Chapter 3: Hello Astier-Kun

In the mindscape

Astier woke up to a splitting headache, not being able to see or feel was disconcerting but not like it mattered in the amount of pain he was in. It took more than a few moments for Astier to fight back the headache to open his eyes. The moment he did he wanted to shut them again. What he saw was so surprising it was unbelievable. The sight that he opened his eyes to was an underground cavern. He could clearly see the rocky ceiling with stalactites hanging down. The unbelievable part was the fact that the ceiling was on fire, not regular orange and red flames. No, these flames were silver with undertones of black. They were so unreal that he couldn't tear his eyes away form them.

When Astier finally was able to look away from the he raised into a sitting position and looked at the rocky ground he was previously laying on. He saw Ice rising out of the ground around him like the stalactites on the ceiling. Astier noticed that there were very thin silver chains extending from the ice stalagmites connecting to the rocky stalactites on the ceiling. He looked around until he saw an area in the distance not covered in flames or ice. In fact it looked like an opening in the cavern.

Astier made his way over to the opening, after walking for a while he noticed that he was moving but it didn't feel like time was moving which gave him a bad feeling of vertigo. After what felt like an eternity, more or less, Astier made it to the opening to the cavern what greeted him was an even more of a shock than the craziness of the cave. It opened up to a mountain range, one that Astier was sure he's never seen before. He looked around trying to make sense of what was going on. When he looked down time just seemed to slow.

"Kaa-san…."

"No Tier-kun not quite though I would like to clear that up. Can you join me down here please?"

Astier not quite in the right frame of mind just nodded dumbly and walked down to the clearing at the base of the nearest mountain. Standing in the middle of the clearing was a woman that looked almost exactly like Kushina. As he got closer he could see the differences between this woman and the person he called his Kaa-san.

The first difference was the color of her hair. Kaa-san had vibrant red hair only a shade lighter than his own, while the woman standing in front of him had a dull purple color and not nearly as long. It maybe went to her mid back. She was also taller by at least six inches, hell she was taller than Minato. The outfit she was wearing was something that Kushina would never wear. It was a short peach colored kimono, it only covered one shoulder with a split in the middle ending at her mid-thigh. She had a pair of black skintight shorts that ended just before the edge of the kimono. She had on no shoes or any other kind of clothing from what he could see. Another difference that he could see from the two different women was the shape of their bodies. While Kushina had more of a curvy hourglass shape, this woman was more lithe. You could clearly see every muscle was compact and Astier could feel the power her body just naturally radiated.

As Astier got closer he noticed another striking difference but it got clearer the closer he got. When he was less than three feet from her he came to a dead stop. Her eyes, they looked like molten silver molded into perfect spheres. The sliver of her iris was her whole eye there was no white border like a human eye. She had a slit in the middle of them. He remembered the eyes of the Kyuubi but these weren't like that. The slit looked more reptilian than the fox's, the black slit that was her pupil was so small it almost did not exist. In all Astier noticed this woman screamed power and that something about her wasn't human, though she was extremely beautiful.

"Hello Astier-kun, my name is Ginkyōi." The melodious voice that came out of her mouth surprised Astier.

"Where are we? I don't believe I was unconscious long enough to be appear in a mountain range, that if the geography books that Toh-san gave me were accurate don't exist on our world."

"I'm truly jealous of ability to become serious at a moments notice. But then again two years of doing nothing but reading pretty much every book of two different royal libraries without true social interaction would make you more logical than emotional. I was looking forward to this meeting to have a little more confusion. But you are correct this mountain range was made using my memories and it's not located on your world. Besides my home world the planet this range belonged to was my favorite world so I recreated the whole world. To answer your first question, where are we? I'm sure you could figure it out with enough time but I'll just answer you. This is you mindscape, and I'm the bijuu that's been sealed inside you."

"I'm getting the feeling that your not the Kyuubi, especially after that mention of worlds. I was under the impression the nine Bijuu were born on this world."

"Very quick on the uptake Tier-kun, I'm proud. To truly explain not only our circumstances and myself I'm going to have to give you something of a history lesson. All I ask is that you try not to interrupt me and ask any questions you have at the end of my explanation. This will take a while for that I'm glad that we're in our mindscape and technically we control the time of this place compared to the outside world."

