Kaguya Otsutsuki

At that moment, moonlight shone brilliantly over the Black Pool.

The green mist, once thick as a spiderweb, was pierced by shafts of silvery moonlight, which glowed like dreamlike pillars. The scene was breathtakingly beautiful, like something out of a fairy tale.

By all rights, moonlight was just sunlight reflected off the moon. How could it possibly have so much more penetrating power than sunlight? But this world clearly didn't play by the rules.

"Because moonlight is different from sunlight." Katsuyu lowered her head and gave a perfunctory answer with little sincerity.

Her tone was like someone trying to brush off a child.

Nagato understood, though. "Because the moon contains Kaguya Otsutsuki's power, right?"

The moon in this world wasn't a real moon. It was the result of a devoted son named Otsutsuki Hagoromo sending his own mother flying into the sky. If you told an ordinary person that his mother had gone flying, you'd definitely be insulting him. But if you said it about Otsutsuki Hagoromo, you'd merely be stating an objective fact.

"You know about Kaguya Otsutsuki?" Katsuyu was a little startled. She tilted her head to look at Nagato, as if she'd just seen a wild monkey doing addition and subtraction up to ten.

Nagato felt deeply insulted and began to question himself. How had he, an "all-knowing and all-powerful" transmigrator and the big boss of the Shinobi World who'd been hauling rice in Konoha, ended up in this position? He'd even been looked down on by a bug. It couldn't just be because Katsuyu's voice was too cute, could it?

"Come to think of it, you did mention the Ōtsutsuki Clan earlier. I assumed you only knew about Hagoromo because of the Rinnegan," Katsuyu murmured to herself.

"Then I suppose I should thank you," Nagato replied flatly.

After learning the Senjutsu of Shikkotsu Forest, he could sense the Senjutsu Chakra in Katsuyu, which was similar to the energy inside him. He couldn't help feeling a sense of closeness toward her. Now, Nagato somewhat understood what Katsuyu had meant earlier. No wonder the bug had said that learning her Senjutsu would make him like her child.

It was a connection formed entirely through Chakra, a feeling of sharing the same roots.

The feeling the Rinnegan in Nagato's eye sockets gave him was the complete opposite of the one Katsuyu inspired. Although the eyes were connected to his flesh, they always felt cold and unfamiliar, as if they weren't part of his body at all.

It was as if the eye sockets held not a pair of real eyes, but a pair of mechanical eyes without any sensation. Using them caused no trouble, but they never felt like a natural part of him—never comfortable or at ease. They seemed cold and heavy, completely at odds with his body.

Nagato shook his head, driving the discomfort in his eyes from his mind, then tried asking Katsuyu another question. "Katsuyu, have you met Kaguya? What kind of person was she?"

They said the sages of the Three Great Sage Regions had lived since Kaguya's era, ancient immortals who possessed the most complete and reliable information in the world. It would be a waste not to ask while he had the chance.

Katsuyu replied, "I once saw Chakra as vast as the stars fall upon this land. I saw a man divide yin from yang with his hands, drawing the boundary between the living and the dead. I also saw a man walk alone, lost between humanity and divinity. You humans have too many emotions: regret, longing, insatiable greed, pain, and struggle, until you become completely hollow."

The giant slug spoke with deep feeling, but her words had no practical meaning. Apart from the first sentence, which gave Nagato a vague idea, the rest was incomprehensible.

"What does that mean?" Nagato grimaced, wanting to toss Katsuyu off his shoulder. He felt she had never intended to tell him anything about Kaguya and was deliberately refusing to speak plainly.

"Ah..." Katsuyu sighed, making Nagato's brow twitch.

He heard contempt in that sigh and gritted his teeth. "What would a shut-in bug know? And now you're sighing? Speaking of which, why did you sign a Summoning Contract with someone like Tsunade when you're such a shut-in?"

Katsuyu replied serenely, "Don't you think it's interesting to have a part of your body summoned away by someone every so often?"

Nagato's expression changed. Somewhat exasperated, he patted his forehead. He wasn't annoyed because he didn't understand what Katsuyu meant; he was annoyed because he did. That was terrifying. Weren't different species supposed to be incapable of understanding each other? He didn't want to understand a bug.

"You really are a big shot in the shut-in world!" Nagato said with admiration.

"Thank you," Katsuyu replied, not at all flattered.

The conversation had reached a dead end, and Nagato didn't plan to pay any more attention to the slug on his shoulder. He began swimming in the Black Pool, enjoying his physical abilities—which far surpassed those of an Olympic champion in his previous life—under the moonlight. After swimming countless laps and getting used to Sage Mode, he climbed out of the pool and performed the Summoning Jutsu.

"Poof!" The Asura Path appeared before him.

With the Black Receivers on his body gone, the Asura Path no longer had a source of Chakra and had reverted to a corpse. The Rinnegan in his eyes had also disappeared. Nagato used the Deva Path's ability to repel the Black Water from his body, then began stripping the red-cloud, black robe off the Asura Path and putting it on himself.

The clothes were a little too big, and the sleeves were so long that he couldn't even get his hands out of them. Still, it was better than being naked, right? He wasn't fond of streaking.

After dressing, Nagato wrapped the black robe tightly around himself and walked barefoot away from the Black Pool.

Katsuyu, who had been clinging to his back, poked her head out of his collar. "Where are you going? You don't think your training is over, do you?"

"Of course not. Do you think I'm as stupid as you?" Nagato shook his head, letting Katsuyu stay on his back. He thought the bug was kind of cute, anyway. "I have something more important to do now."

Ever since he'd transmigrated into Nagato, he'd known exactly who his greatest enemy was, and he'd been working hard to grow stronger.

Originally, he'd only planned to learn Senjutsu so he'd have greater strength to protect himself. He hadn't expected to gain so much from Shikkotsu Forest: not only had he mastered Senjutsu without any side effects, he'd also healed every hidden injury in his body. His Sage Body was in the best condition it had ever been, giving him the foundation to grow even stronger.

Nagato quickened his pace, his heart burning with anticipation. Before Obito found him, he would prepare the trump card he needed to deal with him.

In Sage Mode, he was incredibly fast. Before long, deep in the green mist far from the Black Pool, he spotted the huge body of Cerberus. The stupid dog was squatting there motionless, all three heads lowered. When Nagato approached, he saw that the dog looked aggrieved, too.