[Mission Level: A-rank]
[Mission Objective: Reconcile the chakra reincarnations of Indra and Ashura.]
[Mission Status: Completed.]
From Team Minato came Young Obito, Young Kakashi, Rin, and Kannabi Bridge Minato.
From Team Kakashi came Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura, and Adult Kakashi.
There was also Adult Obito, the Uchiha brothers Madara Uchiha and Izuna Uchiha, the Senju brothers Hashirama Senju and Tobirama Senju, as well as Hamura Ōtsutsuki and the brothers Indra and Ashura.
The group of sixteen was transported to a vast, desolate land.
The earth stretched endlessly beneath a silent, pitch-black night. Under a sky filled with stars, firelight flickered in the distance.
"Byakugan!"
The distinctive veins of the Byakugan bulged around Hamura Ōtsutsuki's eyes, allowing him to see a scene over a thousand li away as clearly as if it were right before him.
The others immediately saw an expression of utter disbelief cross the face of the Rikudō Sennin's younger brother.
"How is this possible...?!"
"What did you see?" Madara Uchiha activated his Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan, but the Sharingan was not the Byakugan. He could not tell what the distant, flickering flames meant.
Hamura Ōtsutsuki did not answer. He hurried several steps forward, then suddenly shot off, sprinting toward the distant flames.
"Hey!" Naruto shouted before racing after him.
Once Naruto gave chase, Sasuke, Sakura, Rin, Young Obito, and Young Kakashi from Team Minato and Team Kakashi naturally hurried after him.
Ashura, still completely bewildered, scratched his head. "This is the first time I've ever seen Uncle so anxious. Too bad I don't have my brother's Sharingan, and I didn't inherit the Byakugan Father had before awakening the Sharingan."
Seeing his dejected expression, Indra blurted out, "You only need to stay behind me."
Those words left Ashura, a fully grown man, even more discouraged. It sounded as though his brother had dismissed his entire worth.
Nearby, Madara and Hashirama exchanged glances. Knowing that they were the chakra reincarnations of these two brothers still felt rather strange.
Perhaps because outsiders could see things more clearly, their view differed from Ashura's own feelings of inadequacy.
Instead, it was just as Naruto had said.
Wasn't this Indra a little too protective of his younger brother?
Madara Uchiha raised an eyebrow at the man who was supposedly his ancestor. Ashura was Hashirama's ancestor and the previous bearer of his chakra. Could he truly be as weak as Indra made him sound?
"You only need to stay behind me."
Madara imagined Hashirama timidly cowering behind him.
Damn it. The very thought made his skin crawl!
They had already seen some of Indra's strength, but Ashura seemed...
Was he hiding his true abilities, or was he genuinely incapable?
The others kept casting subtle glances at Indra and Ashura, but neither brother seemed to realize that there was anything unusual about their relationship. Or perhaps Ashura had noticed the problem but had no idea what to do about it. He wanted to persuade his brother to stop, yet always became meek whenever he tried.
"Whatever the case, we should catch up with them first."
Seeing that Naruto and the others had already followed Hamura Ōtsutsuki, Minato Namikaze quickly made the suggestion and hurried after them.
The remaining group raced toward the flickering firelight.
By the time they were less than a kilometer away, the sounds of fighting could already be heard.
A few hundred meters ahead, two people appeared to be surrounded and hunted by an army of thousands.
"Kaguya-sama! As long as you explain everything to His Majesty, he will surely withdraw his order!"
Flaming arrows rained down like a storm.
The fletching of every arrow bore the emblem of the Land of Ancestors.
The beautiful woman once revered as the Heavenly Maiden of the Land of Ancestors bent forward, instinctively protecting her abdomen with both hands.
"Kaguya-sama!"
"My power... The children have absorbed it..."
As if connected to her by some unseen resonance, Hamura Ōtsutsuki suddenly felt his heart clench.
"Kaguya-sama is afraid the children in her womb will be hurt..."
"This is far too cruel! Please leave, Lady Kaguya. I'll explain everything to His Majesty!"
"Your Majesty! Please withdraw your troops! Lady Kaguya is carrying..."
The sky filled with arrows as they descended upon the two women.
"Aino!!"
The others might not have been able to see her clearly, but Hamura Ōtsutsuki possessed the Byakugan.
He could clearly see the woman dressed in white, with pale skin, white hair, white eyes, and crimson lips.
Kaguya Ōtsutsuki!
"Mother!!!"
Unable to use her power, Kaguya Ōtsutsuki could only watch as the storm of arrows closed in.
A white figure flashed past her.
Boom!!!
Hamura Ōtsutsuki swept out one hand with a technique resembling the Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm. An invisible current of air erupted outward, blasting every arrow from the sky.
Who was he?!
Kaguya stared at the back of the man standing between her and Aino.
Confusion flickered within her serene white eyes.
No one on this planet should have possessed such power.
"Ōtsutsuki..."
Kaguya immediately became wary, wondering whether someone from the Ōtsutsuki clan had arrived on this planet far earlier than expected.
At that moment, several more figures raced over and landed beside them.
"What the heck is going on, dattebayo?! None of this makes any sense! Why is someone as strong as that rabbit granny getting bullied?!"
Despite his confusion, Naruto could never stand by while someone vulnerable was in danger. Just like Hamura Ōtsutsuki, he placed himself in front of Kaguya Ōtsutsuki and her attendant Aino.
"Who knows what's happening?" Sasuke had no choice but to take up a defensive stance beside Naruto. "Dead last, get behind me!"
"Seriously, Sasuke? When did you start acting just like Indra?"
Sasuke clicked his tongue, immediately regretting the words that had slipped out.
