A fully-realized Susanoo clashed with the semi-feral Kaguya Ōtsutsuki. Two behemoths collided, and the entire dimension trembled.
On the surface, Sasuke Uchiha's Susanoo seemed to have the upper hand. But reality was different. His attacks weren't working… Kaguya Ōtsutsuki was practically immortal. Wounds sealed themselves almost instantly.
So, hang in there, Mr. Giant-Mecha Big Brother.
Against an enemy this massive, the old Sasuke's first instinct would have been to unleash the all-consuming black flames of Amaterasu. But this upgraded version? The thought flickered across his mind for a second before he dismissed it.
Using Amaterasu would be a waste of chakra and ocular power. At best, it'd just singe the enemy.
That assessment was correct. Kaguya could just expel some chakra or shed a portion of her flesh to block the black fire. Considering the trade-off, using Amaterasu would mean inflicting a thousand wounds on himself to deal eight hundred to the enemy.
Sasuke grew more frantic with every passing moment. The secondary reason was Kaguya's ridiculous durability. The primary reason… where the hell were you, Naruto Uzumaki? Did you die?
Naruto hadn't returned to the battlefield since he was swatted away. For someone like Naruto to stay quiet, to not come charging back in? The most likely scenario was that he was already dead.
Kaguya was acting weird too. Why was she just taking hits without fighting back? A quiet boss was a boss plotting something nasty.
Speak of the devil. The moment Sasuke's bad feeling surfaced, it became reality.
A boss standing still and letting you whale on her isn't being kind. She's preparing a screen-wide, one-hit-kill ultimate move.
Across the grotesquely elongated left forelimb of the "Moon Rabbit" form, slit after slit tore open. Within each, a dark sphere of chakra swirled and condensed.
A Tailed Beast Bomb barrage? Firing them like buckshot?
The next instant, high-density energy "shells" filled Sasuke's vision. He didn't even have time to dismiss the Susanoo—he bailed straight out of the "cockpit." Using Amenotejikara in rapid succession, he warped through space until he reappeared behind Kaguya, finally escaping the kill zone.
This side was safe. The opposite side, however, vanished under a saturation bombardment of Tailed Beast Bombs. The Susanoo dissolved into the tide of raw energy.
Sasuke felt a pang of regret. No, don't misunderstand. He wasn't mourning the Susanoo. He was mourning Naruto. After that relentless chain of explosions, Naruto was definitely dead this time.
"Naruto… what a waste." Sasuke shook his head. Naruto being unreliable fit his established understanding perfectly.
The Sage of Six Paths had chosen poorly. In Sasuke's opinion, the Sage had miscalculated. He shouldn't have split his power between two people. If he'd just given the sealing power to Sasuke alone, Kaguya would probably be sealed by now.
So, what was happening on Naruto's end?
Naruto had gotten ganked by the Nine-Tails. More accurately, the Nine-Tails inside him had been interfered with.
Right after he was swatted away and slammed into the ground, deep within the dark seal space inside him, the slumbering Nine-Tails jolted as if someone had slapped it across the muzzle.
"Who? Who hit me?!"
The Nine-Tails snapped awake, baring its rows of razor-sharp fangs.
"Nine-Tails. Awake. Naruto needs your help."
A voice spoke directly into its mind. The fox nearly jumped out of its fur.
"Who's there?! How did you get into the seal?!"
Then, the Nine-Tails froze, as if receiving some kind of mental synchronization. A moment later, it came to, finally understanding what was going on.
"So… I hit myself."
Strictly speaking, however, this Nine-Tails hadn't truly grasped who was manipulating it. It simply thought it had received a warning from its other "half"… But that wasn't its other half. It was itself.
The Nine-Tails inside Naruto believed its missing half was calling for help. Where was that other half? Inside Kaguya, of course. It wasn't running a ramen stall in Konoha.
"Hmph. Fine. I'm doing this to save myself."
Sasuke's pessimistic assessment of Naruto's situation wasn't his fault. After all, he didn't understand Naruto's Six Paths Sage Mode. Naruto had used Truth-Seeking Orbs to form a "bunker," perfectly capable of weathering the Tailed Beast Bomb bombardment.
