Chapter 13: Of Gods and Men Part 2
By: DragoonMen
'Human Thinking'
"Human Speaking"
Technique/Jutsu Use
'Bijū/Non-Human Thinking'
"Bijū/Non-Human Talking"
Published: 23/Nov/2020
Pre-Chakra Era Arc
Year of the Chakra Event
Chapter 13
—Land of the Ancestors—
So no Kuni Countryside
"Susanoo (Tempestuous God of Valor)!" Hagoromo was instantly shrouded in blue Chakra from head to toe. Skeletal hands and ribs forming at his sides, the upper ethereal limbs rising high rapidly to meet the stomping foot of the Jūbi.
Hagoromo mimicked the action inside his defensive technique, extending his arms while his hands grasped thin air. The humanoid Chakra structure following every action from its user flawlessly.
Once he stopped the Jūbi from crushing him like an ant, he grasped the feet of the Tailed Beast and with mighty effort threw off the Jūbi from his balance axis. The Chakra entity fell on the earth hard, flattening a small hill under his form.
Hagoromo panted after that. The herculean effort of lifting the gigantic abomination took a toll on his Chakra reserves but he carried on, making his Susanoo evolve into the stage necessary to go head to head with the former Shinju tree.
Jigen watched the battle unfold from one of the new peaks created by the battle with the Jūbi. His choice of clothes looking worse than their owner, tattered and only keeping themselves together by their own tendrils. Safe to say that Jigen looked like a homeless man.
A massive blue avatar began to grow from the position the eldest of the twins stood, slowly increasing in size and volume, acquiring the form of a Samurai-like warrior with a demonic face and an ethereal katana on his side.
The two titanic figures took all of the spotlight on the barren wasteland that was now the land of the Ancestors.
Turning his head to the side, Jigen watched as Hamura was in a hurry to stop his mother from intervening in the battle of his sibling, exchanging Elemental Style attacks with her which did little to nothing to affect her.
Jigen stared as both siblings continued fighting. The battle with Kaguya has been going for nearly two months straight by now, this was also the reason that Jigen was now standing in the sideways for the moment.
He and the twins had been taking turns in resting, eating, and replenishing their Chakra to continue the resistance against the Rabbit Goddess. An impossible and taxing task if Jigen said so.
Unfortunately for them, the Mother of Chakra seemed to possess almost endless stamina and unfathomably large reserves of Chakra. The woman that had birthed Hagoromo and Hamura revealed only little signs of fatigue while they were already straining to stay on their feet.
Jigen was no medic but even he could tell that fighting without resting properly and having a constant good source of nourishment would be only detrimental to his health and those of the twins.
Jigen stood idly in the meantime, a position necessary to gather Nature Energy required to enter Sennin Mōdo after his reserves of Nature Energy had been depleted.
Jigen gathered some Nature Energy but was forced to move into motion once more after seeing Hamura having a rough time with Kaguya, launching himself forward into the air to offer him the much needed support.
"Need help?" Jigen launched himself next to Hamura. The twin sparing him an annoyed look at the sarcasm on the remark.
"If it isn't much trouble..." Hamura's own sarcasm was cut short when her mother tried to impale him with a spike formed from her hand. Her Tomogorishi no Haikotsu (All Killing Ash-Bones) trying to impale her son and Jigen but they evaded the incoming attack thanks to pure speed alone.
Hamura and Jigen started attacking the Usagi no Megami shortly after evading her Kekkei Mora technique, using pure Taijutsu to try and overpower her. They hoped that they could wear her down long enough to get a hit.
Hours passed and night fell on the land, it seemed like another day was going to be dragged and consumed in the endless struggle that Kaguya had with her sons and allies until something miraculously happened.
Jigen managed to land a lucky hit on Kaguya's chest. The man from Ka had noted that every time the Ten-Tails would do an attack on Hagoromo it would result in Kaguya pausing her current actions for a second, something that could be passed out as exhaustion but for Jigen's extraordinary observation skills it meant something else. It was a battle on two fronts played by one single individual.
After all, it was the first time that Kaguya was engaging herself with the Jūbi down to a mental level, it was understandable that she would not have enough experience to do it flawlessly even after two months.
Jigen had concluded these facts a week ago but he had never got the chance to test it with Kaguya. The woman had stood her ground and they usually had the constant need to relieve themselves from the battle to rest like the mortals they were.
Kaguya was linked to the Jūbi which required orders from her to continue furthering his assault, orders that needed time to be thought, processed and sent to the Chakra entity via the Rinne-Sharingan; the Neural Bridge between them.
Every time that Kaguya would need to control the Jūbi for more accurate moves it would leave her vulnerable and susceptible to attacks for a split second while she did so.
The blow had been synchronized just in time as the Jūbi was preparing to attack once more the Rinnegan bearer, effectively closing the Tenketsu on said body part and cutting the Chakra flow running from her shoulder and left arm, pushing Kaguya for the first time in months into the defense.
Hamura and Jigen profited from this momentary moment of weakness and started to relentlessly attack her.
Kaguya seeing that with her handicapped arm she could not put a decent fight, let her own hair rolled her up like a chrysalis, protecting her from outside attacks much like an armadillo. The keratine in her hair hardening to an unprecedented degree.
