For those living in the shinobi world, the arrival of the end had never been as vivid and close as it was today.
First, the moon climbed into the sky at an unreasonable speed.
Then, just as people all across the shinobi world looked up with all kinds of emotions to admire that full moon, which was larger and brighter than ever before, they discovered in utter terror that the moon, which had hung high in the night sky since the mythical age of the shinobi world and been surrounded by the stars, was actually growing larger at a speed visible to the naked eye.
This was not an illusion caused by one or two people becoming confused.
Nor could anyone activate a genjutsu large enough to cover the entire shinobi world.
That meant the moon before their eyes, growing larger while constantly shedding tiny fragments in every direction, was truly falling toward the shinobi world.
And just as the people of every nation in the shinobi world were thrown into panic by this sudden apocalypse, an even more terrifying and incomprehensible scene appeared once again on the moon, which was rapidly approaching the shinobi world.
A light like a firefly appeared on the bright lunar surface.
Then it violently bloomed into a blazing radiance capable of carving visible trenches across the vast surface of the moon. As two light points of completely different colors appeared, the entire lunar surface became a scroll for them to freely splash ink upon and rewrite.
The instant the two light points collided, they blasted out enormous craters on the moon's surface thousands, even tens of thousands of times larger than themselves.
Whenever either side was sent flying in their clash, they would inevitably stir up a curtain of dust that surged into the sky like an earth dragon turning over.
The earth collapsed.
The sky was covered in dust.
Mountains became basins.
Pure white was stained with darkness.
Endless meteorites burst from the moon's surface during their collisions. The once-perfect full moon gradually became incomplete as the conflict continued to escalate.
Those who did not know the truth gradually came to a realization.
The fall of the moon was not a sudden accidental natural disaster.
It was merely the byproduct of gods—beings they could not observe, understand, or imagine with their knowledge and abilities—using the moon as their battlefield, slaughtering and battling each other for purposes unknown to them.
As for those who knew that the Otsutsuki clan, capable of driving the moon to fall, existed upon the moon, and that the Fourth Mizukage, Rei Kaguya, had followed the footsteps of another Six Paths ancestor and ascended there, they all prayed beneath the moon with complicated emotions.
No matter what, you must win, Rei Kaguya.
And so, as though he had heard the prayers and expectations of the people on the ground, the blue-green light point on the moon suddenly smashed the other light point into the lunar surface.
After creating an enormous crater filled with cracks as intricate and dense as a spider web, the radiance around him suddenly unfolded, transforming into an aurora that did not pale even when competing with the moonlight.
Then, like lightning, it slashed down—
"The moon… was cut open?"
Inside Kirigakure, where the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist had worked together to disperse the fog, Jiraiya, Tsunade, Kakashi Hatake, Itachi Uchiha, and the other Konoha shinobi looked at the black crack appearing where that blue-green flash had passed.
Watching the smaller part of the moon gradually separate outward, they subconsciously held their breath and murmured almost blankly.
"What an exaggerated power… Are the so-called Otsutsuki clan monsters capable of easily destroying even planets?"
Hashirama Senju, who was also standing beneath the moonlight and looking up at the falling moon, sighed.
With extremely complicated emotions, he clenched his fist and whispered toward the lunar sky, where no one could hear him.
"Do your best, Rei Kaguya… Only by stopping the falling moon will people truly acknowledge the descent of a god and give up their meaningless resistance."
Meanwhile, inside a cavern outside Kirigakure, Mei Terumi sat on the large head of the Six-Tails, Saiken. Somewhat dazed, she spoke to Saiken, whose whole body felt uncomfortable.
"Even from such an enormous distance, the air still becomes cold and heavy because of that sight… Is that the reason Rei has always desperately tried to become stronger?"
"That is right. That is our first master from before the old man of Six Paths separated us—Kaguya Otsutsuki…"
Saiken uneasily swayed its tails, which were covered in highly corrosive liquid, and answered in a low voice.
"She is the master of the Divine Tree, who devours mountains, swallows seas, splits the earth, and breaks the heavens. She is the Rabbit Goddess who gathers the mighty power of creation and destruction into one body, completely ruling over all chakra and life that is now scattered throughout the shinobi world. The old man of Six Paths and his younger brother fought her with everything they had for several months before they finally weakened and sealed her… But the time left to Rei Kaguya is far, far less than what the old man of Six Paths had back then."
"Do you think Rei will lose, Six-Tails?"
Mei Terumi turned her face to look at the Six-Tails' head and asked in a drifting voice.
