Author's note: Two things; merry Christmas! This is my gift to you, the reader!
Second, the poll is still going for those who haven't voted yet.


While Ichigo had explained the audience what chakra was, along with several other things, the Captain Commander and I had been fighting brutally.

Yamamoto had even used Kido after it was obvious that neither of us would be able to overpower each other in a fight with swords. Or in my case, chakra disruption blades. He had resorted to high level Kido spells, the highest spell being Hado level seventy three, Soren Sokatsui.

Right until he made the Hado level ninety, in hopes to both capture me and injure me. Kurohitsugi.

Thankfully I recognized the beginnings of the incantation – when Aizen had used it, I just thought 'bad fucking ass!', especially when Ichigo broke out of it – and leapt out of the space that Kurohitsugi took.

Not even the strongest barrier of the Kido corps could fully stand against the power of Captain Commander Yamamoto's Bankai. Sure, it held up against the brunt of the reiatsu, but even outside the barrier the reiatsu could be felt all across Seireitei at a Third Seat level reiatsu at the edges of Seireitei.

For the audience, it felt like the Captain Commander was present, and slightly miffed about something.

The strongest Zanpakuto in all of Soul Society, dwarfing even the full power of the Sokyoku that was said to have the power of a million Zanpakuto combined, was released completely. It was going to kick ass and chew human meat. And I was the Zanpakuto's 'human meat'.

"Oh shit..." I whispered pathetically as I stared at the gigantic winged dragon that was behind Yamamoto. Its wing span was easily eighty feet each wing, and its body was well over two hundred feet long. It was clearly made out of fire, as its entire body was burning with, surprisingly enough, what I assumed was tangible fire. Fire was energy, not matter. But it seemed that Yamamoto's Bankai gave physics the middle finger and said 'Screw the rules, I'm Densetsu no Ryuujin no Kaen, mother fucker!' to the established laws of physics.

And that wasn't all.

Yamamoto's body was surrounded by a flaming set of armour. There were two horns on the chin, and there were two holes in the helmet. One slitted and wide that allowed Yamamoto to see what was in front of him, and one on the chin that allowed his beard – which was strangely enough not burned – to waft in the wind, defying all sense and logic, because there was no wind. The armour was made out of tangible fire. The shoulder pads had three spikes on them, each giving off ominous flames. The Captain Commander's sword was flaming

Oh, and the flames were fucking white, with light blue outlines.

All of Yamamoto's flames that had been surrounding the edges of the extremely strong barrier became white with blue outlines to it, and began to rapidly swerve around Yamamoto, quickly building up something around him.

First, ribs were formed around him, well over three feet away from him so that he had some space. Then the skull formed as the flames continued to climb up. The skull had three eyes, one vertical eye on its forehead and the two in the normal human positions, similar to Aizen's most powerful form when he was up against Ichigo before Ichigo used the Final Getsuga Tensho. The eyes began to glow dark blue, as veins began to appear from nowhere as more and more fire poured onto it. The flames brushed against the two arms, creating muscles and strengthening the bones. Then armour came into being. From behind the thing that covered Captain Commander Yamamoto's form, the armour enveloped it, yet the entire thing was transparent, as opposed to the armour that Yamamoto clad. Like Yamamoto's personal white blue armour, the helmet had two horns, but as opposed to on the chin, this one had the two horns on its forehead. The shoulder pads too had three horns on each of it. In the strong hands of the thing that surrounded the Captain Commander were two swords, each sword proportionally large to the thing. The swords took the form of standard katana, albeit being made out of flames.

Basically, it was a two armed, armour clad, dual sword wielding Susanoo.

I didn't notice it, because I was too captivated by the likeness between the Susanoo technique and Yamamoto's Susanoo like spiritual construct, but the flames that had brushed up against the entire barrier's walls were gone, instead gathering to create the Captain Commander's construct.

The dragon made out of white fire then roared at me. Sure enough, the wind picked up massively, and I would have been sent to the barrier's wall that was facing the people looking at the battle with shock and awe, especially seeing as the legendary and highly spoken of Bankai of the over two thousand year old Captain Commander Yamamoto decided to show itself to the world.

