Kaguya vs. Isshiki

The war raged ever more fiercely. The Land of Ancestors was all but lost.

The Emperor of the Land of Ancestors, who had once made tender promises to Kaguya, ultimately chose to betray her to save himself.

He secretly joined forces with the enemy and set a trap for an unsuspecting Kaguya, intending to capture her and deliver her to the king of the Land of That One.

Her heartfelt devotion was trampled, her tenderness crushed. The cold betrayal and pain finally ignited Kaguya's fury.

In her rage, Kaguya killed the Emperor of the Land of Ancestors.

Drained in body and spirit, her heart gone cold, Kaguya returned alone to the towering God Tree. Her gaze suddenly froze.

The God Tree Fruit should have required the sacrifice of an Otsutsuki to fully ripen. Yet it was now crimson, plump, and fully formed, radiating an immense aura of life.

Kaguya stared at it for a moment. Resolve flashed in her eyes. Without further hesitation, she plucked the God Tree Fruit and swallowed it whole.

In the next instant, the fruit's energy flooded every part of her body. Boundless Chakra erupted from within her and shot skyward, becoming a pillar of energy that pierced the clouds and reached the sea of stars. All of Douluo Star trembled violently.

Her once lovely, cool features lost their mortal quality, and her skin gleamed like crystal. Her long white hair streamed wildly as her presence transformed completely. The gentle woman of the mortal world became an aloof goddess from beyond the heavens who looked down upon all living beings.

The skin on her forehead parted, revealing a nine-tomoe Rinnegan.

Despite the extra eye, she looked not frightening but somehow even more captivating.

The commotion jolted Isshiki awake.

Isshiki burst forth. The instant he saw the scene before him, his pupils contracted, and towering rage swept through him!

The God Tree Fruit was his prize, the foundation of his advancement!

Yet his subordinate Kaguya had eaten it without permission!

"You wretch! You dared to steal the fruit and betray the clan!"

Isshiki roared. He unleashed the full power of his Rinnegan, and a terrifying force erupted toward Kaguya.

But Isshiki soon sensed something was wrong. Kaguya had eaten only one God Tree Fruit, yet she was stronger than he was after eating more than a dozen.

Most shocking of all, Kaguya had gained an immortal, indestructible body!

Drawing on years of battle experience, Isshiki cleverly combined his ocular techniques, divine techniques, and fierce attacks. Again and again, he tore apart Kaguya's body, blasting it into a cloud of blood and fragments despite her lack of combat experience.

But in the blink of an eye, Kaguya restored herself completely.

The shockwaves from their battle tore through clouds, shattered mountains, and split the earth.

The ground collapsed in layers, tectonic plates shifted violently, deafening booms carried for thousands of miles, and colossal winds swept across the planet.

Their many ninjutsu, ocular techniques, and divine techniques opened everyone's eyes.

Isshiki had few abilities. Chief among them was Sukunahikona: he could shrink himself and any nonliving object. Ninjutsu, weapons, and rocks could all be made smaller, then restored to their original size in an instant.

Daikokuten: a separate dimension where time stood still. He used it to store objects shrunk by Sukunahikona and could release them from thin air without warning.

He fought almost entirely by combining Sukunahikona and Daikokuten with Black Receivers and Black Cubes, creating all manner of shifting attacks.

Yet with just those two instantaneous abilities, he found countless ways to fight.

For instance, he could release a Black Receiver from thin air just 0.01 meters in front of Kaguya, driving it into her before she could react.

Then he could enlarge it ten thousandfold, bursting her body apart.

He could also release a Black Cube directly above her head, then expand it to the size of a mountain.

Kaguya had even more techniques.

Amenominaka: she could instantly drag herself and all enemies within range into one of six separate dimensions under her control, each spanning over a thousand kilometers.

Yomotsu Hirasaka: she could open invisible rifts in space to teleport, move parts of her body through space to evade attacks, or thrust her limbs out of the void for a surprise strike. It had no cooldown and almost no delay.

All-Killing Ash Bones: pale bone spikes extended from her palms. Anything they struck began crumbling from the point of impact until nothing remained but ash.

Eighty Gods Vacuum Attack: a technique combining offense and defense. Its attacks could instantly destroy Isshiki's Black Receivers and Black Cubes, while its barrier stopped every attack he launched.

And then there was her strongest technique, Expanding Truth-Seeking Orb. According to Isshiki, if she completed it uninterrupted, it could devour the planet beneath them in very little time.

Beyond those, Kaguya could wield a variety of elemental attacks.

In the end, Kaguya used All-Killing Ash Bones, then opened a spatial rift before Isshiki with Yomotsu Hirasaka. The bone spike passed through the rift and struck him, ending the earth-shaking battle.

Only then did everyone learn how Douluo Continent and Sun Moon Continent had come to be: they had been carved out by the fight.

