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Inside a room made of pure ice, two figures could be seen sitted on a throne and chair made of Ice and facing each other. One of the figures had pale white skin, and two pairs of pupilless white eyes dressed in pure white kimono embroidered with snowflakes.
The other had healthy white skin, platinum white hair, and two ruby red eyes with six black pointed lines in the shape of stars dressed in a black robe.
These were Kaguya and Shun and they had been staring at each other for quite some time now.
"You know, for someone asking for something, you're quite... domineering, for lack of better words," Kaguya said after a period of silence.
"Well, that's because I have something you need" Shun replied.
"Oh? Did you anticipate this happening when you left these here last time? Kaguya asked in intrigue.
"Not at all, I'm not someone who is capable of thinking that far ahead. I just took pity on you seeing as you were by yourself in this bleak dimension" Shun replied.
"Hmm, I find that hard to believe," Kaguya said.
"Take it or leave it. I found that things always find a way to play in my favor when it comes to things I desire" Shun said calmly.
"Oh? What is it you desire?" Kaguya asked.
"Answers," Shun said
"Answers, huh?" Kaguya asked and kept quiet for some time before continuing, "answers that only can give, right?"
"Of course," Shun said not bothering to play any form of the word game.
"You didn't even bother lying," Kaguya's eye twitched as she said, "I was expecting you to have some form of agenda or something."
"You see, these books have been good learning material even to me," Kaguya said as she elegantly stood up.
"Oh? Then I am glad," Shun said with a slight smile. Who wouldn't be happy knowing they have someone of like mind around them? "I have high hopes for you"
"So, you seek answers from me, right?"
"Hm," Shun nodded.
"Things concerning the past, my origins, and how to get stronger, right?" She asked again.
"Hm," Shun nodded.
"Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't even bother sitting here with you not to talk of even bothering to talk about my past, but recently I have been opened to new sets of thinking processes"
"You see, I learned some interesting things about life and how life works most at times. Are you curious to know what I learned?" She asked.
"Maybe?"
"Good. I learned that if you need something, there were three major ways to go about it, one, take it by force, ask politely for it, and finally, in a situation where both parties are equal in strength, status, and general standing, they exchange. Do you know where I am going with this?" She asked with a smile.
"I have a general idea, but please, where are you going with this?" Shun replied.
"Thank you. I wouldn't go as far as to say we are equal in strength and status, but I know that we both have what we both desire, don't we?" She asked smilingly.
"I believe we do" Shun smiled back at her, "but according to what you said, I believe we do not have any form of equal standing, do you know why?"
"Why?" Kaguya asked, her smile leaving her face.
"Because, unlike me, you are trapped here, and forgive me for saying this, but I don't see you leaving here anytime possible. I am assured of living for centuries and even if I don't have it now, I could start now to train my patience limit. Now tell me, do you still think we stand on equal ground?" Shun asked, his smile getting brighter as he spoke.
Kaguya frowned slightly and remained silent for a few seconds before her face relaxed and she asked, "What do you want?"
Shun smiled and said, "It's nothing much really, whether you answer fully or not doesn't matter, I want a friend, I'm sure you understand what that concept means," pointing at his head, Shun continued, "In here, there are tens If not hundreds of those books. What I need is for us to trust each other. No lies, no deceits, trust. As I am now, except for two others, you're the only other person that I hope could be a close friend as well as be called immortal. So, what do you say?" Shun asked.
Kaguya's eyes were wide open in surprise upon hearing Shun's answer. She wasn't expecting this at all. "Friends, huh?" She muttered with a distant look in her eyes.
Walking back to her chair, she sat down and said, "I once had a friend on this planet. When I first came here, a lot happened and I happened to come in contact with some humans, a royalty of sorts, Kenji was his name. After a series of events, he arranged for some maids to look after me. Of them all, only one kept by me till the very end."
"Hm, what happened to her?" Shun asked albeit knowing the answer to that.
"She died." She said calmly, "She died under the weapons of the very king she served" Kaguya finished. From her tone, Shun could feel a deep calm.
If Shun were to speculate, he would say she didn't have a reason to be angry as she has already taken adequate revenge.
"Hm, when did this happen?" shun asked.
"Decades ago" She answered and then smiled and said, "Are you trying to get me to talk about myself?"
"No, I felt I should sympathize with you is all, and what better way than to get you to talk about it? You know, most relationships start from decent communication, you talk I listen, I talk, you listen." Shun unanswered.
