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"Hibernation Sequence Powerdown Initiated. Activating Primary Life Support Function."
It was a loud hiss of air that finally awoke Kaguya from her slumber, and despite all of her training she found herself gasping for breath. Her head ached, not unsimilar to the way it ached when she slept too late into the morning and surpassed the rest her body needed. If not for the fact that her hands were currently restrained, she would have needed, desperately needed to clutch at her chest as air burned its way back into her lungs for the first time in over half a century. Nothing in the simulations could have prepared her for this. Nothing could have possibly made her ready for that dreaded knowledge that she'd been asleep for so long , and that every cell in her body was resisting being awake again.
"Temperature Regulation Protocols Activated. Please Stand By."
Kaguya whimpered as a sudden burst of heat settled over her body, painful at first but eventually soothing. Unlike induction, cryostasis revival had to be done swiftly to prevent cell death. If she stayed cold, not even her meager reserves of chakra could keep her alive. The heat was welcoming, even helping relieve the pounding in her head as she settled into her skin.
Fifty years gone in an instant. She let herself mull over this thought as the ship brought her back to life. Fifty years it had taken to travel to this planet on the ass-end of nowhere. Fifty years of life that she would never get to experience with her family and friends. It was her heart that ached now, but only for a brief instant. She had known going in what she was leaving behind, and she had already grieved and mourned. Unlike her, the rest of her family had not been born with chakra. Her parents, if they were still alive, would be at the end of their lifespans; her friends now senior citizens who had spent more of their life without her than with. Kaguya had been an anomaly. It was rare that non-chakric bloodlines produced a chakra-wielding child, and when they did, the child was usually nothing to write home about. They would live at least a doubled lifespan and have access to the chakric arts, but would not be powerful enough to maintain the life of a noble or a politician. A genetic blip led to a miniscule reserve of power, with the child now locked in to one of two lives: soldier or pioneer.
It had been an easy choice for Kaguya. She'd never liked war.
One needed some amount of chakra to survive cryostasis, or else the Monarchs would have simply sent some of the more expendable citizens to do their dirty work across the galaxy. They certainly couldn't send nobles, who were far too valuable in the ongoing galactic struggle to risk sending to an unknown, potentially hostile planet. Thus, pioneers were chosen from genetic blips, their lives lauded as a heroic sacrifice for the greater good of the colonies. Kaguya would either succeed in her mission or die finding out that it was impossible. The odds of her survival were probably less than ten percent, but if she did return, she would be decorated and given status and never have to worry about anything ever again. She'd have food, have a home, maybe even make friends in high places…
"Hibernation Sequence Powerdown Completed. Please Exit Your Chamber And Proceed To The Medical Bay For Routine Checkup."
There was another hiss as the pod door opened, and a relieving click as her restraints automatically undid themselves. She felt a thrum of power within her, her chakra singing and demanding to be used after resting for so long. She smiled and let the energy course through her limbs. Perhaps her power was meager compared to the nobles, but it was her power and she loved everything about it. She loved how it responded to her every thought and movement, empowering her muscles, sharpening her focus, bringing forth skills and techniques that had made her little sisters 'oo' and 'ah' with delight…
And she especially loved it now , because if she hadn't been strengthening her leg muscles with it, Kaguya was certain she would have fallen face first to the ground after one step.
Note to self, succeed in your mission so you never have to do this again.
Kaguya tried to forget that returning home would invoke another fifty years of stasis and instead focused on walking, one slow step at a time, to her ship's 'medical bay', which was more a single room with the bare minimum amount of medical supplies needed. Her companion was already waiting for her: a standard pioneering android who had been keeping the ship on track while she slumbered. It had been programmed with medical techniques and basic engineering know-how, and its creators had of course insisted that it would be able to adapt to her needs and assist her in acquiring her target. Kaguya had seen plenty of them back home, enough to know that the claim was a lie. They weren't worth much more than a glorified butler, and 'adapting' was something more akin to 'memorizing their owner's schedule' or 'downloading new recipes from the global database for experimentation with owner's palette.' She would have been worse off without it, true, but right now it mostly served as a sore reminder that she was alone, with only a machine for company until her mission was done.
