Chapter 629: Kaguya Otsutsuki's Heart Is in Turmoil
Isshiki Otsutsuki was dead.
His injuries had been far too severe, and Kaguya had shown no mercy when she attacked him.
With wounds like those, there was no possibility of Isshiki surviving.
Kenichi was not particularly surprised.
He had personally seen Isshiki's condition and already knew that he would not last much longer.
His death had been inevitable.
Because of that, Kenichi had no intention of deliberately extending Isshiki's life.
It was not as though resurrection was impossible.
Kenichi possessed techniques such as the Outer Path: Samsara of Heavenly Life Technique, and even if that failed, he had other methods available.
But there was a problem.
If Isshiki were resurrected and somehow returned to his peak condition, Kenichi would merely be creating another enormous source of trouble for himself.
So after considering it, Kenichi abandoned the tempting idea.
Of course, Kaguya's murderous stare also played a part in that decision.
Kenichi personally felt that whether Isshiki lived or died no longer mattered very much.
But since Kaguya had such a strong opinion on the subject, he was naturally willing to accommodate her.
After all, Kaguya had been unusually quiet around him lately.
She had neither confronted him nor deliberately approached him.
For Kenichi, that actually made things much easier.
At the very least, Kaguya's behavior suggested that she currently had no intention of threatening him.
That was enough to put him somewhat at ease.
The way Kaguya looked at Kenichi now was completely different from before.
So Kenichi did not intend to push the matter any further.
His current plan was simple.
Return to his own timeline.
As for what Kaguya was thinking...
He could not worry about that for the time being.
Kenichi had already been away from his own timeline for several years.
If he delayed much longer, even he would begin to feel uneasy.
Technically, he could control the time machine and return to the exact second in which he had originally disappeared.
But Kenichi still suspected there might be complications.
Time was far too mysterious.
Under normal circumstances, truly returning to the past should be extraordinarily difficult.
So Kenichi increasingly suspected that the time machine did not actually send someone backward through the same timeline.
Perhaps it transported them into another timeline instead.
If that was true...
Would the timeline he returned to contain new changes?
If it did, that would be troublesome.
If nothing had changed, naturally that would be best.
Kenichi could probably deal with his own timeline's Isshiki much faster now.
But after thinking about it, he realized something awkward.
He had not actually gained much practical experience fighting Isshiki.
This Isshiki had basically been handled by Kaguya alone.
So when Kenichi eventually returned to his own world and faced its Isshiki...
What exactly was he supposed to do?
The thought gave him a headache.
Should he ask Kaguya for advice?
Judging from her performance in the battle, she clearly knew Isshiki's techniques, habits, and trump cards extremely well.
But after thinking about it further, Kenichi felt that simply copying Kaguya's approach might not be reliable.
After all, Isshiki had been fighting Kaguya.
And Kaguya, after consuming the chakra fruit of the Divine Tree, had become the progenitor of chakra.
It was like playing a game.
A beginner might need to challenge an extremely difficult final boss.
Watching an expert defeat that boss could certainly be impressive.
But the expert might use techniques, reactions, and strategies that a beginner simply could not replicate.
Watching them would not necessarily teach the beginner anything useful.
Kenichi understood that perfectly well.
His strength had increased enormously.
But reaching Kaguya's level was still extraordinarily difficult.
All he could do was prepare as thoroughly as possible and see whether he could create a different outcome when his turn came.
With those thoughts in mind, Kenichi left the laboratory.
The laboratory itself was located within the Land of Fire, but extremely far from Konoha.
There were practically no ordinary settlements anywhere nearby.
That had been Kaguya's requirement.
In her view, if they wanted to deal with Isshiki and prevent him from hiding once again, they needed to make absolutely certain that nobody unrelated was present.
Because of that, the only people currently inside the laboratory complex were its staff, Kenichi, and Hagoromo.
And those laboratory workers would never be allowed to leave alive.
Kaguya's position was simple.
Kill them all.
