Kiyohara raised his right hand.
"Storm Release: Cutting Fang!"
A turquoise-blue laser beam shot violently from Kiyohara's fingertip, slicing directly into the base of the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path's right arm.
Wherever the laser passed, the statue was instantly severed, as though it had been struck by a water jet moving at an incredible speed.
Bang!
The thick, powerful arm detached from the Demonic Statue's body and crashed heavily onto the ground, producing a deep and muffled impact.
Kiyohara immediately sealed the severed arm into a sealing scroll that he carried with him.
"You cut off its arm?"
Nagato frowned slightly.
For the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path itself, however, losing an arm did not have much of an effect.
Most of the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path's techniques were released directly from its mouth, and it did not need to form hand seals in the first place.
Nagato then recalled the Demonic Statue. Its enormous body slowly sank into the ground, and before long, the vast cavern was empty once more.
"Perhaps the next time we meet, we will be enemies."
"Perhaps."
Kiyohara replied calmly before turning around and walking toward the crack leading outside.
The Nagato of this world was already far stronger than the Nagato from the original story.
Even so, in front of Kiyohara, that level of strength was still nowhere near enough.
In theory, the Tenseigan and the Rinnegan were powers of the same level.
However, Nagato was not the true owner of the Rinnegan, nor had his body ever received the nourishment and reinforcement that came from being naturally compatible with the Rinnegan's ocular power.
As Kiyohara's footsteps gradually faded into the distance, Nagato remained sitting alone in the depths of the cavern, staring at his departing back.
From the shadows, six figures slowly emerged.
They were the Six Paths of Pain.
Even when facing someone as powerful as Kiyohara, Nagato had still come here personally while secretly gathering the Paths nearby as a precaution.
"Why is everyone collecting the Tailed Beasts?"
Nagato was somewhat puzzled.
If Madara wanted to gather the Tailed Beasts, it was because he intended to carry out the so-called "Eye of the Moon Plan" and use them to release that enormous technique.
But what about Kiyohara?
Why was he challenging the various Jinchuriki?
And why had he even taken away part of the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path's body?
Nagato could not understand it.
"Forget it."
Nagato shook his head.
He clenched his fist.
There was no doubt that he had become extremely powerful.
Even if he were to face Uchiha Madara, Nagato did not feel the slightest bit nervous.
Although the two of them had never actually fought, Nagato believed that his current strength was enough to change everything.
Kiyohara followed Yahiko back to Akatsukigakure.
Konan had already come out of the wooden house.
She had changed back into the cloak of the Akatsuki, and her short blue hair hung softly beside her face.
The only thing different from her usual appearance was the healthy flush on her cheeks. She looked as though she had just undergone some kind of nourishment, and her entire complexion seemed radiant and full of vitality.
"You're back."
Konan said.
"Mm."
Kiyohara nodded slightly.
"I had to trouble Yahiko to guide me here."
Kiyohara said.
"I didn't really do anything."
Yahiko shook his head.
There was very little he could actually do.
Besides, Kiyohara had already helped them so much that something as minor as guiding him through the area was hardly worth mentioning.
"By the way, are all the wooden structures here permanent?"
Yahiko asked curiously.
"They are. These trees and wooden structures will not disappear simply because their chakra has been exhausted."
Kiyohara explained.
Wood Release was essentially the process of using life force to accelerate the growth of seeds and then control the resulting vegetation.
The houses constructed with Wood Release were no different from houses made from ordinary wood. In fact, they were even sturdier and could survive for a much longer time.
After receiving Kiyohara's confirmation, Pain quietly breathed a sigh of relief.
"Then I'll take Konan with me first."
Kiyohara said.
"I want Konan to serve as the bridge between Konoha and Akatsukigakure."
Kiyohara repeated to Yahiko what he had previously discussed with Konan.
Afterward, he reached out and took Konan's hand.
The two of them vanished from Akatsukigakure in an instant.
"Kiyohara and Konan's relationship…"
Yahiko stared at the place where the two had disappeared.
