After readjusting his mood and state, Naruto Uzumaki sat down cross-legged on the spot, assuming the meditative posture he had most often used to calm his mind when learning senjutsu.
Watching Naruto Uzumaki almost instantly enter a state where he was one with nature, Rei Kaguya lightly nodded, signaling the remaining four Tailed Beasts to begin transmitting their chakra to him.
Aside from the Nine-Tails, which was still being stubborn and throwing a tantrum, and therefore had to be specially educated and corrected, there were no accidents throughout the entire chakra transmission process. Naruto Uzumaki's body was like a perfect vessel, containing every trace of that massive chakra—chakra which, if shaped into a Tailed Beast Ball, would have been enough to destroy everything within several dozen li.
And after all of this was completed, Naruto Uzumaki still remained in that state of being one with nature. Even his hair and clothes, which had been blown upward by the surging chakra, returned to their original positions.
Looking at Naruto Uzumaki's almost unchanged face, Nagato, who was also cultivating Sage Mode, could not help sighing.
"So this is a perfect Sage? His aura is almost perfectly fused with nature. Even after adding the violent chakra of the Tailed Beasts, he can still remain calm… Although I have never met the Sage of Six Paths, from him, I can already glimpse a little of the bearing that person must have possessed when he walked the shinobi world, pacifying disasters and conflicts, and founding Ninshu."
"Save the praise until after he escapes from the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path fully intact and say it to his face… Besides, your own talent is not necessarily inferior to his. It is only because of certain reasons you yourself can also sense that you have not been able to become a perfect Sage like him."
Rei Kaguya interrupted Nagato's emotion-filled sigh, his eyes narrowing slightly.
"Now, it is time for the protagonist to appear, Nagato."
"Yes, yes…"
Nagato shrugged helplessly. His hands quickly formed the hand seals for the Summoning Technique.
"Summoning: Demonic Statue of the Outer Path."
Thus, the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path, which had been "jointly" sealed by Rei Kaguya and Nagato in the deepest part of this fortress satellite and had always served as Orochimaru's experimental subject in ordinary times, vanished from the countless devices surrounding it and reappeared beneath Nagato.
Then, the hand seals in Nagato's hands changed. A black rod generated through Yin-Yang Release grew from the chest of the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path, rapidly extending and enlarging before piercing into Naruto Uzumaki's back with incomparable precision.
"Uwaaaaaaaaaah—!"
The intense pain made even Naruto Uzumaki, who had been in a state of merging with nature, let out a scream.
But very quickly, the enormous pulling force transmitted from the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path completely overwhelmed his screams, dragging his own chakra, the Tailed Beast chakra temporarily stored inside his body, and his consciousness all together into boundless chaos and darkness.
And Rei Kaguya, who silently watched all of this, also reached out at this moment and injected chakra containing a portion of his will into Naruto Uzumaki's body. Following Naruto's own chakra, it entered the body of the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path as well.
…
Darkness.
Chaos.
Empty of all things.
Different from what Naruto Uzumaki had expected, the interior of the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path was not filled with dark and violent negative chakra that caused endless negative emotions to surge in one's heart. Instead, it was a void so hollow it seemed capable of containing everything.
His consciousness floated within this void, unable to summon any will or thought of resistance.
Even though the chakra composing his consciousness was dispersing into the void.
Even though the Tailed Beast chakra floating behind him and manifesting the forms of the various Tailed Beasts was gradually being reduced into the most basic chakra.
Even though the final bit of Kurama's chakra, which had been incomparably closely bound to his life, was being separated from his body…
Who… am I?
Where… am I?
What… was I going to do?
These muddled questions filled Naruto Uzumaki's mind, making him carry out what might be the final thought of his life while his consciousness slowly dispersed.
And the more he thought, the more he wanted to understand the answers to those questions, the more chaotic his mind became. The chakra forming Naruto Uzumaki's conscious image also dispersed faster and faster.
The memories and information that formed everything Naruto Uzumaki had experienced from birth until now turned into faint specks of light, gradually scattering into the void inside the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path.