"I suppose that's true. Alright then, I accept your proposal, starting now, we are friends, what do you want to know?" She asked.
"Everything you're comfortable with saying" Shun said.
"Everything huh? Alright then, I'm going to give someone my trust once more and see how that plays out" She said and then closed her eyes for a while.
Opening her eyes, she began. "Millennial ago, from an advanced species in space, a man by the name Otsutsuki Shibai arose. He was quite versed in science and found a way to go around death with his knowledge." A look of admiration flashed across her face as she spoke about him.
"With his knowledge of science, he created a seal, Kama. With it, he could circumvent death, no matter how many times he died."
"Normally, in this clan, there is a tradition that after a certain amount of merits one gets, they would be eligible to take a Chakra Fruit. This fruit is created by planting Chakra seed on the living planet. The seed sucks out the life energy of the planet and germinates till It produces a fruit. This fruit, when eaten gives one tremendous power and leads to an evolution"
"Shibai Otsutsuki, found that one wasn't enough for him, and eating more than one was likely to kill him, so he came up with a way to eat more fruits without dying. That's where the Kama seal comes in. This seal records his very DNA genome, energy, and ability contained within and transfers it to a new body, where he begins the process all over again, continuing his evolution"
"It was a genius invention, but..." A look of dread and fear flashed across her eyes, "to get more fruits, he kept reaping the energy out of every planet he comes across. And with the energy reaped out, what awaits that planet is its eventual destruction."
"At first, there was a regulated supply of chakra fruits to keep the planet's destruction controlled, but he didn't care about this and kept on with his goal. Subsequently, he destroyed many planets and kept on evolving till he reached the peak of his evolution, becoming a god. He achieved a stage where even an action could call upon varying abilities, with an action, he could destroy planets, call upon storms, and many other miraculous abilities. Shinjutsu was the name given to it."
"Later on he disappeared, no one knows where he went to till this very day. Although he went against the clan's policies, no one was able to do anything to him. After he disappeared, his research on Kama was found and after extensive research, the clan decided to implement it to every clan member to also prevent true death."
"With this development, there were some clan members who proposed they followed this approach to power. Reaping the energy out of planets. Some wanted to reach the stage Shibai reached and evolve to a higher stage and some rejected this proposal, sayung that all life was precious even if it was a little hypocritical."
"The power-driven members of the clan said that since they've been doing it before, what harm is there to raise the quota a notch? They eventually won and the clan was divided."
"Later on, it was discovered that even the clan members could be devoured to achieve another evolution, and then all hell broke clan. The side that accepted this proposal became strong quickly and named themselves the heads of the clan while the weaker ones became the branch."
"Fortunately or unfortunately, I was born In the branch clan and was eventually sent to come to this part of the world with the main branch son...."
Kaguya spoke fluently till this point and eventually stopped and had a distant look on her face. Shun didn't interrupt her at all but paid rapt attention. This was unchartered territory for him. He may have had an idea of how the Otsutsuki clan was but he hadn't expected this development.
After reminiscing for some time, Kaguya continued. "He was Isshiki Otsutsuki, at first, I couldn't care less how all these played out as this was one of many planets, after all, it wasn't the first and it wouldn't be the last. When we arrived, the planet was quite populated, communities were everywhere, and the people here were unique in one way or another"
Saying this, she smiled before her face became cold once more and said, "I finally understood what I was taught growing up. The people here lived their lives with their all every day and it was heartless to just take it all away for something as stupid as power, so I approached Isshiki and tried talking to me but he said, 'why should I care how some inferior species live and die?'"
"I was incensed but as a lady from a noble family albeit branch, I learned to control my emotions perfectly well, so I showed no outward reaction. I thought of ways to stop him but all my ideas were proven useless when he planted the seed. And with the seed planted, there was no going back."
"After that, we left for our base in space, where after a lot of twists and turns, I managed to injure him heavily, but he escaped. I kept half of his body though. With his half body, I thought of feeding it to the seed to offset some of the consumption from the planet, so I came down intending to do just that."
"Unfortunately, I was hurried in coming down and was discovered by the human scouts as they called themselves, and was invited to live in the palace or whatever that was."