For some reason, he could not help feeling that their relationship seemed to have improved considerably compared with before.
"Forget it."
Yahiko shook his head.
He was now the leader of Akatsukigakure, and there were countless responsibilities resting on his shoulders.
In his eyes, matters involving romance and personal feelings were completely unnecessary things to dwell upon.
"Lord Yahiko, the merchants from the south have recently become willing to do business with us. They have brought us quite a large amount of food."
At that moment, a shinobi hurried over and reported to Yahiko.
"That's wonderful!"
Yahiko's expression immediately brightened.
He quickly followed the shinobi to inspect the newly delivered supplies.
…
Meanwhile, on the streets of Konoha…
Naruto had both hands clasped behind his head.
He had just walked out of Ichiraku Ramen, his stomach pleasantly round and full.
As he turned around a street corner, he suddenly saw someone.
That person was standing beneath a cherry blossom tree outside a dango shop, quietly looking down at a skewer of colorful three-colored dango in his hand.
Sunlight filtered through the gaps between the petals, falling softly over his body and giving him a faint golden outline.
His long, ink-black hair was loosely tied behind his head with a light blue ribbon, while several stray strands hung beside his fair neck.
His facial features were delicate and refined. His eyebrows and eyes were gentle, and his eyelashes were particularly long.
Naruto stared.
He stood there in complete shock, blinking once.
Then he blinked again.
"What a beautiful big sister."
He muttered to himself.
Then, without the slightest hesitation, he strode toward the person.
As usual, his voice was loud enough to carry across half the street.
"Hello! My name is Namikaze Naruto! I'm going to become the strongest Hokage! What's your name?"
Haku slowly turned his head.
His pitch-black eyes settled on Naruto's face.
He had seen this blond-haired boy before.
When Kiyohara-sensei was instructing his disciples in their training, Haku had caught sight of the boy from a distance several times.
Kiyohara-sensei seemed to care quite a lot about this child. Sometimes, he would even keep Naruto behind separately to give him additional training in shurikenjutsu.
Someone whom Kiyohara-sensei valued so highly probably was not a bad person.
With that thought, Haku gently nodded.
His voice was soft and polite.
"My name is Haku."
"Big Sister Haku!"
Naruto immediately moved closer with the familiarity of someone who had known him for years.
He completely failed to notice the slight tremble of Haku's eyelashes when he heard that particular form of address.
"What are you doing standing here all by yourself? Do you want to come to the river with me? Let me tell you, there are some super huge frogs down there! Last time, one of them pushed me straight into the water. This time, I'm definitely getting my revenge!"
Before Haku could even answer, Naruto had already grabbed the sleeve of his clothes.
Then he turned toward the opposite side of the street and shouted.
"Sasuke! Sasuke, come over here and look!"
Sasuke was walking over from the direction of the Uchiha clan district.
He wore a dark blue short-sleeved shirt, with the Uchiha clan's fan crest printed prominently on the back.
When he heard Naruto's unmistakably loud voice, Sasuke frowned slightly and quickened his pace.
Then he saw the person Naruto was pulling along by the sleeve.
Sasuke fell silent for a moment.
"Idiot."
"What did you say?!"
Naruto immediately became furious.
"I said you're an idiot."
Sasuke put both hands into his pockets.
"That's a boy."
Naruto froze completely.
His fingers, which had been gripping Haku's sleeve, slowly loosened.
Then he abruptly turned his head toward Haku.
His bright blue eyes were filled with absolute disbelief.
Haku gave an embarrassed little smile and nodded.
"I'm a boy."
Naruto felt as though he had been struck by lightning.
Something inside his mind seemed to shatter with a loud crack, breaking into countless tiny pieces.
Perhaps it was his innocent admiration for a "beautiful big sister."
Perhaps it was some vague and hazy affection that had only just begun to sprout.
Or perhaps it was the final remaining bit of confidence he had possessed in his own ability to distinguish someone's gender.