"Kaguya Otsutsuki. I hope your stasis has been pleasant." The android spoke in a disjointed voice, and as Kaguya glanced at its black metal coverings and the small beady lights on its face meant to simulate eyes, she couldn't help but be slightly unnerved by it. Couldn't its creator had made it seem more...like her ?
She gave it a nod before sitting down, and from there it began to poke and prod and take vital signs.
"You have been in cryogenic stasis for forty-six solar rotations. We are slightly ahead of schedule."
Kaguya almost spit at this. "Slightly? That's four whole years ahead of when I was supposed to get here!"
"This planet was closer than our estimates suggested."
"No, no, no!" Kaguya moaned, forcing herself to her feet once again. This wasn't good, this wasn't good .
She was here to retrieve a power source from this planet. While most of the details as to what this power source produced or how were too classified for her ears, what she did know was that said source had a very specific incubation time. If she was here four entire years early, then that meant she would be stuck here for four years waiting for the incubation to finish.
Maybe the calculations were off. Maybe it finished early and I won't have to worry.
"Land us." She told the android. "Land us now."
"Ma'am, protocol recommends at least one centrifugal cycle of recovery before stepping foot onto an alien planet-"
"Damn the protocol and take us down there."
"As you wish, ma'am."
She couldn't afford to wait. She had to know now , she had to know if she was worrying over nothing or if she'd be stuck here, awake, for four whole years . They only had the resources to start up the hibernation chamber once more, which meant she couldn't sleep through that time, which meant that she would have to survive …
She sat down at the 'captain's' seat, almost chuckling aloud at the irony of the statement. A true captain was in control of where their ship went and what they did. She was a glorified passenger, nothing more. The android did all the real piloting.
The android began pressing several buttons and warned her to enable her restraints for safety. The ship rumbled as it descended out of orbit, and Kaguya felt a familiar lurch in her stomach, despite the artificial gravity holding her in place. The descent was quick: twenty minutes from orbit until the sudden thunk of ground beneath her feet.
"Atmospheric content?"
"Scanners show a similar ratio to Homeworld, with approximately two percent higher oxygen content. Biological estimates indicate that the air will be breathable with minimal filtration."
"And the target?"
"We have landed approximately half a walk from the target."
A walk referred to the average distance one could walk in an hour's time. If she kept pace, it would be about a fifteen-minute jog away.
"Couldn't have landed closer?"
"Any closer was unsuitable for landing."
"Fine. Get my biosuit ready and prepare the target's containment."
The biosuit served to protect her from unknown diseases and regulate her temperature on the planet. It stuck to her skin like a glove and powered itself with star energy, and thankfully this planet's star seemed stable and healthy. She pulled clothes over her biosuit after looking at herself for a moment; there was something about walking onto an alien planet in skin-tight attire that didn't sit well with her, and she could always have the ship sterilize her clothing once she was back on board.
The ship's doors cracked open with a familiar hiss, and bright, natural light flooded into her eyes. Kaguya squinted, focusing chakra to her eyes in order to better process the strange, new world.
Green, lots of green, so much green. Homeworld's star was red, unlike this planet's yellow star, and its plants were dark reds, if they were any color at all. It had taken centuries for her race to grasp the concept of 'color', as they had not evolved to see it, and even now they required chakra to be able to comprehend it at all. It was said that the first user of chakra had "seen the world in a new light", and scholars had eventually determined that it had meant quite literally. Even then, it was only upon colonizing other planets that they had learned the full spectrum of color and how other life had grown to use it for visual communication.
Green was an unappetizing color, but judging by the abundance of it on the plant life, Kaguya might have to swallow her disgust. She'd only been provided with a week's rations, after all, and if she was stuck here for four years then she'd have to figure out how to live off the land. She'd received some training for this, as well as some basic equipment that would be able to determine with reasonable accuracy if a substance was lethal, but for the most part it would be a crapshoot.
The target better be done incubating, damn it all.
She took a deep breath and didn't immediately choke, which was a good starting point. Her filtration system seemed functional and true to the android's word, the air was breathable. She made to take a step forward when she was suddenly halted by the android's words.
"Ma'am, I would advise halting momentarily."
"Oh, what now?"
"There might be a malfunction, but the ship's cameras have detected life forms moving towards us. The local wildlife might be coming to investigate."
