Time passed quickly, and training immortality does not count the years...
"If you want to master unmatched martial arts... you must endure pain that ordinary people cannot endure."
"Good morning! Master!!"
Early in the morning, Gamamaru sat on a big rock singing.
As soon as he saw Arisu come out of the house, he hurriedly hopped forward to greet him.
"Gamamaru, what are you chanting so early in the morning?" Arisu looked at Gamamaru yelling loudly so early and his face darkened.
'Why are you yelling so early in the morning?'
Gamamaru had moved over about three or four years ago.
During these three or four years, one person and one frog lived together, and Gamamaru had taken Arisu as his teacher.
At the beginning, Gamamaru was very careful and honest. Later, after they got familiar, Gamamaru started bragging.
"Hehe, Master, isn't this the song you like to sing?"
"When you practiced and bathed before, you often sang it?" Gamamaru came to Arisu's side and kept asking nonstop.
"Alright, alright, stop asking. Sometimes, knowing too much is not a good thing. Gamamaru, let's go."
Arisu put on his red and black training clothes, took Gamamaru to the top of a mountain, and began a new day of training.
Arisu's training was to merge Mount Myoboku, Ryuchi Cave, Shikkotsu Forest, and Monkey Sage Art all together.
Make them into one Sage Art that gathers the strengths of many schools.
This process needed to slowly blend together.
It was definitely slow, but Arisu did not mind.
He had more than enough time.
'Time is like a blade cutting down geniuses, I practice Sage Arts, wanting to compete with time itself.'
"So fast..."
Arisu wore his red and black robe, standing on the mountain peak.
These past few years, he had been merging Sage Arts. Even though the progress was slow, it was acceptable.
"Master? Why do you practice so hard every day?"
Gamamaru lay on Arisu's shoulder, looking at the morning sun of Mount Myoboku.
Arisu smiled faintly. "Because outside there is a powerful crazy woman."
"Oh? Stronger than you and Great Sage White Eyebrow?" Gamamaru asked in shock.
Arisu nodded slightly. "That woman ate something that made herself extremely strong."
"And that woman already has an immortal body. Alone, I cannot defeat her."
'However, I can still make use of her two sons...' Arisu thought slightly.
Speaking of Otsutsuki Hagoromo and Otsutsuki Hamura...
All these years, he had never gone to see them.
Arisu, who was always cautious, had not stepped much into the human world.
Except occasionally going to catch some meat, vegetables, and fruits.
Because Arisu could not eat Mount Myoboku's "immortal delicacies."
'Calculating their age, those two should be three or four years old...'
'With my current ability to hide my aura, I no longer need to wear that concealment robe.' Arisu silently recited a thought.
His whole body instantly became transparent, impossible to sense, as if he had disappeared.
This was something he developed by borrowing from the abilities of the three snake princesses of later generations.
"A terrifying invisibility ability that makes others unable to sense chakra." At least that's what Baidu says. "Master? Master? Where did you go?"
Gamamaru looked at the empty surroundings and shouted.
Then Arisu appeared, grabbed Gamamaru. "Come, I'll take you to see that woman's sons."
Arisu directly left Mount Myoboku with Gamamaru.
———
Otsutsuki Kaguya quietly gazed at the sky.
She was worried, worried that the Otsutsuki clan would discover her betrayal.
Within a few decades they would not find out, but after hundreds of years, they definitely would. Before that, she had to prepare a White Zetsu army to respond.
'I wonder how far my sons will grow in hundreds of years? Will they be able to resist those people...' Otsutsuki Kaguya's gaze was distant as she looked toward the lake far away.
Hagoromo and Hamura were playing there.
Because this world was covered by Infinite Tsukuyomi, there was no need to worry about danger.
Kaguya planned to release some humans later.
After all, having no people at all was also a big problem.
She wanted to be the god of the world, not the god of wasteland.
Just as Kaguya gazed at the starry sky, by the side of a lake...
"Haha, Hamura, come catch me!"
"Hagoromo, don't run! Mother told us not to go far."
Two three year old children were playing on the grass.
These two children had pale faces, with tender little horns growing on their heads.
They were Otsutsuki Hagoromo and Otsutsuki Hamura.
———
"Gamamaru, see that? Those are that woman's children."
Arisu appeared under a tree with Gamamaru, quietly watching Hagoromo and Hamura.
"Master, I have an idea. This is a good chance. We can take these two away and then threaten that woman." Gamamaru suggested ambitiously.
"You'd better not have ideas."
Arisu felt helpless. No wonder in the original story Gamamaru was handled by the Sage of Six Paths. He was still not sharp enough.
