Rasa had sent agents to search for Jūgo long ago. Eventually, through his connection with Ryūchidō, he located the village where Jūgo was supposed to be born. But by the time his men arrived, they discovered something unexpected: Jūgo hadn't even been born yet.
No one in the village carrying the Libra bloodline had awakened the rare ability to absorb natural energy. They were, for the most part, ordinary villagers without any notable gifts.
Faced with this, Rasa decided to shelve the matter temporarily. And as his responsibilities piled up, it eventually slipped from his mind altogether. It wasn't until he set foot in this future world that the thought returned to him.
As for Orochimaru, information about Jūgo held no particular value. He didn't consider it a secret worth guarding. After all, he had already surrendered his research on the Cursed Seals to Rasa; by comparison, Jūgo was irrelevant now.
Once Rasa had acquired what he needed from Orochimaru, he didn't immediately turn his attention to the Two-Tails or the Seven-Tails. It wasn't just that he didn't want to seem too eager. The real reason was far more strategic. Compared to the easily captured Two-Tails and Seven-Tails, the chakra of the Eight-Tails and Nine-Tails was vastly more significant. Losing either would be a critical blow.
So ten long days passed quietly...
---
Land of the Sea, inside Orochimaru's hidden base.
A massacre was unfolding.
On one side were dozens of monstrous beings, creations of Orochimaru born from Cursed Seals and twisted experiments. On the other side stood a single figure, Sasuke Uchiha, who had arrived three months earlier in search of power.
Hidden from view, Rasa watched the entire scene from above, unnoticed.
The battle didn't last long. One by one, the mutated beasts fell, and when the last of them collapsed in a heap of gore and broken limbs, Sasuke calmly sheathed his blade and walked away. Not once did he look up to notice the silent figure observing from the shadows.
The stench of blood clung to the air, heavy and metallic.
Then, footsteps sounded behind Rasa.
"Is it done?"
"Hehehe, all thanks to the method you gave me, Rasa-kun."
Orochimaru stepped into view, his figure emerging from the darkness. Both of his hands were whole again, restored without him sacrificing anything of his own. Among his countless followers, there had been more than enough zealots willing to offer their lives and bodies for him.
As he watched Sasuke vanish into the distance, Orochimaru's voice carried a note of intrigue.
"I'm beginning to think what you said might be true, Rasa-kun. Perhaps Sasuke really is the Child of Prophecy. Even I didn't expect him to progress this fast."
Rasa didn't respond to the bait.
"No need to test me. If you have a question, just ask."
He had no patience for games or riddles.
Orochimaru smiled knowingly, visibly pleased by the directness.
"It's always refreshing talking to you, Rasa-kun. In that case, I won't hold back. I want to know—why are you gathering the chakra of the Tailed Beasts?"
Rasa met Orochimaru's gaze and answered without hesitation.
"Well then, since our collaboration has been productive, I suppose it's time to uphold part of my promise... and show you a broader world."
He paused, then posed a question of his own.
"Orochimaru, you know of the legendary Sage of Six Paths, don't you? But have you ever stopped to ask yourself, where did he come from?"
"!!!"
Orochimaru blinked in surprise, caught off guard by the question. It had never even occurred to him to ask. The Sage was a figure of myth, an origin point in the annals of shinobi history, the kind of being people accepted as a given, never questioned.
"Does Rasa-kun know?"
Rasa didn't hesitate. He gave his answer without reservation.
"The Sage of Six Paths, whose real name was Ōtsutsuki Hagoromo, was, strictly speaking, only the founder of Ninshū in our shinobi world. His mother was the true origin of chakra on this planet."
"His mother!?"
Orochimaru's eyes widened in disbelief.
"A mythological figure like that actually had a mother?"
"What else? So-called gods are simply humans who wield extraordinary abilities."
Orochimaru's mind began to churn with thoughts, but Rasa's next revelation completely overturned everything he knew.
"Of course, the Sage's mother was different. She wasn't human. She was a being from another world, a member of an alien race known as the Ōtsutsuki clan."
"The Ōtsutsuki clan!"
A jolt ran through Orochimaru as if he were brushing against the raw truth of reality itself.
"That's right. The Ōtsutsuki are invaders, plain and simple. They travel from world to world, using the weapons they create to drain planets of their life energy. That energy is then converted into fuel for their own evolution. The one who arrived in our world, and who became the progenitor of chakra on Earth, was named Ōtsutsuki Kaguya. She bore two sons. One was Ōtsutsuki Hagoromo, the Sage of Six Paths, ancestor of both the Senju and Uchiha clans. The other was Ōtsutsuki Hamura, who became the ancestor of the Hyūga clan."
!!!
Orochimaru stood frozen, his entire understanding of the shinobi world unraveling at once. All of his life's research, all of his theories and assumptions, had been limited to the framework of the world as it was, the shinobi system, chakra, bloodline limits, and reincarnation. But what Rasa was revealing transcended all of that. This was not just about shinobi history, but about cosmic forces and alien origins.
He began to question everything. For a brief moment, he even wondered whether Rasa was simply spinning an elaborate lie. But some part of him, the part that had always chased the unknown, sensed the weight of truth in Rasa's words.
"What a vast world…"
His voice trembled slightly as his eyes locked onto Rasa.
Rasa, fully aware of what was going through Orochimaru's mind, responded without hesitation.
"How I came to know all this, I can't reveal yet. The time isn't right. But what I can tell you is this, Kaguya wasn't the only Ōtsutsuki who came to this world. Others followed. Though Hagoromo and Hamura managed to stop her from turning Earth into the Ōtsutsuki clan's breeding ground, their people haven't abandoned their ambitions. Our planet is still in their sights."
Rasa's voice dropped into something deeper and heavier as he turned toward Orochimaru.
"This is why, as Kazekage of Sunagakure, I sought you out, a rogue ninja from Konohagakure, and entrusted you with this knowledge. Because in the face of the Ōtsutsuki clan, the old grudges between the Five Great Nations, the Five Great Shinobi Villages… they're nothing. Childish squabbles. Petty rivalries. We may have been enemies. There may be blood and betrayal between Sunagakure and Konohagakure. But there's one truth we both must accept, neither of us wants to see our world devoured, reduced to compost for the Ōtsutsuki's evolution."
As Orochimaru absorbed Rasa's words, he slowly fell into a deep silence. The reality Rasa had laid before him was too immense, too alien to fully process in mere moments. And in light of that, his own goals, immortality, knowledge, surpassing death, seemed laughably small.
"I see. So, Rasa-kun, all this time… you've been collecting the power of the Tailed Beasts in order to fight against the Ōtsutsuki?"
"That's right."
"They're really that powerful?"
"More than you can imagine. Even Kaguya, the one who gave chakra to our world, was afraid of them."
Rasa glanced at him meaningfully.
"In today's shinobi world, unless the Sage of Six Paths himself returns, no one, no one, can stop them."
Orochimaru's brow furrowed.
"Not even if all Five Kage joined forces?"
Rasa let out a quiet, bitter chuckle.
"If you mean they could tickle them a little, then yes. Barely."
Orochimaru's expression hardened, and his jaw clenched.
Even the full might of the Five Kage would only amount to a tickle? What kind of monsters were these?
"Luckily for us, we still have time. But that also means we can't afford to waste a single moment. Have you finished what I asked for?"
Orochimaru nodded. He didn't press for more details, not yet. The revelations he had just heard would take weeks to fully unravel in his mind.
"It's ready. Come with me, Rasa-kun."