Isshiki's plan was actually quite straightforward.
He wanted Kaguya to offer up her entire body without reservation, to be used as nourishment for a prematurely matured Ten-Tails hatchling. By doing so, a chakra fruit could be rapidly grown on the planet and taken back to deal with the main family. Once that was done, all future output from this fertile planet would be entirely under their own control.
"You can rest assured. I'll use Kāma in advance to back up your body data on the planet's natives. As long as nothing goes wrong, in just a few decades, you'll be revived again."
He tried to placate Kaguya, his words carrying an unmistakable tone of authority.
"When it's all over, I'll also lift the restrictions on the fruits this planet produces later on and share a portion with you."
Hearing this, Kaguya's eyes flickered almost imperceptibly.
Had Isshiki, who had always been so wary of her, suddenly changed his nature today? He was willing to give her a share of the chakra fruit?
Is this guy testing me again?
Seeing that Kaguya remained silent for a long time, a hint of displeasure appeared on Isshiki's face.
Before he could press her, Kaguya's reply came.
"I'll cooperate with you."
"Good. You made the right choice."
With a positive answer in hand, Isshiki's expression eased slightly. He had already been prepared to strike at any moment. If Kaguya had refused him even once, he would have raised his hand and suppressed her with Daikokuten, grabbed her, and converted her on the spot.
---
Kaguya had no idea about Isshiki's inner scheming. She only knew that the opportunity she had been waiting for had finally arrived. This fool had indeed let down his guard against her, even naively thinking he could cooperate with her to deceive the main family.
Although she had worked alongside Isshiki for a long time, as far as any real relationship went, she would say they weren't close at all. Her usual exchanges with Isshiki were even fewer than those between Urashiki, who had chosen to switch roles and become an observer, and Isshiki himself.
This was because she had a clear understanding of herself and knew well that the more one spoke, the more mistakes one made. She wasn't a particularly clever person to begin with, and if she wanted to hide her thoughts, the best way was to remain taciturn.
So although she appeared calm and unreadable on the surface, she had never truly regarded Isshiki as a real partner. All along, she had been secretly looking for a chance to break free from his control.
After all, if given a choice, who would willingly keep using their own body as nourishment for the Ten-Tails?
---
"I'm such a fool."
Isshiki hovered in midair, enduring a rain of falling chakra fists, his heart filled with boundless regret.
Eighty Gods Vacuum Attack.
This was an offensive divine technique two entire tiers above Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm. He had once suspected that Kaguya might be hiding her true strength, deliberately deceiving him by claiming her divine technique was only Eighty Gods Vacuum Attack in order to lull him into a false sense of security.
But on second thought, she was merely a down-and-out, ordinary member of the main family. She had even had to leave to carry out guardian missions just to find a way forward. How could someone like that possess such scheming depth? So he dismissed his doubts.
What's more, over tens of thousands of years as partners, he had repeatedly feigned injury to test her, yet never once detected any sign of betrayal from Kaguya.
And now, it seemed he was nothing but a complete clown.
A member of the Council, yet played like a fiddle by this ordinary main family woman.
"Cough, cough... Why? I was planning to share this planet's fruits with you!"
Trapped within the binding force of the fists from Eighty Gods Vacuum Attack, unable to move, Isshiki shouted himself hoarse, his face filled with grievance and confusion.
Kaguya's expression remained indifferent. Only a trace of disgust flashed through her eyes as she looked at Isshiki.
How did this guy even have the nerve to say that about her?
After tens of thousands of years, not even willing to share a single chakra fruit with his own guardian? Forget someone like Kaguya, who had planned it long in advance. Anyone in her position would've stabbed him in the back.
"The main family won't let you get away with this!"
After leaving behind what sounded like his final words, Isshiki was mercilessly thrown by Kaguya straight into the gaping maw of the already ravenous Ten-Tails hatchling.
After a few crisp, crunching chewing sounds, his chakra presence gradually faded away.
"Hoo..."
Kaguya slowly let out a long breath. The crushing burden that had weighed on her for tens of thousands of years finally collapsed today.
However, this was not yet the time to relax. She knew clearly that what she possessed now was only temporary freedom. The true danger had not yet passed. The threat from the main family was far more terrifying than a mere fool like Isshiki.
She raised her head and gazed at the pitch-black night sky dotted with stars, her eyes gradually hardening with resolve.
