Hagoromo paused slightly when he looked at Indra.
The feeling Indra gave him was remarkably similar to his Mother.
Hamura Ōtsutsuki of this world, however, accepted the situation quite readily. He was delighted to see his older brother's sons from the future.
"Older Brother, it seems our future selves must have succeeded in sealing Mother!"
"Mm..."
Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki had yet to recover emotionally from the great battle. Although he showed a brief flash of surprise upon seeing his future sons, there was little joy or any other emotion in his expression.
That inevitably left Indra and Ashura, who had just been stunned by their father's true power, feeling somewhat disappointed.
Hamura stepped in to smooth things over between them, explaining that they had most likely traveled to the time when he and his older brother had sealed their mother.
"The battle lasted for several months. Nearly the entire continent was devastated, and countless humans lost their lives."
At the mention of this, Hagoromo and Hamura looked troubled. The battle had only paused because both they and their mother, Kaguya Ōtsutsuki, needed time to catch their breath and restore their chakra.
As far as the eye could see, the land had been reduced to ruins. They did not even dare estimate how many people and other living creatures had died.
This was a battle in which they had nowhere left to retreat. Far too much rested on their shoulders.
They had to win. They absolutely could not lose!
They had to seal their mother!
"Forget all that for now! Grandpa Rikudō, do you really have to seal Aunt Kaguya?!!"
Seeing the adults take so long to get to the point, Naruto impatiently jumped into the conversation.
"She's your mom! She may have used a lot of terrible methods, but she's always been trying to protect you in her own way, hasn't she?!!"
Sasuke grabbed him. "Naruto, calm down!"
"But..."
At first, the Ōtsutsuki brothers had paid little attention to the blond child among the group. He had neither the Sharingan possessed by Sasuke beside him nor the overwhelming presence of the other adults.
It was only when they heard him question their decision to seal Kaguya that the two brothers turned their attention toward him.
Only then did they notice the two distinct chakras inside his body.
Whether with Hagoromo's Rinnegan or Hamura Ōtsutsuki's pure Byakugan, they easily entered the deepest reaches of Naruto's mind and found the Nine-Tails, who had only recently been released from its cage.
["Yo, long time no see, old man."]
"You must mean my counterpart from another parallel world. I do not know you," the young Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki replied. "However, I can sense that I was the one who created you."
["That's right."]
Irritated that it could not greet the Six Paths Old Man as an equal, the Nine-Tails repeatedly scraped its sharp white claws across the floor.
["I'll use my chakra to show you why that kid Naruto wants to stop you from sealing Kaguya Ōtsutsuki."]
Kurama transferred a small portion of its chakra to Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki and Hamura Ōtsutsuki.
After receiving the Nine-Tails' memories, the information contained within its chakra swept over the brothers like an extraordinary journey through another lifetime.
They exchanged astonished looks.
["Both our arrival in this world and the mission to stop you two from sealing Kaguya Ōtsutsuki came from the mission scroll."]
["Whether you still choose to seal Kaguya Ōtsutsuki is for you to decide, old man."]
The era was different, and so were the circumstances.
The Nine-Tails had lived for thousands of years, after all. It was not as naive and kindhearted as Naruto.
Compared to Naruto and the others, it also knew far better what Kaguya Ōtsutsuki had done to the humans of this era in order to cultivate the God Tree.
The others knew that the two brothers had entered the depths of Naruto's mind to meet Kurama. They had most likely also learned from the Nine-Tails that the group intended to stop them from sealing Kaguya.
After learning about the future and discovering that Naruto and Sasuke, as well as Hashirama and Madara, were reincarnations of Indra and Ashura's chakra, Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki examined his two sons anew.
"Perhaps I should never have allowed my power and the Ōtsutsuki bloodline to be passed down."
With that single sentence, he denied the very existence of both his sons.
To put it plainly, Rikudō Sennin Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki was saying that he should never have left behind any descendants. He should never have had children at all.
Given Indra's temperament, his expression instantly became even colder.
This time, their young father had not only rejected him. He had rejected Ashura as well!
