To the Ōtsutsuki clan, the Tenseigan was their most important possession; it was a sacred relic of utmost importance.
It was their very faith, their identity.
And well, they weren't wrong for basically worshipping it.
It was a very important artifact.
It was, after all, Hamura Ōtsutsuki's eyes, the Byakugan he had gotten from me, which he had somehow evolved into a higher form, something even I didn't know was possible.
The Byakugan was indeed an eye with great power and greater potential; that potential was used to awaken a third eye, not directly evolve the Byakugan itself.
That was why I had a third eye on my forehead, and other members of the true Ōtsutsuki clan had eyes in the palms of their hands, while having the Byakugan in their eye sockets.
It was the way it was.
To upgrade the Byakugan itself? That was something I had never heard about before, and I was someone from the true Ōtsutsuki clan.
I had always been curious about how Hamura had achieved it.
Hopefully, I would learn more when I saw the Tenseigan itself.
Given its importance, or perhaps despite it, it wasn't stored carelessly, nor was it locked away in a vault somewhere under heavy protection.
Instead, it was stored in a sacred shrine, a place of wors
hip.
And at some points, it made perfect sense.
Who could reach this place?
The Moon wasn't a place just anyone could reach; for the past thousand years, not one person had managed to get here, so it was natural to assume that none ever would.
Which meant the only people around were those of the Ōtsutsuki clan itself, of which none would do anything to the Giant Tenseigan.
None here would harm it, so there was no need to hide it away.
And because the entire clan would defend it should anything threaten it, there was little need for other defenses.
After all, if someone could kill the entire clan, what other defenses could possibly stop the attackers?
I had managed it, yes, but that was hardly fair; after all, there was but one child left.
Before the civil war, the Ōtsutsuki clan would have been tens of times stronger than any other clan, and far stronger than even the entirety of Konoha at its peak, even with Madara and Hashirama Senju included.
One shouldn't underestimate the descendants of Hamura Ōtsutsuki; they would naturally be no worse than those of Hagoromo.
As I left the castle and made my way toward the shrine, I saw Kakuzu, who was busy collecting and sealing away the puppets.
After Toneri's death, they had naturally all collapsed since there was no one left to control them.
Even if he didn't control them the same way a Suna puppeteer did, it still required him to at least be alive for them to function; once dead, no matter how ingenious their design, they were little more than dead objects.
Or rather, dead treasures.
Even I hardly dared guess how crazy Sasori would go for these puppets, and given Sasori's network of spies, his value to the Akatsuki wasn't small, so Nagato would no doubt give him money to buy them.
My only worry was that Kakuzu would be too greedy, and push Nagato too far, forcing him to give up the puppets for free rather than sell them.
But I wasn't too worried. Yes, it would annoy Kakuzu to no end, but it didn't really matter to me; it wasn't my money.
The shrine wasn't all that grand. It was impressive, but it was an old building from the time of Hamura, so it lacked the later generations' arrogance and focus on looks, making it far simpler than the castle.
Yet it had a weight to it, the weight of history, of legacy.
As I reached the steps, I slowed down; I felt nervous... something I hadn't done for a long time.
One step at a time, I climbed the few steps that separated me from the temple proper, and soon, I saw it: the Giant Tenseigan of the Moon.
Despite being an eye, it was far too large; even a handful of people could fit inside the glowing orb.
Tens of thousands of Byakugan merged together with Hamura's eyes, the legacy of an entire clan.
The chakra in the room was shockingly strong, and despite the Tenseigan being an object formed from countless eyes, its chakra was impossibly pure.
It wasn't a chaotic mess of chakra mixed together; there was but a single chakra signature.
One that caused a sharp pain in my eyes, and a damp wetness in the corners of my eyes.
Hamura's.
Step.
Step.
Step.
I stopped just out of reach.
"Hamura, why do you hide from me? Are you ashamed?" I asked, my chakra flaring strongly, kicking up a strong wind, making both my hair and clothes dance around me.
The Tenseigan glowed brightly for a moment, responding to my chakra.
"I am not hiding, Mother," a gentle voice answered, one that came not from the Tenseigan, but from behind me.
I turned to see him.
The years hadn't been hard on him; even a thousand years later, even long past his death, he looked no different from the last time I saw him, still as handsome as ever, still wearing the traditional white robes of the Ōtsutsuki.
I had known he was here, faintly remembering that he would appear during the conflict between Toneri and Naruto in the future.
He was a ghost, an echo of the past, left behind to guide future generations. He had chosen to stay, to watch over the clan, to ensure that his will was carried out.
To ensure... that I, his mother, would forever remain sealed away... what a cruel son.
"Hamura," I failed to hide the longing in my voice; despite everything, I still had countless regrets about my children.
Despite everything, a mother who didn't love her children wasn't fit to be called a person at all.
And even after everything, I still loved them dearly...
But they were dead.
"Mother..." Hamura whispered, pain and regret in his voice, but also shock.
Shock that I was somehow here, out of my seal, and he had never known it.
"So... you still know I am your mother!" I spat angrily, not from hate, but from pain.
He flinched. "Of course I do. But you... you changed, Mother. You were evil... we had no choice."
"No choice!" I roared, hurt and angry. "What do you mean you had no choice?"
Hamura sighed at my outburst. "You were mad; there was no stopping you. We had to stop you." He was steadfast, unyielding in his belief that he had done the right thing.
