Chapter 322: Ōtsutsuki Kaguya
Night turned bright as day. The moon hanging in the sky blazed with impossible light.
Sheltered inside Sasuke's Susanoo, Naruto and the others stared up, tense, at a moon burning like a second sun.
"What is that?!"
Naruto stared out at the scene beyond the barrier — everyone but the small group inside Susanoo had already been wrapped, one after another, into cocoons of tree-branch.
"Looks like that tree wrapped everyone up together to accomplish something," Itachi said, watching the countless "cocoons" through the walls of the Susanoo, his brow furrowed tight.
The sight left him deeply unsettled.
Whatever this "Infinite Tsukuyomi" was, it didn't look anything like the wonderful vision Obito had described.
But with the whole outside world blanketed under that moonlight now, there was no way for any of them to step out and investigate further.
No one could say how much time passed. Eventually, the great moon's light finally faded, and the world fell back into darkness. A single figure came crashing down out of the sky, smashing boulders and kicking up a curtain of dust as it landed.
"HAHAHAHAHA!"
"Sakura Haruno!"
"I've won!"
Madara had gone fully, completely mad, surveying the scene around him — his life's ambition, finally, at last, complete.
"Is it over, then?"
"Good. That works out fine."
Sakura surveyed the scene around her, drifting slowly down out of the sky to land face-to-face with Madara.
"Now that it's done, you can go ahead and die."
At that, boundless killing intent flared without warning behind her jade-green eyes — and even Madara, already on high alert around her, felt every hair on his body stand on end.
Danger!
Without wasting another motion, Madara gathered every last drop of chakra in his body.
His life's wish was fulfilled now. There was nothing left holding him back.
In this final moment, he would fight the last battle of his life.
He'd been born for combat, made for it down to his very bones. Now was the time to hold nothing back.
Madara took a single step forward. Nine Truth-Seeking Balls spun together in front of him at blinding speed, fusing into a single sphere the size of a football —
and then it kept growing.
In the blink of an eye, it had swelled to the size of a small mountain.
For a three-eyed Madara, this technique carried more than a faint echo of Kaguya's own signature expanding Truth-Seeking Ball.
"HAHAHAHAHA!"
"Come, then!"
"Sakura Haruno — this is my final, and my strongest attack!"
"If you survive this, I'll call you the strongest being in the entire shinobi world, and mean it!"
Madara was still, in the end, exactly the Madara he'd always been.
"Heh. Bold words from a small-time missing-nin."
Sakura sneered, and took a single step forward — a wave of pink light rippling outward from beneath her feet in every direction.
"With the kind of power we're both wielding now, you're still stuck talking about Konoha, and the Hokage, and 'missing-nin' — as if any of that still means something."
"Seems like your vision hasn't kept pace with your power."
Madara sneered back at that.
The Truth-Seeking Ball had swelled to its absolute limit by now. If it detonated, it wouldn't just take out the surrounding area — it would very likely wipe the entire Land of Frost off the map.
And not only that. Everyone in the neighboring Land of Rice Paddies, Land of Hot Water, and Land of Iron would die too.
"Madara. Is this really the extent of your vision?"
Sakura's voice rang out, gaze fixed on the massive Truth-Seeking Ball hanging in the sky.
"HAHAHAHA!"
"I've already achieved peace for this entire world!"
"Everyone should be thanking me!"
"A little collateral damage is a small price to pay!"
Madara laughed, wild and unbothered.
In the end, an asura is still an asura.
But was the Witch still the Witch she'd once been?
"Madara. Since that's how it is, allow me to show you what real strength looks like."
"After all — this is your last chance to see it."
The pink-haired woman lifted one hand into a sword-finger seal against her chest. Her long pink hair drifted, though no wind stirred it, and the gold flame behind her jade-green eyes blazed up, fierce and bright.
An endless pink radiance tore up out of the ground, spreading out until it swallowed the entire Land of Frost whole.
"Sage Technique — Yin-Yang Release — Infinite Mirage."
In almost the same instant, all of heaven and earth seemed to peel away into another world entirely.
Madara stared around himself, unable to believe what he was seeing.
He no longer seemed to be standing in the same place at all — he was somewhere else, some separate dimension.
The dark, storm-choked sky had been replaced by an endless field of stars. Beneath his feet, the earth had become a still, boundless sea, its surface mirroring the stars above.
It felt, for all the world, like standing in the middle of the universe itself.
This was a stage built from Sakura's fused Yin and Yang chakra, given form by the spatial logic of the Flying Thunder God — Yang Release as the framework, Yin Release as the backdrop, and the five basic natures as her props.
Yin Release conjured form out of nothing. Yang Release breathed life into that form.
