Killing Black Zetsu and Uchiha Madara had gone about as smoothly as anything could.
Mostly because neither of them had been all that strong.
Madara had been an old man without the Rinnegan and with a body barely holding itself together. Black Zetsu excelled at ambushes and had almost nothing in a straight fight — and it had walked into a trap, blown its one attempt, and died for it on the spot.
Natsuki turned his attention to the Gedo Statue.
The Statue answered to the Rinnegan. With Madara's stripped from him long ago, taking control of it was effortless.
The Black Holy Grail rose from Natsuki's forehead.
All nine Tailed Beasts were already inside it. Absorb the Gedo Statue as well, and he'd have taken in the full power of the Ten-Tails.
[Congratulations! Host has unlocked Emiya Shirou's Template Ability 4: Projection Magecraft — Jeweled Sword Zelretch.]
The line surfaced the instant the Statue vanished.
Natsuki reached out without hesitation.
Projection Magecraft.
A peculiar blade took shape in front of him, its length cut like a many-faceted gemstone. Short — closer to an ornament than a weapon.
Which was more or less accurate. The Jeweled Sword Zelretch was useless in combat. Its purpose was drawing magical energy from parallel worlds.
For Natsuki, it functioned much like the Black Holy Grail: an inexhaustible supply of energy, or in local terms, chakra.
The Grail already held the Ten-Tails' power and would take a very long time to run dry. Still, better to have redundancy.
The Otsutsuki were still out there, after all. Every one of them carried bottomless reserves.
Natsuki considered it, then filed the Jeweled Sword away inside Unlimited Blade Works. If the Grail ever ran low, he could pull it out and top up. Under normal circumstances, he wouldn't need it at all.
"So Uchiha Madara wasn't the strongest shinobi after all."
He'd waited a while and no notification for the Limitless Cursed Technique had appeared.
Which meant the title most likely belonged to Otsutsuki Kaguya.
[You have awakened the Yhwach template.]
Natsuki's eyebrows went up.
Yhwach. From Bleach — the final antagonist in the fullest sense of the term. Founder of the Wandenreich, progenitor of every Quincy who ever lived, and son of the Soul King. His résumé included invading the Soul Society and killing the Gotei 13's founder, Genryusai Shigekuni Yamamoto.
Natsuki turned it over.
Had killing Madara triggered it? Yhwach had shared Madara's ambition, in a sense — both of them had wanted to build a new world.
No. More likely it was Black Zetsu that had done it.
Naruto had no shortage of villains. Nagato, Obito, Madara, Black Zetsu, Kaguya.
But in Natsuki's assessment, only two of them qualified as final villains: Madara and Black Zetsu.
Black Zetsu especially.
Its raw power didn't come close to Kaguya's, but as a schemer it operated on an entirely different level. Every pivotal event of the last thousand years in the shinobi world traced back to it in some way. It had played even Uchiha Madara like an instrument from start to finish.
Kaguya, meanwhile — strength aside — had all the strategic depth of a sheltered girl.
With that settled, Natsuki pulled up the new template.
[Name: Yhwach][Period: Final][World: Bleach][Rank: S]
[Ability 1: Base Abilities — UNLOCKED][Effect: Includes Hirenkyaku, Heilig Pfeil, and the construction of Reishi spaces.]
[Ability 2: Advanced Abilities — LOCKED][Effect: Includes the Medallion, Blut Vene, Soul Distribution, and Soul Reclamation.][Unlock Condition: Defeat Otsutsuki Kaguya.]
[Ability 3: Schrift A — The Almighty — LOCKED][Effect: The power to perceive and rewrite the future.][Unlock Condition: Give the shinobi world the means to resist the Otsutsuki clan.]
Reading it left Natsuki with exactly one impression: this was unfair.
He hadn't expected it to be so lean, though. Three abilities and nothing else.
Then again, those three covered everything Yhwach had ever done.
