It had to be said—Kaguya truly lived up to her legendary titles as the Progenitor of Chakra, the True Ancestor of the Uchiha, and the origin of the Tailed Beasts.
She possessed both the Uchiha Clan's defining trait of complete trust after being won over, willing to die for you, valuing you above the world, and the Tailed Beasts' defining trait of being a massive tsundere who is willing to die for you after being won over.
'Wait... why did those two traits overlap so perfectly?'
Best not to ask.
Just look at Naruto's two "best friends" in the future era to understand.
Weren't Kurama and Sasuke exactly like that?
Even Momoshiki seemed to share those exact same tsundere traits.
To an ignorant outsider, Kaguya's dramatic exit just now would look entirely like Makoto's doing.
It looked exactly like he had used Killer Queen to violently blow Black Zetsu's body to ash, leaving only a severed hand behind as a morbid trophy.
In reality, Makoto was completely innocent.
He hadn't done a single thing!
Before acting, Kaguya stated she understood how Makoto obtained his powers and decided to quite literally "give him a hand."
Her intent was obvious: she wanted Makoto to directly contact her Ōtsutsuki power.
Therefore, she concentrated her remaining strength to forcibly materialize a physical portion of her sealed original body.
That was the pale hand he currently held.
The rest of Zetsu's form simply collapsed, unable to sustain its physical matrix after exhausting its chakra.
As for where Kaguya's "concentrated" power came from?
Didn't Black Zetsu lack any combat power whatsoever?
The answer lay in plain sight.
The power came from Kaguya's spirit itself.
Souls possessed immense raw power too!
If Uchiha Obito could casually pass his Sharingan to Kakashi from the afterlife via his soul, Kaguya, the literal Progenitor of Chakra, could naturally achieve a similar bizarre feat.
The soul itself was deeply intertwined with the concept of chakra.
After observing Makoto and the new world order, Kaguya chose to completely abandon her immediate awakening.
At the cost of her soul falling back into a deep slumber, she burned through the chakra Black Zetsu had painstakingly gathered during his initial flawed resurrection attempt to materialize a single, physical hand.
In her true Ten-Tails form, Kaguya could regenerate a severed hand in a fraction of a second.
If her soul wasn't strictly bound to a single entity, or if she had bothered to learn the Second Tsuchikage's fission technique, she could have theoretically split that hand into a perfect clone of herself.
Unlike the rest of the parasitic Ōtsutsuki Clan, Kaguya possessed conceptual, god-like abilities written directly into her physical biology.
Therefore, before Black Zetsu's body crumbled to ash, the exact moment the hand Makoto held transformed into Kaguya's pristine flesh, Makoto acquired a new ability.
An ability related fundamentally to life and genesis creation.
Kaguya must have listened to his philosophical words earlier and understood exactly what kind of powers her divine body could provide, prompting her decisive, self-sacrificing action.
With this new ability, his grand plans could advance at a vastly accelerated pace.
For instance, Orochimaru's terrifying resurrection project could begin immediately.
The original resurrection plan involved surgically transplanting living cells and organs into an Impure World Reincarnation body, continuing the grueling process until the entire vessel of ash and dust was replaced by flesh.
This worked in a theoretical thesis, but practical application presented horrifying problems.
At a certain biological threshold, the Reanimation's binding properties would fail, leaving no chakra to maintain the grafted organs' vitality.
The soul might even forcibly ascend to the afterlife as the summoning contract shattered.
Furthermore, gradually inserting organs and cells—even with the world's best medical ninjutsu sutures—would create a horrifying, Frankenstein-like monstrosity.
Many such ethical and biological issues existed.
But with this new genesis ability, everything resolved itself beautifully.
"Thanks," Makoto said softly, looking down at the pale hand.
Kaguya's soul had fallen asleep, not returning to the sealed rock in the moon, but residing safely within this severed limb.
Lacking the Ten-Tails' regenerative power—and missing its core soul—the sealed body on the moon would permanently remain missing a hand.
Therefore, Makoto had to keep this divine artifact absolutely safe.
One could only say Makoto was far too pure, he never once considered using this beautiful severed female hand for any degenerate purposes.
Tucking the hand away into a storage seal, Makoto turned his attention to Naruto, who was currently sprinting across the dunes toward him.
Right.
He needed to finish what he started and resolve the situation here first.
"Makoto-nii! We're not fighting anymore! I genuinely wish Kakashi-sensei a happy sex life!" Naruto shouted, stating his completely unhinged stance the moment he arrived.
"No, Naruto. Even if you won't fight for Kakashi's purity, you must accept my test for your mother's sake," Makoto countered smoothly.
"My mom?!"
"That's right. I will only use one move. If you can touch my forehead before I touch yours three times, I will consider it your win," Makoto nodded.
"Deal!" Naruto agreed without a shred of hesitation.
As long as it wasn't a brutal death match, but just a test of speed or a spar, Naruto welcomed the challenge.
Not to mention this test directly concerned his mother's fate!
Even though Makoto didn't explicitly specify the prize, in Naruto's simple mind, a win automatically meant a reunion with his mother.
"Ready to begin?"
"W-Wait." Naruto called for a timeout and hastily ran backward.
After putting a vast, safe distance of sand between them, he lowered his stance and shouted.
"Alright, let's go!"
Guided by his cynical mentor, Kurama, Naruto didn't let his hot-bloodedness take over to charge straight at Makoto like usual.
The giant fox had warned Naruto that while Makoto knew all of his abilities inside and out, Naruto knew absolutely nothing of Makoto's true powers.
Close combat seemed mutually beneficial for a tagging game, but reality differed greatly.
Naruto had a margin of error of exactly three touches.
The best tactical strategy was to retreat, analyze Makoto's movement pattern, and then counterattack.
After all, if Makoto wanted to touch his forehead, he had to cross the desert to close the gap.
"One."
Out of nowhere, Makoto appeared directly beside Naruto, casually tapping a finger against his metal forehead protector.
"WHAT?!"
Naruto had fully reactivated his Nine-Tails Chakra Mode.
His sensory perception surpassed all normal human limits, yet he completely failed to detect Makoto's approach.
More importantly... in his golden Chakra Mode, he could perfectly sense malice.
Even with that god-tier sensory ability, Naruto felt absolutely zero emotional fluctuations from Makoto's position.
This actually made sense.
Sensing malice acted as a highly primitive version of Daemon's future reflection ability.
Even if that overpowered cyborg were present, Makoto could bypass the reflection rules and kill him without generating a single shred of ill intent.
Fooling basic malice detection was absolute child's play for him.
Malice detection was simply too broad.
If Kushina came back from the dead and beat Naruto black and blue under the guise of "it is for your own good," Naruto wouldn't sense any malice from her either.
"Kurama, did you see it?! How did he do that?! What should I do?!" Naruto desperately begged the giant fox in his mindscape for help.
At this point, Kurama wasn't just a massive power source, the beast was a crucial intelligence source—a tactical external brain.
[DON'T RUSH ME! I'M THINKING!]