(A/N: In the original story, Gamamaru saw the future, then found a way to approach the Sage of Six Paths, trying to drive a wedge and oppose Otsutsuki Kaguya. In the end, the Sage of Six Paths saw through his thoughts directly. But the Sage of Six Paths himself did not like his mother's rule, so he went along with it and learned Sage Arts to fight against his mother.)
Otsutsuki Kaguya slowly appeared in front of Hagoromo and Hamura.
"Hagoromo, Hamura, it's time to go home." Otsutsuki Kaguya said gently.
"Mother!!"
Hagoromo and Hamura were like two clingy little beasts, tightly hugging their mother's necks, rubbing their little heads against her shoulders.
"Mom, last night you said Mr. Arisu can summon talking toads, and monkeys that can turn into a golden staff. Is that true?"
Hagoromo held onto Kaguya's arm, his round eyes full of longing, the small horns on his head gently swaying with his movements.
Hamura also nodded, his little hand gripping Kaguya's sleeve, his voice soft. "And that talisman that can bring people back to life, is Mr. Arisu very powerful?"
Kaguya's steps paused slightly. Her fingertips gently brushed through the soft hair of the two children. The tenderness in her eyes was like moonlight soaked in water, yet deep inside there flashed a trace of indescribable regret.
"Yes, Mr. Arisu is the most powerful and bravest person in this world."
"He once fought terrible monsters to protect this land, helped many people in trouble, and helped Mother as well. He is Mother's great benefactor." Otsutsuki Kaguya said softly.
She did not speak of the betrayal in the bamboo forest, did not speak of the chakra fruit that was fought over, and did not speak of the resolve when she stabbed out the All Killing Ash Bones, nor the sleepless nights afterward.
She only shaped Arisu in the story into an all powerful hero, a legend hidden in time, as if doing so could slightly make up for the heavy guilt in her heart.
Holding the two children, her figure gradually went far away...
"Teacher, teacher! She really knows your name! And even called you a big hero!"
Under the swaying tree shadows, Gamamaru suddenly jumped down from Arisu's shoulder, gesturing with his forelimbs. "Look, look, those two little kids almost treat you as an idol!"
"..."
Arisu stood still.
The corner of his black and red robe was lifted slightly by the evening wind.
He looked toward the direction where Kaguya and her sons had left, his gaze deep.
Of course he knew why Kaguya would tell his story.
The guilt hidden inside her gentle smile was like a thin needle, lightly pricking his heart.
Not pain, but a kind of indescribable irony.
Once they fought with weapons in the bamboo forest, fighting life and death, and now he had become the hero in her bedtime story.
"Hero?"
"She really knows how to make up stories."
Arisu murmured softly, his voice almost drowned by the wind. A faint curve rose at the corner of his mouth, unclear whether it was mockery or something else.
Gamamaru tilted his head, looking at him in confusion. "Teacher, aren't you happy? She made you sound so amazing!"
Arisu slowly withdrew his gaze, lowered his head to look at the hopping Gamamaru. The depth in his eyes gradually faded, replaced by a trace of clear coldness.
Arisu raised his hand and rubbed the top of Gamamaru's head. "Happy? No, I just think… this game of chess might be easier to play than I imagined."
He thought of the admiration in Hagoromo and Hamura's eyes toward "Arisu," and of the deliberate gentleness and guilt in Kaguya's storytelling.
That guilt was Kaguya's weakness, and the two children's worship of "Hero Arisu" was the wedge he could use.
Driving a wedge between mother and sons never requires blades and blood.
Sometimes, a beautified legend, a name hidden in time, is enough to plant cracks deep in people's hearts.
'When the dark truth is revealed...'
'Under the beautiful story, the truth is a feast of betrayal where it is you die or I die!'
Kaguya stabbed Otsutsuki Isshiki in the back, the Emperor of the Land of Ancestors stabbed Kaguya in the back, Kaguya stabbed Arisu in the back.
"Let's go, Gamamaru."
Arisu turned around, his figure gradually blending with the surrounding trees. The secret technique of hiding his aura worked smoothly, as if he had never appeared.
Gamamaru quickly followed, hopping behind him, still muttering, "Teacher, what are we going to do next? Should we secretly listen to what kind of story she tells?"
Arisu did not turn back. His steps did not stop. His voice drifted along the evening wind, calm and confident. "No need. We just have to wait."
"Wait for those two children to grow up. Wait for their admiration for 'Arisu' to turn into doubt toward their mother's lies. At that time, it will be our moment to act."
The evening wind swept across the lake, creating layers of ripples, breaking the distant mansion lights into pieces on the water.
Arisu's figure disappeared into the depths of the forest, leaving only Gamamaru's footsteps and scattered questions, gradually swallowed by the night.
And inside the mansion not far away, Kaguya sat by the bed, gently patting the backs of the two children, beginning to tell that beautified story about "Hero Arisu" once again...