Their staggering battle smashed the supercontinent of that era apart. Tectonic plates split, land sank and rose, and the once-whole continent broke into five enormous pieces.

One of those landmasses had been their main battlefield. Unable to withstand the battle's terrifying shockwaves, it collapsed completely and sank beneath the sea.

But that raised another question. If one of the five continents had sunk, there should still have been four.

Why were there now only Douluo Continent, Sun Moon Continent, and one unnamed continent?

What was more, many powerful observers noticed something strange: in the images of the battle, Douluo Star a hundred thousand years ago seemed much larger than it was now.

In the Nine Treasure Team's courtyard at the Nine Treasure Glazed Tile Sect.

Ning Rongrong stared blankly at the Sky Curtain, then whipped around to Hinata beside her. Shock and disbelief filled her eyes. "Hinata! Isn't your Martial Soul the exact same Byakugan she has?!"

Hinata nodded uncertainly at her words, her voice soft and sweet. "I think... it is."

Ning Fengzhi, Chen Xin, and Gu Rong had already hurried to the courtyard when Kaguya first revealed her Byakugan.

Now, unbridled joy and excitement surged in Ning Fengzhi's eyes as he looked at Hinata.

The images on the Sky Curtain continued.

The battle was over. Isshiki was dead, and the land lay in ruins. Mountains and rivers had been shattered, lives devastated, and scarcely anyone had survived.

Kaguya stood atop the God Tree, gazing at the scarred, lifeless world with a tangle of emotions in her eyes.

The next instant, she brought her hands together!

"Outer Path: Samsara Tensei Technique!"

A brilliant, gentle white light spread across the broken land, washing it with warm life force.

Before the stunned eyes of every living being on Douluo Star, all the humans, birds, beasts, and other creatures killed in the battle came back to life!

Bones and flesh reformed, souls returned to their bodies, and the dead land sprang back to life. Warmth returned to the mountains and rivers, and all things flourished once more!

The towering God Tree rapidly withered after Kaguya used the Samsara of Heavenly Life Technique. But it did not die. It remained rooted in the earth, steadily drawing energy from the planet and converting it into Chakra.

Kaguya's aura weakened considerably as well.

In the Pope Palace of Spirit City.

The situation across the continent had changed completely. The plan Spirit Hall had spent years devising to seize the Heaven Dou Empire was now pointless.

Qian Renxue had staged Xue Qinghe's death in an attack, then withdrawn to Spirit City to focus on cultivation and undergo her divine trials.

Now, having witnessed the Samsara of Heavenly Life Technique, Qian Renxue trembled violently. Her breathing quickened, and desperate longing and hope filled her eyes as she murmured, "Resurrection... The dead really can be brought back..."

"If I could master this divine technique... could I... could I bring Father back?"

At Heaven Dou Royal Academy.

Dugu Yan linked arms with Ye Lingling. "Lingling! Look! That technique is so much better than your healing!"

Ye Lingling glanced at Dugu Yan with cool eyes.

I know that without you telling me.

The story on the Sky Curtain continued.

Kaguya came to a small village and began a new life.

At first, the humans who had survived the catastrophe lived in awe. They worked together to rebuild their homes and restore civilization, and peace settled over the world.

But the peaceful days did not last long.

Human greed, desire, and ambition could not be erased so easily.

Disputes gradually arose between factions. Small clashes mounted until they became large-scale wars, and humanity once again fell into endless infighting and slaughter. The conflict only grew worse.

Seeing this, Kaguya single-handedly put an end to every conflict.

Grateful for her grace, the people revered her as the Rabbit Goddess.

The years passed.

Before long, Kaguya used her Chakra and her own cells to create a pair of twins: her eldest son, Otsutsuki Hagoromo, and her younger son, Otsutsuki Hamura.

The two children were born with Chakra passed down from Kaguya, making them the first "humans" in the world to possess it.

At this point!

Everyone on Douluo Star was puzzled.

So far, aside from planting the planet-destroying God Tree on Isshiki's orders at the beginning, Kaguya's actions hardly resembled those of a demon god bent on destroying the world.

If anything, she seemed more like a goddess who had saved it.

She could not exactly be called kind, but neither did she seem evil.

Had she done something later that led the Sky Curtain to call her a demon god?

Or had they misunderstood what "demon god" meant?

The images on the Sky Curtain continued to play.

As Hagoromo and Hamura grew older, they began interacting with other people.

Everything seemed to be moving in a better direction.

Kaguya knew she had betrayed her clan and stolen the fruit. Sooner or later, the Otsutsuki leadership would send powerful clan members to punish her.

She did not trust the humans who repeatedly fought among themselves, and she feared the formidable power of her own clan.

So she made a plan to protect herself: activate the God Tree and unleash Infinite Tsukuyomi, trapping the humans she considered wicked or defiant in an eternal dream.