"I can defend myself." Kaguya insisted. She had chakra, after all, and chakra was unique to her race. No sub sapient lifeform was going to pose a threat when she could summon fire and lightning with a flick of her fingertips. She ignored the android's distressed warning, marching down the ramp before her and stepping out onto the soft plant bed beneath her feet.
And then she saw them .
Lifeforms, the android had called them, but they were assuredly more than that. Lifeforms that walked on two legs and carried primitive weapons and clothed themselves. Lifeforms that were looking towards her with terrified eyes, whispering words she didn't understand, a language she didn't understand. Lifeforms with language .
"...ah, shit." She cursed aloud. This planet was occupied .
And that complicated things quite a bit.
-
There were no official protocols involved when it came to dealing with truly sapient lifeforms. To the Monarchs, it wasn’t as though their existence would matter for long; after Kaguya had retrieved her target, her final act would be the purging of the planet’s life so that nothing could ever grow to challenge them. But their existence still meant a potential problem for Kaguya . If these beings had learned about the power source, if they had used it prematurely or moved to defend it…Kaguya might have to resort to killing, and there was a difference between purging animals and slaughtering sapient lifeforms. These were lifeforms that had thoughts, potentially feelings, culture, language, maybe even hopes and dreams…
She wasn’t even sure she could stomach purging the planet when her mission was done. But if she left the planet unpurged, the Monarchs would kill her for treason, plain and simple, and just send someone else to do the job anyway.
She was stuck. She had to purge the planet if she wanted to live, but now, seeing other sapient lifeforms beside her own for the very first time was already making her feel pangs of sympathy. They looked afraid as they pointed their primitive weapons towards her, but there were some that looked curious . One in particular had stepped forward in front of the group, and Kaguya couldn’t help but be drawn to the peculiar darkness of its skin and hair, so much different from the lightness of her own. They looked similar , though. Almost like someone had tried to make another of her race but had gotten the colors all wrong. Their eyes had funny circular marks in the center that seemed to expand and contract, and they had no horns upon their head, only bare skin.
The one in front spoke words to her, demandingly. It didn’t take a genius to figure out that it was likely demanding to know who she was or what she was doing here, but naturally Kaguya didn’t have the means to answer.
It would be easy to simply kill them and move on. Ridiculously easy, and the Monarchs would have approved.
But if there was a chance she was going to be stuck here for four whole years …
She raised her hands upwards, attempting to show the lifeforms that she meant no harm. She then slowly brought one hand to her chest.
“Kaguya.” She said slowly. She patted her chest a couple times, trying to emphasize her name. “I am Kaguya .”
The lifeform in front tilted its head before repeating her name aloud. “Kaguya.” It said firmly. It then patted its own chest in a manner similar to her own. “Tenji.” It said in reply.
Kaguya pointed a finger towards the lifeform. She saw the others flinch, but the one in front did not show such fear. “Tenji.” She repeated. She pointed again to herself. “Kaguya.”
The lifeform then did something that surprised Kaguya; it moved its mouth to resemble something that looked like a grin. Then, it spoke again, this time waving its hand in a back and forth gesture.
“Ohayou.” It said aloud. The word caused one of the other nearby lifeforms to make an odd hissing sound that seemed to exude discontent. It yelled at the first lifeform, and the first lifeform made a noise in response that resembled a laugh. It then repeated the word to her, as well as the same waving gesture.
“O…ohayou.” Kaguya attempted to reply, waving her hand similarly so. It was a greeting, by the look of things. A greeting was good. That meant the natives weren’t hostile…just defensive.
Another pang of sympathy shot through her. Non-hostile natives…that would be dead within the next four years. What was she doing , trying to communicate with them like they were potential allies or comrades? Getting attached would just make things more difficult, wouldn’t it?
Well, the Monarchs weren’t here , and she certainly wasn’t going to live on a planet of pissed off natives for four years. If she used them, befriended them, they might even provide her with food or resources while she waited for the target to incubate. It was the intelligent thing to do, the action that would better ensure her survival and the completion of her mission.
She just had to keep a careful distance. Get close, but not too close.
The lifeform near her held out a hand to her and grinned again, and Kaguya wondered if it was really going to be that easy.
