"That is… what?"
Watching as the falling flaming meteor gradually dispersed the flame clouds and fiery tail around it, then floated above Amegakure like a natural city suspended in the sky, Naruto Uzumaki turned his shocked gaze toward Rei Kaguya, who was using the power of the Tenseigan to open a passage into the interior of the celestial body, and murmured his question.
"Nothing more than a fortress satellite created with the Rinnegan's Chibaku Tensei, maintained by the Tenseigan's gravitational manipulation, floating in orbit outside the shinobi world, and serving the duties of early warning, observation, and laboratory work at the same time."
Rei Kaguya lightly snapped his fingers, signaling Nagato and Naruto to follow him into the space-time barrier he had already opened. At the same time, he yawned and said, "For those who possess Six Paths power, controlling and creating something like this is not particularly difficult. If you and Sasuke Uchiha work together, I will not say that you could directly strip a piece from the shinobi world large enough to form a moon like the Sage of Six Paths and Otsutsuki Hamura did, but making a satellite roughly half the size of the moon should not be too hard."
"Let's go. We will first go inside and meet our old friend. Hopefully, when he made himself a new body, he remembered to preserve at least some of his original features…"
Seeing Nagato follow Rei Kaguya into the space-time barrier with a look that showed he had long since grown used to such things, Naruto Uzumaki, who had already guessed why he sensed Orochimaru's chakra, could only steel himself and follow.
After a dizzying path of flowing light, the three of them stepped together into an artificial space with simple white as its dominant color.
Within the space, countless experimental devices were arranged in rows, working and humming. As the three continued toward the core of the artificial space, Naruto Uzumaki's field of vision also saw many huge culture tanks of unknown purpose, as well as quite a few containers holding strange biological specimens. This gave him an especially strong sense of unease.
"What a crude method, Rei-kun… Are you not worried that dragging the fortress satellite down so roughly will affect the integrity and safety of the precious equipment and materials inside?"
A gloomy voice, like a poisonous snake discovering prey, but no longer carrying the aged hoarseness that had once intensified the unease in others' hearts, came from the deepest part of the artificial space.
After hearing this voice, Rei Kaguya did not directly answer. Instead, he asked with great interest, "How does the new body feel? Has it allowed you to experience a kind of beauty known as strength, Orochimaru?"
"The beauty of strength… is it?"
Along with that question, Orochimaru, whose appearance seemed to have returned to his youth all at once, appeared in Rei Kaguya, Nagato, and Naruto Uzumaki's vision together with the two Jinchuriki and the currently masterless Six-Tails and Nine-Tails.
He blinked the Sharingan in his left eye and the Byakugan in his right eye, then spoke in a tone filled with satisfaction and joy.
"Naturally. This body, which gathers the bloodlines of the Sage of Six Paths and his brother passed down to the present day, and which was cultivated using cells from the most outstanding individuals among those descendants as its foundation, is practically as if it were born to use chakra as an energy source. Those secret techniques, forbidden techniques, Kekkei Genkai, and even senjutsu that once appeared as towering thresholds in my eyes—things I could scarcely hope to unravel in a lifetime—can no longer trouble me in the slightest."
"All of this is because of your support, Rei-kun."
"That is good. Since it can satisfy you enough to say such words, then I temporarily do not need to worry about you encountering problems on the road of research that you cannot understand."
Rei Kaguya nodded. Then he looked toward the two Jinchuriki and two Tailed Beasts waiting here and calmly asked, "Everyone should already know what we are going to do shortly, correct?"
"We will offer a certain amount of Tailed Beast chakra to the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path and stimulate the empty shell of the Ten-Tails to revive to a certain degree. Is that right, Lord Fourth?"
Yagura Karatachi comforted the somewhat restless Three-Tails inside him while narrowing his eyes toward Naruto Uzumaki beside Rei Kaguya.
"Correct."
Rei Kaguya nodded, then glanced at the solemn-looking Four-Tails Jinchuriki Roshi.
"You should not be foolish enough to plan on making trouble under these circumstances, right, Roshi?"
"I have not gone mad to that extent."
Roshi, who still wore Iwagakure's forehead protector, sighed and stroked his chest with complicated feelings.
"But I still do not quite understand why you would suddenly decide to temporarily revive the Ten-Tails, Lord Mizukage… The Four-Tails, whose relationship with me is not exactly good, has been trying to persuade me not to participate in this insane plan ever since it heard about this."
"Because our friends from the future brought us a piece of news that was… almost more frightening than informative."
Rei Kaguya clasped his hands behind his back and spoke calmly.
"Other than the Progenitor of Chakra, the Rabbit Goddess Kaguya Otsutsuki, who was already sealed by the Sage of Six Paths and Otsutsuki Hamura, there was actually another pure-blooded Otsutsuki clan member of even higher status than her hidden in the shadows of the shinobi world's history, silently licking his wounds and waiting for the opportunity to complete his reincarnation and devour heaven and earth once again."
"There is another Otsutsuki hiding in the shinobi world!? Are you serious?"
The Nine-Tails abruptly widened its eyes and asked in an incredulous tone.
"That kind of monster whom even the old man of the Six Paths could not guarantee victory against even if he gave everything and paid any price, that kind of fellow who knows how to control the Ten-Tails… There is another one!?"
"To be precise, that fellow named Isshiki Otsutsuki was the one who should truly have become the Ten-Tails Jinchuriki."
Rei Kaguya glanced at Naruto Uzumaki beside him, whose fists had clenched involuntarily as if recalling that difficult battle, and shook his head.
"Kaguya Otsutsuki merely relied on an ambush no one could have predicted to steal the chakra fruit from him, luckily becoming the Progenitor of Chakra as a sacrifice that should have belonged to him."
The moment those words came out, every person and beast present was shocked speechless by this overly impactful truth.
Silence spread for a long time before the Nine-Tails finally broke the almost suffocating stillness.
It widened its fierce, vicious eyes and stared fixedly at Naruto Uzumaki, who had another version of itself sleeping inside him. In a savage tone, it asked, "Kid, you are the future person Rei Kaguya spoke of, right? Don't tell me you fabricated such a dangerous enemy maliciously just so you could obtain his help?"
"Unfortunately, no."
Naruto Uzumaki touched the seal on his abdomen and spoke with a solemn expression.
"Isshiki. Even after dragging along a severely injured body that never recovered, hiding across the shinobi world for thousands of years, his power was still terrifying beyond imagination…
"If you, Kurama, had not taken the initiative to cooperate with me and use Baryon Mode, which burns lifespan, and if that mode had not happened to counter Isshiki, whose remaining lifespan was already close to its limit, then we would not even have had the chance to be ambushed by Momoshiki and accidentally end up in this era."
"You should be able to feel it, right? Inside my body, sleeping like it is dead… the other Kurama."