Chapter 328: Ōtsutsuki Isshiki
Steam curled through the air.
In some unnamed place, a pink-haired woman leaned back against a rock, submerged in a hot spring, wisps of vapor rising off the water's surface.
Her long, silken pink hair, soaked through by the spring water, clung to skin so flawless it seemed impossible to find a single blemish anywhere on it.
"Your Majesty. It's about time. She's here."
A soft, deferential voice spoke up beside the pool.
A striking, blue-haired girl who looked no older than twelve or thirteen stood there, respectfully holding out a set of robes for the woman addressed as "Your Majesty."
"Mm."
The woman in the pool gave a quiet acknowledgment, her closed eyes drifting open just slightly, revealing a flash of jade green.
A second woman, dressed similarly to the blue-haired girl, stepped forward with a towel and began gently drying the pink woman's damp hair.
Anyone who recognized these two attendant-like women would have been thoroughly shaken.
Ichikishimahime. Tagitsuhime.
Two of the three great Serpent Princesses of Ryūchi Cave.
Now serving, like common attendants, a mere human.
Three years ago, in the war's final battle, Orochimaru had traded a portion of Hashirama's cells for Ryūchi Cave's assistance — offering up both the Ten-Thousand Serpents and Orochi Yaga as Edo Tensei sacrifices for Madara and Hashirama's resurrection, and using Ryūchi Cave itself as his hiding place.
When that final battle ended with Konoha's total victory, there was never any question that a place which had sided against Konoha would be left alone.
At the time, though, with the war only just concluded and countless matters demanding attention, Sakura simply hadn't gotten around to it.
Once Orochimaru was dead, Sakura had personally paid a visit to Ryūchi Cave to call on the White Snake Sage.
In the course of conversation, she'd discovered the White Snake Sage had been deeply mourning the Great Toad Sage's death ever since it happened — and, taking that into account, Sakura had decided to see the good deed through to the end and send him off properly, punching him straight into the Pure Land to go catch up with his old friend.
Thinking it only right, given how close the three Serpent Princesses had clearly been with the White Snake Sage, and holding to the principle that family ought to be kept together, Sakura had been fully prepared to send the three of them along to keep him company as well.
Except the Serpent Princesses pointed out that the White Snake Sage had, specifically, been a white snake — and none of the three of them were white snakes themselves, which meant, strictly speaking, they weren't family to him at all. They offered instead to bring the whole of Ryūchi Cave into the Amanogawa Empire as a vassal state.
Sakura had let the matter drop, expressing mild regret.
From that point on, the three Serpent Princesses had served as attendants to the Empress of Amanogawa.
By now, the empire flourished across every corner it touched, the world at peace, ordinary households enjoying more than enough to eat.
The people sang the Empress's praises without end.
There were still shortcomings here and there, sure — but between the empire's steadily advancing technology and Hashirama tirelessly planting forests across every corner of the world, those shortcomings had become almost negligible.
Once her bath was finished, dressed only in a thin, gauzy robe with Ichikishimahime's help, the pink-haired Empress stepped through the doors to meet her visitor.
Ōtsutsuki Kaguya.
The once-legendary Rabbit Goddess, subdued three years prior.
Sakura had once promised her — deal with Ōtsutsuki Isshiki first, together, as their mutual pledge of good faith before standing united against the rest of the Ōtsutsuki clan.
Three years had now passed, and Isshiki's hiding place had finally, at last, come to light.
The instant the Empress stepped through the door, flame kindled to life across her body, coalescing into a robe woven entirely of crimson fire and pure white cloud.
An outfit formed entirely from the Empress's own chakra.
"He's surfaced. This one can sense it."
Kaguya hadn't changed a single bit in the three years since. She looked at the woman before her — an existence whose very presence made it hard to meet her eyes directly — and found her own gaze dropping, on pure instinct.
She'd grown stronger.
Three years ago, Kaguya could still, faintly, sense where this human's limits lay.
Now, she couldn't sense any limit at all.
"Is that so."
"In that case, call Hashirama back."
"The shinobi world has more than enough trees already. He doesn't need to keep wandering."
The Empress gave a light laugh and issued the order without further thought.
"Yes, Your Majesty."
From some unremarkable corner, Tagitsuhime — always ready on standby — appeared instantly, then withdrew again just as quickly, respectful and efficient.
"Come. Let's go take a look."
The Empress glanced once at the silent Kaguya and beckoned her along.
As the heavy stone doors of the great hall swung open on their own, the view that greeted them was nearly endless — the vast sprawl of Konoha's great city, stretching almost beyond the horizon.
The Empress, it turned out, was currently standing on a floating island suspended thousands of meters in the sky.
Another product of Tobirama's research into sky-fortress technology.
The Empress extended a finger and gave the empty air ahead of her a light tap. A black portal opened at once.
Not Yomotsu Hirasaka this time — the fully perfected Flying Thunder God Technique.