As Ginkyōi finished her short speech she waved her right hand and a small cottage appeared in the middle of the clearing where they were standing. She motioned towards it, after Astier saw it they walked over to it. Inside was a beautiful small home, in the living room was a small couch that Ginkyōi made her way towards immediately. On the coffee table before the mature woman was a steaming tea pot and two cups. As they both sat down, she poured two cups and handed one to Astier.

"I could have explained everything out there, but I thought that this would have been more comfortable. Now I suggest that you settle in this will be a little long or short considering how long I've lived. I only have one question and that is for you to reserve your judgement till the end you will hear somethings that will place me in a bad light." With a confirming nod from Astier, Ginkyōi opened her mouth and started her story.

"I have no true memories of when I was born or how long I spent on my home world. In those day my existence was more instinct and primal. I remember that I was one of five trees on the whole world. Me and my sisters existed in codependent relationship with the world. We feed on the excess energy of the world while the world protected us from outside. At the time I didn't understand truly what that meant until they came.

Those horned Basterds arrived one day from where I still don't know but they came with the intentions of taking the energy of the world. When they noticed that they couldn't take any with the existence of me and my sisters eating any loose energy. Well my memory of this is fuzzy but they somehow turned half of the energy we had collected into fruits of pure energy. After they had ate them they disappeared back to where they came from. Then we somehow uprooted ourselves and turned into something more than a tree.

My memories of the next few hundred years are more flashes than real memories, but we went into a kind of berserk state where we went around our world and collected back our loss of energy. Completely destroying our home world in our hunger. When we were done we went back into our dormant state of a tree. After some time those bastards came back and took us. That was the last time that I saw my sisters.

These horned bastards operated in teams of two, I didn't always have the same two handlers. But the process was always they same, they would plant me somewhere on a world. Usually away from civilization though sometimes they would place me right in the middle of a thriving populace. They would leave me alone for some time and let me absorb excess energy. Then a team would come back and eat my fruits, taking half of my energy. Then I would fall back into my ravenous state and go on a rampage were I would forcefully take my missing energy from the world. My rampages would always destroy the majority of the world. Every time I gained back the energy I would return back to my dormant state they would come back after some time and take me to a different world.

After enough cycles of this happening, I started to understand more and think in a more complex way. I left the primal and instinctual way of thinking in the past and started to think and understand in a sentient way just like you or any other human or race. I understood what they were doing and how they were treating me and my sisters.

They called me a god tree, I do not know if that was my original title or not but that was my title while they controlled me. They were a clan that was once human but had evolved to be something more that relied on chakra to live. They were using me and my sisters to forcefully take the natural energy of a world and convert it into an energy that they could digest easily. Every time one of them ate my fruits they were hoping to evolve further into something more akin to a god.

I noticed after enough times that when they were taking my energy that it was what they called yang chakra. They left me the yin chakra since they couldn't control it. Every time I was left without my yang chakra I lost my ability to reason and was absorbing chakra from living things to make up the lost amount. Though everything that lives had both types of chakra naturally so when I absorbed the energy I was increasing the amount of yin chakra I had those making me more ravenous to eat an equal amount of yang chakra.

Overtime I noticed with the chakra I started absorbing memories and other things. Increasing my size through nutrients and other things from my rampages. Those increasing the rate of my rampages to make up the loss and the amount of worlds I was going through. After some time I heard from those bastards that I was the biggest of my sisters and easily the fastest of us. So I was given to the matriarch of this clan personally, to increase her personal rate of evolution. Traveling with this woman through enough worlds I understood enough about this clan. Their name, her name, the fact that they found out centuries ago that there were an infinite amount of dimensions and what they were doing was hoping dimensions to take over worlds. Forcefully take all the worlds chakra and leave death and destruction in their wake. The found me and me sisters in one such world. We speed up their acquisition of chakra to a much faster rate than they were able to by themselves.

