The air itself seemed to thicken with an otherworldly presence as a figure materialized in the sky above them, her form casting an ominous shadow across the battlefield. Naruto's voice caught in his throat, barely managing to force out the words that sent chills down everyone's spine.
"Is this person... the mother of the Sage of Six Paths?"
The legendary ancestor of chakra had arrived—Kaguya Otsutsuki, the progenitor of all ninjutsu, the one whose very existence had shaped the destiny of the shinobi world for over a millennium.
Suspended in the air with an ethereal grace that defied natural law, Kaguya possessed an otherworldly beauty that was both mesmerizing and deeply unsettling. Her skin was pale as moonlight, flawless and porcelain-smooth, giving her an almost doll-like perfection. Yet it was the distinctly inhuman features that marked her as something far beyond mortal comprehension—the crimson Rinne Sharingan blazing like a third eye upon her forehead, and the pair of curved horns protruding from her skull like a crown of bone.
Her eyes were perhaps the most disturbing aspect of her appearance. Completely white, devoid of pupils, they bore the unmistakable characteristics of the Byakugan possessed by Konoha's Hyuga clan. Yet there was something fundamentally different about them—an emptiness that went beyond mere visual similarity. These were the original eyes, the source from which all dojutsu had eventually emerged.
Minato's analytical mind raced as he observed her. The three great dojutsu—Sharingan, Byakugan, and Rinnegan—all of them originated from this woman. She is the wellspring of power that every major clan can trace their bloodline abilities back to.
"Why does this person's eyes look like..." Kushina's voice trailed off, her brow furrowing deeply as she stared at Kaguya's vacant gaze. The redhead's maternal instincts screamed warnings, every fiber of her being recognizing the threat before them.
What disturbed Kushina most wasn't the overwhelming power radiating from Kaguya—she had faced powerful enemies before. It was the complete absence of any recognizable emotion in those white orbs. They weren't the eyes of someone suppressing their feelings or maintaining a stoic facade. They were the eyes of something that had never truly understood what it meant to feel at all.
"How can there be such people in the world?" Kushina whispered, her voice barely audible above the crackling energy that surrounded them.
Sasuke's entire body trembled, his Sharingan spinning frantically as it attempted to process what his enhanced vision was telling him. The young Uchiha's face had gone pale, sweat beading on his forehead despite his usual composure in battle.
"Her chakra..." he managed to choke out, his voice tight with barely controlled fear. "It's like staring into an endless abyss. There's no bottom to it, no limit I can perceive."
The chakra signature emanating from Kaguya was unlike anything any of them had ever encountered. Where even the most powerful shinobi possessed chakra that felt wild or controlled, focused or scattered, Kaguya's energy felt fundamental—as if she wasn't drawing upon chakra so much as she was chakra itself, given form and consciousness.
Minato expanded his sensory abilities to their absolute maximum, his perception stretching across vast distances as he attempted to gauge the scope of what they were facing. The results sent a chill down his spine that had nothing to do with the ambient temperature.
"Her chakra... it's connected to everyone who was bound by the Divine Tree," he realized aloud, his voice carrying the weight of terrible understanding. "Every person caught in the Infinite Tsukuyomi—their chakra is flowing into her."
Within his expanded sensory range, Minato could detect thousands upon thousands of chakra signatures, all remarkably similar yet varying in intensity. Like tributaries feeding into a great river, every single one of them flowed in the same direction—toward the figure floating above them with divine indifference.
Kaguya's attention settled upon Minato and his companions, her gaze lingering with the detached interest of someone examining insects beneath a microscope. For a moment that stretched into eternity, she simply observed them, as if cataloging their strengths and weaknesses with methodical precision.
Then, with a movement so subtle it seemed almost casual, she raised her hand toward the air before her.
Buzz!
The sound was unlike anything they had heard before—not quite mechanical, not quite organic, but something that existed at the intersection of space and time itself. Where her slender palm touched seemingly empty air, reality began to tear. A jagged crack appeared in the fabric of existence, its edges crackling with dark energy that hurt to look at directly.
Minato's eyes widened in shock and recognition. "A space channel!?"
His mind immediately began analyzing the implications. This wasn't like his Flying Thunder God technique, which required pre-placed markers and careful chakra manipulation. Kaguya had simply reached out and torn a hole in space itself, as easily as parting a curtain.
With movements that possessed an almost ritualistic quality, Kaguya reached into the spatial tear. Her fingers disappeared into the void, and when she withdrew them, a black, amorphous mass clung to her hand like living shadow. Without ceremony, she allowed the creature to flow into her sleeve, where it seemed to merge with the fabric itself.
