Peculiar. That's the word I'd use to describe my two little pumpkins.
Supernatural aside, a normal child usually takes 6 to 8 months to begin crawling and pulling themselves up from the ground due to their development of muscles, then takes 8 to 12 months to begin walking.
Similarly, they'd say their first words between 12 to 18 months of birth and begin talking subsequently.
I didn't grow up in the time of Hagoromo and Hamura, neither did I grow up along Ashura and Indra to know how peculiar they were growing up but my two little children were beyond peculiar.
Izanagi could stand stably at barely 6 months of age and began walking shortly after, Izanami followed suit at barely 7 months.
The talking included, they were beyond even peculiar. A year after their birth, they could already make complete sentences, not overly long ones but sentences nonetheless.
The maids and villagers were awed at this which led me to know that Ashura and Indra weren't this peculiar. Hagoromo also confirmed this and said that my children were indeed interesting.
He could also feel the overwhelming amount of spiritual energy emanating from them. If I could feel it, so could he. Hamura too.
Oh, did I forget to mention that both Hamura, Hanami, and Hokuki stayed behind to look after their grandchildren, nephew, and niece?
No? Ok, they did. And while Hagoromo and Hamura noticed the spiritual energy amount exuding gun-controlrolrollably from the babies, they opted to seal it away which I was considering.
According to them, it may be detrimental to the children's growth as they would mature faster than their peers and at a point, their bodies wouldn't be able to handle the pressure and give up. Either that or they mature too much and become stupid.
I couldn't see how the latter was possible but I could see the former happening.
They were my children and inherited every aspect of me which means that as they inherited my spiritual energy, they should also have inherited my physical energy. Essence, as I have decided to call it.
I just recently decided to name the various energies as, essence for physical energy, spiritual for well, spiritual energy, and natural energy as natural energy.
The only problem is that although their body is developing faster than normal, it wouldn't reach a balance with the spiritual energy before the side effects begin to show.
So after discussing it with Hinami, we decided to seal it up. Of course, I came up with the seal. I designed it to lock in their spiritual energy and release the bare maximum. I also decided to lock up their chakra pool so it doesn't affect the body in any form.
I predict that at the age of twelve, they would have reached the stage to access their chakra in its full glory. It may seem as if I am limiting their growth but I think it's the opposite.
Normally, children unlock their chakra at the age of 5 for proper training before they enter the Academy as was shown in some Naruto novels, also, aime other isekai or magic-related anime and manga opt to begin training their children's mana at the age of 5 to 6 years to build a good foundation for a larger mana pool.
I took this into consideration and as I locked up their spiritual energy, I also locked up their access to chakra while placing a gravity seal on them. As they age, gravity would continuously temper them.
The gravity seal was made in consideration of their general weight. It had 10 levels.
The seal on each level would release as they get used to it and would continuously double their weight till the last level.
At the last level, they would be able to carry ten of themselves, that is 10 times their body weight.
It sounds ridiculous but I had faith that it would be a surmountable obstacle. After all, they are my children, I have the eight gates permanently opened, so even if theirs isn't opened, they would still reap some benefits from the fates. That was my belief.
Hinami hounded me over it and I had to pacify her while giving her good enough reasons why they must begin to get strong as infants.
When all the seals were placed on them, no noticeable change occurred except that they began crawling again, their intelligence remained as it was but no further development was shown.
All in all, they became your regular children once more.
I speculated that with the meditation classes we hold in the village daily, they'd learn to control their spiritual energy better and with the seal placed on them and the exercises I will be giving them in the future, their chakra would be enormous when released in the future.
Two years flew by in the blink of an eye and today I decided to check up on Kaguya In my spiritual sea.
"Yo"
"Kyaa" I greeted from behind her making her scream in a high-pitched tone and although this was my spirit sea, my ears and brain still hurt. No, maybe it's because it's my spirit sea that it even hurts.
"What was that for?" I asked in a pained tone though fake.
"Who did you sneak up on me like that and when did you get in?" She asked back.
"Well, first off, this is MY spiritual sea, I can come and go as I wish as I've been doing. Hmm, I guess that answers two of your questions" I answered back.