Naruto Uzumaki's mind was also slowly worn numb by the three questions repeating endlessly, causing him to give rise to a passive thought: perhaps doing nothing and quietly waiting for destruction to arrive would not be so bad.
Very soon, Naruto Uzumaki's consciousness had dispersed until only the part above his legs remained.
And in his mind, the memories of that fox who had lived inside his body ever since the moment he was born—the fox that had brought him countless cold stares, discrimination, rejection, estrangement, and danger, yet had also given him many chances to reverse defeat in adversity and even in desperate situations—began to scatter along with it.
"Survive, Naruto."
Those words, spoken by Kurama at some unknown time, turned into an inconspicuous speck of light. It drifted out from Naruto Uzumaki's consciousness and floated upward.
The dim speck of light drifted past Naruto Uzumaki's eyes, which had already become numb and hollow, devoid of all emotion. Then it vanished without form, becoming part of the endless void inside the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path.
But for some unknown reason, this simple sentence—one Naruto Uzumaki might never have heard a second time in his entire life—caused his eyes to come alive once more.
"Kurama… is that you?"
Naruto Uzumaki's consciousness seemed to have barely awakened from sleep. With confusion and exhaustion, he reached toward the speck of information that had already dispersed and vanished.
Then he saw even more specks of information, flashing with scenes of him and the Nine-Tails spending time together, floating upward between his outstretched fingers. Like illusions, they vanished without a trace.
"Kurama!!!"
Naruto Uzumaki's consciousness fully awakened.
Left with only half a body, he waved both hands in terror, trying to gather back the specks of information escaping from his body. But the more frantically he moved, the faster his broken and hollow consciousness dispersed.
Before long, all that remained of him was the right hand he had already lost in reality.
Helpless and terrified, he watched as a sleeping nine-tailed fox floated out from his completely scattered abdomen and began dispersing at a speed no slower than his own.
"Give Kurama… back to me!!!"
Naruto Uzumaki widened his eyes.
It was as if he had suddenly returned to the time not long after Team Seven had first been formed, when he could not even reach the Nine-Tails. His originally bright and sunny blue eyes were instantly replaced by crimson and demonic vertical pupils.
And his remaining consciousness, along with the drastic change in his eyes, violently transformed into the form wrapped in blood-red fox-shaped chakra from the first time he had completely handed his body over to the will leaking out from the Nine-Tails' seal.
With incomparable brutality and dominance, he seized the fox that was dispersing and protected it in his hand.
"I absolutely, absolutely won't let you take Kurama away! Absolutely!"
The echo, as if hundreds of people were roaring together, reverberated through this infinite darkness and void in an unimaginable way.
And after Naruto Uzumaki unleashed that roar filled with heavy resolve and no trace of wavering, inside the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path, where it seemed only he was facing endless emptiness and solitude, another person's voice unexpectedly sounded.
"I thought I would have to use a more intense method to stimulate you before you woke up, Naruto Uzumaki… But that performance was not too bad. I will barely count it as a passing grade."
As those words fell, the void that seemed capable of swallowing everything instantly vanished.
Rei Kaguya, now displaying the complete features of the Otsutsuki clan, appeared before Naruto Uzumaki.
"How was that experience just now?"
As if strolling through the garden of his own home, Rei Kaguya lightly walked to Naruto Uzumaki's side. Tilting his head, he looked at Naruto, who still appeared half-asleep, and asked with a chuckle, "Did it truly feel like you were going to forever lose the Nine-Tails who has lived together with you for more than thirty years?"
"…Was that an illusion?"
Naruto Uzumaki lowered his head. Looking at the consciousness that had somehow become whole again, as well as the blood-red, demonic chakra still wrapped around his body, he murmured his question.
"But… that feeling of having my memories, my past, completely stripped away…"
"That is the ability the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path—or rather, the mature form of the Ten-Tails, the Divine Tree—uses to absorb the chakra and information of every life on an entire planet and produce the chakra fruit that allows the life level of the Otsutsuki clan to continuously ascend and leap forward."