"Mom! You are finally resurrected!"
The voice that emerged was filled with such genuine joy and relief that it seemed almost obscene coming from something so obviously malevolent. Black Zetsu's excitement was palpable, its form writhing with barely contained euphoria.
"After all these centuries of planning, all the failures and setbacks, you have finally returned to this world! The endless schemes, the manipulation of bloodlines, the orchestration of conflicts—all of it was worth it for this moment!"
The revelation hit everyone except Minato like a physical blow. The implications of Black Zetsu calling this divine being "mom" were staggering in their scope.
"Mom?" Kushina echoed, her voice filled with disbelief. The visual disconnect between Black Zetsu's grotesque, plant-like appearance and Kaguya's ethereal beauty made the familial connection seem impossible.
Naruto's jaw dropped open. "That creepy thing is her son?"
But Minato had already begun piecing together the puzzle, his strategic mind working through the historical implications. "Black Zetsu isn't her biological offspring," he murmured, his voice carrying the weight of dawning understanding. "It's something she created—a failsafe, designed and deployed just before the Sage of Six Paths and his brother managed to seal her away."
The Fourth Hokage's eyes narrowed as he continued his analysis. "It would have to be a special type of creation to survive for over a thousand years, maintaining its purpose and intelligence across generations. A living embodiment of her will, programmed with a single, overriding directive: ensure her eventual resurrection."
Kaguya's expression remained unchanged, but the veins around her temples became visible as she activated her Byakugan. The world shifted in her perception, revealing the true nature of the chakra flowing through each person before her.
Her gaze immediately locked onto the Yang power crackling around Naruto's right hand and the Yin power wreathing Sasuke's left. These were the same energies that her son, Hagoromo, had once wielded—the powers that had been used to seal her away in the first place.
But then her attention turned to Minato, and her expression flickered with something that might have been surprise. Though his raw power couldn't match that of Naruto or Sasuke individually, the Fourth Hokage possessed both Yin and Yang release, perfectly balanced within his chakra system. It was a combination that reminded her of someone else—someone whose memory still carried the sting of betrayal.
"Hagoromo..." she whispered, and for the first time since her resurrection, genuine emotion crept into her voice—a deep, aching sadness that spoke of maternal love corrupted by centuries of imprisonment and rage.
But the moment of vulnerability passed like a shadow across water. As Kaguya continued to stare at Minato, Naruto, and Sasuke, her white eyes began to blaze with murderous intent. Through her connection with Black Zetsu, she had instantly absorbed all the knowledge her creation had gathered over the millennia—every detail of the current world, every threat to her plans, and most importantly, the fact that both Naruto and Sasuke possessed the power to seal her away once again.
She had returned to this world with a purpose that transcended the petty concerns of mortals. The Six Paths Sage and his brother had stolen precious time from her—centuries that should have been spent fulfilling her destiny. She would not allow such an interruption to occur again.
The air itself seemed to vibrate with her resolve as she spoke, her voice carrying the weight of absolute authority: "Everyone... disappear!"
The command rang out like a divine decree, brooking no argument or resistance. This wasn't a threat or a boast—it was simply a statement of fact from someone who possessed the power to reshape reality according to her whims.
In the instant her words faded, the world around Minato and his companions began to change. Not gradually, not with the buildup of chakra that preceded most ninjutsu, but with the sudden, overwhelming finality of a natural disaster.
The temperature spiked dramatically, going from comfortable to scorching in the space between heartbeats. The solid ground beneath their feet didn't crack or crumble—it simply ceased to exist, leaving them suspended in air that shimmered with heat waves.
"What!?" Naruto's startled cry was nearly lost in the sudden roar of superheated air rushing past them as they began to fall.
Where moments before they had stood on a battlefield scarred by their conflict with Madara, they now found themselves plummeting through a hellscape of molten rock and flowing lava. Massive formations of hardened magma jutted up from bubbling pools of liquid fire, while volcanic gases created a hazy, oppressive atmosphere that burned their lungs with each breath.
"There is such a ninjutsu?" Minato's voice carried both awe and alarm as his analytical mind struggled to process what had just occurred.
This wasn't teleportation in any conventional sense. Kaguya hadn't moved them to a different location—she had somehow replaced the very space they occupied with an entirely different dimension. There had been no hand seals, no visible chakra manipulation, no warning of any kind. She had simply willed their reality to change, and it had obeyed.
It's as if she pulled an entirely separate world from somewhere else and used it to overwrite the space we were standing in, Minato realized with growing dread. The implications of such power are staggering. If she can alter reality itself on this scale...