Whatever it was, it was now completely shattered.
Naruto stood there like a statue.
The wind blew his blond hair into a complete mess.
As Sasuke passed by him, he casually smacked Naruto on the back of the head.
"Let's go."
Naruto rubbed the back of his head and secretly glanced at Haku again.
Haku still had the same gentle and harmless appearance.
However, now that Naruto knew the truth, he could indeed make out several traces of youthful clarity and handsomeness in the contours of Haku's brows and eyes.
Naruto silently shed a tear in his heart.
Then he placed both hands behind his head and quickly returned to his usual carefree attitude.
"Whatever. Let's go find Kiyohara-sensei. Haku, you should come with us too!"
The corners of Haku's lips curved upward slightly.
He nodded.
Sasuke walked at the front.
Naruto draped an arm around Haku's shoulders while talking nonstop about how many times he had fallen during his last training session with Kiyohara-sensei at the training ground.
Haku listened quietly, occasionally letting out a soft laugh.
Under the afternoon sunlight, the shadows of the three children stretched out behind them, each one a different length.
Together, they followed Konoha's main street toward the Hokage Tower.
…
Several days later.
Deep within the Land of Fire, in a remote and desolate forest far away from any signs of human habitation.
Kiyohara stood in the depths of the dense woodland.
The surrounding trees had been cut down, leaving behind an open clearing where the treetops had been completely shaved away.
"Everything has been brought here."
Black Zetsu sounded extremely expectant.
Kiyohara took the artificial Tailed Beast vessel out of his sealing scroll.
The mass of flesh-like material slowly pulsed within his palm.
With his other hand, Kiyohara formed a series of hand seals.
The arm of the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path sealed inside the scroll immediately shot out.
Before it could fall, Storm Release sliced through it in midair, reducing the enormous arm into extremely thin fragments.
The fragments then began to fall.
Kiyohara used his chakra to grind them into a fine, dense powder.
It resembled a layer of grayish-white mist as it spread through the air and gradually merged evenly into the artificial vessel.
Kiyohara then simultaneously injected the chakra of all nine Tailed Beasts.
This time, something seemed to ignite inside the vessel.
All of the chakra began collapsing toward the core at precisely the same instant.
Then, with even greater intensity, it suddenly began expanding outward.
Kiyohara could feel an enormous amount of chakra slowly taking shape inside the vessel.
That chakra was different from every individual Tailed Beast.
Yet at the same time, it was also the source from which all of the Tailed Beasts had originated.
The artificial Tailed Beast vessel began changing at a speed that could be clearly seen with the naked eye.
It was no longer merely a mass of flesh.
Instead, it had begun actively shaping itself.
First came the outline of a head.
Then the torso.
Then the limbs.
The various parts of the body gradually emerged one after another before becoming increasingly detailed, much like a statue being painstakingly carved by an invisible sculptor.
Moon-white skin began to form within the radiance.
Long, snow-white hair cascaded down from the head.
The contours of the facial features gradually became clearer.
The figure of Otsutsuki Kaguya slowly took shape within the artificial vessel.
Her appearance was exactly the same as the depiction of the Rabbit Goddess that existed in Kiyohara's memories.
Kiyohara stared at the newly formed body.
"Is it too large?"
Kiyohara thought to himself.
His original plan had been to turn Kaguya into an artifact similar to the Dragon Vein, sealing her inside the artifact as an existence similar to a spirit inhabiting a weapon.
However, the chakra at the level of the Ten-Tails was simply too enormous.
It was so vast that even though Kiyohara wanted to forcibly compress it, the vessel itself would instinctively reshape itself according to Kaguya's original form.
In essence, the artificial Tailed Beast was nothing more than a physical vessel.
It was like water. It could be molded into almost any shape.
But when an enormous amount of power was injected into that water, it would naturally seek out the shape most suitable for carrying that power.
And the shape most suitable for carrying the Ten-Tails' chakra was none other than Otsutsuki Kaguya herself.
