Chapter 004

Tsking in annoyance, she noticed the pool of blood on the ground. Bending down, ignoring the chattering Karin was making over the hive link, she wiped her entire hand in the puddles, covering it and then she brought it to her mouth. It wasn't a full Neblade but it would certainly be enough for some augmentation

Kushina had watched in amazement as this woman easily broke down Madara's seemingly perfect defense in three moves then forced him to retreat with the fourth move, one that was both surprising and terrifying. As far as she could see from her position, the land was decimated with a cone-shaped trench expanding for miles past where Madara had stood.

Just what the hell is this woman alien?! Why is she scooping up some of Madara's blood on her hand? Why is she bringing it to her mouth? She isn't gonna do what I think she's gonna do, is she? were some of the questions raging in Kushina's mind. Then she watched with morbid curiosity as the woman LICKED the blood clean from her hand. She did this until it was its original pristine self.

The woman did nothing for a few moments before hunching over a brief moment then was fine again.

A groan escaped Kushina again as her adrenaline from the fight was gone and she was feeling the pain of having given birth and a Kyuubi ripped out of her coming back to bite her. This groan got Naruko's attention as the woman was fighting to stay alive to at least see her baby again.

Both of their attention was briefly turned to the loud stomps of the Kyuubi as it finally lost interest in the village, the massive sonic attack from earlier getting its attention since it was powerful enough to break it out of Madara's mind control. Kushina felt even more dread now. This woman may have been able to defeat Madara, but she didn't have any Mangekyo Sharingan to control an enslaved Bijuu and she herself didn't have much left in the tank.

Surprisingly, the alien woman did not flinch in the face of the massive nine-tailed beast. Instead, she brought out a scythe, a large white scythe with a pink bladed edge though it looked more futuristic and mechanical in nature, as well as equipping her wings from before. Despite this, she made no move to attack as she and the large fox stared each other in the eyes.

"Kyuubi, has my victory over your slaver freed your mind?" she called out, surprising Kushina again that this woman who has never met the Kyuubi before would speak to it as a person would another. Sure, she spoke to the Kyuubi plenty of times but she swears if the thing had a gender, it would be a female because of its snarky remarks and mood swings that seemingly synced with hers.

The Kyuubi flashed some wicked set of teeth before replying. "So you are the one who severed the control over me? My thanks, Alien. Being forced to do anything under those sharingan eyes… grrrr, there has been no greater insult to me… save being sealed in that stubborn ass Uzumaki by your feet."

"HEY!" She goes ignored.

"So the method Obito used to enslave you was from a pair of eyes capable of casting illusions and hypnosis. Interesting, I wonder why he didn't use them in our brief fight. Perhaps I just surprised him after finding a flaw in his Kamui defense," Naruko mused with Kyuubi listening intently. However, the name she spoke got a yell from Kushina.

"Wait! What do you mean 'Obito?' I thought he was Madara."

Naruko nodded in understanding. "That would be the expected response based on all the information he told us and his ability to control the Kyuubi, but my species has an ability called 'Neblade.' By consuming the flesh, or DNA more specifically, we can not only absorb their memories, but pick apart their genome and absorb any genetic traits they may have that we would find useful for our own bodies. The blood from his injury that I consumed showed me of his past, how he survived a cave-in after giving his team mate his left eye, then crawling out and being saved by some strange white humanoid called Zetsu. There he met the real Uchiha Madara, a very old man then but now dead, and it was the real Madara who convinced Obito to take up his name and carry out some 'Eye of the Moon' plan which involves using a group to help him gather the Bijuu and recreating the Juubi."

Her explanation was first met with awe, then as she continued it, Kushina felt tears fall upon her cheeks upon hearing the fate of her husband's formerly deceased student and how far he has now fallen.

Obito-kun was such a sweet young boy and I just happened to mock him about losing his childhood crush to his best friend! Oh my God, no wonder he wanted to kill me!' she mentally wailed.

Kyuubi's reaction to the news was to let out a loud roar of rage. "That foolish ningen! Neither has any idea of the apocalypse that would occur were the Juubi to be revived! It's a nearly unstoppable beast of infinite rage and destruction that lives to see all life on this planet extinguished. It very well nearly succeeded around a couple millennium ago but my father, if we were to be general, used the Rinnegan to defeat the beast and seal it within himself. Upon his death bed, he split the Juubi into nine beasts, with a 1-9 tails that signified their level of power—" he waved his nine tails around for emphasis, "and sealed the husk within a tomb of rock and sent it into the sky which we all know as the moon."

Now not only was Kushina gaping at the story, but if Naruko was to believe this beast, then this man had been capable of impossible feats with just these Rinnegan eyes. She looked back into the memories of Obito and saw a certain pair of ringed eyes within a man with crimson hair. Nagato was his name. He was part of a revolutionary group called 'Akatsuki.'

She relayed her information to the group, stunning both but for different reasons.

"NAGATO-KUN HAS THE RINNEGAN!?"

"A NINGEN HAS THE RINNEGAN!?" Kushina and Kyuubi yelled respectively. The Bijuu and Naruko looked at a hyperventilating Kushina. Seeing her already in so much pain, Naruko mentally smacked herself for getting caught up in the moment and ordered over the hive link to have a medical crew brought down immediately.

"You know the ningen?" Kyuubi asked, well more like demanded to know.

Kushina glared at the beast. "His name is Nagato and he's my cousin, you overgrown, rabid plushie!"