-
The lifeform called her ‘Usagi’, and she had no idea what it meant.
It said the word in a jovial manner, however, and even though the majority of its kind were still defensive around her, this lifeform seemed to have no such worries. Kaguya wondered if the being was simply stupid. If she had seen a lifeform descend from the heavens in a strange vehicle, accompanied by a second, even stranger lifeform, she would have been terrified. She certainly wouldn’t have invited the lifeforms into her living quarters and offered them *food*.
Her android did not eat, which was difficult to explain. The lifeforms gently, then insistently, offered food to it until it found the right combination of head shakes and gestures to politely tell them ‘no’. Kaguya was somewhat envious. True to her prediction, the food of this planet looked unappetizingly pale , and her stomach turned up until she put the first bite into her mouth. The strange white granules ( gohan ) and the flavorful red flesh ( sakana ) were surprisingly delicious, and Kaguya allowed herself a moment to savor the new flavors.
She offered the lifeform ( Tenji , she had to remember) a portion of her own ration bar in turn. It was a risk, giving food to a stranger, but they had found a rapport in each other and Kaguya got the impression that generosity went far in their culture. Ration bars, however, were fairly flavorless, and though Tenji did not say anything to express its disgust, Kaguya could see it on its face.
She laughed. How could she not? She’d always thought them bland, too.
There were small lifeforms, children, who ran to her with curious eyes and grabbing hands. The elderly were more wary, watching her from behind cracked doors with worry and distrust. The settlement was a large one, and the buildings had a fascinating design. No flat walls and roofs, no low intensity lamps, and there was so much emphasis on color . And Tenji’s living space was the most spectacular of them all, reaching several stories and boasting swooping roofs and beautiful plant life on the exterior ground. Inside was warm and homely. The walls had tapestries that appeared to depict the lifeforms as well as…well, Kaguya could only guess it was indigenous wildlife, and perhaps other sapients judging by the way they were drawn. Kaguya had never heard of multiple sapient races on a planet before. A first time for everything. She couldn’t help but regret that no one back at Homeworld would be interested in such a planet.
The android turned out to be far more useful than she’d anticipated. It had a perfect memory, which meant that it didn’t need to waste time learning words. It would hear them and instantly memorize them, adding a meaning if it could deduce it. Kaguya gave it permission to begin a translational program. It listened, taking in the chatter from the world around them and seeing patterns where she could not. When it could, it spoke for her.
The lifeforms called it ‘Zetsu’, which the android informed her could mean ‘mouth’ or ‘tongue’ or maybe even ‘language’. Kaguya found it fitting. One wasn’t supposed to get attached to androids either, but now that it had a name, Kaguya didn’t think there was much of a reason not to use it.
She allowed herself the first day to ingratiate herself to the lifeforms. ( Ningen , Zetsu claimed they were, a word that was hard to say on her tongue.) Tenji appeared to be a leader of sorts, and if it was amicable to her, the others would be as well. She could even use them, she deduced, to find the power source.
It was easy, ingratiation. These beings did not have chakra, and any display of chakra from her was met with hand claps and amazed vocalizations. Kaguya, admittedly, had never had so much fun using the gifts she’d been born with. She let her chakra become a small lick of flame upon her fingertip, let the chakra in her eyes allow her to see through the walls and view actions performed in the next room over, and pushed chakra into her feet until she could walk up walls and stick to the ceilings with ease. Kaguya figured that it was probably akin to entertainment for them.
At one point, Tenji pointed to itself and then to the ceiling. Asking, in its own way, if it could walk on the walls like she could. There was palpable disappointment when Kaguya shook her head. These beings would likely need to evolve for thousands of more years before chakra was available to them.
They offered her a room that was clearly meant to be sleeping quarters. The object upon which she was to sleep was soft, with a warm fabric to pull over herself in case the room was struck with a chill.
Kind , Kaguya thought as she allowed herself the rest of sleep. These beings are extraordinarily kind.
-
She found the power source the next day.
