In the place where two goddesses once faced each other and glimpsed their reflections—one corrupted by solitude, the other rising through sacrifice—it was there that the former Rabbit Goddess now stood. Kaguya's figure was bathed in pale light as she performed the ancient ritual that would summon the creature poised to devour this reality: Shikashi.
The air was heavy. Every soul present held its breath.
The Nine Bijuu had formed a great circle, their colossal bodies radiating raw power. Just within that ring, a square of protection had been formed by Hagoromo, Hamura, Naruto, and Sasuke—four pillars of the world's spiritual and physical lineage. Naruto and Sasuke were not alone. Hidden beneath Sasuke's robes, Mitsue coiled in quiet readiness, her sharp senses alert. Beneath Naruto's shadow, the dark shape of Kuro crouched, perfectly still, awaiting her moment to strike.
In the exact center stood Kaguya, arms raised, weaving her soul into the weave of the cosmos.
Above them all, suspended in the void between moon and world, sat Hinata Gin—the Divine Princess. Her posture was serene, yet commanding, seated in a lotus position as if meditating atop the tension of the universe. Golden threads encircled her, spiraling gently but with unmistakable intent. They shimmered with divine energy, forming a vast invisible sphere around the Bijuu, each strand placed with precise care, woven with worry and unwavering will.
Beneath her, another net was forming—this one unseen, its reach spiritual, its design aimed at the very essence of her enemy. She would not only fight the Devourer—she would trap his soul.
The ritual lasted hours. And then—
He arrived.
From the darkness came a form that was not a form—a monstrous serpent of impossible scale, coiled from the anguish of countless lives. It slithered into existence, not with movement but with presence, each segment of its endless body made of writhing, translucent souls bound together by a single, monstrous will.
Shikashi had arrived.
Reality twisted around him. The sky fractured at his edges. Space rippled like disturbed water. His laughter came not from a mouth, but from the air itself—thousands upon thousands of voices, all different, all echoing one cruel intention:
"So they've summoned me to face me… but it's far too late."
The voice—no, the voices—boomed across the void, layered in a discordant harmony of malice. For a moment, the titanic presence paused.
"Where are they? This world should be teeming with souls…"
A pulse of fury swept through his impossible body, and segments of the serpent fell like shadowed meteors toward the earth below, crashing with terrible resonance.
"No matter… I'll find them soon enough. This reality belongs to me now."
From where his scattered fragments struck the ground, monstrous growths began crawling toward the sacred formation of the Bijuu.
But they never reached.
Hinata's golden threads shimmered and pulsed, transforming into pure spiritual constructs as they manifested around the circle of Bijuu. They spun with divine velocity, weaving a radiant golden dome of protection. Shikashi's horrors were halted, repelled as if scorched by sunlight.
And then, she appeared.
Suspended in the chasm between earth and moon, Hinata Gin revealed herself. A lattice of golden threads erupted from the earth, shooting skyward faster than any lightning or railgun, snaring Shikashi mid-motion. The net tugged, dragging the Devourer toward the void where their battle would be unbound by the physical world—a place where no innocent would be harmed.
But Shikashi resisted.
Pieces of his grotesque form split away, slipping through gaps in the sacred weave. They fell like cursed comets to the earth below, congealing into abominations—each one pulsing with power equal to a Tailed Beast. Each one created with one singular purpose:
To kill Kaguya Ōtsutsuki.
While a divine battle raged far beyond what mortals could perceive, those on the ground witnessed a horror of their own. The monstrosities born of Shikashi's fragmented essence began to pour in from all directions.
From the sky, winged abominations descended like shadows made flesh, each one pulsing with unnatural malice. From the earth, grotesque beasts of twisted muscle and scale emerged, stomping with earth-shattering weight. Beneath the ground, serpentine horrors tunneled with a hunger that bent stone and soil alike. The golden dome created by Hinata to shield the ritual circle shimmered and cracked under the relentless assault.
Each impact sent shockwaves through the barrier. Inside, the nine Bijū launched Bijūdama after Bijūdama in coordinated defense, their roars shaking the skies as their attacks vaporized wave after wave of encroaching creatures. Yet even their power could not keep the tide at bay forever.
