At the heart of Konoha, roughly six kilometers from where Fuyuki and Orochimaru were fighting, Naruto was fast asleep in an empty apartment, taking an afternoon nap. But just then, roots and shoots began sprouting from the wooden floor beneath him.
A vine drove straight into Naruto's body and entered the sealing space where the Nine-Tails was imprisoned!
"Hmm?"
The Nine-Tails, dozing away, sensed something was wrong. Why was its body suddenly itching?
It glanced back on instinct and saw a sight that made its blood run cold: a tree had grown out of the sewer!
"Eek!"
The Nine-Tails was startled. It sprang up with a yelp, its fur standing on end as it took up a defensive stance. "Again? Weren't you supposed to have died alongside Madara? How can you still be here?"
Unfortunately for it, this wasn't the First Hokage's tree. It came from the Ancestor summoned by Fuyuki.
The Ancestor didn't waste time talking. She immediately bound the Nine-Tails tightly with her Great Axe and drained every last drop of its massive chakra. All that remained was a Great Axe slumped against the wall in the sealing space, legs weak, raging helplessly, and looking deeply aggrieved.
A vast amount of chakra flowed through the tree's roots. In the forest within the Hyuga Clan Compound, Fuyuki grew stronger and stronger.
His dark hair gradually faded. The Spirit Binding Technique, which spread across the ground like Black Mud, locked Fuyuki's arms, legs, and neck in place, restraining the summoned beast possessing him.
Fuyuki spoke, his voice echoing as though several people were speaking at once: "Are you the one bullying my child?"
At those words, not only was Orochimaru stunned—even Fuyuki, the one performing the jutsu, was shocked!
Why did she say "my child"? He'd clearly meant to summon Otsutsuki Hamura, whose will had remained on the moon. Even if Hamura used a first-person pronoun, he shouldn't be saying "my child" like a woman—he should be using a man's way of speaking!
What happened next went beyond anything Fuyuki or Orochimaru could understand. Both of them were left utterly baffled.
The one Fuyuki had summoned wasn't Hamura. He seemed to have forgotten that Hamura wasn't the only one on the moon. There was also the true Ancestor, sealed away for a thousand years by her unfilial son.
Kaguya-hime's will descended in an instant. And because Fuyuki shared her bloodline, the possession synchronised at an extraordinarily high rate.
A little-girl version of Kaguya appeared. She stared expressionlessly at Orochimaru, her chakra pressure so immense it seemed inhuman—more like that of a Tailed Beast. Orochimaru was utterly shocked. How could a mere Genin kid use such a powerful Summoning Jutsu?
But!
Kaguya wasn't about to give Orochimaru time to think. As soon as her descent was complete, she followed her good grandson's instructions and glared with her Byakugan at Orochimaru, who had been acting so arrogantly just a minute ago and was now trembling with his hair on end. "Byakugan!"
The Ancestor's Byakugan was a little different from that of her good grandson, Fuyuki.
As Kaguya activated her Byakugan, an imperceptible pressure became a tangible shock wave. It swept across everything in her line of sight, uprooting countless trees and shifting tons of earth. A massive trench appeared in the ground.
Caught completely off guard, Orochimaru took the full force of Kaguya's Byakugan pressure. He lay half-dead atop a mound of trees and earth, his eyes filled with a longing to understand the unknown. Even though he was gravely injured and spitting blood, every bone and meridian in his body had been broken or cracked.
Yet his gaze remained feverishly intense. Lying on the ground, Orochimaru opened his mouth. A pair of pale hands reached out from within and pried it open. An uninjured Orochimaru, covered in slime, crawled out and licked his lips. "It seems I've overlooked the Hyuga Clan. Like the Uchiha, they've passed down their legacy for a thousand years. It seems your secrets are no fewer than theirs!"
"Mandara no Jin!"
The secrets of the Hyuga Clan were passed down orally from one Clan Head to the next before the former's death. Even during wartime, when the Clan Head had to personally join the fighting, the secrets were only temporarily recorded on a scroll and sealed with bloodline chakra. Once the war ended, or the Clan Head died, the scroll was entrusted to the next Clan Head to open.