"Come out. I thought you were all bite and no talk." Jigen taunted, hoping to lure Kaguya out of her hair shell but the woman was not as naive as he would think.
The sphere of fur resumed being in the receiving end of Jigen and Hamura onslaught until it finally reached its own breaking point when cracks began to appear on its surface.
Jigen stopped his barrage of strikes when he watched as the hair-made cocoon began to increase in size, raising his apprehension before quickly vacating the area until the cocoon finally exploded, sending hair in the form of needles in all possible directions outwards.
Thanks to his reflexes, Jigen managed to get out of harm's way successfully after beholding the strange build-up of Chakra inside the hairball.
However, Hamura lingered on the scene for half a second longer, enough for one of the needles to get embedded on his leg, causing a hemorrhage when said needle cut out his leg artery.
"Arghh!" Hamura grasped his injured leg and began to plummet into the hard ground, his levitation failing due to the pain spiking on his mind in such short amount of time that it made him lose the concentration needed to perform it.
"Brother!" Hagoromo used the huge hand of his Susanoo to prevent his sibling from slamming into the earth and shattering like an egg.
"Look out!" Jigen warned them when he saw the Jūbi began to prepare another Bijūdama (Tailed Beast Ball) in their direction.
Hagoromo saw this and by using the other free hand from his Chakra avatar, he raised his Susanoo's katana. A second later the Jūbi shot his attack.
The Bijūdama raced in the form of a thin laser beam which impacted on the blade of Hagoromo's gigantic technique.
The Jūbi's Chakra beam once upon impacting on the Chakra-made katana was forcefully divided into smaller laser beams that impacted in the sideways of the land, exploding upon contact and rearranging the soil once again.
After the attack, Hagoromo's Susanoo vanished, letting the wind dispel the Chakra remnants away. Immediately, the bearer of the Rinnegan flew to his sibling's side on the ground, ready to put his vast medical knowledge into use.
"Shin!" Hagoromo shouted at his cousin making him give all his attention towards him.
"Stall her for as long as you can while I heal Hamura, please!" Hagoromo said with destination. There were tears threatening to spill from his purple eyes and his hand began to glow green indicating its purpose of the task ahead.
Jigen nodded in understanding, putting himself out of earshot and in the way between the two brothers and Kaguya with the Jūbi, shielding them from any incoming attacks.
"You are not going to last much longer. Your numbers are waning." Isshiki Ōtsutsuki commented after seeing the damage taken by Hamura, rendering him useless for the time being and leaving them one man less strong.
'I am open to suggestions' Jigen hurried his tenant to express his point.
"Nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. If we don't finish this right now we are done for good." Leave it to the alien to point out the obvious.
'I already know that, but then how can we best her?' A sweat trailed down Jigen's chin. If it was because of the fear or the weariness no one could tell.
"You will have to let me..." The alien began.
'No! We already talked about this' Jigen quickly shot down his idea. He knew what the Ōtsutsuki was implying in that sentence and he did not want to hear the end of it for sure.
"If you don't lend me the control of the situation then we both are going to join the worms under our feet very soon." Isshiki forced him to face reality. The pale alien knew that Jigen did not trust him blindly after the Kinpu incident.
The reason for the mistrust was the massacre that Isshiki had done in Jigen's name, even when he had explained to him that he had done so in their best interest.
However, the horned alien had failed to see earlier that Jigen had been close to one of the victims of that night.
Since then, the human had never let him take control of his body again. That was the reason he had tried to become more friendly to Jigen, to gain his trust once again but the raven-haired prove to be a bone hard to chew.
Jigen had forgiven him for that transgression on his person but that did not mean that he had forgotten about it, not after that night.
"Don't be prideful, human. I am more experience in fighting than you lot combined." Isshiki offered.
"She knows it and you know it. Our survival is at stake here. Don't let your petty emotions get the better of you." Jigen meditated on Isshiki's words. He knew the alien spoke with reason but he also did not like the idea of surrendering his will and risking to have another accident happening while he is in no position to do anything about it.
"What would your mother say to you, huh?" Isshiki pressed on, using the memory of his vessel's loved ones against him. He almost had him on his bag.
'She would probably say 'Take it'. Not wanting to see her son dead' Jigen knew that his mother would always encourage him into taking the leap if that meant his safety. Either way, the decision was out of his hands once again.
After some moments, Jigen conceded to the Celestial. 'Fine... just once'
Isshiki did not say anything, letting his actions speak for him. Jigen felt his consciousness start to fade, welcoming the feeling instead of fighting the pull as Isshiki gained control over his earthly body.
Hagoromo watched from his crouched position over his injured brother as Shin's skin began to turn paler. His cousin's backside started to turn sickly white as magatama marks began appearing on his skin at a vertical angle all over his spine.
Jigen's body began to undergo drastic changes. His skin turned pale much like an albino, matching the late Ōtsutsuki skin tone with his muscles bulging out slightly. There were also Magatama marks appearing out of nowhere on his body like on his torso, neckline and backside.
Hagoromo gaped in surprise as Shin's hair started to ashen to a color similar to Hamura and when the man peered a single white eye to check on him the purple-eyed twin has to admit that he did not feel like Shin was watching out for him, instead, he felt like an entirely new person was standing right in front of him.