It was buried within the plant forest nearby the Ningen settlement, and it was incredibly easy to find. Her technology pointed her in the right direction, and once they were close, Tenji seemed to realize exactly what it was she was searching for, which allowed it to take her there even more quickly than it would have taken had she relied on a general signal. As they grew closer, the source pulsed with an energy that resonated with the chakra within her, and once they were in view it was incredibly vivid to look upon. It was a plant, she realized with a start, a great and mighty plant that stretched taller than any of the ones around it. Growing upon one of its branches was a single fruit, pale and pink in coloration.
It wasn’t ripe yet, Kaguya realized, and that was why the timing had been important. Somehow, the power source she sought was a fruit, a fruit that seemed to sing to something within her and flare up her chakra.
Shinju, the Ningen called it. They bowed before it with gestures that could only be taken for reverence, and even Tenji took to the knee when they reached its view. Was it akin to a deity, to them? Kaguya’s race had taken to religion, once upon a time, and there were a small minority that still kept to it, but she had always found it nonsensical. This was a tree, nothing more, a tree with an incredibly valuable energy source within. Her people needed it, and she would retrieve it.
According to her technology, the fruit would be ripe in three years and two hundred and twelve days. Three and a half years she would need to keep alive.
She feigned reverence, sinking to one knee as she took in the tree before her. That seemed to satisfy the Ningen around her, and for now, that was enough.
-
It wasn’t lost on her that she was treated by Tenji as something of an exotic pet.
He delighted in her demonstrations of chakra, and rewarded these demonstrations with food and lodging and clothing , and it was really the clothes that delighted her the most. She would keep them, she decided, when she left this planet for good. She liked the way the fine fabrics felt through the touch simulators of her bodysuit, and while the colors had been harsh at first, they grew on her with each passing day.
Tenji had deemed her an ‘onna’, which Zetsu had eventually learned referred to traits that her own race identified as ‘feminine’. It was a correct assumption; Kaguya was female, and it was curious and amusing that the Ningen race had sexual dimorphism that paralleled her own race. Was it a coincidence? It had to be: the enemy races that Homeworld fought against had a variety of dimorphisms, some not related to sex at all. In her mind, Kaguya was beginning to see the Ningen as an accidental ‘sister race’, something that had, by chance, evolved in a similar manner to her own.
The women of this world wore flowing garments that folded in front of them and were held in place with a delicate sash. For the women of ‘higher importance’ those garments were often longer than was practical and trailed behind them. They painted their faces and wore their hair up in twirling styles, and though Kaguya wasn’t sure she quite liked the face markings, the hairstyles looked good , and she made sure that Zetsu memorized how to do them for her.
The men of this world walked a line between ornamental and practical. There were some men within the living quarters that wore armor and carried bladed weapons, but other men that seemed to favor flowing garments that were very similar to the women. Tenji switched between them. Sometimes he walked outside in armor and shouted words to the men practicing with their weapons outside, and other times he walked among his living quarters and spoke in quiet but firm voices to the people within, wearing a short garment that made him appear a bit humbler. There were customs to the clothing, Kaguya could deduce this, but the nuances were lost on her. She simply let some of the women figure it out for her. As long as Tenji was happy and kept giving her food and shelter, they could dress her however they liked.
It was peaceful in a way that Homeworld was not. There was always a hustle and bustle there, people rushing to get to jobs or plan for the future or deal with a crisis. These Ningen took things as they came, dealt with problems in the moment, and lived without the anxieties Kaguya had become used to.
She could get used to this, she thought. This strange and fascinating peace.
-
There was war, thirty-six days later.
Kaguya did not have any other word for it. More of the Ningen flooded in from outside the settlement’s walls, firing upon those within using missiles wreathed in flame. Kaguya watched in horror as children and elderly were rushed into shelters, and those who were unlikely to make it in time were often hit and instantly slain.
Tenji rushed into the fray with armor, shouting words to the Ningen around it and readying its own weapon. Kaguya watched it run towards the fighting until she could no longer see it. She could smell blood and metal and flame and nothing else.
She hated it.
She’d never wanted to be a soldier. She’d never wanted to be involved in fighting. And here these beings scrapped as though it were as natural as breathing. Didn’t they know that infighting among their own kind would only lead to destruction? Didn’t they realize that it wasn’t conducive to their race to destroy each other? Unity, her people always preached, unity lest there be annihilation.
She could run. She could return to her ship and allow these beings to destroy each other. If they were stupid enough to fight, they weren’t worthy of their lives.