After some more time passed, the outline of the body had become completely distinct.
The texture of the skin had become remarkably realistic, and even the delicate curve of the eyelashes could be clearly seen.
Yet there was still one final step missing.
The body was still nothing more than an empty shell.
The most crucial thing was still absent from within it.
"One final step is still required."
Black Zetsu's half-black, half-white face flickered between light and shadow under the radiance of the vessel.
"Before Mother was sealed away all those years ago, she left a portion of her chakra inside me. Only by injecting this portion of chakra into the vessel can Mother truly awaken."
Kiyohara raised his eyebrows slightly.
He immediately understood the crucial point.
Kaguya's "Kāma" was not somewhere else.
It was on Black Zetsu.
In the original story, after Black Zetsu stabbed Madara in the back, Madara's body was instantly transformed into a vessel for Kaguya, allowing her to reincarnate through the process of taking over the host's body.
Thinking about it carefully, it was obvious that Black Zetsu had not suddenly come up with the idea on the spot.
Rather, the "Kāma" itself was likely a reincarnation mechanism that automatically activated once the conditions of the host had been fulfilled.
Kiyohara felt that Black Zetsu was not merely a creation formed from Kaguya's will.
He was more like a manifestation of Kaguya's "Kāma."
A plan that had been laid out over a thousand years.
Everything had been waiting for this very moment.
"Then let's begin."
Black Zetsu floated toward the vessel.
He extended his black hand and pressed it against the surface of the container.
A mass of incredibly pure white chakra surged out from his palm.
Black Zetsu's usually gloomy face twisted into an expression of extreme ecstasy.
He had waited for a thousand years.
He had schemed for a thousand years.
He had spent decades cleaning up after Uchiha Madara, covering up his mistakes and dealing with all the troublesome aftermath Madara left behind.
Then he had spent more than a decade cleaning up after Obito as well.
All the years of enduring humiliation while relying on others.
All the silent journeys through the underground.
All the endless waiting.
Everything he had endured finally received its reward at this very moment.
Kiyohara watched from behind.
It seemed that he would finally get to meet Kaguya Otsutsuki.
Rise again, Kaguya!
BOOM!
A massive cloud of white mist erupted into the sky.
The mist slowly dispersed.
From within the vessel, a figure gradually stepped out.
She was barefoot, her feet touching the soil of the desolate forest.
Her moon-white hair hung straight down from the top of her head all the way to her calves, with the ends of her hair gently drifting in the surrounding air.
Her skin was so pale that it almost seemed translucent.
Her facial features were exactly the same as the outline that had formed within the vessel.
Her eyes were completely pure white, bearing some resemblance to the Byakugan of the Hyuga clan.
It was unmistakably Otsutsuki Kaguya, the progenitor of chakra!
And at the very instant she opened her eyes, the chakra fluctuations belonging to the true form of the Ten-Tails spread uncontrollably throughout the entire shinobi world.
Far away, in an underground estate.
Jigen was sitting in a rattan chair on a balcony, a wine glass held in his hand.
He had just raised the glass to his lips when his fingers suddenly froze.
The wine glass slipped from his grasp and crashed onto the stone floor.
The glass shattered, sending fragments scattering everywhere as dark red wine splashed across the ground.
Jigen's usually controlled expression completely collapsed in that instant.
The corner of his eye twitched.
His lips parted slightly.
His pupils contracted until they were no larger than pinpoints.
This chakra…
There was no mistake.
Absolutely no mistake.
That woman…
That woman who had attacked him from behind a thousand years ago and nearly killed him.
Kaguya.
She had actually been resurrected!
Countless thoughts flashed through Otsutsuki Isshiki's mind in an instant.
Then, in an extremely short period of time, all the scattered clues connected together into one complete line.
Black Zetsu.
The third child Kaguya had created before she was sealed away.
Now that he thought about it, that mass of black matter was the true trump card Kaguya had left behind.
She had been sealed for a thousand years, yet she had still managed to leave behind such a contingency.