When Jigen blinked once again, a new person was looking right through his eyes. Isshiki for the first time in two decades could see the world in first person and not through some intermediary like the last nineteen years.
"At last, we face one another, Ōtsutsuki Kaguya. We were fated to battle once again." Those were the words that Isshiki used to greet Kaguya for the first time in two decades.
"We?" Kaguya's monotone voice asked in clear confusion.
Isshiki grinned at her and the Goddess stopped breathing for a second when she saw that grin. A grin so unique and distinctive of a certain dead partner that she had known. A smile that she had been accustomed to see for eons.
"How?..." She muttered under breath, looking paler than usual.
"As I promised, you will pay for that." Kaguya frowned at the reply. The Jūbi however did not care for base banter and opened his mouth where Chakra began to accumulate on said orifice until it fired, closing the distance between both parties in a second.
Isshiki waited for the attack, raising his marked hand to meet the Chakra-powered attack, confident in his newest ability.
When the Bijūdama was inches away from touching Isshiki it suddenly stopped, confusing Kaguya.
The Tailed Beast technique started shrinking in size until disappearing, seconds later it revealed that the one behind that action was Isshiki. The Kāma Seal absorbing the Chakra-made attack and storing it for later use.
"Is that all you got?" Another Bijūdama was fired at the man, meeting the same fate as its predecessor.
"Come on! Impress me." A red lightning bolt was sent at him from one of the black clouds in the sky, no doubt it was courtesy of Kaguya. The bolt much like the Bijūdama was absorbed too, further proving to Kaguya that it any form of Ninjutsu was useless against him.
The Ten-Tails continued to barrage Isshiki with Bijūdamas of smaller sizes, each one of them meeting the same fate as the others until the Tailed Beast got inside his primitive mind that it was a waste of time and began attacking him with his tails, only making the possessed man jump in frenzy all round the battlefield.
"My turn." Isshiki raised the same arm he used to trap all the techniques fired at him, forming a massive black Chakra Ball from his marked hand palm. The offensive technique crackled with all elements, arching all over its form and unleashing it into his enemy's location.
With her Rinne-Sharingan, Kaguya managed to figure out and trace all possible trajectories of the attack, easily avoiding it but for the Jūbi even with his own dōjutsu could not do so due to his massive size anchoring his weight to the ground.
The ancient Chakra entity only could raise his tails in front of him, keeping the blast at bay, making the mighty creature of Chakra step back before the attack exploded moments later, sending the former Shinju sprawling across the land more or less intact.
Several meters from the position behind Jigen, Hamura spoke. "Hagoromo, are you seeing what I am seeing?"
"I do so, brother." Hagoromo returned his attention to his medical task after seeing the Tailed Beast being blown off its hind legs.
"We have to help him. This is our chance." Hamura expounded still seated on the ground. His first raising as if to rally his brother before wincing because of the sudden movement.
"Just some seconds left." Hagoromo said while healing the leg of his foolish brother as quickly as possible.
In another place, Isshiki in Jigen's body smirked when he saw the giant beast went down but soon that smile was wiped off his face when he saw Kaguya's red dōjutsu spinning madly in his direction.
OoOoOoO
—Lava Dimension—
Suddenly, the entire landscape around Isshiki's changed from the lifeless barren wasteland into a red volcanic biome.
It all happened in just a blink but Isshiki knew this was some kind of strange ability from Kaguya if her third eye indicated him something previously. He wondered where did the twins and the Bijū had gone.
Hagoromo and Hamura in the original world were also reeling in shock, they have never seen something like this before. One moment Shin and Kaguya were fighting, the next they were gone, leaving them alone with the Tailed Beast.
Amenominaka (Heavenly Governing Inside) was a curious technique, only able to be used by a Rinne-Sharingan user. This Space-Time Jutsu was one of a kind, instead of transporting the user to an alternate dimension, it brought the dimension to the user and any other living matter surrounding him in a certain radius.
Of course, doing this technique required a hellish amount of Chakra, a quantity too high that any other user bar Kaguya would drop dead the second they performed it.
Interestingly, the Jūbi and the twins were not transported to the Lava world meaning that Kaguya and Isshiki were alone to face-off uninterrupted.
"Where are we?" Kaguya remained silent, refusing to give any kind of answer to Isshiki.
Kaguya launched herself at Isshiki with bones protruding from her body, engaging Isshiki in a heated Taijutsu fight.
"You are gonna make me beat it out of you." Isshiki commented after reflecting with incredible deftness some of Kaguya's bone projectiles from her fingers.
"Suit yourself then." Isshiki went on the offensive, impressing Kaguya with a fighting style that she had never seen before, making her lose ground slowly due to the power of his strikes.
"How?!" Kaguya asked once again with anger, he wasn't meant to be alive.
"You should already know, little princess." Isshiki smirked and showed her the mark on his hand palm from his position, mocking her for never taking that fact into consideration when she killed him.
Kaguya stared at his hand. "To think that you would stop as low a letting yourself be reborn." She ridiculed him. "And in a human nonetheless, truly the Ōtsutsuki Clan has fallen to a new low." Kaguya added before going silent.