"Well, true but still, you startled me," Kaguya said in pout anger. Which was cute b the way
I smiled and patted her head on reflex and said, "Sorry. Sorry."
"So? What have you been up to?"
"Hmph, I'll forgive you this time. As for what I've been up to, am I supposed to take that as a rhetorical question?" She asked.
"Why would you think so?" I asked back in confusion.
"Because" she sighed while massaging her forehead, which was weird again because this was her spiritual form but no comments. She then continued. "I've been stuck here for how many years now? Two? And you still ask what I've been up to? What else if not reading? Huh?"
"Oh, sorry about that," I said scratching my cheeks in embarrassment. I just wanted to make an opening greeting is all.
"Anyway. What's up? Learn anything new?" I ask.
"Hmm. A lot actually and I've been meaning to ask you something" Kaguya replied.
"Oh? What is it?"
Kaguya put on a serious face which got me serious too and then asked. "All these books and pieces of information here, although I haven't read them all, I do have a grasp on most of the things here. Although I haven't been able to read through the main clans' library, I have read a good part of it, even the little I have learned from the teachers in the clan, and most of the things here are unheard of."
"Hmm? Your point?" I asked, confused about where all this was going.
She continued, "Now you can decide to answer or not, but don't lie to me. Alright?"
"Hn" I nodded.
"My question is, where did you get all this?" She asked.
Although the question was shocking, it wasn't that shocking. I only showed a little surprise before saying, "I can decide not to talk about it but I will tell you. These were put here by some God I met a while back"
Now that wasn't a lie. By all means, these were put here by a God. Isguya squinted her eyes at me and I looked straight back at her without the least bit of fear.
"Why?" She asked.
"Why what?" I asked back.
"Why did this God put this information here? And how did you meet this God?" She asked.
"That's something I can't tell you and as for meeting this God, you should have an idea of what beings exist outside this known universe right? As for the reason why it's for reference purposes. They all detail a fundamental part of energies and how to harness them. Lots of techniques, lessons, schemes, and many more. It's then left for me to pick the needed and make my life more comfortable. Nothing more, nothing less." I said.
"Now that aside what have you learned so far?" I asked diverting the topic.
She shook her head and said, "Well, if you don't want to talk, I won't and can't force you. As for what I have learned," she then looked excited and said, "I've learned fundamental things about my abilities and those of other Otsutsukis. In a book, I read about life after death and learned of samsara which is a reincarnation cycle."
She then paused and continued.
"This is absurd in this world. Do you know why?" She asked.
I shook my head and she continued.
"That's because, in this universe, there is no reincarnation cycle. According to records, there once was, but after the event of Otsutsuki Shibai fighting against death and gaining immortality, that cycle was deemed obsolete. Some records showed that Shibai even destroyed that cycle."
"Oh? You mean to say that there is a hell or underworld where reincarnation took place?" I asked in curiosity.
She nodded and said, "Yes there was. It was a realm, like hell, shadow, and even pure land. Though I think it was similar to the pure land."
"I know of the shadow realm but what is this about hell and pure land?" I asked.
"Oh? You know of the shadow realm? Not bad. Not bad at all." She nodded as if acknowledging me. I knew she was but still felt a little annoyed like she was praising a junior. Let's not think about it.
"As for hell, it's a realm where evil beings spawn. Like how they put it in some books I read when evil energy gathers for a long period of time, it turns into life forms with intelligence. We call these beng demons or devils. Devils because they're pure evil, demons because they have intelligence." She said.
I was surprised at this development. True in the anime, there was an arc of a demon that broke into the shinobi world, but there was no mention of where it came from, only that it was a demon.
I nodded my head making her continue. "In every living planet, there is a space channel that sucks out the evil from the living being of a planet and supplies it there. It is a one-way channel, but after the energy of any plant is devoured by the chakra seed, that channel becomes unstable, causing a two-way transport if lucky or no transport at all when unlucky."
"How is that unlucky?" I asked.
"Well, if there is no outlet for the evil energy then the beings of the planet will be easily susceptible to evil tendencies. Simple as that. Though even the two-way transport Is also an unlucky situation because devils are known for their impulsiveness, should a slightly stronger one get into a world where the beings there are weak, then it would cause a bloodbath" Kaguya explained.
