All Nations, Fire State, Flame Capital, Palace.
Brook had returned to the ninja world in a new godlike form.
The moment the news spread, Orochimaru, Minato Namikaze, Hiashi Hyuga, and the rest came at once to pay their respects to the World Emperor.
The overwhelming pressure radiating from Brook's tomoe-patterned Rinnegan made every ninja in the hall tremble. There was no doubt about it now. He had already surpassed even the legendary Sage of Six Paths.
"Greetings, Lord Brook!"
The entire hall dropped to one knee before the throne, looking up at the emperor seated above them.
Brook leaned back casually and spoke in an indifferent tone.
"Orochimaru, is there anything left unfinished?"
He had spent most of his recent time integrating his new body and constructing Pure Land Hell, which had taken a considerable toll on his mind.
At this point, he no longer had much interest in the trivial affairs of the ninja world. He had already taken almost every benefit worth taking.
Only a few things still held his attention now: the secrets of the Three Holy Lands, the unsealing of Kaguya Ōtsutsuki, and the eventual arrival of the Ōtsutsuki clan.
Orochimaru bowed respectfully.
"Lord Brook, I ask that you personally preside over the founding ceremony of the new nation tomorrow and confer titles upon the queens of every province. That will stabilize the hearts of the people across all lands."
He continued, "The list of queens I announced earlier did cause some resistance, but I have already suppressed it. Still, many clans remain dissatisfied. The Uchiha and other great families are still offering beautiful women, hoping to marry into your line and secure the title of queen in one of the smaller provinces."
He meant places like Grass Province, Taki Province, and Rice Field Province, those newly absorbed smaller regions.
"Then we'll do it tomorrow," Brook said flatly. "What else? Speak now and settle everything at once."
With absolute power, no problem was truly difficult.
Right now, the only thing Brook really cared about was unsealing the innocent and naive Kaguya Ōtsutsuki and teaching her a proper lesson.
She had been sealed away for so many years. That kind of loneliness had to be unbearable.
Orochimaru lowered his head even more.
"There is one more matter. Every village is requesting that the Impure World Reincarnation bodies be released."
To be honest, he did not want to let those reincarnated bodies go. They were far too useful.
But all the villages had made the same request. Now that the ninja world had entered peace, they no longer wanted these unnatural warriors to remain as an unsettling symbol hanging over them.
"Then let them rise again," Brook said. "Let them continue serving the world. Summon them here."
Brook floated up slightly from the throne.
Now that he ruled over Pure Land Hell, reviving a handful of people was an easy matter.
The hall erupted into quiet shock.
"Revive them?"
"Lord Brook can revive the dead now?"
The gathered ninjas began whispering among themselves. Those who had lost loved ones, like Kakashi Hatake and Kurenai Yuhi, looked at Brook with open anticipation.
Soon, the Third Tsuchikage Ōnoki, the Fourth Mizukage Yagura Karatachi, and the various Jinchuriki from each village, including Han, Fū, Killer Bee, and Yugito, all appeared in the main hall in their reincarnated forms.
Brook looked down at them calmly.
"Isn't this state convenient? Immortal. No need to eat or drink. Nearly endless chakra."
With a wave of his hand, he released his control over the reincarnated bodies and restored their freedom of movement, though their memories remained fully intact.
They still remembered slaughtering their own people under Brook's orders. They still remembered witnessing the battle between the Three Holy Land sages and the Sage of Six Paths. So even after regaining their freedom, none of them reacted with joy.
Their hands were stained with the blood of their own villages.
And faced with Brook's strength, none of them had even the slightest will to resist.
"Speak," Brook said coldly. "Do you want to remain in this state? Be resurrected? Or enter the Pure Land of Reincarnation?"
Those words struck them hard.
Then Kitsuchu stepped forward first, shouting toward Ōnoki.
"Old man! Come back to life! Iwagakure still needs you! Kurotsuchi and I both need you!"
But Ōnoki only lowered his head.
"Kitsuchi... I have no face left to return to the villagers. Forgive me."
He asked Brook to undo the Impure World Reincarnation and send his soul into the Pure Land instead. He had no way to forgive himself for what he had done in this life.
Killer Bee laughed bitterly through tears.
"Big brother... same here. I'm too ashamed to face everyone. Goodbye."
Yugito stood beside him in silence, equally hollow-eyed. She, too, chose death over carrying the weight of her sins back into the living world.