And while the audience stared in surprise at their newly gained visibility of the action, I was fighting an internal battle.

Fight him.

Give up.

Those were my two options, and considering the circumstances, the option of giving up was very welcoming. I could sit down and rest, Konan sitting on my lap, Zabuza arguing with Haku for some reason – or rather Zabuza growling at Haku while Haku wistfully drank green tea – and Soul Society watching us shinobi with complete and utter fear.

I grinned widely, adding a slight touch of insanity in it. "Screw giving up, I'll fight until I can't fight anymore! That's my ninja way, and I'll protect it with my life!" I yelled out, letting go of my mental barriers on my killing intent. Thankfully I wasn't focusing the killing intent on anyone, so Yamamoto wouldn't be shivering in his fire clad armour from fear.

Then I did something really, really stupid. Though in proper hindsight, it was probably what made me survive the little spar, but it was still stupid enough to warrant blue balls for a month.

I activated my Susanoo.

The silvery chakra construct came into being quickly. I did not bother to take my time to create my Susanoo, seeing as intimidating Yamamoto was was as unlikely a toddler winning in a fight against the Sage Of The Six Paths to the death. In short, very, very unlikely. Especially since the Sage Of The Six Paths was stronger than I was, and I liked to consider myself dwarfing even the Fourth Hokage in general strength. I did have three tails worth of chakra, and said chakra was incredibly potent as well, judging by what Orochimaru said about me during the battle on the Kage booth rooftop. I had a huge library of techniques in my mind, well over a hundred different techniques and their many variations stored in my mind in each of the five elements. And I wasn't counting the apparent use of elemental combination focused bloodlines.

Twin Rinnegan popped into existence inside my Susanoo's eye sockets. They looked directly into the white Susanoo lookalike of the Captain Commander's with hatred and a humongous lust for blood and battle.

The three arms of my Susanoo flared to life, already covered in the angelic armour. Three tails wafted in the air, connected to my Susanoo's spine, a hole in the armour to accommodate the three tails.

The Sword Of Totsuka in its right hand, glowing, almost as if it was flaming with pure chakra. In one of its left hands was the Yata Mirror, a shield capable of blocking and deflecting any elemental attack, no matter the strength. The third arm sprouted off at the elbow of the left arm, and in its hand it held a gourd that was for sealing. I instinctively knew that if I wanted my Sword Of Totsuka to seal, it would. If I wanted it to cut, it would.

And if I wanted it to be lit aflame by the black blazes of Amaterasu, it would.

Suddenly, as if reading my thoughts, my Sword Of Totsuka lookalike lit alight by black flames, increasing its cutting power and adding the effect of burning through even the hottest of flames, seeing as Amaterasu was bound to be even hotter than even the flames of Yamamoto's Bankai.

Strangely enough, my flames had a red outline to it, exactly the opposite of my opponent's flames.

I didn't notice.

I was too far gone in a lust for blood. I wanted blood. No one would deny me my want for blood. I wanted to see my enemy's blood flow in all directions! I wanted to spill the blood of the Captain Commander! To hell with my plans of world peace and prosperity! Where the fucking fuck was the fun in world peace? How would natural selection happen if everyone used their brains and not their brawn? How would humanity survive if they didn't do something about the problems that is world peace? Well, screw all that philosophical bullshit I just spouted, though. I was cackling maniacally, lusting for battle and blood. In fact, so far gone I was in the blood lust that I didn't even notice my Susanoo growing in size. I was, in my extreme desire for a battle worthy of the halls of fame, subconsciously pouring my chakra into the Susanoo.

Then I snapped. The last defences in my mind against the strong desire for blood and battle all but crumbled. Only one last defence was in place, but it wouldn't trigger, so to speak.

I threw my head back and laughed with insane fervour. Oh, this was definitely the battle I was searching for all that time! I had sparred with Zabuza, knowing full well that if we had gone all out I would have won so badly. Simply because I was a better shinobi than him! I was a better shinobi than anyone, even the legendary and praised Hashirama Senju, who stood up against both the Nine Tailed Fox and Madara Uchiha at the same time, when Madara Uchiha had the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan in his cursed eye sockets and the Nine Tailed Fox under his full control.