The reason Naruto hadn't rejoined the fight was the sudden, spontaneous unlocking of the Eight Trigrams Seal on his body. It had nearly scared him to death.
But after a brief, panicked exchange, he realized the Nine-Tails wasn't trying to break free by force. It was acting… cooperative.
After some chaotic back-and-forth between boy and fox, Naruto remained skeptical. But his skepticism was just a surface-level attitude. He doubted the fox's motives, yet he was letting it take the initiative. Well, regardless of the fox's purity of intent, Naruto's own personality was pretty damn pure.
Now, Naruto had Sage Mode, a complete Nine-Tails Chakra Mode, and Six Paths Sage Mode. The trifecta was complete.
Even combined, Naruto and Sasuke still couldn't match Kaguya's sheer volume of chakra. But compared to her, both of them were battle-hardened veterans. No one expected Kaguya to use taijutsu, for example.
And just as the duo struggled against Kaguya, in a corner of the dimension, a spatial rift tore open. Yūshin had finally decided to switch maps and enter the main battlefield.
"Not bad, not bad. I may have been absent, but I did contribute some assists," Yūshin mused, observing the distant battlefield.
He wasn't just trying to save face. He had helped. Otherwise, Kaguya should at least have maintained a humanoid form.
Unable to fully control her massive body, Kaguya lay sprawled on the ground like a gigantic… something. But that didn't make her any more approachable.
However, everything was relative. While Naruto and Sasuke couldn't easily get close, that wasn't a problem for Yūshin.
Yūshin simply opened another portal with Yomotsu Hirasaka. One step through spacetime, and he was right beside the "Moon Rabbit" form of Kaguya.
Yūshin wasn't keen on sealing Kaguya again. Whether it was making another moon or trapping her in this dimension, the fact remained: she was too close to the Shinobi World. A threat that would inevitably resurface.
But regardless of how he planned to deal with her, step one was stripping her of her power. If Kaguya was left with only an empty shell, whether she was sealed or not became a moot point.
The reality was cruel for Kaguya. Sure, she'd been resurrected and reclaimed the tailed beasts' chakra. But from the moment of her revival, she had never achieved 100% control over that power. If she couldn't control it, then saying she didn't truly possess it wasn't far from the truth.
Kaguya's resurrection felt like… just being able to breathe freely again.
"Huh. Why am I abandoning brute force for intellect? Schemers are no good… Is there still a true final boss waiting in the wings?"
Even as he mused, Yūshin got to work. He placed a hand on the "Moon Rabbit's" body and began a focused mental call.
"Kurama. Hey, Kurama. You in the service area? Come on out, someone's looking for you."
Normally, this wouldn't work. When the Ten-Tails' consciousness was active, the Nine-Tails' will was forced into dormancy. But one mustn't forget: Yūshin had tampered with all nine tailed beasts from the very beginning.
Strictly speaking, a portion of the chakra within this Kaguya belonged to Yūshin.
He had fed all nine tailed beasts with his own chakra. The Nine-Tails, in particular, was always happy to take more than its share. In a sense, the tailed beasts could almost be considered Yūshin's shadow clones.
With an internal anchor and an external call, what could the clone do? Respond, of course.
This "Nine-Tails fragment" had been in a deep sleep ever since it was separated from the "main Nine-Tails." It slept in Yūshin's dimension, slept while being force-fed chakra fruit, slept inside the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path, and slept even as it was synthesized into the Ten-Tails. Its sleep quality was impeccable.
Now, the Nine-Tails was finally about to wake up.
The process of waking the Nine-Tails inside Kaguya was basically the same as waking the one inside Naruto. Either give it a few slaps or dangle some tasty chakra in front of it.
The Nine-Tails felt the guiding pull of Yūshin's familiar chakra. Its consciousness gradually pushed back against the Ten-Tails' suppression, and then… it awoke.
Internal changes mirrored external ones. As the Nine-Tails woke, a specific point on the "Moon Rabbit's" body suddenly bulged like a giant pimple. With this "pimple" as the core, the surrounding flesh rapidly solidified, quickly outlining the distinct shape of a fox.
From a distance, it looked like someone had stamped "INSPECTION PASSED" on the "Moon Rabbit's" hide.