But that would leave her without the soft furniture to sleep upon, the strangely flavorful food, the beautiful clothing, the companionship of Tenji who had been amicable to her when no one else was.
Kaguya had gotten attached, which was bad , but what would it hurt to let these people live just a little while longer?
Kaguya removed her flowing clothes and donned her space-faring outfit. She let her chakra flow into her muscles and bones, giving her strength and dexterity beyond her physical capacity. Her eyes sharpened, her senses peaked, and Kaguya let herself become a soldier for the first time.
It was frighteningly easy. Before she had been selected as a pioneer, she had been trained as a soldier against holograms, and eventually against peers. The Ningen had no chakra and stood no chance. Her hands were too fast and her feet too swift. They swung at her with long blades and spears, but she slapped the offending objects away like paper. She melded her chakra until it became like lightning, and when applied to the armor of the invaders, the metal conducted it with such fury that it seemed to melt the bodies within. Kaguya could smell it, the absolutely horrible smell of death that seemed to permeate over everything else in the settlement.
When she was done, a hundred invading Ningen lay dead at her feet. She grimaced in disgust, but the Ningen of the settlement looked upon her with awe and gratitude.
Zetsu told her later that what they called her was ‘Protector’. But Kaguya learned with time that what they really called her was ‘Megami’.
Goddess.
-
Kaguya returned to her ship to think and to plan.
In the days since the battle, the attitude of the villagers had changed. They now deferred to her as a deity, bringing her food and gifts as homage and thanks for keeping their people safe. They prayed to her in strange sing-song tones. Megami no Usagi, Tenji had called her, tongue in cheek, but it had stuck , and now Kaguya was a goddess whose looks mirrored that of a local prey animal. (A flighty, long-eared thing, which did not amuse her.)
Tenji treated her somewhat the same, despite the shift in tone from everyone else. An emperor, Zetsu told her after sometime attempting to decipher the words of others, was of a godly bloodline. Though Tenji was no deity, he was venerated in leadership in a manner similar to. Tenji, in terms of the Ningen culture, was the only one whom the villagers would consider her equal.
And that was the difference. Tenji treated her as an equal now, and not some exotic to show off. He took her to meetings with his war council, and though the words he spoke were still difficult for Kaguya’s mind to grasp, Zetsu served her well enough and she was able to provide input . They looked to her for guidance, begged her to use her skill to benefit the village and expand their lands.
Kaguya told them ‘no’, of course. She would use her skills to defend these people, but she was not a soldier. She would fight for peace, not war.
And of course, none of them dared try to force her otherwise.
But Tenji was clever, and Kaguya learned this as he came to her one day with an alternative. Kaguya had gained a reputation with her defense of the village. If she went to other lands and demanded submission, other places might cower before the thought of her power. They could unite the widespread villages of the country, they could make peace while only occasionally having to lift a finger.
It was a moot point, and Kaguya knew this, deep in the back of her mind, but this was her village now, and she couldn’t deny that either. A village that was going to die when the fruit of the ‘God Tree’ ripened. A village full of people that cared about her, that worshipped her, that had taken her into their home and given her food and shelter and treated her like someone that mattered , not just another pioneer to be sent off into the vast abyss of space.
“What do you think, Zetsu?”
She sat on her small cot, one leg crossed over the other and her chin in her hand. One of the downsides of the Ningen culture was that sitting in such a way was considered ‘improper’, but she could always retreat to the comfort of her room or ship to allow herself a reprieve. Zetsu stood at attention, as usual, unblinking eyes meeting her own.
“What do you want me to think, Miss Otsutsuki?”
“That’s not an answer.” Kaguya frowned. Of course an android wouldn’t have a real answer. They were programmed to obey, to follow one’s every whim and ensure their happiness.
And then Zetsu surprised her.
“…I think I have grown somewhat fond of this place.”
Kaguya smiled.
-
She landed her ship on the outskirts of the city, to the joy of the children of the village. They flocked to the machine, marveling at the shiny metal exterior and begging to be let inside to look. Kaguya let them, under Zetsu’s watching eyes. She wore her old clothing from Homeworld as she went to Tenji’s side, and as greeting she brought forth her scanner, as well as a data pad.