When Tobirama had originally conceived of the Flying Thunder God Technique, his vision had been to drop an entire army straight into the enemy's heartland in an instant, like soldiers falling from the heavens.
Three years into her Six Paths ascension, the Empress had finally finished perfecting that vision.
The moment the two of them stepped through, they reappeared on the rooftop of the Hokage Building, down in the sprawling city of Konoha below.
The Hokage Building now stood sixty-six stories tall — one of the tallest buildings in the entire city.
As for the Hokage Monument — it no longer existed.
There would be no more "Hokage" going forward. Only the office of the Sovereign Emperor.
The old Hokage Monument had been carefully excavated and preserved, now sitting in a museum as a historical relic.
As for why the Hokage Building still bore that name — it was simply a memorial to the era when the Empress, still Hokage at the time, had crushed every last enemy standing in her way.
Nothing more than a name, in the end.
By now, Sakura rarely bothered with the day-to-day affairs of state, leaving most of it in the hands of Tobirama, Kakashi, Asuma, and the rest.
Even back when she'd been Hokage, Sakura had always been happy to delegate everything she could — now that she was Empress, there was no chance whatsoever that she'd want to handle the mundane grind of governance herself.
At most, she'd taken to spot-checking policy decisions somewhat more often than before.
And Tobirama, for his part, would never tolerate anyone trying to pull anything under his watch anyway.
The moment the Empress and the Rabbit Goddess arrived at the Hokage Building, staff members rushed to meet them.
"Send word to Naruto and Sasuke."
"If Hashirama arrives, have him wait directly in the conference room."
The staff member accepted the order and hurried off at once.
A moment later, Sakura and Kaguya vanished from where they stood, reappearing in the spacious conference room.
Sakura settled into the head seat without hesitation. Kaguya took the first seat on the left.
Before long, two figures came hurrying into the room.
"Sakura!"
"Why didn't you come to Kakashi-sensei's wedding? You just sent a gift?"
Even having married by now, and grown noticeably taller, Naruto was still exactly himself — greeting Sakura with the same easy grin, even now that she'd risen to become Empress.
"Your Majesty."
Sasuke gave a slight bow toward her.
"Sasuke, you don't need to do that with me."
Sakura addressed him.
"You're the ruler of the empire now. Formality still matters, whatever else has changed."
Sasuke shook his head, then straightened back up.
Sakura fell briefly, wordlessly quiet at that, but didn't press the point.
This, in fact, was exactly why she hadn't gone to Kakashi's wedding.
If she'd shown up, everyone there would have been walking on eggshells the entire time — hardly the atmosphere for a proper wedding.
People she'd once known so well had grown distant, and even an offhand, thoughtless comment from her now got picked apart, overanalyzed.
Sometimes, even Karin...
Which was why, these days, the only company she kept was three snakes.
The Slug Sage had no interest whatsoever in worldly affairs, content to sit quietly in Shikkotsu Forest as a slug forever — and Sakura respected that wish, letting her be.
And snakes, in the end, were still snakes — not people. However much others might elevate the three Serpent Princesses out of deference to her, they'd never carry any real voice of their own.
But — what of it?
Hadn't this been exactly what she'd worked toward, one careful step at a time, all along?
Having reached the very top, there was a price to be paid for it.
The strongest power in existence. The greatest authority imaginable.
And on top of all that, expecting others to still treat her like an ordinary person.
Was that even reasonable, to ask for both?
Every word, every gesture she made now got endlessly, exhaustingly picked apart by everyone around her.
Even an offhand complaint about something trivial would send people racking their brains trying to decode her "true meaning" — never realizing it was nothing more than her own petty sense of humor, having a bit of fun at their expense.
Sakura could bear that cost. And, in a strange way, she even found some enjoyment in it.
Lonely?
An Empress was always lonely, one way or another.
"Sit."
Sakura gestured to the seats beside her.
"Sakura, seriously, you missed out — Kakashi-sensei's wedding was so much fun today."
"Practically everyone showed up."
"You really should've come."
Naruto was still going on about the wedding to Sakura.
"Is that right..."
Sakura watched him, an unconscious smile tugging at her lips.
Naruto was still, even now, the only one who treated her the same way he always had — like the person who'd once taught him how to cook, hand over hand.
Just as Naruto was enthusiastically launching into a description of the wedding venue, the conference room door swung open, and a tall figure stepped through, appearing before everyone at once.
The new arrival wore a black robe streaked with dirt, hair black as ink and cascading down his back, features handsome and even, with a pair of pale violet, ripple-patterned eyes that seemed capable of stealing the breath right out of anyone who looked into them.
Hashirama Senju.
Clearly summoned straight from whatever work he'd been in the middle of.
"Thanks for coming so quickly."
Sakura nodded at him.
Three years had passed since then, and Madara's Rinnegan — nurtured and tended by Hashirama's cells — had fully recovered the power it once carried.
Hashirama, in turn, had drawn on that Rinnegan to inch, faintly, closer to the Six Paths himself.
