The air felt like ice, even though Naruto and Kaguya remained in her core dimension, not the ice one. That was because of the look that Kaguya was giving Naruto, who didn't even bother to feign ignorance or innocence. Even though her byakugan weren't activated, he could feel her eyes trying to stab him. Luckily, it was only her sight that was piercing his body instead of her hair needles or those instant death bones.

"You mean… to tell me…" Kaguya said, her fists trembling with outrage. "That you, who bears the same power as my son… and the power that I seek… do not know how to use words to share that power."

"Well, I was never that good in school y'know?" Naruto said, scratching his head awkwardly.

He couldn't count anymore just how many times he'd entered Sage Mode up until this point. He could practically do it without even thinking, like he did when he disqualified himself in the Chunin Exams and handed the victory to Konohamaru. While Six Paths Sage Mode was far more powerful, it was practically the exact same concept. The only difference was that instead of merging nature energy with his chakra, he combined it with the chakra of all nine tailed beasts. It went without saying that Kaguya had the latter, and while Naruto could tell her how he gathered nature energy, he didn't think it was a good idea.

His training involved a lot of work, and if the toads weren't constantly there guiding his way, he would never come close to mastering nature energy. Without the oil, he never would have understood the feeling of natural energy. Without being constantly smacked in the head by the toads, he would have never properly balanced it in him. Fukusaku told him that if he let nature's energy overwhelm him, he would turn into a frog, and he didn't even say an intelligent one like him and his family. What kind of person would knowingly let someone else turn into a frog?

And so, when Kaguya demanded that he tell her what he knew, and he couldn't stall any longer, he simply said he couldn't explain it in words. It was impossible for him to teach someone who didn't have even a tiny grasp of it.

"You have quite some nerves, Asura's reincarnation, to swindle me so. Just because you are the reincarnation of my grandson, do not think I will be lenient!"

Kaguya suddenly threw a punch at the empty space between them, but Naruto quickly realized what she did and what was coming. Although he was too late to dodge, and the same chakra fist punch attack that could demolish Sasuke's Susanoo with ease was once again slammed into his face. Though, thankfully, it was much softer this time than before. It was probably because of her weakened state, but it didn't really hurt, kind of like when Sakura would slap him. He was more surprised than anything else, really.

That being said, the next two chakra fists that she hit him with were ever so slightly more forceful. It still wasn't painful at all. It was getting a bit annoying though, and it wasn't like her anger wasn't warranted. So, rather than letting her get angrier and hit harder, Naruto finally spoke up.

"Okay okay, listen!" Naruto said, holding up one hand to urge her to pause. "It's not that I can't tell you what I did, but I don't know if you can do it too."

"What? What sort of station do you occupy, that you believe yourself capable of what I am not?!" Kaguya exclaimed, though she did stop attacking him.

"Look! It's really hard and I almost died a bunch of times. It is dangerous to learn from scratch." Naruto defended, doing his best to contain himself, which was not very well.

"And why would that apply to me? Have you forgotten that what you humans find to be grand achievements, are beneath even my glance?"

"Ugh, you always talk with that 'I am better than you' attitude. It's really annoying. I don't know how anyone ever managed to talk to you before. I'm trying to help you here you know."

"Then tell me how to control that power, so that I can protect this world from my clansmen!" Kaguya shouted again.

Naruto groaned in frustration. She was as stubborn as… well, as stubborn as he could be really, but combined with the snobby attitude that Sasuke always had. It was the worst combination a person could have. How was he going to convince her that without the toads, there wasn't a chance in hell she could learn to use natural energy?

"...Wait, that's right!" Naruto shouted all of the sudden. He sprang up to his feet with a renewed vigor.

"What is?"

Naruto had just remembered the second part of his grand escape plan, what he was going to do if Kaguya hadn't drawn his attention with some snide remarks and condescension. Then again, if he'd just ignored her, he wouldn't have learned what he did about her and the potential threat of the invading Otsutsuki Clan. If they were well and truly coming, he needed to hurry back and warn everyone, prepare himself and them for what was to come. If there was a miracle, maybe Kaguya could even help them out with it, depending on how strong they turned out to be.

Naruto bit the tip of his thumb and drew a few drops of blood. He quickly then formed a few hand seals and touched the ground.

"Summoning jutsu!" He said to himself, as a large circle of black ink marks covered the ground around him. The familiar chakra-based smoke enveloped him completely, causing Kaguya to back away a bit, unsure of what he just brought into her dimension.

When the smoke cleared, Naruto was standing on top of Gamakichi, the giant orange toad that was his personal summon and partner. Wearing his jacket and bandages, with a stick in his mouth and a blade in his hand, he looked just as he did before when Naruto summoned him to help against the Ten Tails. He looked a little surprised though, as if the summon was unexpected.