The soil of this planet was extremely fertile, and now it also had a high-ranking Ōtsutsuki body as nourishment. She had a premonition that the chakra fruit nurtured by the God Tree this time would be a specimen of near-perfect quality, something exceedingly rare even in the long history of the Ōtsutsuki clan.
Once she consumed it, even her impure Byakugan might evolve enough to grant her some power to resist when the vanguard of the main family arrived.
"One day, I will surely find a place where I truly belong..."
Beneath the vast starry sky, she wore a solemn expression as she softly made a vow meant only for herself.
---
Meanwhile, on the other side.
Isshiki, after sacrificing most of his body to deceive Kaguya's rather dull sensory perception, used Sukunahikona to shrink himself down and forcibly escaped from between the teeth of the Ten-Tails hatchling.
As he fled, he cursed Kaguya nonstop, and didn't even spare Momoshiki. After all, that bastard had clearly seen his future fate, yet only told him a bunch of vague, ambiguous nonsense.
"Not a single main family member is worth trusting," Isshiki gritted his teeth and concluded bitterly.
At this moment, his condition was utterly abysmal, the worst it had been in ten thousand years. The wounds covering his body were gruesome, and every step he took sent piercing pain through him.
To avoid being tracked by that traitor Kaguya, he had to find a concealed hiding place as soon as possible. And just then, a wandering ascetic monk passed into his field of vision.
A cold glint suddenly flashed through his eyes. Such a perfect opportunity. How could he possibly let it slip?
Forcing himself to restore his size, he appeared before the monk and viciously clamped a hand around his throat.
Take a closer look. This unlucky monk was named Jigen. He only felt his vision blur, and before he could even react, his neck was seized tightly by overwhelming force.
Catching sight, out of the corner of his eye, of the horrific injuries covering his attacker's body, Jigen's kind nature immediately gave rise to pity. He mistook the man for someone desperately in need of help.
Struggling, Jigen managed to speak. "If you need help... I can..."
Seeing that he still had the strength to speak, Isshiki, who had been worried he might accidentally crush his neck, instinctively tightened his grip.
With severe lack of blood flow to his brain, Jigen's consciousness gradually faded. His eyelids grew heavier and heavier, until he finally collapsed unconscious.
What followed was already well known, the very beginning of the story of Ōtsutsuki Isshiki, as later understood by Jigen.
Isshiki shrank himself down and burrowed into Jigen's brain like a parasite, clinging to life inside.
As time passed and he recovered a bit of strength, he directly took control of Jigen's brain and implanted a Kāma seal, completely turning him into his puppet.
---
Experience is the harshest teacher. It gives the test first, the lesson after.
After being backstabbed hard once, this time he finally learned restraint.
Relying on his status as a nobody in the shinobi world, he recovered his body while secretly gathering intelligence about Kaguya. He wanted to see what preparations Kaguya had made during the years he lay dormant.
After he captured a wandering monk on the road and questioned him, this was the answer he got.
"How can you speak the name of the Rabbit Goddess directly! Aren't you afraid of her punishment?"
The other party clearly had no intention of cooperating, but from the scattered hints, Isshiki could still guess that Kaguya had already completely ruled this planet.
Glancing at the wandering monk who was still muttering about reporting him, he had no choice but to dispose of the native quietly.
In the days that followed, he continued to maintain Jigen's usual lifestyle.
Fortunately, Jigen was originally a monk who traveled the world, and this identity provided tremendous convenience for gathering information.
Just as he expected, Kaguya had indeed eaten a chakra fruit.
He didn't know exactly how high the fruit's quality was, but it was more than enough to help her complete her initial evolution. To enhance her combat power, she would inevitably choose the path of fusion evolution.
In other words, she had most likely already awakened the Rinnegan and mastered at least one new divine technique.
Battles between Ōtsutsuki are battles of divine techniques.
Without a clear understanding of the opponent's abilities, a head-on clash was unwise, so he decided to continue enduring.
"That's right. I can't act impulsively. I may not be her match."
That surprise attack back then had truly given him trauma.
---
In the blink of an eye, time passed. Isshiki endured and endured, until the moment Kaguya was about to give birth.
The Ōtsutsuki clan, as a race rich in God Tree cells, has a very special way of reproducing.