Ashura also felt uncomfortable, but his first thought was of Indra. If his older brother had always been rejected by their father, then this must have been how he had felt all along.
He immediately looked at Indra with concern.
Sure enough, Indra's expression was so dark that he looked ready to fight their father from this era on the spot.
Hagoromo's younger brother, Hamura Ōtsutsuki, also felt that his older brother had been far too blunt. Even the most tactless man alive would not have said it so directly.
He quickly stepped between the father and sons, separating them before they could actually start fighting.
"Older Brother, now is not the time to discuss this. Shouldn't we be talking about Mother and Black Zetsu?"
"Mm. You're right."
Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki paused. "Kurama has already told me that you met Mother when she was younger."
Naruto and the others stared intently at Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki.
Whether it was Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki's future sons, Indra and Ashura, or Naruto, Obito, and the others who had experienced the life of Naruto Uzumaki from the main storyline through the mission scroll's reward, they had only ever seen Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki in late middle age or old age.
They knew him as the founder of ninshū, the Rikudō Sennin.
They had never met the young Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki who now stood before them at the height of his power.
His Susanoo alone was five, six, perhaps even ten times stronger than theirs.
None of them could guess what he was thinking, but the situation did not look promising.
Just as they had feared, after a long silence, Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki gave them the answer they did not want to hear.
"I am grateful that you brought us information about Black Zetsu and Isshiki Ōtsutsuki. However, Mother is no longer the person she once was."
That single turn in his words already made Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki's position clear.
"Even though I now know that she acted to protect Hamura and me, the moment she ate that sinful fruit, Mother ceased to be the Mother we knew."
"Older Brother..."
The two versions of Hamura Ōtsutsuki spoke at the same time, both attempting to dissuade him. Deep down, they still held a sliver of hope that their mother might realize her mistakes and turn back.
They had learned that their mother's past experiences had left her deeply afraid, and that she had resorted to extreme measures in search of a way to protect them from the enemies who would come in the future.
That knowledge made Kaguya seem all the more pitiful.
If even the sons she had wanted to protect turned against her...
"For the sake of this world, Hamura and I have no other choice," Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki said. "We must seal Mother. There is no longer any other way to persuade her."
It was not that he wanted to be an unfilial son. Before this, he and Hamura had already tried their hardest to reason with their mother.
Their efforts had only made matters worse. Their mother had even taken control of Hamura, turning him into a puppet and forcing him to attack Hagoromo.
Had Gamamaru not given him that resurrection talisman, Hagoromo truly would not have known what to do.
Without the talisman that could bring the dead back to life, he never could have forced himself to strike through Hamura's body and kill his own younger brother.
Even knowing that Hamura could be saved, the pain of killing him had been enough to awaken Hagoromo's Rinnegan.
Hearing that Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki of this parallel world still intended to seal Kaguya even after learning the truth, Naruto stared at him in disbelief.
He could not understand how Grandpa Rikudō could say something like that.
Naruto could not accept it. He might not be clever enough to think through complicated matters, and he had never been good at studying, but once he set his mind on something, he would see it through to the end.
"If you really intend to do this..."
His sky-blue eyes locked firmly onto Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki.
Naruto remembered Kaguya's true gentleness. He recalled the sight of her holding her lower abdomen as she whispered softly, "I will protect both of you, Hagoromo and Hamura."
"Then I'll find a way to stop you! And I'll definitely awaken the true gentleness inside Aunt Kaguya!!"
This was the first time Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki had ever been openly challenged by a child right to his face.
Yet through Kurama's memories, he had seen what an extraordinary man this child would one day become.
This was the Child of the Prophecy Gamamaru had spoken of, the person whom Hagoromo's counterpart in another world had awaited. The one capable of properly guiding the nine tailed beasts and leading the world toward stability and peace.
Naruto Uzumaki.
"I do not understand."
Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki looked at Naruto.
"In what you call the main timeline, did you and Sasuke not do exactly the same thing we are trying to do?"
You sealed Black Zetsu and Mother, Kaguya Ōtsutsuki.
***
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