After the war began, events were no longer in anyone's control.
Lord of the Country of Pi had initially thought that he could easily put down Namikawa Yū's sudden declaration of war in no time.
But he soon realized that things were not so simple.
After years of development, the Land of Them had been infiltrated to a serious degree.
Just as there were many people from the Land of Them in the Land of Ancestors, there were also many people from the Land of Ancestors in the Land of Them.
And their numbers were even greater.
After the war broke out, large numbers of the Land of Them's warriors immediately switched sides, and the border fell in no time.
In just a few short months, the army had advanced straight to the royal capital of the Land of Them.
By then, Lord of the Country of Pi was finally panicking.
He sent an envoy to take his daughter to Namikawa Yū, hoping to honor their former betrothal and persuade him to withdraw his troops.
Unfortunately, that changed nothing.
As if.
They had already come this far. There was no way they could simply turn back.
Why leave this trouble alive when they could wipe out the Land of Them in one fell swoop?
He ordered the envoy detained and continued the siege.
The following month, the royal capital of the Land of Them fell. An inside agent opened the city gates and handed over the Daimyo, who had been trying to escape.
The Land of Them was officially destroyed.
The fall of the Land of Them was of great significance to the Land of Ancestors, but it was only the beginning.
Over the next few years, Namikawa Yū waged war across the land, destroying nearly every country, great and small, until he unified the entire continent.
At last, the Land of Ancestors stood alone.
Beneath the towering God Tree, Kaguya arrived hand in hand with Namikawa Yū.
Looking at the God Tree before her, Kaguya felt little stir within her. She simply gazed quietly at its crown.
Through her Byakugan, she saw a flower slowly blooming there, with what seemed to be a fruit taking shape inside it.
It was a new Chakra Fruit, and it was already growing.
But compared with the first Chakra Fruit, this one was developing very slowly.
At this rate, no one knew how long it would take to mature.
It certainly would not be ready before the Otsutsuki Main Family arrived in this world to collect the Chakra Fruit.
There was nothing to be done about it.
The God Tree had come to this world and grown by absorbing its Natural Energy.
At first, this world had been rich in Natural Energy, and the God Tree had grown beyond all expectations, producing a Chakra Fruit as quickly as possible.
But after the first fruit formed, much of the abundant Natural Energy had been consumed. Naturally, it would take an extremely long time for the God Tree to produce another.
In fact, if the Ninja World's energy had not been so abundant, a single fruit would ordinarily have been enough to exhaust the entire world's reserves. Producing a second Chakra Fruit would have been out of the question.
At the thought, a trace of melancholy crept into Otsutsuki Kaguya's eyes.
"Is there any other way for the God Tree to produce a fruit besides Natural Energy?"
Namikawa Yū asked.
"There is."
Otsutsuki Kaguya nodded, then began to explain.
After eating the Chakra Fruit, she had stopped hiding anything from Namikawa Yū and had told him everything.
Now she had no reservations and directly shared everything she knew.
The God Tree was a tool the Otsutsuki Clan used to increase their power.
It could absorb various kinds of energy and produce a pure Chakra Fruit for the Otsutsuki Clan to use.
Put simply, it was an efficient energy-gathering tool. It could convert energy that ordinary people could not use directly into Chakra Fruits that could directly increase their power.
However, there were certain limitations to using it.
For instance, an Otsutsuki had to be sacrificed for the God Tree to grow properly.
"Wait..."
Namikawa Yū was surprised. "According to what you're saying, the God Tree needs a sacrifice to grow."
"Then who was sacrificed to create this God Tree?"
"I sacrificed myself."
Otsutsuki Kaguya explained, "I fed my original body to the God Tree, then reincarnated into another body that I had prepared in advance."
Sacrificing her original body to the God Tree and then reincarnating into a different one was also a viable method.
To the Otsutsuki Clan, a body was nothing more than a body. It didn't matter if they fed it to the God Tree; they could still survive.
But because her original body had been fed to the God Tree and her current body had grown anew from another one, Otsutsuki Kaguya's power was so weak.
It was almost as if she had started all over again.
"I see."
Namikawa Yū nodded, and one of the questions in his mind was finally answered.
At that moment, he could be fairly certain.
This Ninja World was most likely not the setting of the original story, but rather a parallel timeline.
He knew the original story of the Ninja World.
In that story, two people were supposed to have come to plant the God Tree.
Otsutsuki Kaguya was the one sacrificed to the God Tree, while the other Otsutsuki was the one who reaped the harvest.
But at the crucial moment, Otsutsuki Kaguya had attacked the other one by surprise, fed that person's body to the God Tree's Ten-Tails, and claimed the God Tree Fruit for herself. That was what had led to all the events that followed.
Furthermore, in the original story, Otsutsuki Kaguya had no husband. The Six Paths Sage and his brother, born afterward, were seemingly brought into the world through the blessings of all living beings.
But clearly, this world was different.
Namikawa Yū lowered his gaze to Kaguya's belly, which had begun to swell, and the thought crossed his mind.
Back to the matter at hand.
As an energy-gathering tool, the God Tree could absorb not only high-grade energy like Natural Energy, but also life energy and chakra.
Chakra Fruits were made of highly concentrated chakra, so it was only natural that the God Tree could absorb chakra and turn it into more Chakra Fruits.
As for life energy, it was one of the energies used to synthesize chakra, so it made sense that the God Tree could use that too.
"Life energy and chakra, huh?"
Namikawa Yū lowered his head and pondered.
"Yū."
Kaguya spoke again and shared her idea.
She wanted to kill everyone in the Ninja World except those close to Namikawa Yū, and turn them all into sacrifices.
To her, ordinary native mortals were nothing but ants.
Before this, because of Namikawa Yū, she had felt little toward the natives of the Ninja World. She neither liked nor disliked them.
But the incident in the Land of Them had filled her with a deep loathing for mortals.
It was hardly surprising that she now wanted to exterminate every living being in the Ninja World.
"Why?"
Namikawa Yū seemed calm about Kaguya's idea. He merely asked, "What good would that do?"
"The life energy from the sacrifices can speed up the growth of the God Tree's fruit," Kaguya replied. "If there are enough sacrifices, perhaps the God Tree can produce another Chakra Fruit."