“This is called technology .” She told him in her best approximation of his tongue. “It does what you ask without tiring.”
She took a picture of Tenji with her scanner, and then displayed it on the data pad. When she showed it to him, he marveled at it with widened eyes.
“How?” He asked.
“I will teach you.” Kaguya promised. “In exchange, I want to be one of your people.”
“I would do better by you.” Tenji argued. “I wish for you to be my wife.”
Kaguya gawked, and was saved from replying by several others approaching her with questions. Still, even with distractions, she could not shake the statement from her mind.
Wife. Tenji wished to be bound with her, as mates, as lovers . Kaguya had never loved, had never expected to love unless she had succeeded in her mission. Even then, she had simply hoped to be bound to someone of higher chakra level so that she might keep an elevated sense of status. This, being bound to an alien species…were they even compatible? Could they bear children?
Why was it, after a statement such as this, that Kaguya’s thoughts weren’t of what her people would think?
Somewhere, deep down inside her, she started to wonder when her thoughts had changed so drastically.
-
One year later, Kaguya and Tenji were wed in a grand affair and celebration that lasted for seven days and nights.
One year later, Zetsu had reverse-engineered several of their more primitive technologies in the hopes of teaching the Ningen how to make it. It was difficult, and some of the more intermediary designs were too difficult to deduce, and were not in the records of Kaguya’s data pad. Simple things, however, were easy to reproduce. Lighters were among the most useful, the ability to create fire wherever one went and maintain it. Medicine was another, introducing the concept of sterilization and vaccination to the local healers and teach them better ways to keep their villagers alive. Cameras were more difficult, and required mining, which their village did not have; they traded for their metals, and it took some time before they had enough excess to spare on making rudimentary ‘luxuries’.
The village’s first photograph was of Kaguya and Tenji’s wedding, and once Zetsu could spare the time to print it, it was hung in the halls of their palace.
They spread out, visiting various villages and grabbing fealties where they could. Many resisted however, and since Kaguya had vowed to only use her powers for defense, there was little they could do. They would come in time, Kaguya figured, and she had plenty of time now.
In two years the fruit would be ripe, and in two years she would not harvest it. She would cut off her ship’s transmission abilities and be presumed dead. And if someone else was sent to her planet in an attempt to recover what was lost, she would defend them.
Kaguya had fallen for this world, head over heels. There was nothing more to it than that. She had come here expecting to die, but she hadn’t expected to find reasons to live . She didn’t have to be a soldier or a pioneer. She was Megami no Usagi, she was Empress, she was Ningen . And they were hers .
-
In two years the army came.
Allied villages from the borders of their lands, all of whom moved in fear of the Goddess and all of whom coveted the strange new items they possessed. Fire made at will, words preserved in metal, sickness cured with the wave of a hand…all of these things were coveted by their neighbors, and this coveting was a uniting force. And as strong as Kaguya was, she could not defend her people against the might of several thousand armed soldiers. She was not invincible, and even with chakra, she could not heal a thousand cuts or a thousand flaming arrows.
One by one her people began to fall.
One by one the army drew closer to the village, to the elders and women and children, and Kaguya couldn’t stop them fast enough.
The people fled, and Kaguya fled with them as Tenji bled in her arms. She had been wrong, how could she have been so terribly wrong. Her Ningen were peaceful, but the rest of the world were violent and cruel and coveted the small piece she had carved out for herself. They were like Homeworld. They were like the old Masters she had shed, and Kaguya knew, deep down in her heart, that people would keep coming for her own little paradise no matter where they laid down roots.
They fled to the God Tree to pray for salvation. If the armies could defeat the Goddess, what hope did they have? The elders wailed and the children cried and the wounded soldiers begged, half for relief from their suffering and half for rescue. Kaguya wept for the first time since she was a child. Tenji was dying in her arms and her people suffered .
She looked towards the God Tree and suddenly she knew what she needed to do to keep her own safe.
She reached into the tree’s branches and pulled forth the fruit from its branches. It was a power source, wasn’t it? It was that which her people coveted, willing to send hundreds to their deaths in order to obtain? What would happen if she just…
Took it for herself?
She bit into the sweet and supple flesh and felt a rush of warm energy rush through her. Each bite was better than the next, and she felt something build within her until she was fit to burst, and then it built more .