What a move.
Isshiki suppressed the fury surging through his chest.
The enemy was in the light.
He was in the shadows.
That was his only advantage.
Kaguya did not know that he was still alive.
Back then, he had barely survived Kaguya's surprise attack and had been forced to parasitize Jigen's body, clinging to life for a thousand years.
Throughout all those centuries, he had been accumulating strength day after day.
Meanwhile, Kaguya had been sealed inside the moon and had done nothing.
But things were different now.
Kaguya had been resurrected.
Before he could return to his peak condition, he absolutely could not allow Kaguya to discover that he was still alive.
However, he was not without trump cards.
The remains left behind by Otsutsuki Shibai were still in his possession.
Although that legendary member of the Otsutsuki clan, once considered the strongest of them all, had long since transcended this universe, the cells he had left behind contained numerous "Shinjutsu."
As long as Isshiki could successfully transplant them, Kaguya would be nothing more than a frog trapped in a jar.
"We have to accelerate the progress of my revival."
Isshiki lowered his head and looked at his own hands.
This body known as Jigen had been used for more than a thousand years.
Every time Isshiki extracted chakra from it, it felt like squeezing water from a completely dried-out sponge.
He turned around and ordered the people nearby.
"Have Amado come and see me."
A short while later, Amado Sanzu pushed open the balcony door and walked inside.
He was wearing a white lab coat and holding a data tablet in his hand.
He pushed up the glasses resting on the bridge of his nose.
"How is the progress on the artificial humans?"
"One of the artificial humans has already completed the final round of adjustments."
Amado handed the data tablet to Jigen.
Displayed on the screen was a structural diagram of a female modified human.
Every modified section of her body had been clearly marked in red.
"I have modified her entire body into a shinobi tool. Her body is constructed from a special metal that allows her to freely transform and regenerate. Her eyes are equipped with energy conversion devices capable of absorbing and reflecting ninjutsu, as well as a high-powered system for firing lethal beams of energy. At present, she has the highest level of completion among all the modified humans."
"Good."
The corners of Otsutsuki Isshiki's mouth lifted slightly.
Then his tone suddenly changed.
"What about the 'Vessel'?"
The so-called "Vessel" was a child capable of carrying all of Isshiki's power and becoming his new physical body.
Jigen's current body was already approaching its limit.
Before Jigen's body completely failed, Isshiki had to find a suitable vessel.
"There has already been significant progress."
Amado brought up another file on the data tablet.
"I collected several dozen child specimens with special constitutions from various locations. After preliminary screening, seven candidates were found capable of withstanding the implantation of low concentrations of Otsutsuki cells."
"One of them is a boy from a village near Konoha. His constitution is particularly unusual. His cells show almost no rejection response."
Isshiki raised his eyebrows slightly.
"Take me to see him."
…
At the same time, on the moon…
The Elder, who was guarding the golden Tenseigan, was sitting cross-legged.
The enormous golden Tenseigan slowly rotated behind him, radiating a majestic and brilliant light.
Suddenly, an irresistible wave of drowsiness washed over him.
His consciousness sank into an endless darkness.
Within that darkness, a vague mass of light appeared.
The light slowly condensed into a human form.
It was an old man wearing an ancient-style white robe.
His long hair was snow-white, and his face was pale.
When the Great Elder saw him, his breathing nearly stopped from shock.
He almost collapsed onto his knees.
His forehead pressed deeply against the stone floor that had appeared beneath him at some unknown point, while his thin shoulders trembled violently from overwhelming emotion.
It was the ancestor.
Otsutsuki Hamura!
"My descendant."
"The world is about to face an unprecedented crisis. I can sense that something has already awakened."
"I have very little chakra left, so I cannot maintain this form for long."
"You only need to remember one thing."
"The mission of the Otsutsuki clan is not to protect this Tenseigan."
"It is to protect the shinobi world itself."
"When the crisis arrives, you must make the correct choice."
The light surrounding Hamura's figure slowly began to fade.