Ability 1: Base Abilities.
Called "base," but the label was doing a lot of work. Heilig Pfeil alone was what Yhwach had used to kill Yamamoto.
Ability 2: Advanced Abilities.
A far longer list than the first, and every entry on it broken in its own particular way.
Naturally, the unlock condition was equally broken: defeat Otsutsuki Kaguya.
Ability 3: Schrift A, The Almighty.
Yhwach's signature nightmare.
It made the Great Toad Sage's prophecies look like guesswork, because it didn't merely show the future. It let you rewrite it.
As for the term itself, a Schrift was the codified ability designation borne by each member of the Wandenreich's Sternritter — granted through Soul Distribution: Schrift Engraving, which fell under Ability 2.
The unlock condition for Ability 3 read as outright absurd at first glance.
In the original story, the Otsutsuki were entities that traveled between worlds. To them the shinobi world was a field — somewhere to plant a God Tree and harvest it later. The only reason it hadn't already been consumed was the Sage of Six Paths turning on his own mother.
Giving that world the power to resist them meant one thing: producing a meaningful number of Six Paths-tier fighters.
Natsuki suspected the system wanted him to do exactly what Yhwach had done and build his own Sternritter.
Which wasn't out of reach.
Unlock every template he held and he could manufacture Six Paths-level power. He already had the essential prerequisite — limitless energy.
Anyone with enough energy could become a monster. The Tailed Beasts proved it. They were strong purely because they held enormous chakra; their actual combat technique was crude to the point of nonexistent. Pure numbers, no craft.
If Natsuki wanted, he could pour an ocean of energy into another person's body and make them formidable overnight.
The only obstacle was whether the body could survive holding it.
And there was a workaround for that too — the jinchuriki model. Seal the energy inside them the way a Tailed Beast is sealed.
Beyond that, the shinobi world had its own resources worth harvesting. The enormous Tenseigan on the moon, for one.
Or the Otsutsuki themselves. Each of them was a treasury on legs.
Fortunately, this particular condition didn't require defeating the clan. That made it dramatically easier.
And critically, in the original story the Otsutsuki had only dispatched three of their own to hunt Kaguya down. Running the timeline forward, they wouldn't reach the shinobi world for decades yet.
Natsuki had all the time he needed to prepare.
By the time they actually arrived, dealing with them would probably be routine.
He came back to himself and extended a hand.
Out of the rubble, a war fan flew up into his grip.
The Uchiha Gunbai.
It had two functions. It could layer Wind Style onto Fire Style to amplify it, and it could reflect incoming attacks. In the original story, Madara had used it to bounce back one of Naruto's Tailed Beast Bombs.
Natsuki turned it over and decided to reforge it.
At his current level, reworking a ninja tool wouldn't take long. He could have it finished by the twentieth and give it to Konan as a birthday gift.
She'd never use the Fire Style function, but reflection alone made it worth carrying.
Back in the Hidden Leaf, Natsuki went straight to his ninja tool shop and got to work.
Since it was going to Konan, he decided to shape it like a flower — specifically, the pale blue paper flower she wore in her hair in the original story.
He worked through until evening, then headed home.
"Why are you back so late?" Kushina met him at the door, trailing a faint scent of soap.
"You've already had a bath?" Natsuki patted her head.
"There was nothing else to do." She paused, then added, entirely too pleased with herself, "I showered with Nonou."
"And you didn't wait for me." Natsuki's eyes narrowed. "I think the two of you need a lesson tonight."
"Hah. Maybe we'll be the ones teaching you." Kushina lifted her chin.
In practice, she and Nonou combined weren't remotely in his weight class.
"Dinner's ready. Come eat," Nonou called from the doorway.
Since Natsuki had come home late, she'd taken the rare opening to cook herself.
"Where are Tsunade-sensei and Nawaki?" Natsuki asked as he came into the living room.
"They went over to the Sarutobi compound," Nonou said.