The Hyuga Clan's secrets were completely unknown to outsiders!
Orochimaru summoned a tidal wave of venomous snakes with his Summoning Technique. They surged toward Kaguya-hime as he rapidly formed Hand Seals, then slapped his palm against the ground and summoned the strongest serpent from Ryūchi Cave. "Manda!"
"Orochimaru, I—"
"Shut up!" Orochimaru snapped. "We can talk about the sacrifices once we're alive and out of here. If we die, promising you more sacrifices will be meaningless."
Manda had fought alongside Orochimaru for many years. Seeing his grave expression, he immediately grew uneasy. "What kind of enemy are we facing this time? A dead toad? A slug?"
"Don't tell me it's a child's mother or Ancestor?"
Orochimaru had no idea how to describe the Kaguya-hime Fuyuki had summoned. But from her words—"Are you the one bullying my child?"—he judged that the girl before him was a direct relative of Fuyuki's, perhaps the mysterious powerhouse who had protected the Hyuga Clan during the Warring States Period.
In the late Warring States Period, when the shinobi villages were first established, it wasn't only the Uchiha and Senju who stood out. The Hyuga Clan, too, had a mysterious powerhouse protecting it. People knew only that the Hyuga Clan had such a powerful figure. Very little was known about him; only a few details of his appearance had been recorded.
Long white hair, eyes like the stars, and a robe unlike a kimono.
"Eighty Gods Vacuum Attack!"
Kaguya raised her hand. A vast quantity of chakra spread from her body and resonated with Natural Energy, forming an enormous fist that swung toward the snakes. A chakra fist that shook the earth plummeted from the sky. The ground erupted with dust like a nuclear blast, and the entire swarm of snakes Orochimaru had summoned vanished in an instant.
Kaguya didn't stop. She raised both arms and aimed them at Manda and Orochimaru, unleashing a second Eighty Gods Vacuum Attack. The entire earth trembled before Kaguya-hime. The title Rabbit Goddess was no empty boast: she was the true progenitor of chakra who had created the Ninja World!
The Eighty Gods Vacuum Attack was a divine technique that had crushed Sasuke's Perfect Susanoo like a toy. Now, facing those merciless, earth-shaking fists, the mere duo of Orochimaru and Manda seemed as tiny as ants.
"Summoning: Triple Rashomon!"
Seeing Kaguya raise her hand and remembering what had happened to the snakes, Orochimaru unleashed his strongest defensive technique almost by instinct.
"Bang! Bang! Bang!"
The Triple Rashomon shattered instantly. Orochimaru, hiding behind it, had nowhere to dodge. In an instant, the chakra fist smashed him into countless fragments. There was simply no escaping Kaguya's Eighty Gods Vacuum Attack.
After killing Orochimaru in a single blow, the little-girl version of Kaguya-hime looked toward Konoha. She saw a group of people filled with chakra, none of them of her bloodline, and felt deeply displeased. All the chakra in the world belonged to her!
It was all because of those two unfilial sons, who had scattered the seeds of chakra throughout the entire Ninja World!
And now, these thieves wouldn't kneel before her. They even dared to show hostility.
At that moment, Kaguya-hime felt an uncontrollable urge to kill.
"Ancestor?" Fuyuki's voice came from Kaguya-hime's mouth. "Your time is almost up. Your will will soon have to return. Why not spare Konoha today? There'll be plenty of time later!"
Fuyuki's consciousness hadn't fallen asleep. He was the one directing the entire Forbidden Summoning.
In fact, he'd been quietly speaking with the Ancestor in his mind the whole time.
Kaguya had crushed Orochimaru without giving it a second thought. It was sheer overwhelming force, and she hadn't even used her strongest technique.
With her current chakra reserves, Kaguya could use Nature Integration to destroy everything in the entire area—including the sky—in the blink of an eye.
The Expansive Truth-Seeking Ball was impossible, though. The Ancestor Kaguya didn't have enough chakra for that right now.
Before you continue