Indra, who had arrived just behind them, raised an eyebrow. He could not understand what was wrong with what his future chakra reincarnation had said.
Hashirama Senju tilted his head and gave Madara Uchiha a strange look. "Madara, don't ever say something like that to me. Just imagining it gives me goosebumps."
"Who would ever let you stand behind me?! I'm sensitive about my back!!!"
The moment Madara said it, he remembered reliving the scene of Hashirama stabbing him from behind not long ago.
The words struck him like a slap to the face. He had thoroughly humiliated himself.
Izuna moved between Madara Uchiha and Hashirama Senju. "Madara-nii-san is my brother! Hashirama Senju, what is wrong with you?!"
Tobirama Senju sighed, feeling like he was the only clear-headed cutie in the entire group.
Young Kakashi glanced at Obito Uchiha beside him, then decisively sided with the Second Hokage.
"You Uchiha are all seriously messed up, aren't you?"
Young Obito and Adult Obito fell silent.
Now that he mentioned it, the Uchiha here did all seem to have been poisoned by something called the Hokage.
ORZ. They could only admit defeat.
"Who exactly are all of you?"
As Kaguya Ōtsutsuki's attendant, Aino bowed respectfully to the group.
"Whatever the circumstances, thank you for saving us. Please, you must help us! His Majesty has simply misunderstood. Lady Kaguya, she..."
"Aino!" Kaguya Ōtsutsuki suddenly interrupted her. "Say no more."
Aino realized that Kaguya did not trust these strangers. Caught in an awkward position, she could only bow once more to the group of people who had suddenly appeared, then remain silent.
Hamura Ōtsutsuki turned around, his Byakugan fixed on the flow of chakra within Kaguya Ōtsutsuki's body.
"All of your power has gathered in your abdomen..."
His expression held a sorrow and self-reproach that even Kaguya could not understand.
"You are carrying children."
His tone left no room for doubt.
Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura, Rin, Obito, Kakashi, and the others were stunned. None of them had expected this. Their gazes moved back and forth between Kaguya Ōtsutsuki and Hamura Ōtsutsuki.
Obito stared at her. "She's pregnant. Then the children in her womb must be..."
Naruto's eyes widened in shock.
The Rikudō Sennin and the young Byakugan user standing before them, Hamura Ōtsutsuki?!
Naruto said nothing as he looked at Kaguya Ōtsutsuki.
In his memories, this terrifyingly powerful woman was supposed to be a rabbit granny.
Yet seeing her treated this way while pregnant reminded him of Kushina on the night of the Nine-Tails' attack.
She had been weak and on the verge of death.
Even so, she had used the last of her strength and her very life to stop the Nine-Tails' claw from reaching him.
Not long ago, when Naruto released the seal on the Nine-Tails within him, he had encountered Six Paths Minato and Kushina Ōtsutsuki.
That powerful sense of empathy brought another memory to the surface. While experiencing the life of "Naruto Uzumaki," he had seen Kaguya Ōtsutsuki on the battlefield of the Fourth Shinobi World War, stroking his and Sasuke's faces as she wept.
The names Aunt Kaguya had spoken then were...
Hagoromo.
Hamura...
She had clearly mistaken Naruto and Sasuke for the Six Paths Great-Grandfather and his younger brother.
The Rabbit Granny of the Fourth Shinobi World War had been their greatest enemy. The Kaguya Ōtsutsuki before him, however, was merely a mother trying to protect her children.
That sense of empathy, combined with the fact that the Fourth Shinobi World War had never truly occurred in their parallel world, caused Naruto's heart to soften toward the woman before him.
At that moment, the Emperor of the Land of Ancestors, who had ordered Kaguya Ōtsutsuki's death, arrived with his forces.
He looked at Kaguya crouching on the ground in pain. His eyes also carried anguish and hesitation.
Naruto leaped in front of Kaguya Ōtsutsuki and Aino, blocking the Emperor's view as he shouted furiously, "Who the hell are you?! Why are you so determined to kill them?!"
"A child?"
The Emperor could not be bothered to argue with a child. Instead, he looked at the young man standing beside Naruto, whose appearance bore some resemblance to Kaguya's.
"Who are you? Could it be..."
He remembered how Kaguya gazed up at the stars every day, as though waiting for someone to come and take her home.
"Are you the person Kaguya has been waiting for?!"
Hamura Ōtsutsuki said nothing. He merely stared at the man before him.
Unless he was mistaken, this man was likely the biological father whom he and his older brother had never met.
Barring any unexpected circumstances, he was the ruler of the Land of Ancestors whom their mother had killed before either of them was born.
Hamura had never imagined that something like this had happened before their mother gave birth to him and his brother.
Their father had once led an entire army with the intention of killing their mother and the two of them.
The Emperor frowned in displeasure when the man before him simply stared without answering.
Aside from the blond child, however, no one else appeared willing to speak either.
This cowardly monarch held a position of immense power, with the lives and deaths of an entire nation resting on his decisions. Left with no other choice, he turned toward the white-haired woman standing behind the group.
"Kaguya..." he began. "Do not blame me. This is all for the sake of peace."
For the sake of peace, he could only uphold the order he had issued. No matter how severely the Land of That provoked them, the Land of Ancestors was forbidden from attacking first. Anyone who violated that order would be executed without mercy.
Kaguya lowered her eyes slightly, looking helpless and forlorn.
Naruto had been watching her closely. He clenched his teeth in anger.
"You said... this is for the sake of peace...?"
Sasuke, Sakura, and the others turned toward Naruto. After being his companions for so long, they all knew that he was furious.