I was powerful enough to be the second coming of the Sage Of The Six Paths!

Are you really?

What? Who said that? Actually, never mind who said that, I knew I was the second coming of the legendary Sage. However, I knew that in an all out battle I wouldn't stand a chance against the original Sage Of The Six Paths, but that didn't mean I wasn't the second coming of the Sage! I had the power to back it up, I just needed to know what the true nature of chakra was. If I couldn't find out the true nature of chakra, then I wouldn't be the second coming of the highly praised Sage.

Do you not realize that the true nature of chakra is not to be revealed to those of evil intent?

Who said that? I looked around wildly, a crazed glint in my eyes. "Is that you, Truth? Have you come to play games with me again?

I heard the voice inside my head sigh, sadness clearly evident in its voice. All of a sudden time seemed to slow down to a stop. Nothing moved. The barrier wasn't visually straining against the immense and boundary pushing reiatsu. Yamamoto's Bankai powered white and blue flames didn't flicker around wildly, searching for anything to burn. My Susanoo didn't waver at all.

Time had effectively stopped.

Something appeared in between me and Yamamoto. It seemed as if it were a ghost. It had no physical shape, seemingly distorting its form until it looked like a parody of the human shape. It had no visible gender, and judging by the voice that had been speaking directly to my head, it was sexless. Or rather, it spoke in a tone that betrayed nothing, no emotion flickered, no distinct tone could be heard. It was as if I was reading from a book, but in a way it still resounded within my head. It was without distinction. It was a truly ghostly voice. However, I hazarded a guess that the ghost was male, seeing as the upper body had no bumps whatsoever that would otherwise indicate breasts of a female. But neither did it have a bulge in between its two legs. So I got the distinct impression that it really had no gender.

The ghost glided over burnt rubble and still steaming – though the steam had stopped its ascent towards the top of the barrier due to the time stop – piles of rock. Nothing stopped its progress forwards. Not even when it made contact with my Susanoo. The chakra construct made way for the ghost. Then the ghost got precisely a foot in front of me.

For some mysterious reason, I was not scared of the apparition of a possibly deceased person. I couldn't explain it, the feeling of calmness and power that the spirit radiated. It made me feel at ease with myself. It completely evaporated the strong desire for blood and battle. It made me truly calm with myself. The closer the spirit got the calmer I felt. It was a strange feeling, having a calmness emotion flood me. It felt as if the ghostly spirit was the epitome and incarnation of the emotion called 'calm'. That was possibly the best way to explain it.

The ghost slowly but deliberately put its hands on my cheeks. Then it got closer and closer to my face. I just noticed that I could not move, I could not even blink, yet my eyes did not dry up or water. I could only stare deeply at what I assumed was the head of the ghost.

Suddenly the ghost formed a mouth that appeared to smile proudly. That was when I noticed that the ghost had actually formed its body more visibly while it had approached me. I had simply been staring at its head all the time. It had formed two bumps on its chest, not large, though. Definitely smaller than Konan's. For some reason, however, I felt ashamed of that thought, as if I had thought that my mother had small breasts or something along those lines.

So the ghost was actually female. Good to know, I guess.

The ghost then formed its nose, then its wrinkled cheeks, its forehead, and around its mouth was wrinkles that were without a doubt caused by smiling too much or something like that. Then the eyes. Its eyes, while they did not take a colour, had wrinkles around them, and were squinting, probably due to poor eyesight. But you could tell that they were proud, proud of the achievements of another.

It was as if the female ghost was proud of a child.

Are you prepared to know the true nature of chakra, my son?

I was mentally taken aback. This was not my mother. I knew – and remembered – my mother. She, for one, was smaller than me when I became seventeen. This ghost had formed its legs, and the legs' feet touched the ground. So that meant that the motherly ghost was just as tall as me, seeing as we met face to face. And I was well over a hundred years old, coma included. Second, my mother had much longer hair, reaching to her shoulder blades. This woman's hair was cropped short and tied to a tight bun that was leaning more on the right side than to the left side of the head.

However, I noticed too that she hadn't moved her mouth when she spoke. She apparently didn't have to move her mouth and produce sounds via her vocal chords to communicate with other people, namely me.

