The land was nothing but… strangely beautiful.
It was a land full of life and vegetation, trees grew tall and dominated both lands and skies, only matched by the mountains in size and majesty.
It was far before the birth of Kaguya, far before the existence of the kingdoms, it was a world free of the structures of the human and their war, it was, to put it simply, a brand new world, some traces of it already had civilization but it was new, scattered around and still babbling, humans weren't invading trees, in fact, they descended from them merely years ago, at least, for some of them.
Speaking of these humans, one of them was running in the wood, barely gasping for breath as he tried to, sometimes, looks back to see if the predators running after him were still on his heels, and he had no choice but to let the same yelp whenever he saw the hulking, tiger-like animals running after him, all of whom were slowly getting closer, flashing their sharp white teeth.
The human was slower and tinier but what he lacked in speed and strength, he had in cunning and agility, the man quickly leaped up over the place to lose them, a process which was mostly successful since the animals were letting out cries of frustration, clawing at the ground madly as they progressed trough the thick forest, sometimes losing tracks of their target but finding it back, much to the pleasure of their stomach.
The man knew that staying up in trees wouldn't help, these beasts bore no name for the moments, and were merely knows among the tribes as "flesh-eaters". The name was commonly used to describe anything with claws, fangs and a desire to eat humans but these tigers were different by virtue of killing for sports : while the others predators were happy to just grab one human or two and let the rest go, those were vicious carnivores, smart and bloodthirsty.
Plenty of tribes died when these hunters attacked at night, the beasts spending time to quietly climbing up mountains to find the caves, their hatred for humans went beyond hunting, they could drop everything just to kill one human, a flesh-eater would cross mountain-ranges in two nights if it meant killing humans, there was no mercy to be excepted from them and even at such a primitive state, humans understood that there animals were bad news.
He leaped behind a rock once he was out of their sight, breathing loudly as he dared to take a peek… and saw the humongous claw of one of the flesh-eaters coming right at this hiding spot, the man had no choice but to leapt as the rock was destroyed by the powerful attack of the tiger, the flesh-eaters were the worst nightmare of the primitive human race, hard to kill, powerful and fast, they were at the top of the food chain and while they obviously had competitions, groups of them simply couldn't be defeated unless tribes united themselves.
The tigers knew this and therefore slowly followed the man, who was too panicked to even think about running. He was screwed, both parties knew that, and the one with the razor-sharp teeth was enjoying this, in fact, the animals growled at each other, deciding that one single human couldn't go trough the "playing" that came before finishing off a prey and decided to get over with it, the problem being that only one of them wanted to feel the satisfaction that came with murdering the sole homo sapiens and they were quite willing to fight over it.
Exploiting this, the lone human began to flee again, much to the frustration of the predators who once again dashed after him, the human was so focused on outrunning them, and his pursuers were so focused on imagining ways to tear him apart while keeping him conscious, that they did not notice the light slowly descending from the moon and slowly reaching the location of the hunt.
A white flesh-eater outran his fellow predators and roared in excitation, aware that it was going to kill him. It was huge, scarred everywhere and bore the blood of a fresh kill on its fangs and claws, a large old behemoth who slowed down a little to give his target a little bit of hope, humans were nothing less than monkeys without too much fur but he liked how expressive their faces were, and how quick their smiles faded.
His face wasn't as flexible however, and the white behemoth was still roaring in joy when a huge metallic ship crashed on it, instantly killing it as the resulting shockwave kicked everyone on their rears, be it the humans or the tigers who weighted more than one ton each.
Both animals and man were quick to get up on their feet, looking as confused as possible. A large, gray metallic object stood there, unknown to any creature in existence at this point, the objet wasn't inactive however, and both parties could see humanoids forms moving inside of it, in fact, the ship was seemingly shaking, worrying everyone outside, with the tiger growling at it and making vague claw swipes at the air in an attempt to intimidate, the man himself just sat down, too stunned to event think of fleeing.
