Author's Notes: Hello everyone.
I'm guessing this isn't the kind of update y'all wanted to see. First of all, I'm sorry about that.
For long time readers of this story, it might not be a very surprising thing either. As this story has been stalled for a long time now, barely seeing any updates. However, I've decided to finally just make it official and put this one down. I've come to accept that not everything will always be completed and maybe sometimes not everything should be completed.
For those that want, I hope you can maybe imagine that Naruto and Kaguya made a happy life for themselves in Takigakure and you're free to imagine what form that would take. For those who that is not enough, I would like to give an abbreviated outline on where you could have expected this story to go.
Here is that outline now:
For starters, I expected the next arc to be welcoming the entirety of the Aburame clan into Takigakure. Through use of their Kikaichu, they would have managed to avoid the destruction of Konoha by fleeing ahead of the Chibaku Tensei. However, their clan would be in danger en route to Taki and Naruto, along with Team Gai would be sent on a mission to help guide them to the village.
Naturally, Fu would have somehow managed to get herself into the mission as well. The mission would have gone badly, as it is revealed that Danzo had used Edo Tensei to bring back the Second Hokage and he was the main antagonist for that mission. The battle would have resulted in Fu unleashing the full power of her Biju, allowing Kaguya to trap the Second Hokage in Kamui (at least temporarily).
They would then return to Taki with what was left of the Aburame Clan. The Aburame clan would begin to worship Fu because of her connection to the Seven-Tails, thinking of it as a kind of god. Kaguya would use this to her advantage by pushing Naruto and Fu closer together where they would start a relationship which would then effectively put Kaguya in control of the Aburame Clan.
After that, my ideas get much more vague as they were less planned beyond this point. I know some things for sure. Kaguya would eventually use her growing influence within the village of Taki to stage a coup and have Naruto take control of the village. Then they would flip the whole balance of the country on its head by assassinating the Daimyo and placing the Ninja village as the center of power for the whole nation, before then isolating the country completely.
While this all happened, the rest of the world would have gone to war with itself, fighting for control of the Land of Fire which no longer had its military to protect it. Danzo would die in these skirmishes, fighting to his last. However, before his death he would have bought the corpse of Madara from Kakuzu. He wouldn't have Edo-tensei'ed Madara, but instead would have created a clone of him that would have started as a baby.
Danzo would give this baby his clan name, so Shimura Madara. This baby would also receive the Hashirama cells Danzo had cultivated, allowing him to awaken the Rinnegan and then somehow Danzo would have gotten the Yin Kurama out from the Reaper Death Seal and implanted it in him.
After Danzo's death, this young Shimura Madara would have sworn revenge on the world for his "father's" murder and despite being something like a five year old kid would have laid waste to the remaining four great nations. The story would then bring Shimura Madara on a collision course with Naruto and Kaguya.
The idea behind having a kid Madara be the main villain was to kind of act as a foil to having a child Kaguya be the primary protagonist. Shimura Madara would have become obsessed with power and come to see himself more and more like a god, whereas Kaguya was supposed to lose faith in what she was doing, realizing it wasn't bad to live a normal life among humans. Of course, she was going to make plenty more mistakes before she got there.
Beyond that, I don't really have a final-final resolution planned. I suppose Naruto and Kaguya defeat Shimura Madara and from there live a better life from the lessons they learned. Unfortunately, that's as far as I can say for certain.
So that's where this was eventually going, so far as I had planned to this point. I know just this explanation isn't enough for many that wanted to see this continued, but it is regrettably the most I am able to give you.
Which I suppose brings me to why I'm doing things this way. Honestly, I think the only reason is I ran this idea beyond the scope I originally intended. When I first started writing this story, my idea for it only went as far as that climatic fight against Itachi. Once I hit that moment, I should have just ended it then. Had the last chapter be Naruto and Kaguya wandering into the woods to start some kind of new life for themselves and just left it open. I did debate about deleting the more recent chapters and just rewriting the one after the fight to get this ending. However, I think that would also be disingenuous to everyone that was invested in where this was going.
This result was me trying to push things because… well, this story got a way bigger reception than I could have possibly imagined. So I messed up and got a little greedy, I suppose. Tried to take this further despite not having a good plan or the proper motivation. Certainly, I had a vague plan, but to be honest I have no idea how I was supposed to bridge the gap to get where I needed it to. Which is what caused me to stall out and focus on other stuff.
This isn't the first time I've done this either. Long time users of this site might remember that I had once started a sequel story to my first ever, called Legends of Hard Work. I think I was only two or three chapters in before I realized the same thing then that I'm realizing with this one now; Sometimes it's just better to stop things when you've told the story you wanted.
So, that's what brings us to the end here.
For what it's worth, I'm sorry again to everyone that was invested and looking forward to the further adventures of these characters. More than that, I'm grateful to everyone that stuck with me this far. Thank you all so much for reading this story and giving it your attention, and even your criticisms. I really enjoyed all your feedback on this journey and I'm thankful from the bottom of my heart.
This has been another step on my path to hone my craft as a writer. I doubt it's one I can look back on and call a success, but even in our failures (especially in our failures) we continue to grow.
Sorry, and thank you again. Until my next update on another story.
End
