Being Fed by Kaguya

The sun had just risen. A thin mist veiled the mountain forests of the Land of Ancestors, and dewdrops hung from the tips of grass blades, refracting rainbow halos.

Holding little Otsutsuki Yuya in her arms, Kaguya Otsutsuki tried to move in a way she had never used before, one that could only be called clumsy-keeping her balance while avoiding strides large enough to wake the "unstable factor" in her arms.

Yuya, however, was quite lively. His little head bobbed as he curiously surveyed this world, both familiar and unfamiliar to him. Distant mountains lay dark against the horizon, mist wreathed the nearby waters, and everything was far more real and vivid than it had ever looked through a screen.

Of course, the clearest sight was always those pupil-less eyes, which now seemed a little less cold and a little more bewildered, along with that breathtakingly beautiful face!

Although this era seemed terribly impoverished, still no more than a primitive farming society, and none of the familiar characters from the original story, none of those descendants... had appeared yet... simply looking at Kaguya was already rather pleasing to the eye.

Every so often, though, Kaguya Otsutsuki floated into the air and peered into the distance with her Byakugan. Yuya knew she was surveying the area for soil suitable for planting the God Tree.

"Mm..."

His stomach let out a small, shameful whimper.

It was quiet, but to a being like Princess Kaguya, it might as well have been thunder.

Princess Kaguya drifted down from the sky and stopped, lowering her head slightly to look at the little thing in her arms with a somewhat blank expression.

"Hungry?" she asked in the common language of the Ōtsutsuki, her tone inquisitive.

Yuya understood immediately. Unfortunately, the only language skill he had maxed out was "baby talk," so he promptly put his translation plan into action. "Ah~ ee-ya~"

His little hand obligingly patted his empty belly, and he did his best to flash an innocent, ingratiating smile, unconsciously putting his charm stat to work.

[Ding! Daily quest triggered. Please make your choice:]

[Option one: Use every baby-talk word you have learned in your lifetime to explain what "hungry" means and demand an Ōtsutsuki specialty energy cube. Reward: Mental power +1]

[Option two: Wail loudly without tears to express your intense dissatisfaction and attract rabbits within a ten-mile radius to feed you. Reward: Animal affinity +1]

[Option three: Blink your big eyes and convey the helpless message "I'm a poor little thing, and I'm about to starve flat" through your gaze. Reward: Chakra +1]

Yuya: (╯‵□′)╯︵┻━┻

Option one? An Ōtsutsuki energy cube? Am I supposed to treat that as a compressed biscuit or poison? Is this system seriously not messing with me? Option two... lure in a whole nest of rabbits so Princess Kaguya can smash them with one palm and make braised rabbit heads on the side? I'm not heartless enough to get a whole nest of rabbits killed just for a stat point!

Option three, no question!

Chakra!

Princess Kaguya was the progenitor of chakra, and her chakra hadn't been spread around yet. If I had chakra in my body too, wouldn't that make me another progenitor of chakra?

No, Princess Kaguya hasn't eaten the God Tree Fruit yet. She doesn't have chakra yet, which means I'm even more of a chakra progenitor than she is?!

Yuya immediately switched modes.

His smiling eyes instantly filled with a watery haze. His long lashes quivered gently, his rosy little mouth pouted, and his whole face broadcast the message, "I'm the hungriest, most helpless little cutie in the whole world, and if you don't feed me soon, I'll cry, but I'm still holding it in." Paired with another pat to his belly, the signal was aimed straight at Princess Kaguya.

Sure enough, Princess Kaguya froze for a moment.

Her pure white eyes flickered, as though... she was considering what physical shape "starving flat" might take.

Still, the little fellow's gaze, so earnestly expressing need and dependence, was like tiny glimmers of light. Inexplicably, it gave her a trace of... a novel experience born of responsibility? She recalled that there should be a human settlement nearby.

An unknown amount of time passed. Just as Yuya's "starving flat" signal was about to evolve into "starving into a sheet of paper," Princess Kaguya stopped beside a clear stream.

A faint light flashed in her hand, and a palm-sized, bowl-shaped container appeared out of thin air, possibly some sort of ninjutsu creation or portable storage space. It held a few wild fruits and some clean stream water.

Faced with this bowl of "food," the two Ōtsutsuki members-one of whom was temporarily impersonating one-fell into a brief silence.

Princess Kaguya picked up a wild fruit, looked at it, then looked at Yuya's open, toothless mouth, which could only babble. For the first time, she encountered a technical difficulty.

Put it straight in? The sizes don't seem to match. It could choke this fragile creature I've just decided to "protect" to death.

Crush it and feed him the juice? Recalling the behavior of certain mammals on this planet, she tentatively extended a finger, intending to imitate them.

Inside, Yuya screamed, Wait! Big sister! Are you sure those lovely fingers of yours, the ones that could smash Isshiki with a single palm, can manage the right amount of force? Don't crush my jaw before you get any juice into me! I'm literally defenseless!

At this critical moment, inspiration flashed through Yuya's mind—or perhaps hunger had awakened his potential. Staring at Princess Kaguya's tentative finger right before him and that tempting fruit, he forced a clear syllable, tinged with babyish sweetness and urgency, out of his throat for the first time:

"Big... sister!"

The air abruptly froze.

Time seemed to stand still at that moment.

Princess Kaguya's outstretched finger halted in midair. For the first time, her pure white eyes clearly reflected the complete figure of a baby, and the light in them seemed to... stop? No one had ever called her that before.