Neither Kenichi nor Hagoromo objected.
Isshiki had revealed a great deal of information before dying.
But there was one thing he had never explained.
How exactly had he escaped being consumed by the Divine Tree and survived all those years ago?
That omission made Kaguya suspicious.
So in her opinion, it was better to kill innocent people by mistake than risk allowing even one hidden contingency of Isshiki's to escape.
Kenichi and Hagoromo both accepted that reasoning.
Every employee inside the laboratory had to die.
Fortunately, the workers had originally belonged to Orochimaru's research staff.
Kenichi therefore had very few objections to abandoning them.
In fact, he found the decision rather normal.
Who knew whether his teacher had secretly planted Cursed Seals or other contingencies on some of them?
That thought reminded Kenichi of Anko.
His former junior sister had followed roughly the normal course of events in this timeline.
Orochimaru had placed a Cursed Seal on her.
Fortunately, that problem had already been resolved.
Otherwise, Kenichi might have needed to deal with Anko's situation before leaving.
But right now, his thoughts were not focused on his junior sister.
He was far more concerned about Kaguya.
So Kenichi went looking for her.
It did not take him long.
He eventually found Kaguya in a strange and beautiful place.
A mysterious meadow stretched beneath both sunlight and moonlight.
The scene looked almost dreamlike.
Countless brightly colored flowers swayed gently in the breeze, releasing a pleasant fragrance into the air.
Butterflies drifted among them as though admiring the flowers themselves.
Kaguya sat quietly upon the grass.
Her legs were drawn close as she remained immersed in her own thoughts.
A faint trace of melancholy rested on her face, as though something had been troubling her for a long time.
There was nobody else nearby.
The area was so quiet that one could hear little more than Kaguya's breathing and the faint fluttering of butterfly wings.
Above her, the sun and moon hung in the sky at the same time.
Warm sunlight covered one half of the landscape.
Cold moonlight bathed the other.
Where they met, the two forms of light blended into an impossibly beautiful boundary.
The entire place felt detached from reality.
Almost as though time itself had stopped.
Only the beautiful landscape remained.
Along with the silent, melancholy Kaguya.
Kenichi's mouth twitched.
Honestly...
He had not expected Kaguya to choose such an obvious place to wait for him.
And that realization made the entire situation strangely awkward.
Kenichi had been the one who constructed the genjutsu memories implanted into her consciousness.
He knew exactly what he had done.
And he also knew how Kaguya now viewed him.
Just thinking about it made him uncomfortable.
He had never expected her attitude to change this much.
Previously, whenever Kaguya looked at him, she seemed as though she wanted to make him suffer.
Now...
She was sitting here like this.
Kenichi felt somewhat lost.
Had the implanted memories truly influenced Kaguya enough for her to develop unusual feelings toward him?
Logically, that should not have happened so easily.
Kaguya's very existence was unusual.
She was practically an alternative form of deity.
Kenichi remembered reading an interview in his previous life in which Kishimoto had described Kaguya as a character created to embody divinity.
Under that interpretation, she should primarily possess divinity rather than ordinary humanity.
Of course...
Reality and fiction were never exactly the same.
Kenichi had already discovered that much.
The real Kaguya was even stranger than the character he remembered.
Her body was more unusual.
Her nature was harder to understand.
And her existence was filled with something that could only be described as divinity.
After consuming the chakra fruit, much of Kaguya's human side might have been separated from her, eventually becoming Hagoromo and Hamura.
Black Zetsu, meanwhile, might have represented the final remnant of humanity that Kaguya had refused to abandon.
But because Black Zetsu had been created prematurely, perhaps Kaguya's humanity had never been fully separated from her.
That was Kenichi's current theory.
Still...
Looking at Kaguya now, he had no idea whether that theory was actually correct.
Her condition was far too unusual.
If his guess was right, everything made sense.
If it was wrong...
Then things would become rather awkward.
Fortunately, Kenichi had plenty of time to experiment, observe, and revise his theories.