Which meant that, in theory, on this stage—
Sakura could do absolutely anything.
At that moment, with an eerie sound, a colossal creature nearly a thousand meters long — its body reflecting the galaxy across its skin — leapt up out of the sea beneath Madara's feet, and shot straight for the Truth-Seeking Ball.
That was...
"A whale?"
Madara's blood ran cold at the sight. Something clicked, some understanding dawning too late.
The next instant, the massive whale opened its jaws wide and swallowed the Truth-Seeking Ball whole, in a single bite.
—!!!
The Ball, on the very verge of detonation, went completely silent inside the whale's belly.
A Truth-Seeking Ball was, fundamentally, a fusion of all seven chakra natures — Yin, Yang, Wind, Lightning, Water, Fire, Earth. Which meant that all Sakura needed to suppress it was a stronger fusion of those same seven natures, brought to bear against it.
"It... swallowed it..."
Madara's expression turned grim, watching it happen.
"Madara. Is that really all the strength you have left?"
The pink-haired woman had appeared in front of him without a sound, standing lightly on the still surface of the sea.
She raised one loosely curled hand, and a longbow woven from pink chakra materialized in her grip.
Five flames — blue-white, blue, red, and gold — gathered together to form the bowstring; gold chakra flame condensed into an arrow, nocked and drawn, aimed straight at Madara.
Yin Release for the bow. Yang Release for the arrow.
The five basic natures, woven together, for the string.
"This strike pierces the stars themselves."
As the words left her, the fused strike — Yin, Yang, and all five basic natures converged into one — became a torrent of pure chakra and swallowed Madara whole in an instant.
And then, like a mirror shattering, the entire world built from the Flying Thunder God and the seven-nature fusion came apart all at once.
As the Infinite Mirage dissolved, Sakura and Madara reappeared in everyone else's field of view.
"Huh?!"
"They're back!"
The moment Sakura and Madara reappeared, Naruto shouted out.
The Infinite Mirage was a space built by the Flying Thunder God, overlapping perfectly with reality — inside it, the two worlds didn't interfere with each other, and nothing on either side, save Sakura herself, could perceive the other.
Which meant there was no way Naruto or anyone else could have known how Sakura had handled the detonating Truth-Seeking Ball.
Madara, meanwhile, was in dire shape.
Sakura's strike hadn't just torn an irreparable hole straight through his chest — her chakra had thoroughly invaded his body along with it. Even though Madara was still technically alive, if he couldn't purge that chakra from himself in time, it wouldn't be long before he was dead for good.
But Sakura's chakra clung to him like a parasite burrowed into bone. His only real option for survival now was to abandon his Six Paths–level body entirely and continue on as a soul alone.
But just as Madara moved to do exactly that—
Something changed.
His body began swelling, out of his control, his hair growing at an unnatural speed.
At the same time, countless streams of thick black liquid began pouring out of him.
"What is this—"
"What—!"
"Is this your doing, Sakura Haruno?!"
Madara watched, wracked with agony, as the black liquid poured endlessly out of his own body. He could feel himself being displaced — pushed out — by some other presence taking his place.
At the same time, a will he had no way of resisting was forcing him down, crushing him into submission.
"Don't get the wrong idea. Taking over other people's bodies isn't really my thing."
Sakura watched it happen, a cold smile on her lips, and the longbow in her hand dissolved, replaced instead by a whirlwind of gold, burning chakra flame.
Kaguya was about to emerge.
The Demonic Statue was the Ten-Tails' own body. Now that Madara had paid the price of becoming the Ten-Tails' jinchūriki to reach Six Paths level, it only made sense he'd need to be ready to be displaced by Kaguya in turn.
But Sakura wasn't especially concerned with Kaguya's arrival. Her attention had already shifted to the God: Tree-Blooming Descent looming in the distance.
That tree — the one siphoning chakra from the entire shinobi world — needed to come down.
"Wild wind. Bow to me."
The whirlwind of gold flame in her hand split apart — into ten blades, then a hundred, then a thousand — and shot toward the tree.
But just as those countless blades were about to reduce the tree to splinters, a black portal tore open in front of it, and every last blade vanished straight into that portal.
At the same time, another portal opened in the sky. The blade made from her fused Wind and Yang chakra shot straight up into it.
The dark storm clouds overhead were instantly torn to shreds by that gust of wind-blades.
A single, clear, luminous full moon appeared, visible to everyone.
"Do you mean to destroy this one's garden?"
A voice rang out — cold, distant, aloof.
A white-robed figure appeared before everyone, out of nowhere.
White eyes. White robes. White hair.
Cold. Detached. As though it were... some kind of god.