"Everyone, hold on!" he called out, his voice cutting through the chaos of their fall.
The Yang and Yin forces within Minato's chakra system surged in response to his will, the opposing energies achieving perfect balance as they lifted him into stable flight. Behind him, six massive chakra constructs materialized—ethereal arms formed from pure energy, each one reaching out with precision born of desperate necessity.
Naruto had simultaneously activated his own flight capabilities, golden chakra cloaks surrounding both him and his father as they moved in perfect synchronization. The young shinobi's own chakra arms stretched out, working in tandem with Minato's to catch their falling companions.
With careful coordination born of their father-son bond, they managed to secure everyone: Kushina was pulled safely into Minato's protective embrace, while Naruto caught Tsunade and Mei Terumi. Sasuke, though capable of limited flight himself, allowed himself to be steadied by one of the chakra constructs. Most surprisingly, Minato's energy reached out to grasp Obito, pulling the masked shinobi to safety despite everything that had transpired between them.
"Why do you want to save me again?" Obito's voice was thick with confusion and self-loathing as he found himself supported by his former sensei's chakra. "With my Kamui, I could have handled this myself. I don't deserve—"
"Obito." Minato's voice cut through his student's protests with gentle firmness, even as his eyes remained fixed on Kaguya's floating form above them. "I should have told you this long ago, but I'll say it now: I will never abandon any of my friends!"
The word 'friends' hit Obito like a physical blow. His visible eye widened behind his mask, moisture gathering at its corner. "Friend? After everything I've done... after all the lives I've destroyed, you still call me that?"
"I don't know what you went through after the battle with Kirigakure that changed you so drastically," Minato continued, his voice carrying both sorrow and determination. "But you should understand now who our real enemy is—not each other, but the force that has been manipulating events from the shadows for centuries."
Minato's grip on his student tightened slightly, protective and reassuring. "I failed to protect you and Rin. As your teacher, that failure weighs on me every day. The wrong things you did cannot simply be erased or forgiven with words alone."
His gaze finally shifted to meet Obito's eye, and in that moment, the Uchiha saw not condemnation but the same warm understanding that had once made him proud to be the Fourth Hokage's student.
"So in order to cleanse both our sins—yours for what you've done, and mine for failing to guide you properly—let us fight side by side once more and defeat the enemy before us!"
The weight of those words settled over both men like a mantle. Despite all the pain, betrayal, and tragedy that lay between them, the fundamental bond between teacher and student remained unbroken. In this moment of ultimate crisis, they could set aside their personal conflicts to face a threat that endangered everything they had ever cared about.
"Minato-sensei..." Obito's voice cracked with emotion, years of guilt and regret pouring out in those two words. For the first time in longer than he could remember, he felt a spark of hope that redemption might still be possible.
From within Kaguya's sleeve, Black Zetsu observed the touching reunion with obvious irritation. "How troublesome," it muttered, its voice dripping with disdain. "These emotional displays are such a waste of time."
But Kaguya herself seemed entirely uninterested in the drama playing out below her. Her attention had focused with laser intensity on three specific individuals: Naruto, Kushina, and Minato. The family connection was obvious to her enhanced perception, but more importantly, she had identified something crucial to her current state.
Despite her resurrection, some of her original chakra remained beyond her reach. Specifically, the chakra that had been sealed within the Nine-Tailed Fox—chakra that was now split between the father and son floating before her, with the largest portion residing within Kushina as the current jinchuriki.
Black Zetsu, its consciousness merged with Kaguya's thoughts, understood her focus immediately. A malicious grin spread across its dark features as it offered tactical advice: "Mom, dealing with both Naruto and the Fourth Hokage simultaneously will be challenging given their combined abilities. Perhaps we should recover your chakra from the woman first—she appears to be the weakest link in their formation."
Kaguya's slight nod was the only indication she had heard, but it was enough. Without any further warning or dramatic gesture, she launched herself downward with speed that defied comprehension.
Her approach was unlike anything they had faced before—not the wild aggression of a berserker or the calculated strikes of a skilled combatant, but the inexorable advance of a natural force. As she descended, chakra began to coalesce in front of her outstretched palm, taking the shape of a massive ethereal hand.
The technique ignored every defensive position Minato and the others had taken, phasing through their protective formations as if they were nothing more than illusions. It reached directly for its target with the certainty of gravity itself, massive spectral fingers stretching out toward Kushina with intent that brooked no resistance.
She stretched out her hand, and the chakra in front of her palm condensed into a big hand, as if ignoring Minato and others around her, and reached out to Kushina!