The story of the goddess Kaguya Ōtsutsuki from Naruto.
Background[]
Kaguya and the God-Tree.
Kaguya Ōtsutsuki is part of a clan of humanoids travelling the dimensions in pairs to plant God-Trees: skyscraper-sized trees draining the life-force of the worlds they grow on, to become divinities.
Little is known about her in the manga. She is said to be from "another world". A thousand years before the story, in a time of endless wars, she ate the Chakra Fruit bloomed from the Tree each millennium, becoming an immortal goddess of nigh-omnipotence. She forcefully pacified the entire world and was worshipped worldwide as the "Rabbit Goddess", though she eventually became a ruthless tyrant feared as the "Demon": trapping thousands in the Infinite Tsukuyomi dream-world, and turning them into plant-monsters known as White Zetsus.
It is later revealed that Kaguya was slowly being consumed by paranoia about her clan coming to punish her for her betrayal, making her Zetsu Army to fight them. Indeed, Momoshiki, Kinshiki, Urashiki and worst, her own former partner Isshiki, deemed her a disgrace and a traitor to be killed.
At some point, she birthed two children, Hagoromo and Hamura. The manga never explains who the father was or if she was pregnant when she ate the fruit. She eventually came to resent her sons for inheriting powers from her at birth (though in the anime it was due to them wishing to dethrone her), and fused with the God-Tree to become a gigantic, eldritch demon known as the Ten-Tailed Beast. The titan rampaged across the world, until it was defeated by her sons and sealed within Hagoromo's body.
The anime vastly expands Kaguya's rise to power and subsequent downfall. She says that she comes from "high in the sky". One night, she came down from the stars in a glowing light, appearing near the place where a meteor had crashed long before, with the God-Tree growing from its point of impact. In fact, she came with Isshiki as a sacrifice to grow the God-Tree, to be later reborn. But she wanted the Chakra Fruit’s power for herself, so she struck down Isshiki by surprise and left him for dead, before appearing to earthlings.
She was brought before Tenji, the emperor of the Land of Ancestors in which she landed, introducing herself as the God-Tree's protector, but hypnotized his court to make them forget. Tenji invited her in his palace, and had a girl named Aino to serve her, who became her close friend and confidant, growing fond of the planet she came down to.
Kaguya and Tenji shared a longing for peace and eventually became lovers, but their romance was cut short by a conflict with the aggressive nation of the Land of That, falsely claiming part of their territory as their own. Tenji tried diplomacy, forbidding attacks on denizens of the Land of That on pain of death. Suzaku, an official from the Land of That who lusted after Kaguya, sent a battalion to capture her but she retaliated with her powers, killing many of them. Suzaku used it to demand Kaguya's head for breaking Tenji's decree, and a heartbroken Tenji complied, wanting avoid war no matter the cost without realizing that Suzaku was playing him.
Kaguya, weakened by pregnancy, and Aino fled from Tenji's archers, until Aino sacrificed herself to save her mistress. Horrified, Kaguya rushed to the God-Tree and consumed the Chakra Fruit. She immediately used her newfound divine power to trap the entire world into the Infinite Tsukuyomi: an illusionary alternate reality under her control. She bound thousands of the victims, Tenji and Suzaku included, to the God-Tree, to be transformed into White Zetsus, and released the rest of the population, with no memories of the incident. She then took the throne of the Land of Ancestors and expanded her rule to the entire world, using her divine powers to end all wars.
Kaguya gave birth to twins and ruled the planet with iron fist for many years. Alas, she got slowly corrupted by power and her rule grew increasingly despotic, sacrificing people to bind them to the God-Tree, causing it to drain the world's energy and put it in grave danger. Hagoromo and Hamura, kept in the dark by their mother, were told the truth by the Toad Sage Gamamaru. They pleaded with her to cease the tributes, but she evasively answered that she would continue until "the others" (from her clan) were dealt with, and refused to relent.
Gamamaru taught Hagoromo the Sage Arts (harnessing the power of nature). Kaguya noticed it and learnt of their intentions from Hamura’s mind. She brainwashed him and had him fight Hagoromo to the death, but he was defeated and saved with Gamamaru's help. Enraged by their "betrayal", and determined to take back their powers, Kaguya became the nightmarish Ten-Tailed Beast. The twins fought the titan for months, during an apocalyptic battle that wrecked most of the world. They eventually managed to defeat it, saving the recent victims of the God-Tree.
Hagoromo used the god-like powers he gained from being the Ten-Tails’s jinchuriki (human host) to split its energy into nine Tailed Beasts, and he and Hamura created the Moon to seal its husk. Hamura later departed to the Moon and started his branch of the Ōtsutsuki clan to watch over it.