At this time I still didn't truly right from wrong. What morality and immorality was. I spent my whole life just existing to eat, there was no context to my life or memories. I had them I can remember hundreds of worlds their customs, religions, their sciences, the way some could mold chakra and how they used it. I can remember millions of different civilizations and wars, the rise and fall of countless of empires. Given it was more peaceful in the beginning but that was my whole life, that all changed when we got to this world.

Kaguya and I, that was her name Ōtsutsuki Kaguya. Arrived on this world to watch the end om another civilization. We watched as a civilization destroyed itself in a massive world war. As civilization ended Kaguya left for another world since I was successfully planted. I watched as the few surviving humans rebuilt in the destruction of the world. Overtime the several different continents moved together into one giant continent. I watched as civilization rebuilt itself, then I watched as the regressed from technology advanced back towards early civilization days.

It was then that Kaguya came back, though there was something different about her. She looked different, tired, she was here for a while not immediately going for my fruit like always. Her partner for this trip was one I saw on a few occasions. Isshiki was always arguing with her about coming to me and just eating my fruit. But Kaguya ignored him, since she was matriarch, she did not have to listen, but he had to obey. Eventually she just killed Isshiki and settled in the country that settled around me.

Over time she fell in love with the emperor of the local country and fell pregnant. Around that time a neighboring country declared war on the country she was in. Her husband and attendant died to protect her. In a fit of rage she came to me and ate all of my fruit. She become something I saw for the first time, the goal all the Ōtsutsuki had been striving for since I met them. She evolved and became something akin to a god. With her newfound power she kept me in my dormant state, not allowing me to rampage.

She used her power to stop the war, then she used the power to stop all war. I could see at that point that she was just truly tired of all the traveling and fighting that has been our lives for countless of years. After the display of power, she was venerated as the Rabbit Goddess. She later gave birth to her sons, twins, Hagoromo and Hamura in the birth she blessed them with her evolved chakra.

In my forced dormant state I still craved my missing chakra but I couldn't do anything about it not being able to move. Overtime humans being humans started fighting again though not on a large scale do to everyone being afraid of Kaguya. When ever a fight broke out Kaguya used a powerful dōjutsu ability that she received when she evolved. It was called the Infinite Tsukuyomi, she placed the offending people under a powerful genjutsu and gave them to me. I slowly drew chakra from them like fertilizer to get back my losses.

Overtime she raised her sons and taught them how to use chakra while she ruled over humanity. She somehow controlled me to only absorb the spiritual energy from the humans. Leaving them empty husks filled with just physical energy. When they emerged from me they had no individually, they all looked them same and had something akin to a hive mind. My memory is pretty hazy of that time because of my hunger but Kaguya somehow went insane with chakra hunger just like me. Her sons having the evolved form of normal chakra like her made her want to absorb them like how I did indiscriminately.

She somehow pulled me inside her like how I'm inside you right now. I blacked out during that, when I woke up again I was inside her son Hagoromo. I watched as body or better yet my corpse alongside Kaguya's sealed body was placed inside the ultimate representation of gravity manipulation. You see when you look up into the sky at night and see the massive rock in the sky. You're looking at my corpse." For the first time since the start of her story Astier had an obvious reaction on his face. With his eyes widening to an outrageous size.

"Yes Tier-kun, what you humans call the Moon is in fact the corpse of my body surrounded by a thin layer of rock to give of the appearance of a natural satellite. While I was inside Hagoromo I realized my title had changed again from god tree to the Ten-Tailed Beast. You may also know Hagoromo by his title the Rikudō Sennin, I watched as he traveled the world and taught humans the water down version of chakra. You see Kaguya and her sons mixed pure yin and yang chakra to create what the Ōtsutsuki called spiritual chakra, it is essentially like Nature energy but you are making it inside yourself not drawing it in from the outside. The version that Hagoromo taught to humans was only regular chakra. It is what you get by mixing your spiritual energy and physical energy.

Over the years he talked with me and realized that I was sentient. I explained to him my life up until that point and told him of his family outside this world. He in turn taught me morals and right and wrong. We both realized that although it did not affect my sanity, my charka was still trying to eat ambient energy due to my almost nonexistent yang chakra reserves. So, when he was reaching his death, we came to an agreement. We both did not want me to be released at his death and start rampaging again to regain my reserves.