"The conditions for his victory are not equal to the Rabbit Goddess's."
The Six-Tails shook its large head and answered with deep pessimism.
"The Rabbit Goddess can accept a world completely destroyed by the moon's fall. She only needs to summon the Divine Tree again, absorb us Tailed Beasts, then guide creation anew. But Rei Kaguya cannot accept those conditions…
"If he wants to win, he has to defeat and seal the Rabbit Goddess before the falling moon hits the earth. He also has to catch the collapsing moon afterward."
"No one can do something like that. Even the old man of Six Paths could not."
"That is fine too."
"Huh? Woman, has your brain gone bad?"
The Six-Tails could not understand Mei Terumi's words at all.
It shook its head and asked in a suspicious tone,
"The end of the ninja is about to arrive. How can you still say something like that?"
"Because no matter which ending comes, Rei will not make me wait too much longer."
Mei Terumi smiled and breathed a mist of acid, equally potent in nature, toward the Six-Tails' tentacle, which was dripping strong alkali.
"After running alone so desperately for so long and so far, it is about time for him to slow down and share the gains and thoughts from this journey with others."
…
At the same time, on the larger main body of the moon.
"Give up resisting, Kaguya… You cannot beat me with taijutsu alone."
Rei Kaguya, who had activated Tenseigan Chakra Mode and explosively raised every aspect of his attributes once again, flicked his right hand and shook the Otsutsuki blood from the Ame-no-Murakumo Sword.
His gaze was deep as he spoke to Kaguya Otsutsuki, who was gritting her teeth and regenerating the lower half of her body that had been severed in one strike.
"Your chakra has already begun weakening. The speed of your body's regeneration has also started falling behind the speed at which I can injure you… Without the Ten-Tails and without being able to use space-time ninjutsu, you are nothing but an empty shell of a goddess, one who has chakra and power but is severely lacking in combat experience."
"Even if my chakra weakens, you still cannot kill me."
Kaguya Otsutsuki forced those words out from between her teeth.
"I am a pure-blooded Otsutsuki who ate the Chakra Fruit. I do not age, do not die, and cannot be destroyed! Do you think those two bad children, Hamura and Hagoromo, never thought of completely killing their mother!?"
"Then if you are willing to continue being sealed in endless darkness, waiting for an unknown opportunity to break free one day, I have no objections."
Rei Kaguya's figure suddenly accelerated.
Before Kaguya Otsutsuki could counterattack, he once again stabbed the Ame-no-Murakumo Sword, overflowing with natural energy, through Kaguya Otsutsuki's chest.
Then, staring at her cold, beautiful face as she coughed blood again, he spoke earnestly.
"Although my strength alone cannot compare to the combined power of the Sage of Six Paths and Ancestor Hamura, making you sleep in a seal for another few hundred years is still something I can do. You can, of course, wait as you did before, until I die of old age like the Sage of Six Paths and Ancestor Hamura, and then find another way to break free…"
"However, thirty years from now, Momoshiki Otsutsuki, Kinshiki Otsutsuki, and Urashiki Otsutsuki, who are sent by the Otsutsuki main family to investigate your disappearance, will descend upon the shinobi world. Isshiki, who luckily survived after being ambushed by you, will also find a Karma capable of allowing him to revive perfectly at that time."
"With insufficient detailed intelligence, I probably cannot defeat them. But I certainly do not mind revealing information about you to them… Do you think your ageless, undying, indestructible body will still have meaning when facing them, members of the Otsutsuki main family with abundant experience handling internal conflicts?"
"Why do you know these things!?"
Hearing Rei Kaguya's earth-shattering words, Kaguya Otsutsuki suddenly widened her eyes and asked in shock.
"Because a fellow whose luck I do not know whether to call good or bad used the treasure you and Isshiki lost in the shinobi world, Karasuki, to travel backward from more than thirty years in the future, an era when the Otsutsuki kept descending, to this world… And by quite the coincidence, that person encountered me at that time."
As Rei Kaguya pushed the Ame-no-Murakumo Sword deeper into Kaguya Otsutsuki's heart and twisted it, further consuming the remaining chakra inside Kaguya Otsutsuki's body, he whispered beside her ear in a demonic voice full of temptation.
"Through that person, I learned everything that has not yet happened. That includes the third child you left behind when you were sealed by the Sage of Six Paths and Ancestor Hamura, as well as your plan to turn the entire shinobi world into White Zetsu to resist Momoshiki and the others after that child successfully revived you using the Infinite Tsukuyomi… Forgive my bluntness, but I truly cannot think of a better joke than using an army of White Zetsu to resist Otsutsuki pursuers."
