Hearing Katsuya finish speaking, Ron nodded slowly.
Kurama continued, his voice calm and heavy with age. "When we tailed beasts were created by the Sage of Six Paths, we were essentially newborns. Only later did we learn how to resonate with nature and awaken abilities inherited from the ancient beings whose origins were absorbed by the Divine Tree. We possess no memories of those eras or of those creatures themselves. Our powers feel innate to us, as if we were born with them."
"Although each tailed beast possesses strength comparable to a shadow-level ninja, we generally do not use natural energy in battle. We rely on chakra instead. Even so, sealing us is rarely difficult for humans, not because we are weak, but because chakra-based techniques are inherently restrictive to us. Chakra weakens tailed beasts, because both human chakra and tailed beast chakra originate from the same source."
"If we resist recklessly, the result is devastation. Nature suffers. Entire regions are destroyed. There is no meaning in that, so we choose to be sealed."
Kurama paused before adding, "Of course, Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara were different. Against them, we truly struggled. Wood Release and the Sharingan are both closely tied to the Divine Tree itself, and their influence suppresses us directly. Their power had already surpassed the realm of ordinary shadow-level ninja. Only Gyuki and I barely reached that threshold, yet even so, our chakra became unstable under their control."
Ron listened quietly, his thoughts racing.
Chakra, he realized, was marked. Every ninja was born with a chakra seed, an imprint. The Sharingan and Wood Release did not merely grant strength; they enforced control. They allowed their users to dominate chakra more efficiently than others, even when facing enemies of equal or greater raw power.
The price for power was clear.
In ancient times, one had to temper both body and spirit to extraordinary levels before the chakra could even be formed. Only when physical energy and spiritual power reached sufficient quality could they merge and catalyze the chakra. It was not automatic.
Ron had researched this deeply. If every person possessed physical and spiritual energy, then why did chakra not naturally emerge in everyone?
The answer unsettled him.
The others remained silent as Ron drifted inward, sensing that he was piecing together something fundamental.
Natural energy was the constant of this world. It allowed life to exist and flourish. Lifeforms could combine physical and spiritual energy to create chakra, and those who went further could incorporate natural energy itself. That should have been a universal principle.
But this world was young.
In its infancy, immortal deities and natural energy beings were born in harmony with nature itself, making them undying. The Otsutsuki, however, came from a civilization that had taken a different path and was more advanced.
Their technology imprinted the chakra directly. Chakra seeds were inherited through rigid hierarchies, ensuring that descendants were born strong while subordinates remained perpetually beneath them. Power flowed upward. Those below could never surpass the origin.
In the ninja world, chakra had been distributed, but in doing so, it restricted growth. Ninjas could not transcend the original owners of that power. Worse, they could become nourishment.
The Otsutsuki had learned how to harvest natural energy forcibly. Through accumulation and power, gaining immortality rather than being part of nature, they elevated themselves into higher life forms but were rather in disharmony with nature due to force plunder. But because their power was stolen rather than harmonized, they lacked true senjutsu. Instead, they relied on tools like the Ten-Tails to devour life, condense it into chakra fruits, and grow stronger rapidly.
Ron did not know how advanced the Otsutsuki truly were, but one truth was obvious. They were parasites of the world.
Their clan was structured like a pyramid. Those at the top fed on everyone beneath them. Through chakra marks, they exercised authority over the chakras of others, ensuring absolute control. Everyone below existed to sustain those above.
Even the Sage of Six Paths had left an imprint within the chakra itself, perhaps to accumulate power in the Pure Land. Yet despite countless geniuses being born over generations, only Hashirama and Madara had reached the realm of super shadow-level ninja.
That could not be a coincidence.
They carried the spiritual legacy of Asura and Indra.
For those bearing an Otsutsuki chakra seed, reaching that level required spiritual power of that order. Ron's father had surpassed shadow-level physical strength long ago, yet he only crossed into that higher realm after removing the chakra seed entirely.
That meant one thing.
Ninjas were intentionally restricted.
Whether it was the difficulty of manipulating chakra outside one's own body or a deeper lock that prevented spiritual accumulation beyond a certain threshold, the system itself enforced stagnation.
And Ron knew this was a problem he would eventually have to confront.
Even more troubling was the Pure Land itself.
If chakra carried marks, then death was not an escape.
And that was something far more dangerous than any enemy still walking the living world.