Author's Note: This one probably sucks, but I just felt like writing something about Kaguya.

Regards,

— Duesal Bladesinger


Never Underestimate Naruto

Chapter 8

Why? Why did it have to come to this?

Why, when we were living in harmony with the land, why did she come from the sky?

— From the excerpts of Makundala, Chieftain of the Genyu


Three thousand years before the conclusion of the final war, mankind had no chakra.

In fact, they had only just discovered iron and were slowly experimenting with it by shaping it into tools for farming and clearing forests for wood and land. For a time, the new discovery brought much prosperity, and everyone benefited from increased production in the farms, and from tools that lasted twice as long.

But this early human society was unstable, for there was no real leader among them: merely dozens of small chieftains vying for power.

War broke out with the creation of better weapons, and small stability problems were traded in for constant conflict between three powerful kingdoms. Was it the better option? Who's to say? Nothing is certain in war.

The first was the Kingdom of the Genyu.

A kingdom of tribes in a land of forests and wild mountains, they only came together as a people once each year for a grand market which doubled as a center of the law where people could get legal disputes sorted out. When the wars came upon them, they had no choice but to abandon their way of life and come together permanently to face an assault from two fronts.

The tribes of the Genyu quickly adapted to life on the run, forever fleeing from two powerful enemies. After all, what could they do with such weak numbers?

The second kingdom was the opposite of the Genyu in every possible way. The Taurans were industrial, warlike people, their entire society one that was ruled by the mighty: a society in which the weak were systematically killed off. They held little to no regard for the environment, only caring for the resources to be had and nothing more.

Theirs was a kingdom of the spear and shield, thirsting for blood and hungry for power. Although their technology was primitive, their numbers were vast enough for their armies to cast the land in the shadows of war.

The third . . . The third kingdom was another story entirely.

The kingdom of Gelel had harnesses a superpower in the form of crystals. They used the energy for everything, from farming to flying. Using the stones, trees never stopped bearing fruit, wells never ran dry, and all things stopped aging. With the absence of natural death, their empire expanded rapidly, its borders stretching from coast to coast.

The three-way war went on for longer than anyone could remember, taking more lives and shattering more families than any natural calamity in the history of the land. Villages were wiped out and cities were razed, and through it all weapons were improved as each kingdom grew more and more desperate for domination.

Then disaster struck as the people of Gelel attempted to use the stones for something which they were never meant to be used for. No one knows what, exactly. Not even their surviving descendants. In a single night, their entire kingdom sunk to the bottom of the ocean, leaving only a small chain of islands on the western coast of the remaining half of the continent.

All knowledge of the stones of Gelel were lost as the royal family fled across the seas, taking the last of the stones with them.

And then there were two.

Drunk with their newfound domination, the Taurans threw everything they had at the Genyu, and the Genyu ran.

But after three centuries of harassment, enough was enough. The Genyu were a people of the forests and mountains, while the out-of-place Taurans were more at home in the arid plains.

In the dense wilderness of their homes, the Genyu moved like ghosts, not making so much as a sound, able to sneak up right behind their enemies. In small bands of ten to twenty warriors, men and women alike, they picked off the invading forces bit by bit until the bones of entire legions bleached white in the sun.

Eventually, the war ground to a standstill because the Genyu were incapable of attacking outright, and because the Taurans were reluctant to throw another of their legions into this Forest of Death.

As with most ceasefires, the land assumed the appearance of peace as less souls were lost with each passing day.

And then she came, fell straight from the sky. The woman with silver hair, white eyes, and horns that extruded from the crown of her head.

Armies were sent out to meet this strange new woman. A goddess sent from the heavens, surely! But one look from those white eyes, and hundreds of men found themselves paralyzed under her otherworldly ferocity.

It was a massacre. Out of thousands of men, only a few dozen made it back alive. With them, they brought tales of horror and death and a monster beyond compare.

Panicking, the Taurans reached out to their natural enemies and quickly forged an alliance.

It didn't matter.

When the armies of both peoples took to the field against the demon woman, she floated in midair and looked at them all with the disdain that only a celestial being could ever hope to achieve.

For the first time since her arrival, she spoke. Her voice was musical, enchanting, and entirely unnatural. "Surrender," she said. "Surrender, or you shall surely die."

Slowly, in the center of her forehead, a third eye of ripples and undulating power snapped wide open.

"Surrender."

And they did.