He was walking the same path Madara once had.
The same fusion of an all-encompassing, world-spanning power with a pair of eyes capable of seeing through illusion — needing only one more trigger to finally cross the threshold into Six Paths level.
By now, the conference room held the single most powerful gathering of combat strength in the entire Amanogawa Empire.
"Everyone's here, so I won't waste time on pleasantries."
"There's an enemy that's been hiding in the shinobi world for a thousand years, and it's time we dealt with him."
Naruto glanced instinctively at Kaguya at that, which earned him a cold glare from her in return.
"Why look at this one."
Naruto quickly averted his gaze, a little embarrassed.
Sakura raised a finger, and the projector overhead flickered to life, casting a translucent, three-dimensional figure onto the table.
The figure looked, of all things, like a monk.
Naruto stared, a little baffled.
"His name is Ōtsutsuki Isshiki."
Sakura addressed Naruto, Sasuke, and Hashirama together.
"Is this the enemy you mentioned before?"
Hashirama recalled, three years ago, when the current Empress had blocked his path and spoken of exactly this enemy.
"He's only one of them."
"Given how far things have already come, there's no point keeping it from you any longer."
"The truth is, there exists, somewhere out in the universe, a race that preys on living planets."
"And that race calls itself the Ōtsutsuki clan."
"As for what that actually means..."
Sakura began laying out the truth of the Ōtsutsuki clan to the three of them.
They planted a Divine Tree on a planet teeming with life, drained that planet's own vitality through it, and once the tree finally bloomed and bore its chakra fruit, the entire planet would be left utterly, permanently devoid of life.
Everything on that world — gone, forever.
"WHAT?!"
"We have to stop them!"
Naruto exploded with rage the moment he heard it.
To him, this was pure, unambiguous evil.
Devouring the life of an entire planet — the scale of it was almost too monstrous to comprehend.
"Unforgivable."
Hashirama, freshly returned from what had once been the Land of Earth — now the Grand Rock Protectorate — was every bit as furious as Naruto.
He might still believe this empire was built on nothing more than Sakura's personal military might, doomed to fall apart the moment she was gone — but that didn't make his hatred for the Ōtsutsuki clan any less genuine.
"Where is he?"
"I'll go kill him myself, right now!"
These days, Hashirama only ever smiled while he was out planting trees. Around anyone else — Sakura especially — his expression stayed carefully, stiffly guarded.
Not that it bothered Sakura in the slightest.
"On Whirlpool Island."
"You can't handle him alone."
"To make sure he doesn't slip away, I'll be going in person as well."
Sakura's words made every face in the room shift — every face except Kaguya's.
Just how strong Sakura truly was, by now, nobody in that room could say for certain.
"Let's go."
"We shouldn't cut into Kakashi's wedding time too much."
"If we're quick about it, Naruto, you might still make it back in time for the evening reception."
Sakura stood, giving Naruto's shoulder a pat.
"Heh heh, good point."
Watching Sakura treat the whole thing so lightly, Naruto's earlier tension — that on-edge, high-stakes look he'd worn a moment ago — melted away instantly.
As Kaguya opened a Yomotsu Hirasaka portal, Sakura suddenly turned to Naruto.
"Naruto. Is Karin pregnant?"
Naruto blinked, caught off guard, then answered, a little bashful:
"...Wait, Sakura, how do you even know that?"
They'd only found out yesterday.
"No reason. Just curious."
"I'll send something over for Boruto later."
Sakura smiled at that.
Naruto's future child's name had, of course, already been decided by Kushina, long ago.
"Yes!"
"Will you come by, when the time comes, Sakura?"
Naruto looked at her, hopeful.
"If Naruto wants me there."
Sakura smiled.
"It's a deal, then!"
Naruto beamed.
"Mm. It's a promise."
With that, Sakura, still smiling faintly, stepped through Yomotsu Hirasaka. Naruto, Sasuke, and Hashirama followed close behind her.
Kaguya went through without a moment's hesitation, right on their heels.
Her hands curled slightly into fists.
A thousand years.
A full thousand years.
Ōtsutsuki Isshiki.
This time, whatever's between us — it finally ends.
Something complicated stirred in Kaguya's chest. She'd been the one to strike first, betraying and ambushing Isshiki all those centuries ago — and even now, she carried not a shred of guilt over it.
She'd only ever wanted to survive.
The instant they stepped out of Yomotsu Hirasaka, the pink-haired figure reappeared in the sky above an island out in the open ocean.
This had once been the Land of Whirlpools — Kushina's own homeland. Now it had been renamed Whirlpool Island.
A familiar, salt-tinged sea breeze swept past, stirring the Empress's hair.
At that moment, a monk tending crops out on the island seemed to sense something, lifting his head. A gaze sharp as a hawk's met the Empress's own from beneath the brim of a pressed-down straw hat.
Ōtsutsuki Isshiki.
(End of Chapter)