The Beginning of the Age of Scattering.
The fire had not yet cooled. The world still smelled of ash and the terrible, metallic scent of the Ten-Tails' husk being sealed into the moon.
Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki floated cross-legged in the air, his Rinnegan weary, his staff resting across his knees. Before him sat nine creatures. They were small—impossibly small compared to what they would become. They were vibrant, concentrated masses of chakra, blinking at the world with newborn confusion.
"Even if you are far apart," Hagoromo said, his voice like old parchment, "you will always be together. You will eventually become one again... and at that time, you will learn what true power is."
Kurama, the size of a large dog, sat with his tails wrapped protectively around his paws. He squinted at the Sage. He felt the heavy burden of the old man's words—the destiny, the separation, the solitude.
But he was not looking at the Sage.
None of them were.
Behind Hagoromo, seated on a simple rock that felt higher than the highest peak, was Her.
She had no name that history would record. The stone tablets would crumble; the scrolls would burn. Only the feeling would remain.
To look at Hagoromo was to look at the Sun—blinding, powerful, demanding awe.
To look at Her was to look at the Hearth—the place where the Sun comes home to rest.
She was not radiant in the way of the Ōtsutsuki. She did not have the pale, alien coldness of the Grandmother-in-the-Moon. She was warm. She was the color of peaches and sunset. She was the gravity that kept the Sage's feet on the earth.
Kurama's ears flattened. He wanted to go to her, but he was too proud to move.
"Husband," She said. Her voice was not a sound; it was a modification of reality. It was the feeling of a fever breaking. "You speak of power. They are children. Speak to them of home."
Hagoromo closed his eyes, a faint smile touching his lips. "I have given them form. You must give them direction."
The Woman stood.
The Tailed Beasts flinched. Even Shukaku, chaotic and loud, fell silent.
From the shadows of the rocks, a toad hopped forward. It was Gamamaru—young, slick with the oil of Mount Myōboku, a necklace of prophecy beads already around his neck. He bowed low, his belly pressing into the dust.
"Lady of the West," Gamamaru croaked.
She extended a hand.
In the sky above, the clouds parted. The stars were visible despite the day. She traced a shape in the air—a nine-pointed star.
"The Rabbit has gone to the Moon," she murmured, sadness rippling through the chakra of every living thing in the clearing. "The Grandmother is sealed. The Rabbit pounds the elixir of regret forever."
She looked down at the Fox and the Toad.
"But here, on the earth, we remain."
She pointed to Gamamaru.
"Toad. You shall hold the memory of the earth. You are the alchemist. You are the return. When the world breaks, you will remember how to put it back together. You are the deep root."
Gamamaru nodded solemnly. "I shall watch the pond, My Lady."
She turned her eyes to Kurama.
The little fox stiffened. Her gaze was heavy. It felt like being stripped bare.
"Fox," she said. "You are the Fire. You are the Will. You will not bow. You will not break. When the world forgets its courage, you will scream it back into existence."
Kurama puffed out his chest. "I am the strongest," he squeaked, his voice cracking.
She smiled. It was a terrifyingly gentle expression.
"You are the loneliest," she corrected. "And because of that, you will understand the value of a bond better than any of them."
She brought her hands together. The Nine-Pointed Star above them flared—the Heaven Fox Sign.
"The Toad to heal the body. The Fox to guard the spirit. And the Rabbit..." She glanced at the Moon, visible as a pale scar in the sky. "...The Rabbit to remind us of the cost."
She stepped forward and knelt before Kurama. She reached out and scratched him behind the ears.
For a moment, the hatred that would curdle in Kurama's belly for a thousand years, the resentment of being a weapon, the anger at humanity—it didn't exist. There was only the scent of peaches and the warmth of a mother's hand.
"Hagoromo dreams of peace," she whispered to the Fox, so low that not even the Sage could hear. "But peace is quiet. I dream of life. Loud, messy, painful life. Keep them alive, Little Fox. Even if they hate you for it."
She withdrew her hand.
"Go," she commanded.
The wind picked up. The scattering began.
As Kurama faded into the stream of chakra that would carry him to the Fire Country, he looked back.
He saw the Sage, stoic and sad.
He saw Gamamaru, the Toad, watching him with pitying, prophetic eyes.
And he saw Her, the Western Mother, fading into the light of the setting sun, her silhouette framed by the phantom tails of a power far older than chakra.
Thousands of years later.
The shrines to the Western Mother were dust. The name was forgotten.
The "Heaven Fox" had been simplified by fearful villagers into a demon of destruction.
The Toad had retreated to his mountain, lost in senile dreams.
The Rabbit was a fairy tale.
But in a village hidden in the leaves, a blonde boy with whiskers sat on a swing, clutching a toad-shaped wallet, staring at the moon.
Inside him, the Fox snarled, nursing a thousand-year-old grudge against a world that had forgotten the warmth of the hand that named him.
And far away, a girl with eyes like the moon and a heart stitched together by toad-oil and medical tape was beginning to remember the shape of the Star.
The Triad was broken.
But the Mother's sign remained:
Return.
Risk.
Harvest.
The impossible gamble was about to pay off.