravitational pull yanked the rods off-course, gathering them into a clump before him.

Then, with a flick of his wrist, he sent them hurtling back twice the speed, infused with Rasengan spirals. Momoshiki swatted them aside with a snarl, but one grazed his shoulder, tearing his robe.

"The black rods…You dare to steal our techniques, worm?!" Momoshiki conjured giant, flaming Golem fists and hurled them.

Naruto met them head-on. "Planetary Devastation!" A dark, gravitational seed formed in his palm. Instead of creating a small moon, he compressed the technique, forming a miniature black hole of sheer attractive force.

The Golem fists were torn apart, their fire and mass sucked into the tiny, destructive point before it winked out.

"This is our world," Naruto growled, flashing forward again. "My home. My family lives here. And you," he punctuated each word with a blow that Momoshiki barely blocked, "want to burn it all down for a tree?"

Momoshiki, enraged, absorbed Kinshiki's chakra in a flash of light, transforming into his fused, horned state. His power skyrocketed. "Fool! Witness true divinity!"

He unleashed a cataclysmic barrage of ultra-dense chakra bombs, each capable of leveling a mountain.

Naruto stood his ground. His Kurama Mode erupted, not the bulky chakra cloak, but a sleek, humanoid form of blazing gold chakra, nine tails waving like banners of sunfire behind him. In this state, his Rinnegan shone like amethyst stars.

"Almighty Push!" A dome of repulsive force expanded from him, meeting the bombardment. The explosions detonated harmlessly against the barrier, lighting up the sky in a continuous, deafening roar.

As the smoke cleared, Naruto shot through it. "Six Paths: Ultra-Big Ball Rasenshuriken!" In each of his six Kurama-arms, a giant, screeching Rasenshuriken formed, each layered with Wind, Magnet, Lava, and Boil Release, and orbiting Sage Art truth-seeking orbs. He hurled them not at Momoshiki, but around him, creating a sphere of utter annihilation.

Momoshiki tried to absorb them, but the nature transformations were too complex, too violently intertwined. He screamed as the attacks converged, tearing at his transformed body.

Naruto appeared in the heart of the maelstrom. He wasn't using trickery or borrowed power anymore. This was the culmination of his own journey, his own will. "This ends now. Sage Art: Super Tailed Beast Rasengan!"

He gathered every ounce of power, Kurama's chakra, the world's natural energy, the might of the Rinnegan, into a single, stable, brilliant blue sphere in his palm. It didn't screech or distort space, it hummed with perfect, devastating harmony.

Momoshiki, battered and bleeding ichor, raised his arms in a final, desperate guard.

Naruto thrust the Rasengan forward. There was no colossal explosion. Instead, there was a sound like the universe exhaling. A wave of pure, concussive force, light, and annihilating energy washed over Momoshiki. His defenses were shattered.

His horns cracked. The stolen chakra of Kinshiki was forcibly expelled from his body in a wailing torrent. His fused form unraveled, reverting to his base state, clothes torn, body covered in hairline fractures.

He hung in the air, consciousness fading, held aloft only by Naruto's residual chakra.

Naruto floated before him, the golden aura and Rinnegan receding, leaving only the Hokage, breathing heavily but unbroken. He caught Momoshiki as he fell, slinging the unconscious Otsutsuki over his shoulder.

He turned and flew back to where Kakashi, Sasuke, and Raiden hovered, having effortlessly contained the frantic attempts of Kinshiki and Urashiki to intervene.

Raiden had Kinshiki pinned in a cage of black rods, while Sasuke's Susanoo arrow was notched and aimed directly between Urashiki's eyes, freezing him in place.

Naruto presented the unconscious Momoshiki. "One arrogant alien, knocked out cold. Just like you ordered, sensei."

Kakashi looked at the defeated Otsutsuki prince, then at Naruto. A genuine smile, one of immense pride, touched his eyes. "Well done, Naruto. Truly well done."