She was very old, appearing as if she had to be on a death bed.

I heard her voice, which had taken the distinction that females had in their voice. Just that this one was worn and old.

Are you prepared to face the values that the chakra that the books of your father left talked about has? Are you prepared to forever be bound to the true nature of chakra, my dearest and only son? You will be tested by the true nature of chakra, you will feel hatred, jealousy, greed, and other disgusting things that people feel when you are to spread around the teachings of chakra. Are you willing to face those challenges, my son?

I could move my arms again. I felt a certain numbness in them, but I knew I could move them. My Rinnegan were wide with wonderment. Who could this woman be? How was she able to communicate with me through telepathy? Actually, I didn't want to know how she could talk to me without moving her vocal chords. I felt the same numbness spread throughout my entire body. I could move my lips, form words with my voice. I decided to answer her with a simple answer. An answer I knew would satisfy both me and her. I felt the need to impress her above anything else. I felt as if I knew her from somewhere. I didn't know where from I knew her, I didn't know how or why I recognized her. I felt that I didn't care.

"Yes. I wish to know the true nature of chakra. I am ready to face the values of chakra father has written so much about. I will spread the teachings of chakra to the whole wide world. I am prepared to take the responsibilities that knowing the true nature of chakra onto my shoulders. I am prepared to face the hatred, the jealousy and the greed that people will expose me to. I will take as many disciples as possible in order to make everyone feel welcome. I will do what is necessary to discover the true nature of chakra," I hesitated, because for some reason, despite all those words, one struck me as incredibly important to say. "Mother."

I didn't know why I said those words. They just flooded out of me. I didn't know why I thought that this woman that had taken the form of a transparent ghost was my mother. She wasn't, because I had solid memories of my own mother. So why did I call this woman mother? Where did my wise sounding words come from? Where did my determination come from?

Why did I feel scared, yet excited, to know what chakra's real nature was?

The ghost's smile widened, still wearing its proud properties.

The woman opened her squinting eyes. I took a sharp intake of precious air, though it was highly unneeded to do so.

She had the Rinnegan. And despite the white transparency of her body, the Rinnegan maintained its purple colour.

The true nature of chakra, my son, is to protect your loved ones, your precious people. You will be known for your eyes, my son. You will gain power beyond measure, yet you will face things that will terrify other people. You will face the worst enemy humanity has to offer; itself. You will succeed in earning peace and the trust of humankind. You will become the Sage Of The Six Paths.

My Rinnegan eyes widened even further. "So I am the second coming of the Sage Of The Six Paths?" I hesitated slightly once again. "Mother?"

The smile that the woman had waned, almost frowning.

You are my son. The woman you think to be your mother has been taking care of you in my stead, so that you could grow up. I knew your 'mother' and your 'father' would separate violently. I knew you would grieve over the loss of a father figure. I knew you would lose all your friends by moving. I knew that you would feel the sadness that life can give. I knew everything that had happened in your previous life. It was all necessary for you to know sadness. To make sure no one would face pain of loneliness and the pain of abandonment ever again.

My anger simmered. So this woman, supposedly my mother, had known about my life? Had known about the sadness I had been through? Why would she, my supposed mother, want her child to face such bad things that humanity offers? Why would she want her supposed child go through such pains that life has to offer? It was unfair!

Tears prickled my eyes, and to resist the tears I closed them. I didn't get to see my true mother smile both warmly and proudly.

You have faced so much pain. You have witnessed the pain that other people have gone through and been broken by. You will gain power beyond measure, to protect your loved ones. You will be the only one who will have this power. The power to protect is a power many have. Yet to protect everyone is an impossibility unless you have omnipresence. Even I, a hopeful mother of a powerful son, knows that. So therefore, with my eyes, I will grant you that power. The power of omnipresence. You will be everywhere, yet nowhere at the same time. You will effectively be immortal.

My jaws dropped in surprise. "The Rinnegan can do that? And what do you mean, the true nature of chakra is to protect loved ones?" I asked, dropping questions left and right. Though it was only one question each direction.