Generally speaking, an Ōtsutsuki who wants a child will prepare a chakra fruit in advance. After eating it, they deliberately refrain from absorbing and digesting it, instead nurturing and transforming it within their body. When the time is ripe, they can give birth to an Ōtsutsuki offspring that carries their own chakra nature. This method isn't limited by gender. After all, it's just nurturing a fruit. As long as you have chakra, it can be done.
Not to mention those who possess Kāma, who can adjust their body data themselves and permanently change their sex. However, because the Ōtsutsuki have extremely long lifespans, their desire to produce offspring is generally not very strong. Even though the main family offers generous incentives, once they think about how having children would divide their chakra, few Ōtsutsuki choose to reproduce.
But for Kaguya, giving birth was actually a choice made out of necessity.
"I knew it. Her Byakugan is so impure. How could she possibly perfectly digest the fruit formed by sacrificing half of my body?"
Isshiki's heart jolted, and he suddenly realized he had missed a perfect opportunity.
That chakra fruit must have been of extremely high quality. Unable to digest it, Kaguya was forced to split off her own chakra and pass it on to her offspring.
"Now that she's unloaded this burden, her chakra has stabilized completely. Looks like I'll have to wait a while longer."
Isshiki pondered silently.
However, this period of dormancy did not bring him a chance for revenge. Instead, it brought the spectacle of Kaguya turning against her two children and fighting them to the death.
This battle lasted for several months. While hiding in the shadows and analyzing Kaguya's techniques, he couldn't help but relish the show.
He had originally planned that once Kaguya's children could no longer hold on, he would immediately activate Kāma Stage Two and join the fight.
But who could have imagined that these two Ōtsutsuki descendants, who had never even consumed a chakra fruit, would defeat Kaguya, seal her within Chibaku Tensei, and send her into the sky.
He decided that once his perfect vessel was fully cultivated and he revived at full strength, he would go straight back to the main family to bring reinforcements and completely execute Kaguya.
As for why he would still call for help even after returning to peak condition, that was simply because Kaguya's luck was absurdly good. For her first evolution, when she awakened the Rinnegan, she had obtained a pile of utterly broken divine techniques.
Just among spacetime abilities alone, he had seen her use two. One whose nature he couldn't identify, and another that ranked among the very best in the entire clan, Yomotsu Hirasaka.
That thing, when paired with Eighty Gods Vacuum Attack, was no joke at all.
And yet this bout of endurance didn't last until his perfect vessel was ready. Instead, it brought him an executioner he was never fated to meet.
----------
Inside the quiet chamber, Ryouma withdrew his right hand from above Isshiki's head, slowly letting out a breath as countless thoughts churned in his mind.
So this is the Ōtsutsuki clan...
How should he put it? Their strength didn't seem all that impressive. In combat, they relied almost entirely on divine techniques. The only thing that could really be called skill was their use of tenketsu strikes.
And in his view, the Ōtsutsuki's research into tenketsu wasn't even as deep as that of the Hyūga clan.
Thinking about the effects of those divine techniques in Isshiki's memories, he couldn't help but comment, "So they're all just gimmick fighters."
"Huh? What fighters?" Shiori looked at him, not quite understanding what he had just said.
"Nothing," Ryouma changed the subject. "How long was I in there?"
"Five hours, fifty-seven minutes, and three seconds. If you hadn't come out soon, Shukaku was about to use a chakra link to wake you up."
Orochimaru truly lived up to his reputation as a scientist. His timing was accurate down to the second.
Ryouma stood up and stretched his stiff body. Reading a mind was delicate work. It was only because his chakra control was strong enough. If it had been any other Yamanaka jonin, they would have been overwhelmed and blasted out by Isshiki's massive memories long ago.
But as exhausting as it was, the gains were equally enormous.
"So? After reading for so long, you must've gotten a lot of intelligence. What is his background?" Shiori asked, looking up.
Facing the curious gazes of Shiori, Shukaku, and Orochimaru, Ryouma organized his thoughts and sat back down.
"It's a long story. I'll just hit the key points."
---
There was no need to hide information about an enemy like this. Aside from the parts that were hard to explain clearly, Ryouma basically laid everything out.
It could be said that the three people in the chamber, oh, and Shukaku too, were now the most clear-headed individuals in the entire shinobi world.
"You defeated an enemy from the era of the Sage of Six Paths' mother... you, this..."
Ryouma affectionately rubbed Shukaku's head, whose language system had become a bit scrambled from sheer shock.