"We can't wait anymore," Naruto muttered as he rose to his feet, his eyes scanning the encroaching chaos.
He walked briskly toward Kurama, who was already gathering chakra in his jaws. "Let's show them what we're made of," Naruto called, leaping onto the massive fox's head as another Bijūdama exploded outward, vaporizing several monstrosities.
At the same time, Sasuke stood, his gaze locked with Hagoromo's. "He's right. If we wait for the barrier to collapse, we'll be overwhelmed."
His Sharingan flared to life, followed by the deep pulse of his Rinnegan. With a flash, a full-body Susanoo erupted around him, encasing Mitsue as well within its indigo armor. He leapt skyward, cutting through the golden dome with a blade wreathed in black flames.
Kurama turned his head slightly toward Naruto, a fang-filled grin spreading across his massive face. "About time."
With a thundering roar, they followed Sasuke into battle, the Divine Princess's dome still held now that the defenders of the world were charging out to meet the nightmare face to face.
Hamura and Hagoromo were not idle. Each manifested their own unique spiritual techniques, weaving ancient seals and barriers to reinforce the golden dome from within. Streams of sacred chakra spiraled around them, harmonizing with Hinata's threads to prolong the shield's endurance for as long as possible.
Homura turned toward his brother, his gaze momentarily softening. "I am proud of the young Hinata... but I must admit, your descendants aren't doing too badly either, brother."
At the heart of the golden dome, Kaguya stood in solemn silence. Exhaustion painted every line of her posture, her once-glorious robes now dulled with the weight of time and burden. Yet even as the ground quaked with the fury of battle and divine chakra clashed above her, she could not discern the precise actions of Naruto, Sasuke, or even her own sons. She simply felt their presence—and that was enough.
A soft smile curved her lips, not of triumph, but of quiet fulfillment. For all the chaos, for all the pain and betrayal that had once driven her into darkness, in this moment, surrounded by the energy of her children and their descendants, she allowed herself to feel peace.
<<<< o >>>>
Hinata Gin inhaled slowly as the void received her.
Golden threads wrapped around her like breath, like memory. Her kimono was no longer mere fabric—it had become a living weave of her golden threads, shielding her like divine armor. In that infinite silence between the light of the moon and the distant stars, her heartbeat aligned with the pulse of Yumegakure itself. No sound, no heat, no fear—only the whisper of purpose.
Her Mind's Eye was wide open. Her World of Intent was fully engaged. She could see everything. There he was—Shikashi. No longer a mere parasite whispering from the shadows, no longer a puppeteer nudging fate from behind curtains of fear. He had become a storm of will—a twisted monument of devoured hope and inverted purpose. His infinite, serpentine body writhed with the torment of eons. Within him, space folded and fractured, revealing an ocean of stolen souls, each tethered to a singular hunger. And yet… all of that force, all of that madness, now focused solely on her. Not the world. Not the souls. Just her.
"I see you," whispered Hinata.
Her words crossed the void without medium, a truth so sharp it needed no path. It was not a challenge. It was not a threat. It was simply a recognition. A final understanding.
And Shikashi heard her. For the first time in countless cycles, he hesitated.
"Little goddess," his voice slithered through the agony of millions. "You should not exist. I will devour you, and with you, this cursed dream of yours. My ascension will be absolute."
Hinata raised her hand.
From her fingertips surged threads of radiant light. She inhaled with full intent, and her Mirage Breath surged—pushing beyond all known boundaries, beyond spirit, beyond form.
"You've wounded too many innocents in pursuit of your broken path," she answered, her voice a calm force, her golden eyes lit with divine stillness. "But I… I am the dream of a future that rises beyond you. This is the end of your ambition."
The stars pulsed in silence. The battle had begun.
Shikashi roared—not with rage, but with raw resistance. Countless arms of soul-matter erupted from his colossal form, each one clawing at reality itself as he lunged toward Hinata.
The void beneath her feet solidified for a single breath, then vanished as she disappeared from sight.
