"Rescue your mother?"
Araki was taken aback by Otsutsuki Hamura's question.
Of course he knew who the other man's mother was: the famed Rabbit Goddess from a thousand years ago, stabbed in the back by her two supremely filial sons and hung in the sky for a full thousand years—Otsutsuki Kaguya.
However...
"Why would you ask that?"
Araki was a little curious. "And if I said yes? What would you do? Stop us?"
Otsutsuki Hamura shook his head. "I no longer have the strength to act. If that is the case, then so be it. After all, Mother has already been sealed for a thousand years..."
He acted like an old monk who had seen through all worldly affairs and emptied himself of desire, as if he no longer cared about anything. His whole demeanor was impossibly detached.
Seeing his reaction, Araki thought of his earlier guesses about the Sage of Six Paths' actions and continued, "Speaking of which, after you brothers sealed Kaguya back then, you willingly brought your clansmen to settle on the moon. Was it really only to keep your mother company and ease the guilt in your heart? Were there no other purposes?"
"What are you referring to?"
"For example... guarding against pursuit from the Otsutsuki main family?"
"You even know about that?"
Hamura was somewhat surprised, but he did not hide it. "You are correct. Guarding against an attack from Mother's main family and watching over the world my brother created—those were both my purposes in ascending to the moon."
"The world the Sage of Six Paths created?"
Araki neither agreed nor disagreed with that phrasing, and instead brought up another topic. "Then why did you let the Otsutsuki on the moon slaughter one another?"
If the moon really was an outpost, then the Otsutsuki