The agreement that we came to was that he would split my yin chakra into nine portions and essentially combining the two of us we would give birth to nine children. We decided that it would be best to separate my soul as well between the nine of them to not let one of them be overwhelmed by my hunger. Hagoromo used one of the abilities of his dōjutsu the Rinnegan to investigate the future to see the best course of action. He separated me into nine portions of using my yin chakra. Using creation of all things he created yang chakra and nature energy to combine with the parts of my yin chakra to give birth to our children. Although unfortunately my chakra did not split equally between them. My children would later be known as the nine tail-beasts. The piece of myself that you have within you body was the biggest portion of my soul. Inside my eldest Kurama know to you as the Kyuubi no Kitsune was about half of my soul, he also housed a little less than three tails worth of my chakra.

Hagoromo and myself made the decision to split my chakra and soul because of you Tier-kun. He saw what your father would do to lesson the burden of being a jinchūriki for his sons by splitting what he assumed was the Kyuubi's chakra. In his folly of using only a portion of the Shiki Fūjin by using a fuinjutsu formula faux soul the Shinigami could only grab onto a partial soul. Thankfully there was a partial soul inside of Kurama, mine. Though neither Hagoromo nor I expected what would happen next. Because when this piece of myself was sealed inside you my soul merged with yours. Before I could even begin to orient myself with this new situation that was no my reality. Your parents sent chakra constructs into you and your brother. I observed the secondary seal your father put on your brother absorb the constructs, probably to help your brother in the future. But without the secondary seal the constructs merged with me.

That's why I resemble your mother when I merged with the constructs I… It's hard to explain it's like I inherited certain memories from your parents. I also have all of your parents' emotions from that night in myself. To me you feel to me the same way my children feel to me. I feel unconditional love towards you, I feel as if you are my son just as much as my other children are. My maternal instincts are screaming at me to love and take care of you. This could be from the fact that I merged with your parents' thoughts and emotions, the fact that I am thousands of years old, and I never got to be a mother to my other children. Or the fact that for the rest of my life I will share a body and soul with you. I have taken a close look at our situation, and it seems that unless we figure out something out. There is only one body, one soul but two personalities in this one small body.

That's my whole life's story without going into the overly gory details." With the last of her explanation is looked as if Ginkyōi visibly deflated. She sat next to Astier as he absorbed all of the information that she just shared with him. She kept glancing at him with a sheepish expression on her face waiting for his reaction to his father's actions and the type of life she's lived up until this point. When he visibly relaxed and continued drinking his tea, she slouched a little lowering her defenses. She watched as his face screwed up into confusion at the taste of the tea that it looks like he just noticed for the first time. She couldn't help but giggle slightly at the look on his face. 'So cute, I have to restrain myself from glomping him. Maybe when he accepts me into his life.'

Astier couldn't help but physically relax into the couch at the sound of the soft and melodious giggle that escaped from Ginkyōi's mouth. Astier had many questions about pretty much everything she said 'but from what she said we share this body and soul so we will have years to get to know each other and I will have plenty of time to ask all of my questions'.

"So, three questions the rest we can work out on a later date. First what is this amazing tea I don't think I've had or heard about this concoction? Are you actually sealed inside me? I don't see any representation of the seal inside her like the journal's that Kaa-san and Mito-sama spoke of. And finally, how can we combat the hunger you feel I don't want to go on a rampage the moment I wake up because of the overwhelming amount of Yin chakra in me?" Astier asked with a slight edge to his tone that Ginkyōi couldn't place. It was anger or suspicion, the closest she could feel it was humor but that didn't feel right considering the circumstances.

"Well first that's Chia tea from all the memories I have from humans that's the one I have discovered to be my favorite. It doesn't originate from this world but the spices that are used can be found in this world so you can recreate it outside if you so choose. The answer to the second and third question are combined in a small way so I'll answer them at the same time. No, I am not sealed inside of you. Due to the unexpecting event of you absorbing my soul into your own we are no one entity, there is no need for sealing an outside entity like other tailed beasts due to that. The only thing that did not merge between us is our chakras.