"You had to stop me? Who told you that? And who told you that the only way to stop me was to fight me, to kill me?" I shot back.
"You know what you did," was all he was willing to say.
I couldn't help but sneer at his stubbornness.
"Yes, I know what I did, and I can agree: it was wrong, it was foolish, to make an army like that. It served no purpose... I can see that. I can see that I was wrong!" I shouted at him.
This time, he staggered back half a step. Clearly, even in death, my words reached him.
"I can see that I was wrong. I did what I thought I had to do; I just wanted to protect you all, but I went about it the wrong way. I can admit that. Can you?" I challenged him, my Byakugan fixed on him, my chakra pushing against him.
Hamura's face was a mask of pain and conflict. "Admit what? That we were wrong to stop you? To save the world from your madness?" he asked, his voice trembling with emotion.
"That you were wrong to treat your own mother like that! That you were wrong to kill your own mother! That you were wrong to seal me away!" I roared, my anger and pain boiling over.
The entire shrine started to shake, the stone floors cracking, the walls groaning under the pressure of my chakra.
The Tenseigan behind me pulsed, its light growing brighter and brighter, responding to my turmoil.
"No, Mother, we weren't wrong!" he shouted back, his own chakra flaring, pushing back against mine. "We had to do it! It was the only way!"
"The only way?" I scoffed, a bitter laugh escaping my lips. "Did you even try to talk to me? Did you even try to reason with me? Or did you just assume that I was beyond saving?"
"We tried, Mother! We tried to talk to you, but you wouldn't listen! You were lost in your own madness, consumed by your own power! We had no choice!"
"Lies!" I shouted back, my chakra cracking the stone under my feet. "That stupid toad told you I was evil, and you believed him! Over your own mother. You didn't try to talk to me, didn't ask why I did what I did. Hagoromo went right off to train, train in how to kill me, and you? You covered for him," I accused him.
"He didn't want to kill you!" Hamura shouted, his ghostly form flickering under the intensity of my chakra. "He didn't have a choice!"
"Of course he did," I said, my voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "He could have chosen to trust me, to believe in me. But he didn't. He chose to believe a talking toad over his own mother. And you, you let him."
Hamura was silent, his gaze dropping to the floor, a clear sign of guilt.
"Look at me," I commanded, my voice filled with a cold authority that he couldn't resist.
He looked up, his eyes meeting mine, and I could see the guilt and regret in them.
"I can admit I was wrong. Clearly, I wasn't so mad I couldn't be reasoned with; you two simply didn't want to talk to me, too sure you were right, that I was wrong. And I was, but I still had my reasons. I was wrong, not mad. And you never talked to me!" I pressed him.
He opened his mouth, to say something, to defend himself, but he couldn't. He knew I was right. They had made a mistake, a terrible mistake, and they had paid the price.
"I can't say for sure I would have listened, but the fact that neither of you even tried... that you went right to killing me... How can you say you had no choice? When you never even tried the other choice!"
Hamura flinched again, my words hitting him like a physical blow. He was a ghost, a mere echo of the past, but my words, filled with the pain of a thousand years of betrayal, still had the power to hurt him.
"Mother..." he whispered, his voice filled with a pain so deep it was almost palpable.
"So now I am your mother? Not when we were all still alive? Back then, you wouldn't talk, not to me, your own mother; instead, you both trusted a talking animal, and where did that lead you all?" I accused him, my words dripping with bitterness.
He didn't have an answer, but the regret in his eyes was answer enough.
"Both you and Hagoromo are dead; you could have lived forever. We could have been a family. Instead, you ruined all that, and what for? To make a better world? I ask you, is the world better today, with its countless wars, than it was back then?" I challenged.
He sighed, looking down, unwilling to look into my eyes.
He had been born into a world without war, without conflict, one where their mother would uphold justice with supreme power and without mercy.
It hadn't been perfect, but compared to what came after?
Compared to the endless wars over the last few hundred years? Countless more innocent lives had been lost to pointless wars compared to those few I sacrificed back then.
"No, I suppose it is not," he finally admitted.
"Then what was the point of it all? You turning on me, stopping me; what was the point when your effort to save people from my tyranny brought about far worse horrors?" I continued to push him, to vent all my frustration.
"I... I don't know," he finally admitted.
For countless years, he had watched the consequences of his actions back then. He and his brother had given people their freedom, and what had they used it for?
War.
War and far more.
Everything they had wanted, built, he had seen it all fall, it all fail.
And now, faced with me, he had no choice but to admit the truth.
"You were a child. Why didn't you listen to your mother? I told you not to go to the tree, but at the words of a toad, you did... you claimed I didn't care about humanity. You both claimed I tried to turn the world into your personal garden, that I was someone who saw humans as nothing more than insects, but why would you think a toad of all things would care about humans more than I did?" I asked.
His expression darkened; it was clear that he too had thought about this for a long, long while.
"Perhaps..." he finally said, but I cut him off.
"Perhaps you should have listened to your mother and not that stupid toad," I said, my tone cold and sharp.
I let out a sigh. I didn't come here to argue with the ghost of a son who had been dead for a thousand years.
"I am not here to lecture you, and I am not here to ask for forgiveness. I have come for what is mine. The Tenseigan," I stated, making my intentions clear.
(End of chapter)
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