Isshiki laughed the insults off. "Like if you are one to talk." He snickered before pointing at her. "Breeding with the cattle and mingling with apes in your own volition, that is having no value in yourself altogether." Kaguya looked furious at those words. "Shame on you for giving birth to those abominations, traitor." Kaguya couldn't take it anymore and attacked him.
"One of us will die today." Kaguya leveled the ground where Isshiki was standing, sinking it into the lava and making the man jump into the air before levitating.
"It won't be me I assure you." Isshiki said once he was at the height of the woman. "I will reunite you with your pet lover, Tenji." Isshiki was pleased to watch as Kaguya snarled at that. Clearly, he had touched a sensitive topic in there.
"Tell him when you meet him on the other side that his pleas for mercy were like music for my ears." That phrase started all hell in this inferno dimension.
"I will end you, once and for all!" She roared as Chakra fists encompassed her hands.
"Yasogami Kūgeki (Eighty Gods Vacuum Attack)." She whispered as thousands of Chakra blue fists came flying into Isshiki's direction from the sleeve of her kimono, encircling him in less than a second.
'Ohhh, she is mad already' Isshiki thought wickedly, cherishing the fact that he had struck a nerve in her cold demeanor.
Isshiki raised his hand to absorb most of the strikes while dodging those he could not.
"You loved him?" Isshiki said with disdain seeping in his voice after seeing how aggressive she had become after he mocked that weak man.
"You are not the Kaguya I once knew indeed. The Kaguya I met was one efficient and ruthless, not the emotional pile of garbage you are." The Rabbit Goddess pointed his finger at him and bones in the form of bullets came flying.
Isshiki managed to dodge almost all of them but one, that one managed to pierce him on his chest.
Isshiki grunted, clutching the bleeding thumb-sized hole on his torso. "You will never be Clan Head, not even if you desperately tried to do so with a cadet branch off your own." He spatted before brushing off the pain of his healing ability. The bloody projectile being expelled through the same path that it carved in the man moments before, falling in the lava pool beneath him, the wound regenerating.
Kaguya stared at him hard and her hair began to move wildly, expelling large quantities of Chakra and making the lava under her feet ripple.
Isshiki look confused before feeling a migraine like he had never experience before afflict him all of the sudden.
Isshiki grasped his head before a punch on his abdomen sent him flying and crashing into a volcanic rock wall.
"Damm you." Isshiki muttered in pain, the outline of his body clearly marked in the hard wall with cracks.
Kaguya appeared from upside. The woman was staring at him, trying to put him into a Genjutsu.
Isshiki felt the same intrusive sensation on his head once again, making him disoriented.
The woman on the air began to approach him, a spear-like bone forming from her wrist and reaching her knees height.
'What can I do?' Isshiki began to look everywhere for something to help him get out of this situation before his eyes landed on the boulder-sized stalactite hanging on the ceiling.
He raised one his arms, pretending to trying to get out of the crater.
Isshiki closed his eyes and decided to let her believe she had got him. His encephalon was more evolved than those of the simple man but he could still feel the pull from her, trying her hardest to put him into her Mind Control Technique.
Kaguya stopped her movement once she was inches away from him.
"I won." She whispered to him, her arm wrist with the bone spear rearing to deal the killing blow to Isshiki.
"No, I won..." Isshiki opened his eyes instantly and before Kaguya's Rinne-Sharingan could know what happened, she was already falling to the ground with a boulder on her back.
Isshiki smirked proudly, she had really underestimated him if she thought he would go down so easily. He had used the same trick she had used to get the upper hand on him in their first fight, the Gravity Manipulation Technique proving once more its usefulness in battle.
"Even if you managed to trick me, my eyes are superior to yours. Give up." Isshiki's surprise could not be measured when a voice filled the silence that had prevailed for a few seconds by now. The boulder lifted itself to reveal Kaguya once again, crouching.
"We will see about that." He dared her to do something.
Kaguya raised her hand to her left side. "No, we won't." A portal materialized thanks to her hand gesture.
"This dimension is now yours." A black portal materialized on Kaguya's left side.
Yomutsu Hirasaka (Underworld Slope Hill) as opposed to Amenominaka opened a portal to one of the pocket dimensions at the disposal of the caster instead of bringing the entire dimension down to the user's location. It also consumed Chakra but in fewer quantities due to his simpleness.
Isshiki's eyes widened when he realized the meaning of those words, his body launching to her position, consequences be dammed. "No, you are not leaving me here."
OoOoOoO
—Land of the Ancestors—
So no Kuni Countryside
ROAR!
"Subdue him!" Hamura yelled from his position where he was trying to restrain the Chakra Beast, sinking the earth under its feet.
"I am!" Hagoromo yelled. He was using Wood Style to keep the Ten-Tails under control but it proved to be a difficult task.
The Jūbi thrashed around the land in his grounded position uncontrollably, trying to break free from the wooden roots restraining his tails and body down.
Hagoromo was using a rare Elemental Nature Transformation that by mixing Earth and Water it allowed the user the power to use plants and control anything plant-related. It also had the ability to drain Chakra.
The eldest of the twins had just discovered this fact when he tried to combine an Earth Jutsu with a Water one some minutes ago. The result accidentally appearing as wooden tentacles sprouting from the ground.