In one divine pulse, she was above him.
Her form blurred with grace beyond comprehension. Mirage Breath ignited the air, distorting the laws of motion, warping the trajectory of fate itself.
Her hand reached the second sword at her waist—the one bequeathed by her father, Takama. Kamikorosu radiated warmth beneath her fingers, as if the spirit within the blade had waited for this exact moment. And Hinata, with a solemn exhale, answered its call.
Mirage Breath – First Form: New Moon.
Her strike moved at the speed of thought, a silver arc that parted even the concept of distance. Reality screamed.
Shikashi's eyes widened. The slash, rising from below to above, divided his monstrous form cleanly in two.
For the first time in his ageless existence, Shikashi felt pain—real, unrelenting, divine pain. Every soul within him recoiled. The very air trembled from the weight of their collective scream.
But he did not yield.
From each of his severed halves, faster than light, clawed appendages of spiritual mass surged toward Hinata—each one an echo of his endless malice, seeking to crush the divine spark that had dared to wound him.
At the moment of impact, Hinata invoked Mirage Breath – Third Form: Silent Ripple. Her divine form shattered into ten thousand mirrored fragments, each one birthing an illusion of her fallen self. These splinters of goddess-light swirled around Shikashi, shimmering like dying stars in a collapsing galaxy. But many of these fragments did not simply fade—they carried velocity, purpose, and pain.
They scattered like drifting sakura blossoms, each petal alive with intent. Mirage Breath – Second Form: Dancing Embers in the Rain. Each fragment transformed into a ghostly blade, reflections of Kamikorosu. Though only one was real, each was charged with her golden threads, infused with just enough soul to bite.
Shikashi screamed once more. The pain echoed across dimensions. He understood now—only the true Kamikorosu could destroy him, yet each false blade pierced with such conviction that the illusion itself inflicted torment. He was not facing technique alone. He was facing faith. Will. Dream incarnate.
Enraged, Shikashi reached deep into his core. From the depths of his stolen souls, he pulled forth the strongest—those forged in battle, in hatred, in loss. Each soul condensed into a humanoid avatar, rippling with crimson energy and armed with weapons born of their own defiance. The battlefield bloomed with red lights and rage.
For every mirrored clone of the divine princess, Shikashi unleashed two avatars. A tidal clash of illusion and essence. But a truth struck deep: while the illusions could strike him, he could not truly strike them. They danced, flickered, shimmered—but they did not bleed. And only one held the true Kamikorosu. She swapped places with other Mirage clones at random, destroying avatar after avatar with abandon, and absolute certainty.
Shikashi, desperate now, pooled all his might into a singular form. He found her. The real one. And froze reality itself around her. Space buckled. Time fractured. All of him descended upon her at once in a final bid to obliterate the divine anomaly that defied fate itself.
That shard of flesh, one of his Avatars now before the true goddess—Shikashi's chosen form—abandoned linear shape, unraveling into a spiraling fractal of incandescent agony. Nine colossal jaws erupted from its mass, each forged from the anguish of a different age, grinding against one another in a silence so deep it silenced existence itself. Within each maw churned a storm of antilight—pure negation, energy that devoured even memory.
And then, it spoke—not with sound, but directly into the soul.
"If you are, the dream… I am the echo of all those denied of one."
With a scream that tore through the spiritual plane, Shikashi activated his ultimate technique: The Eternal Maw of Reflection.
From each of the nine jaws spiraled lances of reversed chakra—darkness shaped by the essence of the target, twisted into a monstrous mirror of their soul.
For Hinata Gin, it meant facing phantoms of those she could not save, shadows of pain and regret.
Michel, torn by shadow and regret. Kaito, forever falling beneath the cultist blade. Others followed—echoes of her failures, animated as weapons. Not illusions. Soul fragments twisted into agony.
Yet Hinata did not falter. Her mind, her will, her soul—all remained unshaken. These were not her enemies. They were reminders of her path.
But that was not the true danger.
At the center of the ring of maws, the main jaw began to open.