The Rabbit Goddess.
Ōtsutsuki Kaguya.
"Wh— what is..."
Kakashi's eyes went wide, watching the figure that had just taken Madara's place.
Whatever chakra this was, it wasn't remotely comparable to Madara's.
"So this is... what the old man meant when he said..."
"Ōtsutsuki Kaguya..."
Naruto stared at the figure, jaw clenched, fist tightening on reflex.
A white, circular mark — representing the power of Yang — sat glowing in the center of his palm.
"Naruto. Get ready."
"Can't have Sakura charging in first every single time."
Sasuke released his Susanoo and moved to stand shoulder to shoulder with Naruto, facing the woman ahead of them.
"Ha. Finally strong enough to fight alongside Sakura, huh."
Naruto's chakra surged violently, and the Kurama Link — the mark of the Nine-Tails' bond — flared up around him once more.
At the same time, his eyes, which should have shown the standard slit pupils, took on the marks of Sage Mode instead, forming a cross-shaped pupil.
"Heh..."
Sasuke let out a short laugh, evidently in agreement with the sentiment. He tilted his head back, and — without anyone quite noticing when — a Rinnegan had appeared in one of his eye sockets.
By all appearances, the two of them were gearing up to spar against Ōtsutsuki Kaguya as a warm-up exercise.
Sakura glanced back at the two of them, her senses sweeping over them for a moment, and confirmed that Hagoromo had indeed delivered both the Yin and Yang power to them as promised — and that both powers ran deep, sustainable, self-renewing.
Clearly, after her pointed warning, Hagoromo had actually followed through and given them the full package instead of some watered-down trial version.
"Hold her off for me. I'll go cut down the tree."
Sakura called back to Naruto and Sasuke, then turned and headed for the Divine Tree.
"Do you intend to ignore this one?"
Kaguya, freshly emerged, turned toward Sakura's retreating back and raised a single hand in her direction.
Eighty Divinities — Void Strike!
An incomparable force erupted from her palm, tearing toward Sakura.
Naruto surged forward to intercept the attack, shouting:
"Boiling Release — Supernatural Might!"
White steam burst from his body, and he slammed a fist directly into the incoming strike.
The two forces met, and Naruto was sent flying instantly.
But that was all that happened — he simply hopped back to his feet, none the worse for wear.
Sakura glanced back once.
The old man's playing favorites, all right.
Naruto had barely had any real contact with the other tailed beasts, and yet Hagoromo had gone ahead and quietly slipped him a piece of the other beasts' abilities on top of everything else.
"Hey."
"You planning on ignoring what Sakura just said?"
Naruto dusted himself off, entirely unbothered, addressing Kaguya directly.
At that, Kaguya's Byakugan flared open, and in an instant she saw both the Yang power glowing in Naruto's palm and the Yin power held in Sasuke's eye.
This is Hagoromo's power...
—!!!
The moment her Byakugan activated, Kaguya's eyes snapped toward Sakura, already walking away in the distance.
This chakra. This power...
"I see. So you belong to Hagoromo, after all..."
Kaguya murmured softly — and in the next instant, the whole world shifted around them.
One moment they'd been standing in the Land of Frost. The next, they found themselves in the middle of a frozen, snow-covered wasteland.
Sakura blinked, taking in the sudden change of scenery, then glanced at Naruto and Sasuke, then back at Kaguya, standing calm and unmoving nearby.
Wait, hang on...
Buddy — no, lady — are you seriously this bold?
Taking on all three of us at once?
"Now — it's time to bring this to a true end."
Kaguya rose slowly into the air, looking down at the three of them below.
She raised her hand once more—
Eighty Divinities — Void Strike!
"I've got this one!"
Naruto still had no idea what exactly had just happened, or why he, Sasuke, and Sakura had all ended up somewhere else entirely — but that didn't stop him from charging forward.
Another Boiling Release — Supernatural Might.
Naruto went flying backward again, exactly as before — but Kaguya had already raised her hand a second time.
Eighty Divinities — Void Strike!
Unlike Naruto's Boiling Release — Supernatural Might, which needed a moment to recover between uses, Kaguya's Eighty Divinities — Void Strike, it seemed, could be fired off again and again, without pause.
...
Meanwhile, back on the main battlefield, Black Zetsu finally surfaced from beneath the earth — and froze, dumbfounded, staring at the empty space where his mother, Sakura, Sasuke, and Naruto had all just vanished.
This — this — Mother should be fine... right...?
"Hm?"
"What is this thing?"
A massive foot came down right beside Black Zetsu. Hashirama stared down, puzzled, at the black, gooey, unidentifiable creature at his feet.
(End of Chapter)
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