Chakra , she realized. This fruit had been incubating chakra this entire time, enough chakra to fill ten people, a hundred people, a thousand people. She’d never thought she could comprehend power of this level; it had been reserved for the highest born of her people. A privilege, born into and not earned. (But now Kaguya knew better, the highest born ate their power as she was doing now.)
Her eyes opened, and Kaguya was a goddess in full.
She ran her hands over Tenji and watched his wounds close before her eyes. She went to each of the wounded soldiers in turn until all were well, and then she left them all behind.
The invaders had taken up residence in their village. They fiddled with her technology, harassed a captured Zetsu, and vandalized their homes with their disgusting symbols. Even those who could not fit within the village razed the countryside and terrorized the people that had sworn allegiance to them.
She could burn them. Slaughter them all, make them suffer, make them agonize with the weight of what they had done.
But that wasn’t good enough for her. And with her chakra she could do so much more .
She’d heard theories of highborn that could capture an enemy with their eyes and make them see and feel what they wanted them to see. They could make an enemy experience a hundred days of pleasure or a hundred days of pain. Kaguya was as strong as the most powerful highborn, nay, maybe even stronger , so who was to say she couldn’t do the same? She felt her eyes burn with raw power, and as each of the invaders met her eyes they fell under the same spell. They fell to the ground limp, their eyes now reflecting her own strangely red ones. It was draining to capture so many of them at once, but Kaguya could feel her body adapting and attempting to regenerate what she had lost. The power wasn’t a one time thing to be gained by eating the fruit. It had changed her.
“What will we do with them, Miss Otsutsuki?” Zetsu had limped towards her, functional despite needing some repairs to its limbs and chassis. Ever faithful, ever attending, even after the invaders had tortured it. Kaguya reached out, attempting to fix the injuries with her chakra. In the past she had not had nearly enough power, but now even metal and circuits could be pulled together with a wave of her hand.
“They are alive and experiencing a nightmare of eternal torture. So long as they draw breath, they will suffer for what they’ve done.”
“So they will suffer until starvation?”
“No. I have a far better idea. We shall preserve them.”
Maybe it was an extremely petty idea to use the last of her ship’s resources to cryogenically freeze her enemies in a permanent state of bespelled torture. They’d need to build pods for each of them, siphon resources from her own ship to use as templates for recreating the process on planet. But it wasn’t as though Kaguya was going back anymore. She couldn’t. She wouldn’t . She’d eaten the power source she was meant to retrieve, protected the people she was supposed to purge.
A long term project of pettiness was just coping at this point.
-
In fifty years, Homeworld would realize that Kaguya wasn’t coming home. She would be considered dead, a victim of pioneering to places unknown. They likely wouldn’t send anyone to retrieve her, not yet . But the Shinju plant would flower again one day, and another fruit would be borne of its branches, and then her people would come. Likely more of them the second time around, in order to ensure success. Kaguya had until then to ensure her world was strong enough to protect itself.
None of the Ningen could use chakra, but they could use some of the more primitive weapons that the non-chakric users of her race wielded in war. Guns became favored, ranged weapons that could fire without the troublesome task of an immediate reload, as well as better armor welded in such a way that it would easily deflect blades and arrows. Her Ningen didn’t just thrive, they dominated . No one could stand against Tenji’s forces, and no one could compete with Kaguya’s technology. Any enemy that wasn’t slain was caught within the power of Kaguya’s eyes.
Her Ningen learned. And with every piece of technology she and Zetsu managed to replicate, they grew stronger . She would stand at their head and make them invincible , and when her people eventually came, they would be repelled, simple as that. This planet was hers , and she wouldn’t let anyone destroy that which she had claimed. That which she loved .
And then, in the midst of her Ningen’s growing success, Zetsu came to her with news. Delightful news. Impossible news.
She was pregnant. Pregnant with twins . Twins that would be one part her race, one part Ningen. A brand new species, a hybrid , and as they grew within her she knew that like her, they had chakra within them. The future leaders of the Ningen, of the planet , her and Tenji’s children...they would be strong and powerful like she was, able to keep her planet protected.
Let them come . I’ll be ready. I’ll keep what’s mine safe .