"Huh? Naruto?" Gamakichi asked incredulously, but he also sounded relieved. They both were.

"Hey, Gamakichi. Good to see ya again!" Naruto greeted back as happy as could be.

Gamakichi looked at their surroundings, everything about it just felt off, like he could tell just by the air on his skin or the texture of the ground, that he was not in their world. That feeling was very much cemented as his eyes laid upon Kaguya herself. Without having said anything for a few seconds, he then looked up.

"What'd you summon me for this time, Naruto? Wanted to brag to me about you making a friend?" He asked sarcastically, but Naruto reacted with an energetic yelp.

"What? Of course not!" He shouted with as much excitement as he always had. "I actually need your help. I've been kinda stuck here for a while."

"No kidding. Nobody's heard from you in over two weeks." Gamakichi said, scratching his chin.

"Two weeks? That's how long it's been?"

"Yep, a whole two weeks since we fought that nasty pale guy, and then I heard those tailed beast guys showed back up out of nowhere without you. Lots think you finally kicked the bucket and even held a funeral for you back home. Glad to see you're still alive though. I never lost hope in you."

"Oh… well, thanks!" Naruto said happily. Leave it to his old pal to cheer him up when things were pretty bad. That aside, the fact that everyone thought he was dead was hard for him to process. If he'd gone missing for two weeks after everyone else returned safely though, it made sense. It was going to be a surprise for them though when he got back.

"Why is this creature sitting in my dimension?" Kaguya finally asked, having reached the limit of her patience.

"Creature? You ain't so good looking yourself lady. What's with the horns?" Gamakichi fired back, causing Naruto's stomach to stir with the expectation of another fight starting. But luckily for him, Kaguya said nothing in response. Maybe it was because I didn't want to waste any more time.

"Gamakichi, can you take us back home with a reverse summon?" Naruto asked. He then leaned in towards his friend's ear and whispered. "The hardest place to break out of that you can find too?"

Gamakichi grumbled for a moment. "That might be hard to do, Naruto. I can take you to Mt. Myoboku, but not anywhere else."

"Huh? Why not?" Naruto asked with some concern.

"Well, some stuff happened in two weeks. Pops said that the elders sealed off the whole mountain from the rest of the world. None of us have been summoned anywhere since." Gamakichi explained, both for the situation and for his surprise when he himself was summoned.

"What happened?" Naruto asked to nobody in particular, but received a response anyway.

"Beats me, but I once tried sensing outside of the mountain after it got sealed, and felt the same presence as that giant thing we fought before… actually, it's the same feeling I'm getting from that lady right there. You sure we should be near her?"

"The Ten Tails? How could…" Naruto started to think. How could Ten Tails or its chakra still be around when Kaguya was next to him, and the tailed beasts were freed? It was impossible.

It must have been impossible.

But he needed to know for sure. But he clearly couldn't do it through the toads, not wanting to ask Gamakichi to break the rules after all. He needed to think of something else.

"Hey uh, Naruto."

He had to think of some way to get himself, and also Kaguya, home some other way without the toads.

"Naruto?"

But he wasn't contracted with any other animals, let alone ones he thought could reverse summon him. Maybe Mt. Myoboku had some kind of postal service to other animals? But that would be a weird request, wouldn't it?

"Yo!"

Naruto was suddenly smacked in the back of the head, returning him to reality with a dull pain. He looked down at Gamakichi, whose hand was raised above his head.

"Huh? What was that for?" Naruto demanded.

"Your new friend just flew off in that direction!" He replied, pointing off to the side of the planetoid.

"What? Follow her, quick!" Naruto exclaimed, and Gamakichi hopped right to it.

It only took a few leaps to catch up. Clearly Kaguya managed to regain her ability to fly, but she wasn't moving all that quickly, probably to conserve energy. Maybe she was gathering chakra while they were talking. That would explain why she barely said anything. But where was she headed? There wasn't anything in the direction she was flying. It was just empty space that… used to be where a very very large truthseeker orb was…

And then he could feel it, Naruto could sense the residual mass of chakra that was left inert when Kaguya was sealed. It was a huge amount of chakra, even after being left to disperse over 2 weeks of inactivity. It'd probably be enough to refill a substantial portion of her chakra. He couldn't let that happen or she would probably kill him or leave him here and come back later, just to kill him anyways.

Luckily, Kaguya didn't seem to notice he was following. If she did, she would have picked up the pace. Or at least, she should have.