Yagura Karatachi looked at Mei Terumi and Genji with a complicated expression.
"Protect this hard-won peace. A unified ninja world will have a better future."
He did not want resurrection.
Nor did he want to remain an Impure World body forever, living under the constant threat of being controlled again by Brook or Orochimaru.
Han, Fū, and the others all made similar choices.
None of them wanted to return.
Even if resurrected, they would only face endless resentment, hatred, and guilt. To them, that seemed even more unbearable than the life of a Jinchuriki.
The Fourth Raikage, now already subdued, roared in frustration.
"Bee! Yugito! Don't act stupid! You were controlled! That wasn't your fault!"
But his words could not shake them.
Brook watched them with calm indifference.
"So you've all decided."
He opened a gate to Hell with a casual motion.
"If you refuse to remain in the living world, then go become laborers in the underworld instead."
One after another, the souls of those reincarnated bodies were drawn into Pure Land Hell, where Brook ordered Tobirama Senju to assign them roles as demon soldiers.
Waste was still waste, but waste could still be recycled.
The reincarnated bodies collapsed into piles of white residue.
The ninjas from those villages broke into tears at the sight, grief and helplessness written all over their faces.
At first, all they had wanted was freedom for those souls, release from Orochimaru's control.
But the moment Brook offered resurrection, hope had flared.
Now that hope had been extinguished just as quickly.
Even if the dead themselves refused to return, many living people still longed for the resurrection of their families.
But inside the Palace, no one dared raise such a request to Brook. They could only think of other ways to beg for his favor later.
Brook looked over the hall once more.
"Anything else?"
Silence.
"If not, then tomorrow we hold the founding ceremony and the investiture of the queens. Go and prepare."
The officials and ninja leaders bowed and withdrew.
Only Black Zetsu remained, plastered at Brook's feet like a puddle of dark mud, its eyes full of pleading.
Brook glanced down at it.
"Come. We're going to the moon to unseal Kaguya."
At those words, Black Zetsu nearly wagged like an eager black dog.
Brook looked at the glowing Yin-Yang seals on his palms, grabbed Black Zetsu, opened a spatial portal, and stepped through.
Perhaps tomorrow's investiture ceremony would welcome one more woman.
------------
When Brook returned to the moon, he had already become the strongest being in this world.
Hagoromo and Hamura Ōtsutsuki had been subdued. Isshiki Ōtsutsuki had been eliminated. The Ten-Tails God Tree had been fused into him. The entire ninja world had fallen under Brook's control.
Brook released Ten-Tails Groot from his private dimension. The little monster had been terrified of being locked up recently, and the moment it came out, it ran wild across the moon, greedily searching for any chakra or energy it could absorb.
Brook glanced at the pool of black mud beside him.
"Black Zetsu, even if you were born from Kaguya's will, you are no longer allowed to call her 'Mother.' From now on, call me 'Master.'"
He could not even be bothered to look at it.
"I do not even want adopted sons like Hagoromo and Hamura. Why would I want a little piece of trash like you?"
Black Zetsu immediately lowered itself in submission.
"Understood, Master Brook. From now on, Master Brook and Master Kaguya are everything to me!"
As long as Kaguya could be freed, what did a change of address matter?
Besides, Brook was already stronger than Kaguya. In Black Zetsu's mind, he was destined to become Kaguya's new man.
Brook spoke calmly.
"Be sensible when the time comes. Help Kaguya see reality clearly. Otherwise, neither of you will end well."
Then the power of the Ten-Tails Divine Tree began to surge from his body. The nine-tomoe red Rinnegan on his forehead shone brilliantly, reflecting against the moon itself, while the Yin-Yang seal on his palm lit up.
"Infinite Tsukuyomi."
"Six Paths: Chibaku Tensei, Release!"
As Brook unleashed two supreme techniques at once, the people of the ninja world saw the moon transform into a gigantic red Rinnegan.
But nothing else happened.
Instead, after realizing it was Brook's doing, many people in the ninja world actually dropped to their knees in worship. Some even began making wishes to the moon.
Far away, the Hanyu brothers, Shiroi and Kuromura, looked toward it with complicated expressions. Their original mother was about to be released, but both of them quickly crushed that thought.
Kaguya Ōtsutsuki would only be Brook's woman. She was no longer their mother.
On the moon, as Brook unraveled the seal, a massive surge of energy burst forth from deep within the planet and combined with the small amount of Ten-Tails power Brook had released.