The Nine-Tails was independent again. It thrashed violently inside. But the thin layer of skin acting as its prison was an incredibly tough seal. No matter how it struggled, it couldn't break free.
"Run, Kurama. Run. Far away."
Yūshin spoke through Kaguya's flesh, and the Nine-Tails heard his command. It gathered its chakra, focusing all its strength, and pushed outward with everything it had.
On the "Moon Rabbit's" body, another tail-like protrusion stretched out, pulled taut by the fox's desperate escape attempt.
At that moment, Yūshin reached out with his left hand, grasping at empty air. A black staff materialized in his grip. With a flip of his wrist, the staff transformed into a long sword. No, the proper name for this was the Sword of Nunoboko.
Legend called it a divine tool used to shape heaven and earth. That was an exaggeration, of course. But it would definitely work for severing an Ōtsutsuki's body.
Finally, Yūshin stopped holding back. He revealed his ultimate form. When Six Paths-level chakra washed over the entire dimension, every living—or semi-living—being within it instantly noticed him.
Kaguya naturally sensed the danger. But it was too late. Yūshin swung the sword down. The result was inevitable.
Severance.
The Nine-Tails, along with its massive chunk of chakra, tore free from the Ten-Tails' grasp.
A massive, sticky, furless lump of flesh shot out. It rapidly flushed red. As crimson fur regrew to cover the mass, it separated, forming distinct limbs, tails, and a head.
"I owe—"
The Nine-Tails didn't understand why it had been absorbed by the Ten-Tails, but it knew Yūshin had saved it. It felt a mix of exhilaration and gratitude.
Yūshin cut it off, pointing into the distance. "Get far away. Don't get caught again. This worked because we took her by surprise. Next time, pulling you out will be much harder."
Kaguya might have a low battle IQ, but she wasn't an idiot.
The Nine-Tails noticed the change in Yūshin. It desperately wanted to ask if he'd become a Six Paths sage—this chakra felt so familiar. But the situation was critical. No time for chat.
So, it obediently bolted for the horizon.
The Nine-Tails was stubborn. It didn't listen to just anyone. But it couldn't disobey its… feeder. That was practically written into its instincts by now.
Separating the Nine-Tails was the hardest step. With that done, the rest was relatively simple.
Having lost the Nine-Tails' chakra, the energy within Kaguya had fallen below a critical threshold. In theory, shouldn't she be able to regain her normal form now?
No. The opposite happened.
If chakra had been taken evenly from all nine tailed beasts, Kaguya might have stabilized. But cutting one entire tailed beast out of the Ten-Tails only threw its chakra into complete and utter imbalance.
Think of a table with legs that are too long. Sawing an equal length off all four makes it usable. Sawing one leg off completely just makes it collapse.
Assaulted by the chaotic consciousness, Kaguya lost all control over her body. The Ten-Tails went berserk. Just like a thousand years ago, she transformed into a mindless monster bent on pure destruction.
Sasuke, on the other side, reacted instantly. He realized that in this state, Kaguya couldn't mount precise counterattacks or defenses. This was the perfect moment to seal her.
"Naruto!" he shouted.
Alerted, Naruto understood immediately. "Got it!"
Both of them thrust forward their palms, marked with the symbols of Yin and Yang. They closed the distance to the rampaging "Moon Rabbit" in an instant. One second. All they needed was for both palms to touch the monster simultaneously, and the world-ending crisis would be resolved.
However, Sasuke's palm did make contact with Kaguya's body.
Nothing happened.
Sasuke stared, disbelief washing over him. He raised his hand, examined it, then gave the "Moon Rabbit" a few experimental taps. He looked like a repairman trying to fix a faulty appliance by smacking it.
No reaction. Did the Sage of Six Paths lie to me? No… what about Naruto? Did he screw up again?
Well, Sasuke guessed right. Naruto had indeed screwed up. But it wasn't his fault.
A hand had clamped around Naruto's wrist in an iron grip, preventing him from completing his task.
"I went through all that trouble to fish Kaguya out of her seal," a familiar voice said, cool and calm. "And now you two want to stuff her right back in? Wouldn't that make all my effort a complete waste?"
Who else but Yūshin could have stopped Naruto and Sasuke from sealing Kaguya away?
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