Naruto instructed Gamakichi to throw him in Kaguya's direction, as hard and fast as he possibly could. He just needed to get a bit closer, but not actually target Kaguya. Gamakichi complied, and flung Naruto like a living bullet or a skipping stone. At the peak of his momentum, Naruto created a Kurama avatar, but he wasn't done. While he was still in the air, he crossed the fingers of the avatar, spawning several other clones of it. They each spread out, and just as Kaguya descended, they took their positions. Naruto didn't have any way to drain chakra like Nagato or Madara did. The best he could do was to prevent it from reaching its intended recipient to begin with, and what better way than to take it for himself?

That was the job of the avatar clones he made, to gather as much of the residual chakra within themselves as possible, thus reducing the amount that Kaguya could take. With how large they were, that wouldn't be too difficult either, and it would be a boost for him anyways.

It became an arms race between the two of them, as it took four clones of Kurama's avatar as well as his own to match her own speed. He could hardly believe that she was gathering chakra so quickly even though it should have only been her second or third time ever doing it like this. It was like she was holding back when she tried before, getting him to lower his guard so she could come here and regain her strength. It certainly explained how passive she was being, relatively speaking.

"This is bad, Naruto." Kurama remarked.

"No kidding, even with the shadow clones I'm barely keeping up. Pretty soon I'll need to make more before these ones get full." Naruto replied.

"No, that won't help. Think about it, in the end, she will be stronger than any single avatar, even if the total amount of chakra between all of the clones are the same. All she would need to do is pick them off one at a time." Kurama replied.

"What? Seriously? Then we need to combine all of these guys into one before she tries anything."

"Can you handle that much chakra?" Kurama asked, as more of a rhetorical question than a real one.

"I… I have an idea that might work."

Even though he said that, Naruto continued to amass chakra within himself and the shadow clones, making more and more as he needed when the others reached their limit. He couldn't disperse the full ones, not yet at least, because influxes of that much chakra could probably make him explode or something. He knew all of that, and yet he still seemed confident about something.

They must have both been able to feel it, that the entire area around them was being drained dry of any kind of energy. Kaguya managed to reclaim quite a large chunk of her power. It was easily several times what she had a moment ago, although she wasn't yet at the level she was during their first fight, not by a long shot. She had Naruto to thank, or rather slowly turn with a murderous glare in her eyes, for a lot of that. Speaking of which, her third eye, her Rinnesharingan, had opened on her forehead again. It was missing the tomoe marks that it and Sasuke's Rinnegan had, but it was still very clearly the Rinnesharingan.

The Rabbit Goddess opened and closed her fingers, like she was doing some minor stretches, and then rose into the air towards Naruto, the real Naruto. With a look of anger that was starting to become normal, she grew nearer and nearer, but instead of immediately attacking him, she stopped at a distance of about ten meters and crossed her arms indignantly.

"And just what do you think you are doing with my chakra, yet again? Do you think I didn't notice it, or that I am unable to punish you?"

"Hey, I'm not just gonna let you do as you want. Sasuke and I sealed you, which makes me your parole officer!" Naruto replied, prepared to fight at a moment's notice.

"And yet you already liberated me, didn't you? We both seek to return to my nursery, and it was clear from your conversation with that creature that your solution was ineffective. Did you expect me to wait for you to find a solution? With someone of your caliber, even I would feel the wear of time before seeing progress. Luckily, you weren't able to steal enough to inhibit me." Kaguya argued back, to which Naruto had no retort.

"Okay… fine." Naruto said reluctantly. Tried as he did, Kaguya was the only way they could really return now, and now that her third eye was opened, she could finally do so.

Kaguya suddenly darted forward, and Naruto barely reacted in time. Her hand reached out to him, easily penetrating the head of the Kurama avatar he was standing in. He raised his arms to guard, but she reached beyond his arms and took hold of one of his ears before yanking him out. It felt like she was trying to tear his ear off, but after removing him from his avatar, she simply held him in place.

"Hey! What's the big idea?" Naruto demanded, looking back at the disfigured head of his avatar.

"Quiet, incarnation of Asura. I am not so naive to think that leaving you here without my supervision will bring me anything more than a headache. Be thankful that I am returning you to my nursery." She snapped.

Kaguya lifted her other hand at the empty space, and Naruto watched as space contorted. Black lines and squares opened up in the air itself, which was the sign of her space-time ninjutsu. He'd seen it plenty before, and once it was large enough for both of them to pass through, they started moving towards it.

Going through that kind of portal felt like he simply blinked, his vision went black for a moment, and he was somewhere else. It was like that for his clones too whenever they dispersed and transmitted the experience back to him. This time was no different either, but he felt a sense of relief, knowing where it was that they were going. It was also nice to know that the transportation was instant. Although that wasn't a surprise. Sasuke's Rinnegan ability and Kaguya summoning an entire dimension were instant as well.

