Straight rice tea-colored hair fell to the waist in a single braid, and a kunoichi wearing a Kumogakure Forehead Protector moved without a sound. Appearing behind the camp was none other than the current Two Tails jinchuriki of Kumogakure.
Yugito Nii.
Inside Kumogakure, within the Raikage Office.
Thump. Thump.
Fourth Raikage tapped the desk with thick fingers, and the dull sound pressed down on the room. His gaze swept over the ancient fragments of different shapes and materials on the table, then lifted to Mabui and several senior special Jonin with research backgrounds.
"You think scraps like these are enough to make me send Yugito Nii back to that hellhole again?" Fourth Raikage frowned, but did not erupt right away. He asked in a low voice, "Talk. What exactly did you find?"
Not long ago, after the team led by Samui returned from Land of Hot Water, they reported everything they had seen to Fourth Raikage. This naturally included the bottomless hollow.
After hearing the descriptions from Samui and the others, Fourth Raikage's first reaction was that it could not have been caused by Konoha. The terrifying power that reshaped the terrain was something Root could never achieve with ordinary ninja, and could only mean some other existence had emerged and casually killed people from both Konoha and Kumogakure.
At Mabui's suggestion, Fourth Raikage made the same choice as Hiruzen Sarutobi and sent people again to investigate. Kakashi Hatake had originally set out several days earlier than Kumogakure, and even with a detour to Land of Rain to gather intelligence, he should have arrived first.
No one expected that everyone under Kakashi Hatake would fall in Amegakure. Yamato barely made it back to Konoha with severe injuries for treatment, and instead the slightly delayed team from Kumogakure reached the depths of the hollow first.
According to that squad, they saw an underground palace but were blocked by a door. When one of them tried to push it, the memory of the corpse that had been drained dry flashed through Fourth Raikage's eyes with a dark look.
Just touching that so called door drained all Chakra in one second, then stripped away flesh and blood within two more. That was a living special Jonin, who did not die to an enemy but in front of a door, a death so strange it made the skin crawl.
And yet these research obsessed fools wanted him to send Two-Tails Jinchuriki there again. He had sent Yugito Nii to Land of Hot Water to circle around and strike the Konoha Root base, not to send Yugito Nii back to that inexplicable nightmare.
"Raikage-sama, we did discover something," said a bespectacled middle aged ninja as he stepped forward. In a steady tone he continued, "Although the previous team could not enter the underground palace, we deciphered the texts they copied."
Fourth Raikage froze for a moment and asked, "You mean the words they copied from the stone monument outside the palace?" The man nodded. "Yes. We found that the underground palace is actually a tomb."
"The owner of the tomb is a member of Sage of Six Paths's clan, an existence that survived from the time of Ninshu or even earlier."
A question mark seemed to hang in the air. Fourth Raikage stared at him with eyes wide like bells, completely confused.
A clan member of Sage of Six Paths? The era of Ninshu? Survived? A tomb? He understood every word, but together they made no sense.
Setting aside what Sage of Six Paths's clan even meant, why would someone who was alive have a tomb? The middle aged ninja adjusted his glasses and spoke calmly.
"Before I explain, I need to confirm one thing with you. Raikage-sama, do you believe that Sage of Six Paths and Ninshu truly existed?"
Fourth Raikage frowned, then nodded in the end. Even though the Shichiseiken, Kinjō, Kohaku no Jōhei, and Bashōsen were gone, one of the Six Paths Ninja Tools, the Kohaku no Jōhei, was still in Kumogakure.
In terms of historical inheritance, aside from places like the Land of Demons that preserved old traditions, the entire Ninja World likely only had Kumogakure and Konoha that retained a meaningful record of history. As early as the Warring States period, the Uchiha Clan had contact with Land of Lightning, and the group responsible for guarding the Blood Pond clan there had been the Uchiha Clan.
That was even earlier than the era when Hashirama Senju and Madara Uchiha fought, proving that Land of Lightning existed in or before the Warring States period. Even so, figures like Kinkaku and Ginkaku who claimed descent from Sage of Six Paths only knew of Sage of Six Paths and Ninshu by name.
They knew nothing of Sage of Six Paths's surname or origin, let alone the existence and source of the Otsutsuki Clan. But now, things were different.
"Deciphering the text was extremely difficult," the middle aged ninja continued. "By combining ancient records and repeatedly appearing symbols, we pieced together some fragmented information."
"Information?" Fourth Raikage leaned forward in his chair. "What information?"
The silent Mabui stepped forward and handed over a Scroll. Fourth Raikage frowned and opened it, his eyes scanning the contents.
"Otsutsuki Clan, remnants from beyond the stars, forms unlike ordinary people, horns upon the brow, strict distinction between main and branch lines…"
"They take the 'Karma' as a secret rebirth technique. Even if body and form perish, they can reside within a 'vessel', and through the vessel be reborn…"
"Our clan views the universe as a nursery. We send our kin to wander the stars, always dispatching a main and a branch together. Upon finding a fertile world, one feeds the 'Ten-Tails', flesh becoming the 'God Tree', while the other guards it for a thousand years until the fruit matures…"
"I have stayed in this world for a thousand years and grew compassion for its lives. Unwilling to sacrifice those of the Branch Family, I did not plant the 'Ten-Tails'. Instead, I used this world's Natural Energy to establish another method. Yet my long absence has aroused suspicion from the main family…"
"Branch Family Kaguya was ordered by the main family to pursue me, together with the main family's ■■. We were both gravely injured, but Kaguya feared death and betrayed the clan, poisoning me and Isshiki from the shadows. She seized the God Tree, called herself the Rabbit Goddess, bore two sons, Hagoromo and Hamura, and was later sealed by them. Her son ■■ called himself Six Paths…"
"Though I survived, I now hang by a thread and may never reincarnate. Thus I built this tomb and imprisoned myself here. When this tomb sees the light again, the world must know my name…"
Without question, Yunchuan Hyuga once again fabricated a history that was two parts false and eight parts true, quietly inserting his own existence into real events. If that were all, to Fourth Raikage it would have been nothing more than a bizarre legend.
But Yunchuan Hyuga did not stop at describing the Otsutsuki Clan beyond Ninja World. He calmly described turning other worlds into barren wastelands with the God Tree, and briefly recounted deeds carried out while hiding behind the civilization of Ninja World for a thousand years.
For example, he planted herbs under the name Xu Fu, or fed a turtle with Natural Energy and collected strange plants and animals. Or he let a drop of blood fall while bleeding, turning a valley into a miasma filled dead land, and sighed at the weakness of humans in this world.