Unknown to him, the Rinnegan was also a decisive factor in this new development, giving Hagoromo total control of all Five Chakra Natures including a sixth one known as Ōnmyoton (Ying-Yang Style) but he still did not know that yet.
"It's done!" The purple-eyed twin shouted after leaving the Jūbi completely immobile.
At that moment, a black portal opened some meters next to the restrained form of the Tailed Beast with Isshiki being expelled out from it like a cannonball and crashing on the ground below.
"Shin!" Hamura called out in concern to his cousin while Hagoromo ran to his fallen form.
The eldest of the twins helped Isshiki unto his feet. "Hey, are you alright?"
"Yes..." Hagoromo could tell that Shin was dazed, no doubt from the damage of the fall he had just taken. Also, his voice sounded deeper than his normal self.
"Where is mother?" Hamura asked after looking everywhere around them. Isshiki just pointed at the portal upwards where Kaguya arrived once again through the rift to join the battle once more.
"We have to continue the resistance." Isshiki said to both brothers.
"We already tried everything. She is unstoppable." Hagoromo argued, they had already tried everything but he was willing to continue.
"What else can we do?!" Hamura argued to his brother, his morale low already.
While Isshiki heard the discussion between the two brothers his mind wandered to other places, striving to formulate a way to win this battle.
'Hamura is right we have already tried everything' From the little tactics that he had had whispered to Jigen in these two months, trying to overwhelm her by sheer numbers and by finding ways to trick her Rinne-Sharingan, they all had failed and this was unheard of.
Isshiki knew that Kaguya was strong, she had always been but now she was practically undefeatable at this point.
'That never wasn't the case' The alien man had to admit that.
Isshiki accepted that the only reason he had died at Kaguya's hands the first time was because she had attacked him while he was unaware of her foul intentions but if he hadn't then things would be very different, he would have wiped the floor with her for sure.
It then clicked in Isshiki's mind the reason for Kaguya's seemingly limitless power.
The Chakra Fruit
Kaguya after eating the sacred fruit had awakened powers that had only been seen and heard in their Clan's millenary history rare times.
'The only way I could match her is if only I ate a Chakra Fruit of my own' But it was impossible since he would have to wait another thousand years for it to grow and he didn't have a millennium to spare right now.
'Unless...' Isshiki looked to his left, at the squirming trapped Bijū next to him.
"His Chakra... Chakra Fruit!" Isshiki exclaimed bringing the banter of both twins to an end, gazing at him.
'How could I be so stupid? How?!'
It was the Chakra all along. The Chakra Fruit was only something that could be grown by a Shinju naturally but in its core it was a Chakra-made artifact.
The fruit was made by the same Chakra as the Shinju meaning that Isshiki could made —or tried to— one for himself if he forcefully extracted the raw material which is produced from the Jūbi himself.
Isshiki looked at his right palm, more basically at the Kāma Seal implanted there. The alien had managed to absorb the Chakra of Elemental Techniques hurled at him and stored it for later use. An ability that he had never possessed before.
'Who is to say that I can extract the Chakra of someone or something by sheer will' It was a huge gamble but even if he failed, they would lost anyway.
"Hagoromo." Isshiki watched as the twin acknowledged him. "Stall your mother for as long as you can."
"Hamura." The younger twin just looked in his direction slightly, waiting for orders. "Give him support."
"I have a plan. A good one. Do not let her interfere with what I am about to do." Both twins nodded, ready to spring into action.
"Make every single second count." The brothers launched themselves in the air to confront their mother, letting Shin carry out his own perilous task unmolested.
Isshiki placed himself before the Jūbi and outstretched his marked hand palm in his direction. The Bijū roared with fury trying to get this little man between his jaws but the wooden tendrils that had him captive kept him from doing so.
"Give me your Chakra, beast!" Isshiki shouted at the winds, carrying the order and mixing it with the sounds of the fighting between the Mother of Chakra and her sons in the back.
Isshiki watched as red Chakra began to manifest all around the Tailed Beast body, amassing itself in the former Shinju head.
Isshiki strained himself more and to his surprise, the strange type of Chakra began to leave the surface of the primordial Chakra Beast and traveled through the air and into his palm, connecting them.
A shiver ran through Isshiki's physical body when he made contact with the Ten-Tails Chakra, the sensation was exhilarating and energizing to say the least.
Kaguya's confidence in winning the fight began to vanish when she felt the link with the Jūbi began to diminish abruptly.
Her amazement couldn't be more obvious when she witnessed the reason for the loss of communication with the Bijū but she could not do anything to stop that unless going through her sons standing between her which was proving quite hard to do.
Isshiki drew more and more enormous amounts of demonic Chakra from the Ten-Tails, amounts that were impossible to be held or attained by a mortal man ever.
"Just some more." Isshiki felt like vomiting but resisted the urge to do so, he had to end this now.
Isshiki struggled to continue extracting Chakra from the Tailed abomination, the Chakra siphoned to Isshiki never halting in the process.
Kaguya let out a barrage of fists in his direction and unto her sons. Her Yasogami Kūgeki released to stop whatever her former clansmen was doing.
The attack landed all over the form of the Jūbi and Isshiki, damaging the creature but also destroying the wooden tentacles that held him down, freeing him on the spot.
"Was that enough?" The brown-haired man questioned to his cousin, hoping to have an affirmative answer or else he would be very disappointed in himself.