Slowly, it condensed into a giant white tailed beast shaped like a rabbit.
This was also the origin of the title Rabbit Goddess. Kaguya Ōtsutsuki's tailed beast form was a white rabbit.
The rabbit-tailed beast let out a roar, then gradually shrank and condensed, until at last it took the form of a woman.
She had pale skin and long blue-white hair that flowed longer than her entire body. She had no eyebrows, only two pale lines above her eyes. Her face was exquisitely beautiful, and two horns rose from her head.
But the moment she appeared, her expression was ugly.
She could already feel how weak she was.
Why was the Ten-Tails' power so pitifully small?
"Mother... Kaguya-sama!! You've finally been unsealed!"
Black Zetsu rushed over in excitement, practically trembling.
Even if it had not been able to revive Kaguya with the complete Ten-Tails, at least she was finally free.
Kaguya turned cold eyes on it.
"Black Zetsu, why? Where is the power of the Divine Tree?"
Brook suddenly appeared in front of her.
"Still acting arrogant after being locked up for so many years?"
He reached out and casually pinched her delicate face between his fingers.
"Come. Let this god give you a little comfort, you thousand-year-old dried-up land."
The terrifying pressure rolling off his body suppressed Kaguya instantly. Brook's eyes lingered on her nine-tomoe Rinnegan.
That was the power born from consuming the Divine Tree Fruit.
Kaguya's expression shifted.
"Who are you?!"
She wanted to break free. She wanted to open Yomotsu Hirasaka and escape for the moment.
But she found that she could not move at all.
"My name is Brook."
He smiled faintly.
"I'm the one who freed you, and I'm also the man you'll belong to. I have to say, your abilities are quite impressive."
As he spoke, Brook sensed the aura within Kaguya's bloodline. It carried the scent of Hirasaka, the God of the Northern Underworld.
As expected of the owner of Yomotsu Hirasaka.
Appearing from the very gates of the underworld in less than an instant.
This was the ultimate space-time ability unique to the Ōtsutsuki clan, the power to move through the hell of the Northern Underworld and cross spaces at will.
Kaguya stared at him in confusion and fear.
"You are not an Ōtsutsuki. Why do you carry the aura of the Ōtsutsuki clan?"
Brook answered without hesitation.
"Because I ate Isshiki Ōtsutsuki and the Ten-Tails."
Then his smile turned cold.
"And if you keep resisting, I can eat you too."
Kaguya's pupils shrank.
Isshiki Ōtsutsuki had been stronger than her. She had only been able to injure him because she attacked by surprise, refusing to become a sacrifice.
But now Brook was saying he had devoured Isshiki?
That meant this man had already surpassed someone she herself could never have defeated head-on.
"Master Brook! Didn't you want Master Kaguya to be your wife? Please don't hurt her!"
Black Zetsu cried out in panic. Brook's tone had shifted, and that terrified it.
Brook glanced at it, then returned his gaze to Kaguya.
"Well then, Kaguya."
His smile widened.
"Do you want to become my woman?"
As he said that, he suddenly tore off one of Kaguya's hands and devoured it on the spot.
The scene made both Kaguya and Black Zetsu scream in horror.
This man was terrifying.
Cruel.
Completely unreasonable.
Brook, however, was already savoring what he had gained.
He had inherited the bloodline ability of Hirasaka, the God of the Northern Underworld, and that bloodline carried many powerful techniques.
Expansive Truth-Seeking Ball.
All-Killing Ash Bones.
Yomotsu Hirasaka.
Eighty Gods Vacuum Attack.
Natural Integration.
This one bloodline alone had granted Brook a whole set of weakened divine abilities.
But the nine-tomoe Rinne Sharingan was different.
That power did not lie in Kaguya's body or her bloodline. It existed only within her eye.
The Rinne Sharingan's eye power belonged to the category of bloodline limit abilities, just as the Sharingan of the Uchiha clan did.
And among Kaguya's powers, the true peak was the nine-tomoe Rinne Sharingan itself, with techniques like Infinite Tsukuyomi, God: Nativity of a World of Trees, and Amenominaka.
Brook looked at Kaguya, whose fear had deepened.
"Don't be afraid."
Then he smiled and pushed a massive amount of Ten-Tails chakra into her body to help her regenerate.
"I'll heal you."
After all, the Ōtsutsuki clan possessed terrifying regenerative power.
.....
[If you don't want to wait for the next update, read 50 chapters ahead on P@treon.]
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