The smile on the woman got smug, yet somehow retaining its pride... for me. She was proud of me, for what I had become. Despite the blood and battle lust I had. She was proud of me. Of me. The feeling made me warm and fuzzy inside.

In that order, yes. The Rinnegan is a true gift from the Gods. As for your second question, no. The true nature of chakra is not to protect loved ones. It is to protect as many people as possible. And with the power I will give you by merging my Rinnegan with yours, you will be able to be everywhere, witness everything at the same time. You will have the power to help everyone. At the same time, even. With omnipresence one is able to literally be everywhere. You can create solid clones that can take damage, as opposed to the clones that can only get one hit. Basically you can be several places at once, and all because of the power of omnipresence.

Then her smile, my mother's smile, turned sad.

I wish I could give you omnipotence and omniscience, but those are literal impossibilities, even for us Rinnegan wielders. The Gods of the Realms, or as you call them, 'universes', themselves, the ones that have given me these eyes, are not capable of omniscience and omnipotence. They are close, but they realize that they cannot have it. However, they can grant others the power of themselves. They can grant us the power to help people get along. They have granted you the rights for omnipresence. Use it wisely, my dearest and only son.

Then she walked towards me. Slowly approaching me. "Wait," I said in a small voice. I sounded pathetic, if I had taken a second to recognize my own voice.

The ghost- no... my true mother heard the small request, though. She stopped her slow approach. She said something without opening her mouth.

Yes, my son?

"Who... are you?" I asked. "For that matter, who is my real father? Do I have any sisters? Brothers? The one I thought was my mother had actually adopted me? If you are my mother, then why can't I remember you? How do I not remember an orphanage if I have been adopted? Why do you say that I am the Sage Of The Six Paths, not the second coming of the Sage Of The Six Paths? What do you mean, omnipresence grants me the ability to make clones? Wait, I actually understand that one, it's like that one cat vampire from Hellsing that was literally everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Does that mean I can't die from being damaged? And besides that, what abilities does the Rinnegan also have, besides the one I already know of? There's control over gravity, there's sucking in chakra, there's super strength and speed, there's the ability to interrogate people and tell if they're lying or not as long as you have a good hold of them, there's the ability to resurrect people, there's taking the very soul out of a person, then there's the summoning of all things that the Rinnegan wielder wants to summon, and for a merged Rinnegan, there's omnipresence, as long as it's allowed by the Gods Of The Realms, right?"

While I had been truly letting loose on my questions, my true mother's smiled got wider and wider, until finally it was a full blown toothy grin. Her open Rinnegan eyes sparkled with amusement.

Now now, my genius son. Can you not figure out some of those yourself? In that order, I will answer you. I am Izanami no Mikoto. I am the supposed Goddess of Creation and Death. The first bearer of the Rinnegan, given to me by the real Gods Of The Realms. Your father, and yes, this will sound disgusting, is my brother, Izanagi no Mikoto. Two siblings, but both are dead. Hiruko, the brother, and Awashima, the sister. They were deformed when they were born, not real divine spirits, so we sent them to the Elemental Nations, or as we called them, the Great Islands. They died shortly after they landed in the Great Islands. Your birth was perfect. Perfect in every way. You were formed perfectly. Your birth was famous among us Gods, and for some reason, the Gods Of The Realms were highly interested in you. However, before we could answer to their pleas to see you and give you gifts of power, I died and went to the Underworld. And as for you, you were visited by the Gods Of The Realms. You were given a destiny by Fate, one of the Gods Of The Realms. You would attain the same eyes as I. You would be given the power of omnipresence. You would give peace to the Greatest Of The Realms. The Realm you identify as 'Naruto'. That is still a task that awaits you, though. You will return to that Realm to rectify your past mistakes.

And as for your biological mother, she gave physical birth to you, my son. You were to live in a sad, chaotic, random place that would teach you sadness and pain. The Gods Of The Realms saw something in you, and I believe that it was the peace of the Greatest Of The Realms that they saw in your future.

You don't remember me because I haven't merged with you yet.

You were not adopted.

As for why I call you the Sage Of The Six Paths, you will have to discover yourself.

Yes, you will receive damage like any other person. You can just regenerate that damage by believing yourself to be somewhere else in that point of time.