The ship strangely opened like a flower, with the roof spreading apart in a way that would've been called beautiful if the human already had grasp on poetry, the fact that people were inside could've made it better if it wasn't for the fact that said persons were… strange. As if, all of them were covered in white spikes, with red hairs, blank eyes and a third eye, some having it on their throat or cheek. All of them looked around, seemingly fascinated beyond belief. A volcano acting up in the horizon caught the ship's attention, especially.
"Ha ! I can see why coming to Earth was the plan ! A fantastic idea, Dai !"
The leader stood proud, he was taller, larger and older than the others, and his third eye was placed on his forehead. He was busy haughtily staring at the tigers, who were circling the ship, afraid but not ready to back down yet. The human was largely ignored, since he was a much lesser threat. Needless to say, simply going on their way would've been a much better options for the flesh-eaters since they were picked off the ground by an unknown force as soon as Dai raised his hand.
"Is that the greetings that the Earthlings gave us ? How pitiful !"
In a single swipe of his hands, all the tigers were propelled away from them with immense speed, instantly dying as soon as they hit the ground, the Ootsutsuki watched the spectacle with nothing more than cold amusement, the beasts, while intimidating, were nothing compared to what dwelled in space, they'd gleefully trade huge tigers for these abominations up there.
Sae, a female-looking Ootsutsuki, turned toward the human and quickly used gravity to attract him toward the rest of the clan, all of whom surrounded him, the new human could see many things inside the ships, such as machines or technology too complex for him to grasp, but he wasn't focused on that, the unfortunate young human was yelling his lungs out, clawing at the face of the aliens without any effect on them, the display was amusing and instructive for them and eventually, they let him drop to the floor when he got tired.
"So that's an human ? They looks pretty similar to us, even without all our… characteristics."
"It's a new race, a bunch of moneys who descended from the trees years ago, for now, they are too busy surviving to really be of interest. They have no extra limbs, cannot regenerate, have no chakra and cannot fight the various predators hunting for them… what they do have, is numbers, intelligence, a tendency to use dolls and a potential for violence that no other race on this planet has."
"Hum ? Seems just scared and helpless."
"Wait until they're done establishing themselves as rulers of this planet, once the surviving phase ends, then they will tear themselves apart."
"Why not just rule over them right now ?"
The Ootsutsuki leader walked toward part of the ship and pulled out a large seed, easily the size of a truck and managed to bring it out of the ship without much difficulty.
"We're just going to take over a small portion of this planet and see what happens. We'll be spectators and we aren't going to take part on whatever will happens, we'll probably lose our powers over time since we'll have to mate with humans but nonetheless, and if the country we'll build is destroyed by their wars, one of us will eat the holy fruit to reign over them."
"They would not destroy it in the first place if we ruled over them now."
"We swore neutrality."
Dai blast a large chunk of the ground and put the seed in there before burrowing it underground with his powers, he then grabbed a large knife to cut himself with. The human watched with amazement and flat interrogation but the other Ootsutsuki sighed, as the white blood of the man descended on the ground where the Shinju seed was, and much to his surprise, it already began to grown.
"I see ! This place has already seen deaths many time !"
"I hope that you know what you're doing, Dai. The Earth's atmosphere might be too dangerous for our enemy but leaving our homeworld like that is reckless, and what if, the country fall and all the clan die or do not remember about the Shinju ?"
Dai looked at them in an… eerie manner.
"They will."
Kaguya woke up in a forest, weakly breathing as she looked around : no guards armed to the teeth with swords and spears, no huge spiders and no psychopathic female leader, she did saw two figures, Mikazuchi and Tenpo, who were holding the corpses of some rabbits, she moaned a bit and attempt to get to her feet, doing it without efforts despite yesterday's conditions.
"Princess, you're awake !"
"Tenpo !"
She smiled warmly to him while Mikazuchi just dropped down the bunny, sighing in relief for a moment and even flashing a smile until she got all grim again, leaving Kaguya alone, even in an hiding place, was already a bad move, and her mental state could only worsen.
"What happened ?!"