It was a very quiet, very soft, badly pronounced form of address, thick with the sound of saliva. Yet wrapped in that pure, untainted voice, it was like a pebble dropped into the depths of her still, ancient well of a heart, sending a ripple silently outward.

"You..." Princess Kaguya began, her voice seemingly a fraction softer than usual, carrying surprise even she had not noticed, along with... a strange stirring?

Seeing her reaction, Yuya rejoiced inwardly. Ha! Calling her big sister! How's that for the power of my "adorable baby-talk attack"? Look at those results! Despite his physical limitations, his face only managed another smug little babble.

The next second, a set of options popped up without warning:

[Special interaction detected. Please choose:]

[Option one: Keep acting cute. Try to say "fwuit" in baby talk and ask to be fed. Reward: Language talent +1]

[Option two: Reach out with your chubby little hand and grab the fruit yourself, displaying the heroic spirit of "self-reliance." Reward: Coordination +1]

[Option three: Grab Princess Kaguya's hovering finger with your little hand, press it against your soft cheek, and nuzzle it. Reward: Increased Princess Kaguya-exclusive affection (current bond effect amplified)]

Yuya: (⊙o⊙)!

Options one and two look pretty good, but this third one... grab Princess Kaguya's finger and press it against my face? Isn't that the legendary "snuggling"? Still... judging by the earlier charm and affection bonuses... it might be seriously effective?

Nothing ventured, nothing gained! That's the one!

Time to do it!

Yuya decisively reached out with his pudgy little paw and caught the slender, slightly cool finger Princess Kaguya held beside his mouth. To her surprise, he did not try to snatch the fruit. Instead, he pressed his soft cheek against her finger and nuzzled it affectionately like a kitten, letting out a contented "Mmm~"

Princess Kaguya's entire body stiffened!

That warm, soft touch, carrying the heat of a living body, came clearly through her fingertip. The little fellow's unguarded dependence and affection struck her even more directly than his earlier "big sister."

A delicate softness she had never felt before quietly began to grow in a crack in her cold, hardened defenses.

This feeling... Ōtsutsuki Isshiki would only have considered it a fatal weakness. Yet here, beside a stream in the silent forest, she actually found it... pleasant?

[You chose option three: Initiate snuggling. Quest complete. Reward: Increased Princess Kaguya-exclusive affection (current bond effect amplified). Your affection with Princess Kaguya has increased to 15.]

"...Eat." Princess Kaguya's tone returned to its usual calm, but her movements took on unprecedented care and... gentleness?

She finally grasped the proper method. Gathering an extremely small, precisely controlled amount of power at her fingertip, she squeezed the wild fruit into a tiny drop of thick, fragrant juice and carefully dabbed it onto Yuya's open little mouth.

Yuya immediately stuck out his pink tongue and worked hard to lick up that drop of sweet relief.

"Smack, smack..."

The sight of him savoring it actually gave the aloof Ōtsutsuki princess a faint sense of... accomplishment?

After a few drops of fruit juice, Yuya's little belly quieted down for a while. Watching him smack his lips in satisfaction, Princess Kaguya's pure white eyes flickered slightly.

Fruit juice... was too thin, after all.

The nutrients this little fellow needed surely amounted to far more than this.

An image flashed through her mind from when she had observed this planet's creatures-a mother animal nursing her young.

She turned her gaze toward the depths of the forest. Her Byakugan activated silently, piercing layer after layer of branches and leaves.

In mere moments, she located a doe with a fawn.

Her figure flickered, and Princess Kaguya appeared beside the doe.

The doe seemed cowed by an invisible force and did not dare move at all.

Princess Kaguya's movements were not exactly rough, but they were certainly not practiced either. Without touching the doe, she drew out some warm deer milk and collected it in a clean little wooden bowl, seemingly made just moments earlier.

Returning to the stream, Princess Kaguya looked at the milk in the bowl, which carried a faint animal scent but brimmed with life energy, then at Yuya gazing eagerly up at her. Once again, she faced a technical difficulty.

Fruit juice could be given a drop at a time, but milk... how was she to feed it to this little fellow?

She hesitated, then copied the method she had used for the fruit juice, tentatively dipping a slender finger into the milk, intending to dab it into Yuya's mouth as before.

The gesture made her feel somewhat... strange in a way she could not describe.

By then, the dawn had fully brightened.

Kaguya Otsutsuki is feeding me... giving me...

Yuya felt his throat tremble, but then a hungry infant's instincts took over, and he closed his mouth around Princess Kaguya's milk-coated fingertip, sucking a little at a time.

Beside the stream sat a silver-haired woman of peerless beauty, a rare, faint blush on her cheeks. One hand carefully held a bowl of deer milk, while a finely sculpted little baby clasped the fingertip of her other hand in his small hands.

The little baby leaned close to the wooden bowl she held, sipping with utter satisfaction. His tiny body nestled against hers, as though it could dispel every trace of cold in this ancient forest.

Every time he swallowed, her cool expression softened a little more.

His figure was reflected in Princess Kaguya's pure white eyes. Deep within that gaze, frozen for a thousand years, the corner that had already quietly thawed now rippled more widely, revealing more tiny glimmers called "warmth," mingled with a lingering embarrassment she no longer resisted.

"Little Yuya... you really are... special," she murmured, her gaze resting gently on his face. This time, before even the wind could catch her whisper, she quickly looked away, breaking the moment and restoring a trace of deliberately composed coolness.

After all, this was her first time feeding someone else something like this. Only she herself likely knew how fast her heart was beating.