The night sky shown brightly above them. The fifth moon had finally risen and Naruto took his first opportunity to examine it since regaining his memories as the Humanoid Typhoon. The truth of the crater, if indeed any had ever known the truth, had long ago passed into legend.
Kakashi watched his Genin closely. Sasuke was in his sleeping bag already asleep, or at the very least, pretending. Sakura sat by the fire finishing her meal from earlier, while Naruto sat in a tree looking to the sky.
"There's a story about the fifth moon..." Kakashi offered, as he leaned against the trunk of the tree, below his (recently) most mysterious Genin.
"Oh yeah?" Naruto questioned curiously.
"They say, many, many years ago, before humans came to be, there were two brothers of incredible strength that ruled over this planet. The twin princes lived together peacefully keeping the planet and their people in harmony. Their people worked hard to make this planet livable, creating water and air from nothing, fertilizing soil with their own energy, and producing that energy as easily as breathing.
Then one day, man fell from the heavens, and began to live their lives here. They pushed aside the brothers' people and their hard work and took everything for themselves.
The first brother, Knives, saw humanity at it's worst. "They're greedy, prideful and destructive! Like filthy spiders living off the butterflies!" He complained to his brother, Vash. Vash saw the humans as flawed, yes, but he also saw their compassion, empathy, and constant change.
Knives wanted to destroy the humans before they could continue to enslave and murder their people. Vash wished to teach them, to relieve them of their ignorance, so they could continue to live in peace.
Knives created two weapons of unimaginable power to wipe out humanity; he gave one to his brother so they could do so together. Vash, very much disagreed with his brother, since he had made a human friend who saw the Princes and their people as equals.
Knives couldn't believe that his brother would associate with any of the filthy spiders. He killed Vash's friend in hopes that his brother would sever his ties with them. Vash, however, only became angry with his twin. The humans were fragile children in his eyes. They only needed a little guidance, not a death sentence.
And thus, the previously harmonious brothers split ways, both sure that their view was the correct one. The humans continued enslaving their people, and the brothers became estranged.
Nearly a century passed, but one day, Knives lost his patience and killed a whole town of innocent humans...little did Knives know that one of the twins' people were killed in the cross fire.
Vash couldn't believe that his brother had killed one of their people. In his rage he hunted his brother down, determined to end their argument once and for all. Knives, in his eyes, was irredeemable, and yet when Vash won their fight he stuck to his beliefs and refused to kill him. Instead he created a rocket and blasted his brother to the fifth moon, to live out the rest of his days in isolation. The landing impact destroyed the ship and his brother had no way of returning to the planet.
Weeks later, Vash died from heartbreak. He entrusted his mission to his people, and they created the world as we know it today."
"And the crater...?" Naruto questioned softly.
"…Some say the ship created the crater…others say that Knives created it to remind his brother of what he had done to him and his people, ignorant of the fact that his brother had already passed on."
"...That's...a sad story..." and so close to the truth it's freakin' scary... Naruto thought to himself.
"MmmHmm..." Kakashi hummed in agreement, wondering at his openness about a child's fairytale.