"In the end, they were merely humans so they didn't discover when I left to feed Isshiki's body to the seed. Isshikibwasmt dead and maybe it was the rush of adrenaline as it is written here, but I didn't think of the repercussion of what I did. I had attacked the main coan son, if news of this was heard, I would be executed no questions asked, so I decided to watch over the tree and eat the fruit to strengthen myself a little in preparation"
"I married... the king of the land of that time... he was kind and caring and I who was new to the feeling of love fell for him and got pregnant. As a woman, I was treated like a vase. To him, I was not to be burdened with any worldly affairs. I enjoyed the feeling" She smiled as she said this part. "
Back then if you asked me, was he a good king? I would have said yes, but was he a good husband? That was a resounding no. He sold me over to the enemy just because I defended myself when they came to capture me. What should I have done, watch them put their filthy hands on me? Hmph," she snorted as she said this.
"So, one thing led to another and he came with his army to capture me arrows blazing, for the sake of peace, not knowing I was with his child. Even then, was that what a good husband should have done? So I ran with my best friend and maid. I didn't run because I was scared of them. No. I ran because of my unborn children. I couldn't bear them getting hurt by mistake so I ran in the direction of the tree."
With a sad smile, she said, "My friend, decided to run back and tell them to stop shooting the arrows but was killed instead. For the second time in my life, I felt a deep anger welling up inside of me. And with that anger, I flew to the tree top and ate the already matured fruit. It was as if an unknown hand was leading me in that direction because later on, I asked myself, why didn't I just fly at the very beginning? Why didn't I kill them all at the very beginning? I could have done all these things so why didn't I? But there was no one to answer that question" she said looking melancholic.
After eating the fruits, I did the next best thing that came to mind, I killed them all. After that, I decided to rule the humans of them and build the perfect home for my children. While doing this, I also decided to build an army to use against the main clan members should they arrive."
"The only way I could do that was to use the minuscule energy remaining energy of the world to turn the dead humans into puppets, that way they would have enough chakra to contend with them even if a little"
"My sons found out one way or another even when I instructed them not to go snooping around. I found out late though. When I tried searching the world for my eldest son, I discovered that I couldn't find him. At first, I thought it was Isshiki who came back and probably used the Kama seal on him so I panicked when my youngest son was being secretive, I did what I regret till today, I controlled my son whom I swore to protect." She said sadly.
"When Hagoromo came back, he looked different, stronger, and even dared talk back to me. I knew immediately he wasn't Isshiki, but maybe Isshiki took him away and made him stronger. At first, I thought maybe he was lurking around somewhere, so I made my youngest Hamura fight him to delay him while I take care of Isshiki once and for all, and then come take care of the unruly son"
"I rushed out at that time and scanned for Isshiki once more hoping he'd be around to take advantage of when I was distracted by my son. Surprisingly, I felt Hagoromo kill Hamura and before I could explode in anger, I felt his dying fire of life get ignited once more."
"I was glad and then got confused at what was going on. As I was still searching and wonderinggggg what was going on, my two children came to me, both ready for battle."
"That was when I realized that Isshiki must have given him something to control him but the requirement was for him to die, or they were in on it from the very beginning."
"I didn't want to fight my children even if they were being controlled so I tried pressuring them with my chakra but color me impressed when they both withstood my chakra. It was then I noticed the change in my children's eyes. One got the Rinnengan, the other, the Tenseigan."
"The Tenseigan which even I didn't get and the Rinnengan with its abilities to die for. At first, I was glad my children got such wonderful eyes, this way we'd have more war potential, but then it struck me, Isshiki got to them first" As she said this, Kaguya grit her teeth so hard that blood would have flowed if she had flesh and blood.
"Hagoromo began telling me that I had gone too far, that I shouldn't have sacrificed the ones I was sacrificing, I tried explaining that it was for their good but they both didn't want to listen"
"With both parties reaching a deadlock, a battle ensued. I tried everything in my power to probe their consciousness for any form of manipulation."
"With my Rinne-Sharingan, I didn't need to fear them but when I let my guard down, they placed a seal on me and extracted my chakra, separated my consciousness from my body, and sealed me."
"Fortunately, I had been experimenting with my chakra for years trying to reach a stage where I could perform Shinjutsu. I could manipulate all elements with a thought, with little effort I gave spirituality to my Kama with the sole instruction being to release me from my seal." She said with a sigh.
"Till this moment I don't know what went wrong and what Isshiki did to my children. I can only hope the Kama would release me so I can save my children" Kaguya said and looked at Shun.
"What do you think? Do you believe me?" She asked.
"Why shouldn't I? Did you lie to me?" Shun asked back.
"Who knows?" she answered.
"So?... What do you think?" She asked again.
"Well...."