Naruto: Tango with Death

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I smiled hearing his words, and said, "Don't think you are going to win time by doing this. If I don't call off my troops, they will slaughter everyone in their path as they move into Kiri. So if you don't want any unnecessary deaths, you will surrender peacefully."

They looked hesitant, but eventually, one of them, whom I recognized as Zabuza, said, "Are you asking us to pull our of the war, or to submit to the Land of Fire?"

I sighed and replied, "We never wanted to subjugate anyone, you were the paranoid ones, starting a war for nothing. All I want is to stop the fighting, and return to my home. Isn't that what you want too?"

The six looked at each other, and finally they sheathed their weapons. As a sign of good faith, and also a signal to my troops, I dispersed the mist around the village.

Five of them accompanied me to the gates of the village, while one remained behind for Yagura's body.

The people we passed by looked at me with hostility, but it was mostly overshadowed by their fear of me. They might not know I had killed their Kage, I was already universally feared.

At the gates I found my army, as well as Kiri Shinobis gathering, in preparation of an attack. But seeing our group arrive, everyone looked confused, so I said loud enough for everyone to hear, "The Mizukage is dead, the fighting is over."

Ignoring what Kiri thought of this, I walked to my army, seeing my 11 officers smile at me, and said, "Everyone, it's time to go back home!"

And so that's exactly what we did. What they did.

I let my men leave by themselves as I left for the Summon World, as I had some important things to talk about.

As soon as I arrived on Yami Mountain, on top of the world, I yanked both Jashin and Isobu out of my mind, and saw them standing like normal.

Pointing my finger at Jashin, I asked, "You," I moved my finger to Isobu, "are his grandfather?"

Jashin shrugged and replied, "His father is my son, so yes."

His father… hold on a damn minute.

But Jashin seemed to have an 'epiphany' as he said, "Oh, I get it. You are upset I had children before we met. I assure you, I have no feelings whatsoever for my crazy ex wife, we're cool on that."

For a moment, I almost lost it and tore him apart. But taking a deep breath, I calmed myself and said, "As far as I know, the 9 Tailed Beasts were created by the Sage of Six Paths."

Jashin nodded like it was the most normal thing in the world.

"Yes, that's my son. Hagoromo."

…

…

…

"And his mother was the Goddess, whose arrival started the calendar."

Same nod from Jashin.

"Yep, my ex wife, Kaguya Otsotsuki. We had twins together. But she was no Sage, she was… something else. And actually, she landed on Earth before the start of the calendar, it started after the Great War."

Rubbing my temples, I said, "You do realize what you are saying, right?"

Jashin didn't get to reply as Yami suddenly appeared, and in a rather grave voice said, "It would seem he doesn't. This was not supposed to be something he should have talked about."

I turned to look at him, and said, "I'm going to need some explanations."

Yami sighed and replied, "I know. And while I would have given them to you in the right time and space, it would seem I'm going to have to give you a crash course of our history, and plans."

Jashin shrugged and said, "No need to be so dramatic. We ruled humans as gods, fuckers arrived from space, we fought a great war, pretty much everyone died, they all want to become zombies, and we gonna sprinkle salt on them."

Calm down, Sukaina. Don't rip Jashin open. Don't do it.

Thankfully, Yami looked as exasperated as me as he said, "It is more complicated than that…"

Unfortunately, he added, "But that is a rather accurate description."

I shook my head and protested, "I want an actual account of events."

Yami nodded slightly, and slowly started to explain.

"As Jashin said, us Sages used to live along with humanity, venerated by them as gods, which is a sense, we were."

Yami smiled slightly as he added, "Those were the good times back then. But…" his face turned sad, and he continued, "Then, came the invader. We didn't know anything about them, we always kept ourselves to our planet, but the same couldn't be said about others.

"A clan known as the Otsotsuki have been travelling the cosmos for living planets, like ours, and a little more than a thousand years ago, we had our first encounter with them. Two of their members came to our planet, and they sought to use the lives of everyone on the planet to plant their God Tree."

I asked, "And what happened?"

Yami replied, "We stopped them, but that was only the beginning. For some reason, it seems our planet is special, and so it brought the rest of their clan to us. As a result, what we later called the Great War took place. Gods against Gods, Otsotsuki against Sages.

"The war lasted for several decades, with members of both sides dying, and humanity was nearly brought to its destruction from the fighting. But then, two people decided to do something stupid."

I sent a look at Jashin, who looked unconcerned, and had Yami confirm my doubts.

"Kaguya Otsotsuki and Jashin fell in love, and had a pair of twins. Their union by itself was sinful already, but their offspring… that's what brought about the Downfall. A child with possibly the powers from both races… no matter what camp it ended up in, it would cause a terrible tragedy."

Jashin's face finally changed a little as he said, "Alright that's enough."

Yami sighed, and nodded as he added, "The important thing is, the Downfall brought an end to both the Otsotsuki and the Sages. But as Gods, death is different to us than it is to humans, it was merely the end of our physical bodies, as our spirits lived on, in the Spirit World."

I could see there was something they weren't telling me, but for the first time in my life I also saw Jashin behind serious. Could there be more to him than he showed?

So I asked, "What about the Otsotsuki?"

Yami shrugged and replied, "I don't know where they are, but they are definitely still alive, planning for their revival."

I nodded slightly, before asking, "So why tell me this? You want me to help resurrect the Sages?"

Yami quickly shook his head, and replied, "On the contrary, it needs to be stopped. At all cost."