His body gradually broke apart into countless points of light.
"Ancestor!"
The Great Elder desperately reached out, attempting to grasp those points of light.
However, they slipped through his fingers and disappeared into the endless darkness.
The figure of Otsutsuki Hamura became increasingly faint.
For one final moment, his image remained suspended within the darkness.
Then it disappeared as well.
The Great Elder suddenly returned to reality.
He remained kneeling in the same position, unable to stand for a long time.
…
Meanwhile, within the Pure Land…
The Sage of Six Paths was floating cross-legged in midair.
He held a black staff in his hand.
The rings at the top of the staff gently collided within the empty space, producing a crisp ringing sound.
Then the fluctuation came from the direction of the shinobi world.
The Sage of Six Paths' fingers tightened around his staff.
The rings at its tip began shaking violently.
There was no way he could have mistaken it.
This was his mother.
The chakra of Otsutsuki Kaguya.
She had been resurrected.
The Sage of Six Paths rose from the void.
His Rinnegan lit up with a deep purple radiance.
It had only been a few decades since he had last observed the shinobi world.
To him, several decades were no more than the blink of an eye.
Yet in such a short period of time, such an enormous variable had appeared.
Who had resurrected his mother?
Uchiha Madara?
Impossible.
Madara had merely been brought back through Impure World Reincarnation.
Then who was it?
The Sage of Six Paths' brows furrowed tighter and tighter.
He had to find out exactly what had happened.
…
At the same moment, within the desolate forest of the Land of Fire…
The remaining chakra fluctuations gradually subsided.
The birds and beasts living within the forest had already scattered in panic the instant Kaguya opened her eyes.
For several kilometers in every direction, not a single bird dared to make a sound.
Kaguya lowered her head and looked at her hands.
Her hands were slender and fair, with delicate fingers and rounded fingertips.
But Kaguya herself knew very clearly that this new body was far weaker than the body she had possessed at the height of her power.
It was even weaker than she had been before arriving on Earth.
"So weak."
Kaguya frowned.
"Mother!"
Black Zetsu called out.
"Zetsu."
Kaguya turned her head.
At the same time, she noticed Kiyohara.
From Kaguya's perspective, the chakra of the man standing before her clearly belonged to an entirely different level of existence.
The enormous and incredibly pure quantity of chakra within his body was like a deadly temptation.
Kaguya unconsciously swallowed.
She was far too weak right now.
She desperately needed to replenish her strength.
If she could consume this man's chakra, then even if she could not completely recover to her former peak, she should at least be able to regain most of her power.
But her gaze quickly shifted away from the chakra within Kiyohara's body.
Her eyes moved to his face.
Then they finally stopped on top of his head.
Kiyohara had a pair of horns growing from his head.
They were one of the most obvious characteristics of the Otsutsuki clan.
And the aura emanating from those horns was completely indistinguishable from that of a genuine Otsutsuki.
Kaguya's expression changed in an extremely subtle manner.
The greed in her eyes slowly faded.
In its place appeared an uncontrollable look of astonishment.
A member of her own clan.
A male.
Young.
And possessing such an enormous amount of power that even Kaguya herself felt secretly startled.
Every existence Kaguya had encountered on this shinobi world was either a lowly human or one of her two half-finished sons.
Otsutsuki Isshiki had been her partner.
She had severely injured him through a surprise attack, and she had assumed that he had long since died sometime during the thousand years that followed.
Therefore, Kiyohara was the first true member of the Otsutsuki clan Kaguya had seen in a thousand years.
Her heart, which had been sealed away for a thousand years and repeatedly twisted by endless loneliness, suddenly gave a heavy beat within her chest.
It was like a woman who had spent a thousand years alone suddenly seeing a handsome male from her own clan standing before her.
For an instant, even her lonely heart seemed to tremble.
But in the very next moment, her expression suddenly turned cold.
The softness and surprise disappeared from her eyes.
They were replaced by deep vigilance.
(End of Chapter)