None. A merged Rinnegan grants true omnipresence. That 'cat vampire' did not have the true gift of omnipresence. That can only be given by the Gods Of The Realms.

And that is correct. A merged Rinnegan gives the user, you, true omnipresence. There is no one else who is able to be everywhere yet nowhere at the same time. Not even that 'cat vampire'... because he can't travel between Realms as he pleases, can he?

Before I could answer my true Goddess mother she flung herself quickly at me, as if to tightly hug me, and she merged with my body.

Memories returned to me.

I was truly the son of Izanagi no Mikoto, he who invites, and Izanami no Mikoto, she who invites.

Which made me become disgusted. Really? Izanagi and Izanami were siblings, for christ's sake! It was incest! But oh well, my mother did mention that my birth was perfect in every way. I didn't understand how it was perfect, but screw perfection, I had a battle to fight!

But I felt the burning need to acknowledge some of my mother's wise words.

"I will protect those I love," I began, determination damn near visible in my voice. My voice broke through the barriers of time and carried throughout the entire Sokyoku hill, heard by everyone. The flames slowly began to sway back and forth, the Amaterasu flames that were outlined an ominous red began wafting backwards and forwards again, the steam still left over from my great water dragon began to calmly ascend upwards. "I will defend those I can defend," I continued. I saw Yamamoto's well muscled chest begin to rise and fall, the white and light blue flames burning again.

Then I yelled out, "Because that is the true nature of chakra! And I'm nothing if not chakra incarnate!"

In an explosion of pure silver chakra I felt my chakra capacity multiply several times, beyond what I believed to be the combined chakra of all the nine Tailed Beasts. I felt knowledge come from my eyes, knowledge of the Asura Path's true ability to create multiple arms and create several robotic machines to aid in combat. I felt my control over my chakra become perfect. I felt knowledge seep quickly from my eyes that my blood and battle lust from using the Mangekyo Sharingan abilities would cease to exist. I felt the knowledge being sent to my brain that my omnipresence had yet to take effect. Merging Rinnegan would take some time, several months, in fact, or so my knowledge told me.

I felt godlike. But I would use the power I just got to help people, to rescue innocents, to save people from themselves. I would use it to protect humanity.

Let the true, all out fight between giants begin.


Author's note: I am really, really proud of this chapter. I researched a little bit on Shinto mythology, so some of the mythological stuff should be true. Not Izanami having the Rinnegan, obviously, seeing as the Samsara Eye, the Rinnegan for those not in the know, is purely Naruto.

And can you guess what Izanami no Mikoto meant when she said that Shinji Takuma was the Sage Of The Six Paths? Because that's right. He is. He is, after all, the perfect being born from an imperfect marriage. Perfection born from imperfection. The imperfection being the marriage between sister and brother, of course. Yuck, whoever had invented those two gods sure had incest as a fetish, or didn't particularly mind it.

And as for the true nature of chakra (about protecting everyone and everything that's worth protecting, basically), who won't see that one coming as an ass pull from Kishimoto-sama for some reason or other? Seriously, it's common knowledge that the secret behind chakra is to protect. It's common manga sense that the secret behind chakra is to protect the innocent, the loved ones, and those that deserve to be saved. Seriously...

And I know that removing the blood lust (thus a consequence to using power), making Shinji have more chakra than the combination of all the Tailed Beasts (*SPOILER ALERT* but something will happen that will surprise you, though, for those who dislike godlike characters! *SPOILER ALERT*), giving him perfect control over said chakra, is more godlike than any other character – except the fused SS4 version of Vegeta and Goku. Those guys can pound anything with a flick of a fucking wrist to dust! – you have read about. But hey, it's my story, isn't it? I just hope that you will say something along the lines of 'this fucking sucks now that you've made Shinji more powerful than the Sage Of The Six Paths – who beat the Ten Tailed Beast, by the way!' or something. I'm totally fine if you flame me. Even if it's not constructive. I'll be more than happy to converse civilly with you as long as you're willing to converse.

BY THE WAY, MERRY CHRISTMAS! THIS IS MY GIFT TO YOU! :D

And I don't care what you say, I'll say Merry Christmas if I fucking feel like it. :D