"Just enough." Isshiki smiled, raising his palm to his mouth where a small Chakra black pill laid bare.
'I really hope that was enough' With that in mind, he swallowed the pill, feeling the change instantly.
Isshiki dropped to his knees and clutched his right eye to where the pain was spreading once again. The wounds on Jigen's body like the arrow wound on his shoulder and the piercing mark on his belly vanishing all the sudden.
Hagoromo and Hamura just watched as Isshiki grunted in pain after watching him swallow something from his hand.
Hamura activated his Byakugan and gasped. The twin had done this to try and look to see what was wrong with Shin but when he had looked at him he has to keep himself from reeling in shock.
An enormous amount of Chakra gathered in the Tenketsu near Shin's right eye, leaving Hamura stunned and asking himself how was that possible.
"It's done." Isshiki rise up once again and gone was his hand on his eye. The action giving way to the appearance of a new dojūtsu on the world.
Isshiki's right eye was no longer the pupil-less white eye but now it sported a new pattern with eight yellow spokes surrounding a black pupil.
"Are you ready for one more dance?" Hamura thought that Shin looked wicked with that grin accompanying his face but abstained from doing, they had no time to waste.
"Thought you would never ask." Hagoromo playfully noted, feeling something changing in the environment.
"You two stop the Jūbi. I will take care of Kaguya." The three men launched themselves in the air, engaging the Rabbit Goddess and the Jūbi in a spectacular four-way battle.
"That eye... what kind of eye is that?" Kaguya questioned Isshiki, analyzing the strange pattern in his right eye socket
"The one that will defeat you." A Chakra Rod was fired from his wrist but it suddenly increased in size to that of an ox.
Kaguya was alarmed at the sudden change in the size of the weapon, dodging by inches and putting more attention in case any of Isshiki's new abilities were displayed but soon discovered that the man was nowhere to be seen.
'Where is he?' Her pupil-less eyes widened when she could not detect Isshiki anywhere.
She turned to look for Isshiki but alas like before he was nowhere to be found. In that second, she activated her Byakugan once again, just in the nick of time to evade the punch from Isshiki from his left side where he has apparently materialized out of nowhere.
When she made to counter-attack, he vanished once again but now she had him locked on her sights with her Byakugan.
'So he is shrinking in size...' She could see Isshiki in the same size as a fly in her 360-degree angle of vision, waiting to take her by surprise.
'Not any more' She feigned ignorance until she saw him began to dash to her backside in his miniature form.
Isshiki could only felt a massive amount of pain on his entire body when he had tried to take the Ōtsutsuki woman by surprise, the force of the hand swatting him sending him to the ground below, regaining his normal stature in the process.
He was using a new ability thanks to his newest eye that he had acquired. An ability called Sukunahikona (Small Man of Renown) that allowed to shrunk himself and any other non-living matter.
"Enough!" The woman shouted in rage, tired of having to deal with this man and his tricks, wanting to end the fight with him by any means necessary.
"You will never win, not again..." Isshiki's words only served her to infuriate her more.
"Too late to say that." She deadpanned. Isshiki sniggered some seconds later, something that irked her.
"Am I?" She could hear the arrogant tone in the rhetoric question even from miles away, but that was quickly replaced with another deafening sound.
RAWR!
Kaguya felt the link with the Tailed Beast cease to exist.
Hagoromo was sealing the Jūbi inside himself. The twin has been secretly taking classes from Gamamaru in art called Fūinjutsu.
The red toad had told him months ago that he would teach him a new Chakra Art and that he needed to keep these secret training sessions between both and tell not a word to anyone for reasons that he did not know but chose to obey to please the sentient reptile.
He had been told by Gamamaru that the Sealing Arts had a lot of perks and had advantages like storing heavyweight cargo inside scrolls or summoning different beings like his teacher.
'But sealing a monster...' Hagoromo would have laughed at the notion if he did not find himself in a dire situation right now.
Using his Wood Style technique, he had summoned once again roots from the ground to keep the beast still but now for an entirely new reason.
"Brother!" Hamura was concerned, his brother was absorbing the former Shinju into himself but it looked like it could not continue due to the amount of Chakra that was being tried to be sealed inside a single man, making him look almost bloated.
Hagoromo felt full. He was trying to seal the Jūbi into himself but he could not take it anymore.
"I can't... hold it brother. It's... too much." The twin sealing the Bijū said through breaths.
"Then release some of it, like when Shin taught us the Kaiten. Expel all the Chakra until you can do so!" Hamura encouraged him to not give up.
With those words as fuel for his determination, Hagoromo complied. His body already cloaked with the demonic Chakra of the Bijū began to release all the pent-up Chakra into the sky. The atmosphere turning red with all the Chakra dispersing and scattering on it.
"Nooo!" Hagoromo watched as his mother was preparing to ram into him and stop him from sealing the Ten-Tails when his brother appeared in time to send her skidding back with a kick to her side.
"You will not stop this, mother." Hamura took his fighting stance of the Jūken, prepared to stall her mother until his brother finished his task.
Kaguya growled after seeing the last of the Jūbi Chakra vanishing into his eldest son.
"It's over." The brown-haired twin joined the conversation after the last of the Jūbi's Chakra faded inside him. The only remaining from the Jūbi was his giant carcass on the ground.