Rei Kaguya snapped his fingers. The information light specks that had just been separated from Naruto Uzumaki's body resurfaced beside his hand and began gathering toward Naruto.
"What you experienced just now was not completely false… Those who were enveloped by the radiance of the Infinite Tsukuyomi and fell into endless dreams were more or less like that. Little by little, they forgot their past, offered up all their knowledge and information, had all their chakra squeezed dry, and finally became White Zetsu hanging from the Divine Tree."
"That is… not an experience I want to have a second time."
Naruto Uzumaki looked at the information light specks floating around him. While checking whether his memories had any gaps because of the scattered information, he spoke with lingering fear.
"Normally, no one would be able to experience such a thing twice."
Rei Kaguya blinked and smiled.
"After all, the harvesting method used by the Otsutsuki clan has always been to uproot all the leeks on an entire planet, then eat everything clean without leaving even the slightest residue… But that may not necessarily be the wrong method. After all, if intensive cultivation and repeated harvesting would allow the harvested planet to give birth to power capable of resisting them, then eating everything clean in one go would indeed be a bit easier."
"Resisting?"
Naruto Uzumaki frowned slightly. He uncertainly clenched his fist and guessed in a low voice, "You mean… senjutsu?"
"At least for now, compared to the Tailed Beasts, which are degraded versions of the Ten-Tails, natural energy—which can fuse with chakra and form power capable of the lower overcoming the higher, injuring Six Paths-level experts standing at a higher level of the chakra system—seems more like an existence capable of threatening the Otsutsuki."
Rei Kaguya snapped his fingers again, gathering the Tailed Beast chakra that had just scattered into the void inside the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path.
Then he stared at them with his radiant Tenseigan and said in a deep voice, "When resolving the matter of the Otsutsuki clan on the moon, I encountered the chakra left behind by Ancestor Hamura. With his help, I defeated Kaguya Otsutsuki, who had been unsealed by Black Zetsu borrowing the situation… But what is strange is that whether it was Ancestor Hamura or Kaguya Otsutsuki, they both displayed an incomprehensible… ignorance toward the existence of senjutsu and natural energy."
"Naruto, you are a Sage who has cultivated senjutsu, so you should know that so-called senjutsu chakra is a kind of energy formed by perfectly mixing natural energy, spiritual energy, and physical energy in a one-to-one-to-one ratio."
"Obviously, it has not left the scope of the chakra system. But what is incomprehensible is that ninjutsu activated through senjutsu chakra can injure Six Paths-level experts and Otsutsuki clan members who possess the ability to absorb all ninjutsu based on chakra… Do you not think there is something wrong here?"
Naruto Uzumaki nodded unconsciously, and a thoughtful look appeared on his face as well.
As a ninja who had once fought against a series of enemies possessing the ability to absorb ninjutsu, including Six Paths Obito, Six Paths Madara, Kaguya Otsutsuki, Momoshiki Otsutsuki, and others, he naturally knew the fact that only senjutsu and taijutsu could cause real damage to them once they entered that realm.
But… why senjutsu could do such a thing was something he had never seriously thought about.
Only now, because of Rei Kaguya's question, did he suddenly realize the problem within it.
Senjutsu chakra.
Senjutsu chakra.
In essence, it was still within the category of chakra.
And to the Otsutsuki who could cross the starry sky, something like natural energy—born from the planet itself, able to combine with chakra and produce an even more powerful energy—should have been something they had encountered during their long road of cosmic conquest. Even if they had not seen something completely identical, they should at least have encountered similar existences.
Yet other than Six Paths Madara, who was born in the shinobi world, no Otsutsuki had ever displayed any understanding of senjutsu's power.
Then where did the problem lie?
Naruto Uzumaki's gaze naturally turned toward the Tailed Beast chakra floating beside Rei Kaguya.
Or rather, it crossed time and space to look upon those two figures who had defied common sense, taken the initiative to abandon their lofty positions as gods, risked their lives to overthrow their incomparably powerful mother, and returned the chakra that had once been gathered into one back to the land and living beings of this planet—
Otsutsuki Hagoromo.
And Otsutsuki Hamura.