Inside churned absolute stillness: a void without thread, unreachable by spirit, unbounded by soul. A divine oblivion, designed to erase even the concept of eternity.
A single phrase reverberated through the spiritual firmament:
"Shinjitsu no Fushi — The Immortal Truth."
This was Shikashi's truth: that every dream must be devoured. That every light must fade. That only the echo of nothingness deserved to remain.
Hinata felt the pull of the attack—a tidal wave of annihilation bearing down upon her. She knew she could dodge it. She could vanish, reappear, counter, end it all. But she didn't. She chose fire for fire. Truth for truth.
Her golden eyes flared like twin suns within the storm of Shikashi's ultimate strike, radiant and unyielding.
Mirage Breath – Fifth Form: Phantom Flame Reversal.
A technique never intended to destroy. Originally born as a defense, a disorienting mirror of her opponent's own intent turned against them. But Hinata was no longer bound by what was or what should be. She made the impossible real.
Behind her, a colossal mouth of searing light bloomed open in answer. It mirrored the Eternal Maw of Reflection—not just its shape, but its essence. Within it, the same hunger formed, the same darkness inverted… but forged in mercy, not malice.
From it echoed a familiar voice. Not hers, not Shikashi's—but both at once:
"Shinjitsu no Fushi — The Immortal Truth."
The words struck twice, once in the realm of shadow, once in the heart of radiance.
Light met Dark. Truth met Truth.
And the heavens themselves split in half.
The mirrored attack surged backward, swallowed by its own echo. Shikashi reeled from the backlash, but he knew the young goddess would not emerge from such a detonation unscathed.
And yet—there. Amid the aftermath, he saw it again.
The cursed blade.
Kamikorosu.
Leaping from reflection to reflection, it hunted with purpose.
Shikashi moved to shift tactics, but then he felt it—an unseen pressure pulling at his form, dragging every last fragment of his sea of souls, his essence toward a singular point.
From the distant moon, a gravitational pulse radiated across the battlefield.
Behind its source, three figures sat in unison: Hanabi Hyūga. Hiashi Hyūga. Toneri Ōtsutsuki.
Together, they harnessed the full might of the Tenseigan, concentrating its force to bind Shikashi into a singular location.
There, amidst the swirling dust and fractured space, stood Hinata Gin—her body wounded by the blast of light and dark destroying reality, her golden threads mending her form in real-time.
She raised her eyes to him. Calm. Absolute.
Her voice carried across the heavens:
"Did you think I chose this battlefield for the view?"
All illusions collapsed, superimposed onto one image.
Mirage Breath – Sixth Form….
In that instant, Shikashi saw his death—inevitable, inescapable. At least, inevitable if he continued along the path he had walked until now. He knew there was another way, one he had sworn never to use, a way that demanded a cost he had not been willing to pay. Until this moment.
In the silence between heartbeats, every one of Shikashi's countless souls began to devour one another, collapsing inward in a frenzy of self-consumption. Time itself seemed frozen as his essence condensed into a singular form—an abomination so concentrated that even reality recoiled against it. What emerged was not meant to exist within this reality, a power so absolute it broke the boundaries he had once tried to skirt carefully. But he no longer needed this reality as he was expelled and he allowed it to happen. He intended to shatter it from the outside.
Hinata felt it immediately. Her golden threads trembled; Kamikorosu pulsed as if warning her. Her Mirage Breath surged in answer, but even with her Sixth Form she sensed the truth—her blade was not fast enough, not yet. The storm of his ascension was already beyond the rhythm of her breath. She knew, with cold clarity, that she would have to follow him. She would have to chase him into that abyss and destroy him before he could devour all that remained.
Mirage Breath – Seventh Form: Eclipse.
Reality itself shuddered in recognition as Hinata invoked the form. A cosmic vibration spread outward, and her power erupted like a newborn galaxy, expanding in every direction. Physical force and spiritual radiance fused seamlessly as her bloodline turned intent into substance. Her presence was no longer bound by flesh alone—it was spirit and body ascending together, anchored firmly in the next step of her evolution.