"I will never surrender!" She began to float once again, only to be met with Isshiki's furious mismatched eyes across her, giving his undivided attention to him who represented more of a threat.
"Brother, any other idea of how to defeat her." Hagoromo said nothing to him, just walked up to him and grasped his hand.
"Ouch!" Hamura yanked his hand away. "What was that?" He felt a burning sensation on his palm.
"Look." Hamura did as ordered and saw an Crescent Moon mark on his hand.
"This is my idea." Hagoromo raised his hand too, showing a Sun mark on his own hand. "We will have to do this together."
"We only have one chance, we have to touch mother at the same time."
Kaguya blew a large Fire Ball at Isshiki's form only to be snuffed out existence in Isshiki's hand like all her previous jutsus.
Then, the same elemental jutsu she had used appeared was launched against her, bigger than she remembered.
"This is meaningless." She declared. "No one will get the upper hand. I can still see all of your moves and predict all your attacks." She hoped that with those words he would see reason and surrender, she would be merciful and grant him a quick death.
"I know." She blinked. He fired Chakra Rods at her, all of them being successfully evaded thanks to the Rinne-Sharingan calculating the trajectory of all projectiles.
"So?" She gave him a questioning glare. She could see her sons with her Byakugan in the surrounding area.
"I was waiting until you blinked." Kaguya looked confused until she felt herself be stabbed by something in the chest.
Daikokuten (Great Black Heaven) was a technique that allowed any object shrunken by its user to be stored in pocket dimension and be released at will at such speed that even the Rinne-Sharingan of Kaguya could not detect.
"A Chakra Rod?" She saw the projectile sticking out of her body. The black rod stopping the Chakra flow to her upper body and Byakugan deactivating almost instantly.
"I evaded all of them..." She muttered.
"Not all, you would have known so if you had not blinked." Isshiki winked at her.
At that moment, two hands collided on her backside, those belonging to both of her sons.
"Six Paths — Chibaku Tensei (Planetary Devastation)." Hagoromo called out his technique to the world.
Pieces of earth, rock and all others flying through the air and crashing into Kaguya, encompassing her. Huge chunks of land being ripped from the earth itself to complete the massive sealing technique of Hagoromo.
Isshiki, Hagoromo and Hamura stood watching the colossal sphere of rock be formed on the ground. The gigantic sphere floating higher and higher up in the sky, slowly disappearing from the men's sights and leaving with Kaguya as her prisoner.
"It's finally over." Hagoromo announced, dropping to his knees not believing that they had pull it off.
They watched as the cocoons inside the tails of the Jūbi carcass began to open up, freeing the people that were until recently the offering to the Shinju. The voices of this lucky bunch of people filling the wasteland with sound.
What happened?
Where are we?
We are all free!
"Seems like a new era is about to start, brother." Hamura said with a smile and his brother agreed with a nod. They watched as people down the crater began to cheer in happiness at being alive.
However, Isshiki felt something weird, like if he was surrounded by Chakra on all sides but there were only the twins beside him.
He turned to look to the remains of the Jūbi but could not find a single trace of Chakra on it.
'Perhaps the fight is not over yet' The man activated his sole Byakugan and his jaw dropped when he did.
'Impossible!' Isshiki seethed inside his psyche.
Multiple Chakra signatures stood on his peripheral vision. All the people that were freed from the Shinju had Chakra inside their bodies.
Isshiki refused to believe it and expanded his senses but instead he began to sense more Chakra signatures in the distance.
After all of this unfold in the outcome of the battle, Isshiki had come to one final conclusion.
Humanity had somehow gained Chakra
OoOoOoO
—Land of the Ancestors—
Inner Citadel
"You have done it. Words cannot express how proud I am of you." Gamamaru praised them. The toad had always held the hope that they would win and he had been right.
"It was a hell of a thing but not one we could not overcome." The Rinnegan bearer beamed to him, pleased with how things had went down.
"But what happened exactly?" The reptile from Mount Myōboku inquired to the twin, wanting to know more details about their victory.
"We sealed her in that..." He pointed to the newest satellite orbiting the sky around them. "...and I sealed the Jūbi on myself."
Gamamaru looked perplexed. "But the Tailed Beast is still..."
"Yes, Gamamaru. The carcass is still there but not for long." Hamura responded. He knew they would have to hide the husk of the Chakra entity somewhere safe to prevent a possible return in any case.
"Why do you say so?"
"I will make it my mission to hide it." Hamura promised them and looked into the artificial satellite casting its dim light on the planet.
'Probably up there' It was the safest place that the white-haired twin could think of.
Hagoromo raised his hand over his belly and nine spheres of light came out of his tummy. "I have already divided the Shinju Chakra into Nine creatures of my own creation." Hagoromo showed them small balls of light. Jigen look closely and saw that there were indeed nine creatures inside every single sphere.
Hamura smiled after seeing the last sphere where a small fox slumbered. "They look cute that way."
"What do you plan to do with them?" Jigen who had been watching the chatter of the three in the sideways asked.
"I will take care of these Tailed Beasts. I will nurture them and teach them to collaborate and trust humanity." Jigen register the urge to laugh at that. The man was truly delusional if he imagined such things happening.