"Shhhhhh…"
She pressed her fingers against Kaguya's soft lips, aware that the princess could be quite noisy, and noisiness was bad in their state, they were isolated on the woods, surviving mostly thanks to hunts, they weren't going to get out like this and yet, sneaking around the forest was dangerous as a group of three, especially because every soldier yearned to kill the famed princess, and last of the Ootsutsuki clan, and prove their superiority or something, they did not care about the fodders.
"We got out of the cave but soldiers were waiting for us outside, because of the sheer number of people, we were able to escape but you got…. Knocked out during the scuffle and we had to carry you around, our task was made much easier thanks to the mysterious deaths of soldier up ahead, we tried to steal the uniforms and weapons of some of them, however, it'll be extremely dangerous to walk around since even with an helmet, recognizing you is easy."
She turned around, the presence was on their side but they were worried at the thought of such a person lurking around, who was helping them so much ? How did he knew about the positions of the soldiers ? She feared that someone like this could turn against them, in fact, she saw a figure in the corner of her eyes, upon looking back, even if it was gone after the next second.
"I'm happy that you made it alive !"
Kaguya leaped to hug them both, despite the size difference between her and Tenpo, the female bodyguard herself groaned but hugged back, feeling that Kaguya needed one badly since the destruction of the castle and everything that happened after it, the princess smiled but then, frowned, before looking all sad again.
"And the others ? And… Tenshiro ?"
Tenshiro's name was muttered with fear and sadness, the Ootsutsuki queen knew full well what happened to him, and had no illusions concerning the fate of the young man, they were still afraid of delivering the news. Kaguya was a caring woman, born in the wrong era, and they kinda felt that she did not deserve to see anything that ever happened to her, not in the slightest. That said, Tenpo prepared himself.
"Princess, we're sorry to inform you that… well… Tenshiro was lost. We don't know what happened to him but its certain that he's unfortunately dead, we're sorry to break this information upon you in such a brutal way, I… we're sorry, the others also did not make it from what we saw, plenty scattered but I doubt that they made it, even if the mysterious benefactor probably helped."
Kaguya… stood, for a moment, she looked as if she was ready to spell out something but she quickly backed down, looking at her knees for a long moment before gripping her hands. The princess's facial expression were usually quite easy to spot but for now, her face was unreadable, she shut down for a moment, but they knew that she discovered a new emotion.
The princess thought, she was a joke of a ruler, too pathetic to save her lover, too pathetic to save her subjects, she was hit by rocks, made a fool of herself in front of Tenshiro and was humiliated by some barbarian, all of this because of the violent war between men, kingdoms who waged war, for what ? Just territory, all these innocent lives corrupted and destroyed because of land.
She felt anger, she already felt that way but this time, it was sheer hatred for all these rulers, the generals, the ruthless soldiers, she hated them, wanted to make them pay for what they've done to those she loved, those she was supposed to protect and plenty of innocents for the sake of land, and a single word rang in her ears.
Power.
She turned her head toward the Shinju, knowing exactly where it was even if their location was a bit underground. She felt connected to it, knowing which road to take, how to climb it and especially how to eat the fruit. In fact, she could see the fruit from up there, it wasn't a taboo to eat it anymore, the princess wasn't going to abide by the rules of this old, war-torn world.
"Good, queen Kaguya."
Kaguya suddenly got up to looks around, confused and panicked, and gasped when she saw Dai, standing right behind them, smiling quietly when he saw her, he was… monstrous at best, but she felt at home with him.
"You'll reign over them, you'll guide them trough perfection, this world will worship the Ootsutsuki again, it'll never know fear, pain, death and darkness under our reign, Am I right, queen ?"
"Yes ! I will stop all wars in existence, I swear it on my name ! No one will suffer any longer !"
He smiled and vanished… and three seconds after that, an horrible headache took over Kaguya, the thoughts of power soon silencing themselves as she felt, the bodyguards breaking her fall.
"Are you alright princess ?!"
The last Ootstsuki smiled and nodded.
"I'm better than I've ever been… anyway, let us eat ! I shall detail my plan later on !"
She pulled herself up and happily strolled over to the rabbits, much to the confusion of the bodyguards, the whole sequence was simply… bizarre for them, especially when she started to talk.
Because no one else was inside the hideout for the whole time.