He did not need to get everything right on the first attempt.
With that thought, Kenichi stepped into the meadow.
He walked toward Kaguya.
She remained sitting quietly even as he approached.
That only made Kenichi more certain that she really had been waiting for him.
With Kaguya's strength, if she genuinely did not want Kenichi to find her, he probably would not have even seen her shadow.
...
Kaguya's thoughts were in complete chaos.
Her mind felt like a tangled mass of thread.
Memories of Kenichi spread through her consciousness like ripples across still water, one after another, constantly pulling at her emotions.
Had she ever actually met this man before?
Kaguya thought about it.
Her gaze drifted into the distance.
No.
She was certain she had never met Kenichi before all of this.
He was not even from this timeline.
Her pale eyes looked toward the distant landscape as though attempting to search through the past itself.
Mountains stretched beyond the meadow.
Rivers wound between them.
For a moment, Kaguya seemed to enter an unusual, almost empty state of mind.
As she looked upon the emerald mountains, she imagined a hidden paradise beyond them, filled with blooming peach blossoms.
And somehow...
Kenichi's figure appeared within that imagined scenery.
Confusion flickered through Kaguya's eyes.
It almost felt as though she could smell a fragrance carried from memories that had never truly happened.
She inhaled deeply.
For a moment, she almost wanted to swallow every memory involving Kenichi and taste whatever sweetness might be hidden within them.
Her breathing trembled faintly.
The shifting shadows of the trees made her feel as though Kenichi were standing before her again.
Then anger surged through her.
Hot and fierce.
Yet at the same time...
A trace of shyness appeared.
Those contradictory emotions tangled together until Kaguya's thoughts became even more confused.
Her gaze suddenly sharpened.
For an instant, it seemed as though she were staring into something unknown.
Then her eyes narrowed further, becoming a cold glare that seemed capable of piercing straight through Kenichi.
Kaguya painfully struggled with the emotions inside her.
Her body trembled slightly.
But eventually...
She decided to face Kenichi.
She needed to speak with him.
She could no longer tell whether the trembling came from anger or embarrassment.
Either way, she forced herself to gather the courage she had spent so long building.
Her heart remained conflicted.
But Kaguya decided to take the first step.
She needed an answer.
Only by speaking directly with Kenichi could she untangle the confusion inside her.
Only then could this pain finally end.
Her resolve gradually became firm.
Then she heard footsteps approaching.
Kenichi.
Kaguya turned toward him.
Her gaze was cold.
Yet beneath that coldness lingered something difficult to describe.
A faint longing that completely contradicted the expression on her face.
Perhaps once she finally faced Kenichi, all the confusion in her heart would scatter like mist beneath a cool breeze.
"You came."
Kaguya looked at him coldly.
Kenichi scratched his head.
What was he supposed to say?
He thought about it for a while.
Nothing came to mind.
So instead of speaking, Kenichi simply walked over and stopped beside her.
And that simple action completely disrupted Kaguya's thoughts.
Her mind went blank.
She stared at him.
Her lips parted slightly.
Everything she had spent so long preparing to say...
Vanished.
Kaguya felt miserable.
All the courage she had finally gathered disappeared in an instant.
...
"..."
Hagoromo watched from a distance.
Strictly speaking, he had not intended to spy on them.
He had originally only come outside to relax and breathe some fresh air.
While he was here, he had planned to find Kenichi and ask when he intended to return to his own timeline.
Instead...
He had stumbled across Kenichi meeting privately with his mother.
Hagoromo's feelings immediately became complicated.
He sighed.
Then quietly turned away.
He had no intention of interfering in whatever conversation was about to happen between Kaguya and Kenichi.
This was one matter where stepping in casually would only make things worse.
Still...
Hagoromo could not stop one thought from appearing in his mind.
"This is really troublesome."
"That guy Kenichi..."
"He isn't seriously planning to become my..."
Hagoromo froze.
Then violently shook his head.
"Impossible."
"Absolutely impossible!"
....
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