For one blinding instant, the path Shikashi had taken when he was first expelled from this reality revealed itself to her eyes: a broken scar through existence, a trail of exile carved across the void. She saw it clearly now. But seeing it was not enough.
The void beneath her feet trembled, then solidified once again, as if bowing to her will. She inhaled, threads flaring golden.
Mirage Breath – Fourth Form: One Thousand Steps in One.
Shikashi beheld her then—Hinata Gin. Her eyes no longer only glowed golden now they had a shade of infinity within, they reflected the abyss awaiting him. In that moment he understood: her existence had transcended what was possible, what was even imaginable. The blade in her hands shone with the authority to cut through realities themselves.
Behind her, he saw them all—every iteration of Hinata, past and future, converging upon this instant. Each bore the same blade, each raised it in perfect unison, and all of them struck the same point together.
Mirage Breath – Sixth Form: Thousand Cuts As One.
Shikashi vanished. Not slain, not scattered—erased from existence itself.
Hinata, in that breath of silence, beheld an eternity of countless spheres drifting across infinity. Each was a world, a possibility. Among them shimmered her home, her family, the reality she had been born to protect. She felt the temptation—she could remain in this state forever, traverse the endless multiverse, explore horizons without limit. The cosmos was vast beyond imagination.
But she smiled. She had a family waiting for her return. She had a future to forge with her own hands.
Her past and her future converged, bowing at her feet. She reached forward and touched the sphere of her origin. Light enfolded her, carrying her back.
It was time to go home.
<<<< o >>>>
Time and life itself continue to flow in their countless forms and surprises…
Minute by minute. Hour by hour. Day by day. Year by year.
Sunlight filtered softly through the tall trees surrounding the quiet meadow at the edge of the Hidden Leaf Village. The wind carried the laughter of children—bright, untamed, and full of life.
Two boys, no older than six or seven, darted across the grass. One had shimmering silver hair that caught the light like moonlight on water, his eyes equally radiant—a boy named Michel. The other, a spirited child with tousled blond hair and earthy brown eyes, was named Hashirama.
"I'm the First Hokage! You have to listen to me!" Hashirama declared with both hands on his hips, trying to look as authoritative as his namesake.
Michel pointed dramatically with a wooden stick he held like a sword. "No way! The Second Hokage is stronger! He controls time and water and lightning and—he's way cooler than just trees!"
"You take that back! The First Hokage has the Wood Style! That's the coolest!" Hashirama charged with a wild yell, and the two clashed playfully, sticks crossing in imagined epic combat.
Their mock battle lasted only moments before devolving into giggles and breathless laughter. Hashirama collapsed onto the grass first.
"Okay... maybe the Second Hokage is a little cool," he muttered between gulps of air.
Michel flopped down beside him, grinning. "And the First Hokage is kinda amazing too. Especially the part where he forgives everyone."
Hashirama glanced sideways. "I like when you visit, Michel. You're the only kid who's strong enough to keep up with me."
Michel nodded, brushing hair from his eyes. "I like coming to Konoha with my mom and dad. It feels... warm here. Like the dreams in Yumegakure."
Footsteps approached slowly from the treeline.
Michel sat up first. His silver eyes brightened as he spotted a tall woman with a calm expression and moonlight in her gaze—Hinata Gin, dressed in simple robes, the years only enhancing the quiet strength in her presence.
Without hesitation, Michel ran to her, and she knelt to greet him, wrapping her arms gently around his shoulders with a peaceful smile.
"You were watching, weren't you, mama?" he asked.
"Every second," Hinata whispered, pressing her forehead softly to his. "You both did well."
A few paces away, Hashirama looked up as a broad shadow fell over him. A powerful hand landed atop his head, ruffling his messy blond hair.
"Troublemaker," Tsunade muttered with a half-smile. She stood tall as ever, her strength undiminished with time, but her eyes gentler than they once were.
Hashirama grinned. "Did you see? I won. Sort of."
"You always do," she said softly.
And for that brief moment, under the lazy sun and the drifting leaves, there was no war, no gods, no legends—only mothers and sons, and a peace they had all bled for.
THE END