That is probably why I still retained my own ego, and you have your own ego. Though they are slowly merging but at this rate it would take decades, and that is only with a little less than three tails worth of my chakra. In the future if you choose to find my other children and removed the other pieces of my soul and chakra from them, then it could probably take hundreds of years to completely assimilate my chakra. The part about the rampaging nature of the past no longer applies. When my chakra and soul were pulled out of my old body, the hunger was heavily muted but not wiped away sue to me no longer being a tree that relied on instincts. My nature influenced my children that's why their viewed as demons.

When I was put inside you, I become my own person and even received my own tailed beast form. My previous nature of hunger and instincts was changed completely to my new form's nature. I retained my natures of claiming territory, predator vs prey mentality, protecting my young, the need to hunt for food to provide for the nest, the need to procreate, love and loyalty towards the nest. I lost my instincts on the need to hoard food (chakra), the need to destroy all life forms that are not my own and the dependency on the Ōtsutsuki clan. So essentially with this bond we share you have gained all of my good traits and we both lost all of my bad traits." Ginkyōi felt the overwhelming need to comfort Astier. No matter what left her lips she felt as if she was upsetting her youngest son. The need overwhelmed her, and she grabbed him in her arms, placing him in her lap and gave him a hug.

"You know I understood the underlining meaning of what you were saying earlier about my parent." Astier said while in her arms. She placed her head in the crook of his neck, while he slowly placed his small arms around her neck. "I haven't had a mother survive longer than a couple of moths around me yet. I want you to know that I would not mind having yet another mother but if you somehow flake or die on me I am going to hate you. I fell in love with two mothers and lost the too fast after." Astier said while crying slightly about the loss of his mothers. Ginkyōi felt the tears on her neck and held him tighter as if trying to alleviate him of his fears. "I understand. I will not ever leave you." 'Not that I truly could if I ever wanted to.'

"Do you have any requests of me? Or anything that you would like me to do? Since we share a body now although it feels as if it's my body and your more of a passenger."

"Well, your right on that count. Your soul absorbed mine, so this is your body and soul I am more like a guiding hand in the background, and you don't even have to listen if you don't want to. I have always been able to reach out and talk to you if I wanted from the moment, I was sealed in you. I just watched and waited; I didn't want to scare you while you were in that prison. I did not want you to think that you were going crazy. I only want to ask you to please enjoy your life from this moment onwards. You and Naruto have already enough on your plates in your short lives. He feels just as much my son as you do. I can't reach out or talk to him on a normal basis like I can with you so please take a little extra care of him for me. Just don't do it in a way the sacrifices your life.

I want you two to get strong, much stronger than your parents ever were. My final request is that if you can save my children, your older siblings. They all have been suffering from my instinctual hunger for around a thousand years. They may be immortal but that still hurts my heart that they have had to suffer. You have already indirectly help Kurama, but my other children still suffer. Do not go out of your way but if you run int them, please help them. My last request is that on the avenue on getting stronger don't sacrifice morality for power. I've watched this world through Kurama's eyes and seen the heinous acts humans have committed on the avenue of power. Kaguya wasn't killed but sealed away by her sons she may come back in the future, I want you, Naruto and my other children to survive in the event that she does come back."

"I gotchu Kyoi-chan. I will try to see you as a mother like you see me as a son. It may take a while, but I promise to try."

"That's all I can ask of you Tier-kun. It looks like you are waking up in the real world. Please don't take it hard about all those civilians that you killed. Remember killing is an immoral act unless you are doing it to protect you loved ones, or if you've been ordered to. If you are doing it to protect it is self-defense and those their fault not yours. If it is an order the fault of death is the fault of the man or woman who ordered the act. None of the guilt is to fall on your mind."

Before Astier could form a proper reply, he disappeared from Ginkyōi's arms and woke back up in the real world in his hospital room. "Shit I didn't even tell him that I was holding back his bloodline abilities for them to properly merge with the both of us. Last night they completely merged that is how he was able to use his chains. I even forgot to tell him what that flame is. Shit!"