On the other side of that portal, his eyes were met with clear blue skies he dearly missed. There were some clouds, but they weren't too numerous to hide the shining sun. There wasn't any wind, and he couldn't hear any animals, but it was for good reason. Naruto looked around at the surrounding environment. There was nothing but dirt and stone around him. Much of it was broken up and misshapen, with many unnatural craters and scorch marks. Obviously, it was once a battlefield. He would assume that it was the same place he, Sasuke, Sakura and Kakashi-sensei were at before fighting Kaguya, but the roots and branches of the Divine Tree were nowhere to be seen. Fortunately, that also went for the captives too. That must have meant that Sasuke freed everyone and also burned the tree down for good measure. It must have been quite a big fire, but that would still be easy for him.

Although when Naruto turned around, he saw that Kaguya's expression was the opposite of his own. She was far less excited to see the absence of the tree, not that he minded. For now, he needed to focus on what he was supposed to do next.

"This isn't right…" Kaguya muttered aloud.

"Hm?" Naruto asked, turning his head back to Kaguya.

"Nothing, not a trace. The Divine Tree is gone, completely. What has happened in my absence?" Kaguya was asking herself. Without Black Zetsu, she has no idea what events transpired this time around. "Reincarnation of Asura, what has become of the Divine Tree."

"Huh? What do you mean? It's gone isn't it?" Naruto asked while lazily pointing back behind him.

"Do you not understand? The Divine Tree is of great significance, and power as well. No less than one who would possess my power would be able to destroy it, but since my sons there is nobody that truly holds my power in this world. Your kind is too enamored with dividing and diluting it, and thus, how can it simply be gone?" Kaguya explained and questioned. There was some alarm in her voice, quite a bit in fact, but Naruto didn't understand. It was Sasuke who must have gotten rid of it, right? After all, the tailed beasts could have all lent him some chakra, and he already had a Rinnegan. That would check all the boxes.

But then he had another thought. What if there was another reason it was gone? What if someone or something else had done the deed while he was sealed? Kaguya was constantly mentioning her concern about the invasion of the world by her clan. What if they arrived and did something with the tree? Was it possible for that to have happened in just two weeks?

He had to know, so he closed his eyes and focused on his other senses. He expanded his own range as far as he possibly could. With just regular Sage Mode, he could see several battlefields at once. With Six Paths Sage Mode, he could see even countries themselves. But he then realized that despite the range he could see up to, he still couldn't even sense Kaguya, and she was right next to him. It must have been because she was an Otsutsuki, or something like that must have been in effect. So after he opened his eyes, he created a few dozen shadow clones. Immediately upon appearing, they scattered in every direction. While he wasn't able to sense any Otsutsuki, he could sense other people, people in Konoha, Suna, and the other shinobi villages. At least that meant they were alive, meaning his shadow clones could contact them to get a grasp of what was going on. He was also excited to see everyone's reactions to his return, even if they were just shadow clones and not the real him. He'd go and see them in person soon enough though, once things here were settled.

Speaking of which, Kaguya was facing away from Naruto, but he could see the side of her face. The veins around her eyes bulged, signifying that her Byakugan were activated. Considering Hinata and Neji could see for several kilometers easily, he couldn't imagine how far her eyes could reach. But however far it was, she looked like she was having trouble finding whatever she was looking for. It was probably the same thing he tried and then gave up looking for though. She didn't move for a few minutes, like she became a statue, and then all of the sudden, she looked directly above them. Naruto noticed this, and looked up as well, and he saw exactly what caught her attention.

Planetary Devastation, a meteoroid created by the power of the Rinnegan, and there were nine of them floating in a circle high above the ground. He must have been too focused on the ground to notice them before, but now that he could see them, he could also see more. Of course, the jutsu wasn't meant to be an offensive technique, it was a sealing jutsu, and he could sense what was in each of them. Massive bodies of chakra, Tailed Beasts.

"What the-"

Before Naruto could finish, he was suddenly blasted away from Kaguya by an invisible force, just like Pain's almighty push. It came from Kaguya obviously, judging by the damage to the ground around her, but the blast wasn't that large or strong. It only pushed him back a few meters, and didn't hurt much at all.

He was about to ask, more demand, what she was doing, but he didn't have time to. Just as his feet touched the ground again, there was an explosion. Something struck the ground directly between them with enough force to kick up a large cloud of dirt and dust. He wasn't sure of what it was at first, it came in too fast and before he even realized it. If not for Kaguya, he might have been flattened into a pancake, but now, he could sense what it was.

Of course

"It's been awhile, Naruto."