Hamura joined the conversation once again. "Hagoromo... I think I will look after mother."
"Are you really..." Hamura raised his hand to stop his blood brother from ranting.
"While mother controlled me, her conscience was shared with me. I could feel her." Hagoromo raised an eyebrow but he continued to listen. "She was scared. I think she just wanted us to be safe. That is why she did all of that, gruesome as it may be."
"She was just alone and mistrusting. So I will look after her." Hamura offered to keep vigil on his mother's prison.
"You were always too soft for your own good, Hamura." Hagoromo chuckled but respected his sibling's decision.
"I will be watching from the heavens the world you are helping create, brother." His brother saluted in farewell.
Hamura proceeded to walk to a Seal designed by Hagoromo, placed on the courtyard of the ruins former home. Its purpose was to connect the Earth and the new prison of Kaguya together.
"Don't worry. I will come to visit you soon." Hamura began to glow and vanished from sight. Small trails of light floating to the heavens.
The two men and toad tilted their necks upwards to look at the lights leaving the earth.
After some moments of silence, Hagoromo spoke once again. "What will you do now, cousin?"
Jigen thought about it for some moments before replying. "I am not sure. This just seems kind of surreal, hard to believe that all of this is happening."
"I can relate to that, with my mother gone these lands will finally know peace."
"But I will need help." Jigen turned around to stare at him.
"I want you to help me, Shin."
"Why me?"
"You helped me and Hamura do something that we would never pull off on our own and I trust you. That's all there is to it." Gamamaru looked surprised at the statement but remained silent at the conversation between the two men.
"I am flattered Hagoromo but I will have to decline. I have been fighting almost all my life to see this moment and I am finally experiencing it. I will need time to adjust my goals once more. I will think about it." The twin accepted his refusal, it was something understandable.
"Just know that my offer will always stand." Hagoromo gave him a smile before looking to where Hamura had gone.
"And you?"
"You will hear of me in the future but for now I want to sleep." Two months of fighting and almost no rest finally demanding to take their toll on both men.
"I can relate to that." Jigen mimicked Hagoromo's words making the man smile at him.
"Well, I am off to bed. You two are welcome to stay here." Gamamaru and Jigen nodded their heads.
"Thank you, Hagoromo-kun." Gamamaru bowed his head lightly in his head direction.
Hagoromo waved to them before going up into the stairs of his slightly destroyed home, ready to have a much needed sleep.
After a few moments of silence, Jigen heard the toad spoke.
"Jigen." Gamamaru looked at the raven-haired. Jigen raised his eyebrow in return, silently telling him to speak his mind.
"Follow me." The toad did not wait for a single moment later before he began to jump back in the direction of the gates of the destroyed city.
Jigen silently followed the reptile. Both individuals leaving the area where they had been offered to stay for the night.
A fair distance away, Jigen confronted the toad. "What do you want to talk about, Gamamaru?" Jigen said after they finally stopped in the road that left the city.
"I just want you to know that I still don't trust you..." Jigen rolled his eyes at that, he should have really not expected anything from this biased animal and his prejudice.
"But you have my thanks, for completing your part of the deal." Jigen looked surprised but hide it pretty well under his cool facade.
"Now, like I said before, if you promised to not to tell a word of the twins about our little arrangement, then we can agree to finally leave all that in the past." Jigen stared at the toad hard, looking for any sign to tell that he was lying. When he found nothing, he sighed.
"Let bygones be bygones?" Gamamaru nooded in affirmation.
"Okay. I agree with you."
Gamamaru looked relieved at his answer. "Then, it's settled. Now if you would excuse I have to return home." Gamamaru left for his home jumping, leaving Jigen alone of the road on the dark road.
'It's finally over' Jigen recalled those words. He had done it. He had defeated the Kaguya Ōtsutsuki. He was the victor. The last man standing.
He had been working these last two decades in ways to eliminate Kaguya only to fail twice but now.
'Third time is the charm' No more living with fear. He was finally free to do as he liked.
Jigen began to walk out of the destroyed city and into the road, the destination still unknown. He just walked, not concerning himself with anything in particular but only carrying on.
'It's all over' A small amount of sadness accompanied that thought but he did not acknowledge it immediately.
Kaguya was gone. His life-long goal was completed but he still felt empty.
He had nothing else to live for now, no more reasons to carry on or strived for more.
It seemed that all these years he had been so deeply concentrated in his personal goal that he had dismissed what he had been all this time, until now.
He was all alone. He just didn't realize until now.
End of Chapter
A/N: Here you guys. Long wait I know bit it could be worse you know. The end of the Pre-Chakra Er Arc ends in this chapter. Next chapter we have a new era upon ourselves.
I am already reducing what kind of path my story is taking so bear it with me lol.
As someone requested, these are the events that happened in these era in chronological order so far.
90 BCE — Foundation of the Village of Kōbe
41 BCE — Jigen is born in Kōbe
25 BCE — Ka - So War
23 BCE — Siege of the Capital
23 BCE — Ka - So War Ends
19 BCE — Ōtsutsuki Arrival to Earth
19 BCE — Invasion of So
19 BCE — Hamura and Hagoromo are born
Year 0 — Kaguya's is sealed
Year 0 — The Moon is created