Outside the mental space
Everything was being thrown into a single goal:
keep Naruto Uzumaki alive.
The moment he lost consciousness, they moved him to Tsunade as fast as possible. By then she had already recovered, but even she did not fully understand what was happening to the blond. He looked physically fine. There was no internal bleeding. He still had enough chakra that he should not have lost consciousness at all.
None of it made sense.
At the same time, everyone's attention was on Madara.
Every effort was being focused on getting rid of the blond, something that was far from easy. All the Hokage stood between him and Naruto, and even the Fourth had continued defending his son's unconscious body after losing the Kyubi's chakra. By that point it was obvious that taking a Bijuu from him was not enough anymore, and that alone was enough to show why Minato Namikaze had been called one of the strongest Hokage in history.
The more something mattered, the harder people fought to protect it.
Everything got worse once Obito absorbed the Juubi, only to be stopped by Minato before he could fully stabilize. But then Madara stepped in.
Again.
Madara returned to life, got help from Obito, then took the other Rinnegan and the Juubi for himself, making one thing painfully clear to everyone there: all the power Obito had shown as the Ten-Tails' jinchuriki had been child's play compared to what Madara had now become.
He had no rival.
Nobody could stop him.
At least, that was what his arrogance was telling him.
Damon began showing signs of waking up, which relieved Tsunade, who had remained at his side the whole time together with Kaia and Orien. Not just to keep watch over him, but to be the last line Madara would have to break if he tried anything.
Gai had already opened the Eighth Gate, and the power pouring out of him had shocked the pair of wolves, both of them now fully aware that mortals in this world could reach terrifying heights.
Their thoughts were cut off the moment they felt a strange but familiar power coming from Damon.
More specifically... from his hands.
Kaia and Orien moved closer and used their snouts to turn his hands over, trying to understand what had caught their attention. There was a mark on each palm they had never seen before. In Kaia's was a crescent moon. In Orien's, a sun.
Why did such simple marks feel so familiar?
Before either of them could sink too deeply into that thought, Damon began to move and slowly pushed himself to his feet.
His body stretched with a few small cracks, and when he opened his eyes, the blue was gone.
In its place were red eyes with slit pupils and a strange rectangular shape to them, almost like a mix between a toad's eyes, Kurama's eyes, and the Sage Mode that had made Hashirama famous.
The second he stood up, Tsunade's attention snapped back to him, only to disappear again a moment later when something else caught her eye.
Gai was on the ground.
The last attack he had landed on Madara had been massive, but it had not been enough. His body was withering away, turning to ash, and Madara wanted to finish him personally. He wanted revenge on the one who, according to him, had given him the most entertaining taijutsu battle of his life. A Truth-Seeking Orb was already flying toward Gai to finish the job...
only for a blond to suddenly appear with his back to everyone, holding the black orb in his left hand as if it weighed nothing.
He's holding a Truth-Seeking Orb? Madara thought, genuinely shocked.
"Take it into yourself."
Madara heard a voice say it while the Uchiha was already preparing another attack.
"What?" Madara asked, confused by the strange voice in his head.
"Shinju," it spoke again.
Madara did not get the chance to react. Damon slammed a black rod into him so hard that it sent him crashing into the sacred tree, the impact covering the bark in cracks. The harder Madara resisted, the deeper Damon drove him into the trunk, until the black rod finally snapped from the force. That left Madara wide open, and Damon drove his fist into his stomach hard enough to make the Uchiha cough.
"If you don't... it'll kill you," the Shinju's voice warned him again.
How did he get this strong? Madara asked himself as he lifted his head and, for the second time in his life, felt real fear.
Damon's eyes terrified him.
How could a single look carry that much pressure?
Damon jumped back and formed a Lava Release Rasenshuriken.
"Senpō: Yōton Rasenshuriken."
The spinning jutsu swelled to a size that even made Madara uneasy, and Damon hurled it forward, slicing toward the sacred tree on its way.
Madara, forced to abandon everything else, began absorbing the tree to withstand the attack, following the voice's warning without hesitation.
Damon glanced back at Gai and moved toward him, all while fully aware of what Madara was doing.
"Naruto, are you really going to let Madara absorb the Shinju?" Kurama asked.
In truth, all the Bijuu wanted to know the same thing, but the fox was the first one to say it.
"Yeah, I heard you," Damon answered while kneeling beside Gai. "After thinking about it for a while, I've only come to one conclusion. Prophecies can't be stopped. You can delay them, you can prepare for them, or you can face them head-on."
He placed both hands on Gai's chest and began gathering both Yin and Yang chakra.
"If Kaguya is going to come back, I'd rather be ready for her than waste chakra on Madara."
Little by little, the burn mark over Gai's heart began to fade as the flesh slowly returned to normal.
"The cost of one simple jutsu can be the difference between victory and defeat," Damon said calmly, creating a shadow clone and pointing toward Tsunade so it could take Gai to her and have her check him. "Make sure Tsunade looks after him. I'm not using another jutsu that shaves more years off his life just to save him from something else."
Then Damon looked up at the moon, still shining in full.
"Kurama, there's something all of you don't know. Among the gods, hierarchies exist too. There are beings above gods, beings known as Primordials." Damon kept his gaze on the full moon. "
Kaguya isn't one of them, but she broke past the limits that kept her from that level. That's why she's so dangerous. There are exceptions, gods who broke their own limits and were acknowledged by Primordials, but many of them reject that status because they're content with their own pantheons.
They don't want to be Primordials. Those are called Semi-Primordials, and some of them are stronger than actual Primordials. So yes... there are gods with those titles. In the Hindu pantheon alone, there are many."
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