He nodded and left it there, heading for the dining table.
He'd barely sat down before Kushina dropped into his lap.
"Would you like me to feed you tonight?" Natsuki patted her thigh.
"Well, whose fault is it that you were late?" She blinked at him.
"Aren't you worried Nonou will laugh at you?" He glanced over.
"What's there to laugh about?"
She and Nonou were inseparable at this point. There was nothing they didn't share.
"I'll feed you," Natsuki said after a moment's thought, "if you change into something I like."
"You're pushing it and you know it." Kushina snorted — and got up anyway.
Two steps toward the bedroom, she stopped.
"Nonou. Come with me."
She didn't wait for an answer, just towed her along.
Natsuki waited a while, and when they reappeared his expression brightened considerably.
Both of them had changed into maid outfits.
"Good evening, Master," Kushina said, grinning.
Nonou trailed in behind her, faintly pink and visibly uncomfortable — not with the outfit, which wasn't new, but with the form of address.
"Come here." Natsuki beckoned.
They settled on either side of him, and he slid an arm around each of their waists.
"How am I supposed to feed you like this?" Kushina nudged him with her knee.
"Then let's try it differently."
Natsuki turned and murmured something to Nonou.
She went still, went redder, and then did as she was told — standing and picking up the chopsticks.
Kushina had no idea what was happening.
She found out a second later, when Natsuki hauled her up into his lap. It was sudden enough that she yelped out loud.
He held her by the waist and looked expectantly at Nonou, who picked up a piece of chicken and fed it to him.
Then he kissed Kushina.
When she'd had enough, the two of them traded places.
It made for a very comfortable evening.
The next morning.
Natsuki got out of bed and glanced back. Nonou and Kushina were still deeply asleep, and their outfits had not survived the night in the condition they'd started it.
He smiled, dressed, and went next door.
The living room was empty. Neither Tsunade nor Nawaki was up yet.
Natsuki considered a moment, then went to Tsunade's room and knocked.
A bleary-eyed Tsunade opened the door.
"Good morning, Tsunade-sensei." Natsuki spread his arms.
She woke up enough to glare at him properly — and then stepped forward and hugged him anyway.
She was warm and soft and still in her pajamas, and the fabric was thin enough that Natsuki pulled her in tighter without thinking about it.
"You reek of perfume," Tsunade said, mouth twisting.
Natsuki had the grace to feel slightly caught out.
"It wouldn't do for Nawaki to walk out here." She took a step back.
"I'll go start breakfast."
Before he went, he leaned down and kissed her.
Tsunade sighed inwardly, let it go on for a few seconds, and then pushed him off.
Natsuki headed for the kitchen thoroughly pleased with himself.
Tsunade touched her lips and privately concluded she had lost her mind.
After breakfast, Natsuki went to the Hokage's office.
He picked up a pen and wrote down three names.
Otsutsuki Kaguya. Otsutsuki Isshiki. Otsutsuki Toneri.
Those three were the only current threats to the shinobi world. The rest of the clan could be ignored for now.
Of the three, Toneri was the weakest.
He descended from Kaguya's son Hamura and had been born blind. In the original story, he'd stolen Hyuga Hanabi's Byakugan and used it to awaken the Tenseigan.
The Tenseigan was essentially a mutation of the Byakugan — vastly stronger than what the Hyuga carried, on roughly the same tier as the Rinnegan.
And in the original story, only Hamura's descendants on the moon had ever possessed it. Not even the Otsutsuki out among the stars had the Tenseigan.
Which made the cause obvious enough: it emerged from Otsutsuki blood mixing with the bloodlines of the shinobi world.
Pure-blooded Otsutsuki didn't have it. They also didn't need it — their Byakugan already performed at that level.
There was one wrinkle with Toneri.
He was the same age as Hyuga Hinata.
Which meant he hadn't been born yet.
Natsuki turned his attention to Kaguya and Isshiki.
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