"So… you destroyed Zetsu's plan… and made an imperfect me break the seal early?"
At this point, Kaguya Otsutsuki could no longer care about her battered state caused by Unfilial Son Number Three.
She raised her hand tremblingly and reached toward Rei Kaguya's face. While coughing blood, she asked in confusion and curiosity,
"But… what are you trying to do? First you say you want to kill me. Then you say you absolutely cannot stand on my side… But now, it seems like you want to recruit me…"
"Originally, I wanted to use this sword, forged from natural energy and Six Paths power, to beat you to the verge of death, then force you to give me your Karma."
Rei Kaguya sighed and shook his head in disappointment.
"But judging from the battle just now, natural energy can indeed injure you, but killing you seems impossible."
"I ate the Chakra Fruit. I do not need Karma to be ageless, undying, and indestructible."
Kaguya Otsutsuki sensed that she had very little chakra left and simply gave up on recovering herself for battle.
She stared into Rei Kaguya's eyes and said in a low voice,
"Does the person who told you the future not know that?"
"They followed the Sage of Six Paths' instructions and sealed you again without really using their brains to think about it. It was not until Momoshiki and the others descended that they gradually learned other Otsutsuki besides you existed, along with information related to Karma. Where would they have had the time to think about how you were different from other Otsutsuki?"
Rei Kaguya calmly pushed the blame for the flaw in his plan onto the future Kakashi Hatake and Hanabi Hyuga, then continued,
"But even if you do not need Karma to be immortal and indestructible, I still hope to obtain your Karma, Kaguya."
"Why?"
"Because only then can I cooperate with you with relative peace of mind… After all, I temporarily do not want to lose absolute control over the shinobi world, and I also cannot completely let down my guard against you. So I can only use my own body to bear your Karma, then seal away your true body to prevent you from acting on your own during our cooperation and affecting the overall situation."
"Are you… dreaming, Rei?"
Kaguya Otsutsuki felt a little dizzy. She could not quite sort out what Rei Kaguya was trying to do.
"On one hand, you want to seal me. On the other, you want me to place Karma inside your body and cooperate with you… Do you not find that contradictory?"
"Contradictory? I do not think so."
Rei Kaguya swept a glance over the moon, which had already begun collapsing uncontrollably over a wide area, and sped up his speech.
"This era only needs one Six Paths god who surpasses humanity. You possess power that may surpass mine, so I have to seal your body and ensure my absolute right to speak over the shinobi world. But in order to learn more about the Otsutsuki clan and find a way for more people to resist them, I need your knowledge. That is why I need your Karma, to maintain communication with you."
"…Since you know about Karma, you should know that the target planted with Karma ultimately becomes a vessel for revival, correct?"
Kaguya Otsutsuki looked at this descendant before her, whose way of thinking and objectives she completely failed to understand, and asked with a face full of confusion.
"I cannot understand your reason and purpose for doing this even at the cost of your own life."
"If you cannot understand, then slowly watch… In any case, I only need you to delay the final thawing of your Karma until after I find a way to defeat Momoshiki, Isshiki, and the others."
Rei Kaguya raised an eyebrow. As he drew the Ame-no-Murakumo Sword from Kaguya Otsutsuki's chest, he placed his hand on her shoulder and prepared to activate the time-freezing seal he had naturally learned when awakening the Tenseigan.
"And after that?"
"After that? If you still want my body at that time, you can take it… Anyway, thirty-something years from now, I should already be sick of being the shinobi world's pioneer and nanny to the extreme. If you take over my body, I can use that as an entirely justified excuse to retire."
"Even if I still intend to reclaim all chakra then?"
"By then, I will have taught them for over thirty years and left behind even the methods to bring down Momoshiki, Isshiki, and the others. If they still get wiped out by a revived you in one sweep, then that proves they are all trash. And I, who taught them into that state, would also be trash. In that case, everyone can just die together. It would save them from continuing to live in this world and embarrassing themselves by making rice more expensive."
Rei Kaguya rolled his Tenseigan with a face full of indifference and began using his remaining senjutsu chakra to activate an enhanced time-freezing seal on Kaguya Otsutsuki's body.
"Make your choice, Kaguya… Are you willing to lend me your knowledge as a member of the Otsutsuki main family and obtain complete freedom and my body thirty-something years from now, or would you rather sleep inside a seal until Isshiki, Momoshiki, and the others personally come to unseal you, rather than cooperate with me?"
"Choose quickly. I still have to go stop the falling moon afterward."