Oi. Oi. This wasn't in the manual. Wasnt this world a world with only chakra and nothing else? I'm beginning to get scared here, you know.
"How strong are these devils?" I managed to ask.
"Well, according to some of these fantasies I've been reading, these devils can be called spiritual lifeforms so they don't have a specific power level. You can only seal them, if you kill them, they only need to respawn and cause havoc once more. In these novels that have these people called Buddhists, they seem to have a way to purify these devils, so maybe a light or holy attribute could permanently kill them?" Kaguya answered while asking me.
"And how am I supposed to know that?" I ask back.
"Hey, I'm just asking here. These devils are a menace even to us Otsutsukis." She said.
"Wow, that's a lot to take in you know. What about this pure land?" I asked.
"Hmm, this is more explainable. This pure land is where all the dead goes to. Simple as that." She answered.
"Really? All the dead? No discrepancy between good and bad?" I asked.
"What discrepancy? Everyone's soul comes from the same source and they go back there when they die. Simple as that." She said.
"Soul huh? What is a soul? How is it formed?" I asked.
"Isn't that obvious to you yet? You don't mean to tell me that you've had all these books here and you haven't figured something like this out? A soul is the condensed form of spiritual energy carrying individual marks unique to each person." Kaguya explained.
"So that's it?" I said. It has been obvious to me for some time now but I've been refusing to accept it.
I've known that what makes a human a human was the soul and body. Both have a driving force behind them.
The moment I opened all my spiritual chakra gates, it felt like I had access to the very source of soul energy. I'm yet to know if that vast amount I felt rushing Into me was mine, to begin with, or was granted to me after I opened all the spiritual gates.
Hearing Kaguya now, I'm more inclined to believe that it was granted to me. Since there is a source, I merely opened the floodgates and allowed it to flow into my soul. The same could be said for the eight inner gates.
The physical aspect is understandable as I'm constantly regaining chakra as I breathe by drawing in the natural energy of the world, mixing it with both my spiritual and physical energy giving me my unique chakra.
Maintaining the Inner gates is also thanks to this. That means that as far as I breathe, my physical body remains undying. Similarly, as far as I remain in this universe, my soul is undying.
This explains a lot. In the entire anime, the only people who didn't die fully were Hagoromo, Hamura, Ashura, and Indra. Hagoromo and Hamura are self-explanatory as they remained in their spiritual form even after their physical body gave up. Indra and Ashura because they continued reincarnating their souls till the time of Naruto and Sasuke.
No wonder any one can be resurrected with Edo-Tensei. You just need to summon their soul from the Pureland and with the Rinnengan Rinne-Rebirth Jutsu, Boom, resurrection magic. This world is fucked up in different places. But I can't say I don't like it.
"So how did these two realms come about even?" I asked.
"No one knows, but there is also a record saying that Shibai created them to balance things out properly. Souls should go where they belong while the evil of the world that was meant to be washed away during the reincarnation Cycle gets sucked into the hell dimension."
"Sigh, till this day, no one knows nor can they find out. You can't get into the Pureland without dying and you can't go into the hell dimension for fear of death, because the moment you step in there you'd be noticed by the devils, and should you die there, you become one of them with no hope of resurrection" Kaguya explained patiently.
"That's a lot to take in. I wanted to know your views on the many fighting techniques you've read about, but I think I'll pass for today. Gotta go arrange my thoughts" I said to her.
She nodded and said, "from my experience, this would be a lot to take in"
"What experience?" I ask In confusion. "Last I check you were a young lady in her sixties"
"Sigh, young people these days," she shook her head and sighed like those 'venerable ones' in Chinese manhwas. Seeming to know what I was thinking, she continued, "This Venerable One has seen through the vicissitudes of life itself and a brat still clean behind the ear-"
"STOP!" I shouted "Just stop, please! " I begged.
She chuckled and said, "Hehe, this venerable Ine will forgive you this time as you've apologized. You may leave now"
Before she could even finish, I had already left my spiritual sea and was back in my body still seating in my favorite spot. Hmm, I won't be surprised if this chair becomes an ancient relic or artifact in the future. I mean it has been basking in my aura for quite some years now, hehe.
I looked at the skies and thought, "this world just got a whole lot more interesting"