Momentarily overtaken by the anger this nickname brought, Kyuubi sent a claw straight at Kushina. Naruko moved to intercept but in an even faster instant, a blonde man appeared, grabbed Kushina, and disappeared to the other side of the Kyuubi. While that technique interested Naruko, what caught her attention was not just the man and woman both having the same kind of ring on their left hands, signifying that he was most likely her mate, but he had a clothed bundle in his other arm. It wasn't until after he put it on some kind of altar that he summoned out of nowhere that she noticed the look of dread on Kushina's face.

Now, normally she would leave them alone to do their personal arguments but decided to intervene because 1) Kushina was in need of medical attention which was only a minute away and 2) Whatever this man was doing, his some hand seals were something that neither Kushina or Kyuubi liked. She teleported over there and drew a white sword, aiming for a debilitating injury rather than killing the woman's mate but he finished the last seal and Naruko's attack paused as a very cold feeling settled over the area. Now, she could survive in the vacuum of space so she knew what cold really was, but this wasn't like a physical cold. A common recurring memory she had from the billions she had Nebladed matched this with a feeling of dread.

While she certainly wasn't exuding it, it was more like something was trying to wash her body with it. Then, before their very eyes, an ethereal being of a ghastly appearance manifested behind Minato. He told Kushina sorry, that it was the only way to save Konoha and stop Kyuubi, Kushina called him an idiot before telling him that Kyuubi was controlled by a Sharingan but was freed from it. Minato only had enough time to widen his eyes at his mistake before the reaper's hand went through his chest and went to grab the Kyuubi. The beast went to stab the baby in retaliation.

Naruko sighed. What the hell just happened? Nothing was going like she had planned all because of some blonde buffoon who seemed to have made some literal 'deal with the devil' as the Prehistoric Humans would say.

She quickly devised a plan and acted, teleporting between the offending hand of this ghost and the Kyuubi which seemed terrified of it. With a slash of her scythe, she knocked the hand back and pulled out her white cannon and fired several dozen shots into the specter. The being, surprised by her attack hitting his hand, merely waved it to deflect the energy bolts.

"WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE, HUMAN, FOR GETTING IN THE WAY OF ME FULFILLING MY CONTRACT?" His black eyes narrowed into slits as he certainly sensed something off about this woman. She stood before him defiant and without any fear despite her having to know just who he was.

"I am Naruko, Queen of the Spectras, a species who has existed and traveled the stars among several galaxies for millions of years. I lead them now just as I led them in the beginning when we first traveled beyond our world. We travel the universe, documenting species and their memories alike. Who is this specter I defend the Kyuubi against?"

The three beings—Kushina, Kyuubi, and the specter—were nearly floored by the bold proclamation. How could they not when this woman was claiming to be older than their freaking planet, thus older than the Shinigami itself. It then hit the Shinigami why she felt different. It's because he couldn't feel her. She was there but not there. She had no chakra! And when he searched for her soul, he was shocked and speechless when he did not feel one set of memories, but billions of lives worth! She was like him in a way. While he consumed souls, she consumed memories to sustain herself. She was truly an interesting one.

"I am Shinigami. The inhabitants of the planet have come to call me the 'Death God' since all souls upon death are taken by me to either be devoured until they serve their sentence and rejoin the reincarnation cycle, or they are sent into Kami's realm to a paradise in the afterlife. Each soul has a weight that I judge and where they go after death depends on that weight."

Now Naruko was surprised. Sure, she has heard of reincarnation and afterlife, after all, nearly every species believes in something of the sort. The Spectras use Neblade to preserve memories and in the case of those memories of Nebladed loved ones, way down the line they will eventually unconsciously coalesce into a newborn, creating something like a reincarnation, or perhaps an incarnation.

"I understand, Shinigami. We Spectras have something similar, though each and every one of us are capable of it. The memories we get from Neblading loved ones who are not long for the world are eventually passively reformed into a newborn many generations later, creating what we call 'transmigration.' You are a being I can understand and respect, however, I would like to know what you intend to do with the Kyuubi that I have taken under my protection."

Kyuubi was gaping, as funny as it was, at this woman talking with the Death God as if she was his equal. Then she goes and spouts about it being under her protection? It would've been insulted if it was anyone else and it wasn't aware of her plan. With her revealing about this Akatsuki, the Rinnegan, and this 'Eye of the Moon' plan, even it hated to admit that while its power was massive, the Rinnegan's numerous abilities were very much capable of subduing it. Don't even get it started on the damn Mangekyou.

"I have been contracted to split the Kyuubi energy in half, sealing one half and the soul into the babe while the other gets sealed with Minato in my stomach. A contract is a contract."

Naruko thought for a moment, even as the beings's attentions were taken away by the arrival of an advanced shuttle made of glowing blue metals. The door opened and a squad of Spectras garbed with similar armor to Naruko but in black colors and armed with black, less aesthetically pleasing energy cannons. They arrived and set up a perimeter around the clearing with an A.I. medic platform rushing to Kushina. It was startlingly human-like as a woman with pale, flawless skin with a light tone, blue eyes like gems, and long light-blue hair.

"Do not worry, Uzumaki Kushina. I am an Artificial Intelligence platform designated KOS-MOS with the role as a combat medic. I'm capable of any sort of on-field surgeries. I will do my best to aid you but your chances of survival are less than 3%."

That news didn't make Kushina happy at all, nor did it please Naruko who was beating her mind up about getting caught up in her talks with Kyuubi.