Hagoromo walked the earth to mend the rampage, teaching Ninshu to the population: the use of chakra (life-energy) to perform supernatural feats, wanting to build durable harmony through understanding, becoming the mythical Sage of the Six Paths. Unfortunately, unbeknownst to the twins, Kaguya created a shadowy being known as Black Zetsu right as she was being sealed. He remained hidden and waited for an opportunity to revive its "mother".
Hagoromo had two sons: Indra, who wielded incredible power and favoured might, and Asura, who wielded incredible energy and favoured love. While initially considering to name Indra his heir, Hagoromo came to choose Asura's philosophy of cooperation. Taking profit of such opportunity, Black Zetsu played on Indra's resentment and turned it into outright hatred, locking both brothers and their descendants into an endless conflict.
He later twisted Hagoromo's teachings and corrupted Ninshu into Ninjutsu, the use of chakra-powered feats to fight, restarting the endless wars even worse than before. He wanted to influence one of Indra's descendants into freeing the Ten-Tails and then Kaguya, enabling her to restart her rule.
In the decades preceding the start of the story, he manipulated Madara Uchiha and his apprentice Tobi, posing as the former's creation and servant, to create Akatsuki and put the plot into motion.
Setting[]
Kaguya only appears at the climax of the story, just as the heroes are winning against Madara Uchiha. Nothing is known about her until right before her return. While the Sage of the Six Paths' legend is mentioned when Nagato's identity is revealed, it is just said that he was the only wielder of the Rinnegan known in history and the founder of the Ninja World, believed by most to be a mere legend.
Akatsuki has gathered the first seven Tailed Beasts but failed to capture the last two. Gyuki, the Eight-Tailed Demon Ox being sealed within Killer Bee, a ninja from Kumogakure (the Village Hidden in the Clouds), and Kurama, the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox being sealed within the main hero Naruto Uzumaki, a teenage ninja from Konohagakure (the Village Hidden in the Leaves), the main setting of the story.
Tobi, posing as Madara Uchiha, barges into the Council of the Five Kage (the leaders of the five most powerful Ninja Villages), and reveals the story of the Ten-Tailed Beast. He explains that he plans to become the Ten-Tails's jinchuriki to unleash the Infinite Tsukuyomi and rewrite creation following his designs. He demands to be handed the jinchurikis of the last Tailed Beasts, and when the Kage refuse, he declares the Fourth Great Ninja War, opposing his armies of White Zetsus and the coalition of all the Ninja Villages.
The Fourth Great Ninja War[]
During the Climax of the War, as Tobi is battling Naruto, Killer Bee, Naruto's master Kakashi Hatake and his fellow master ninja Might Guy, he manages to resurrect the Ten-Tailed Beast without needing the last two jinchurikis, having gained a portion of their Tailed Beasts' chakra. He and Madara link themselves to the abomination to control it, but the heroes are joined by the Ninja Coalition and eventually by Sasuke Uchiha, Naruto's teammate turned rival. They cooperate to seal the Ten-Tails and attack, but the titan evolves to its second form and breaks free.
Tobi uses the Ten-Tails to devastate the world and to lay waste into the allied forces, but the Coalition holds its own. In the ensuing struggle, the Ten-Tails breaks free and unleashes disasters and hordes of clones, but Tobi one-ups Madara and seals the titan within himself, before reviving the God-Tree.
After a gruelling battle, Naruto, backed-up by his allies defeats Tobi, who finally has a change of heart and decides to atone for his sins, reclaiming his discarded name Obito Uchiha. Unfortunately, Black Zetsu suddenly control of him and Madara takes his place as the Ten-Tails' jinchuriki, grievously wounding Naruto and Sasuke.
Kaguya's creepy smile.
Fortunately, Naruto and Sasuke are saved by their allies, and Hagoromo's ghost manifests himself in their minds, telling them Kaguya's story before granting them his power. With their newfound powers, Naruto and Sasuke can now submit Madara to a throughout and well-deserved beatdown, forcing him to flee.
While they cannot stop Madara from trapping the entire world in the Infinite Tsukuyomi, they can protect themselves with Sasuke's Susanoo. Then, an ominous voice advises Madara to absorb the God-Tree, and he complies. As he does so, an image of Kaguya smiling evilly appears in the sky, satisfied that his actions furthered her goal. (The voice he heard was in fact Kaguya speaking to him through the Ten-Tails within him.)
Kaguya walks the Earth once more
Madara is suddenly back-stabbed by Black Zetsu, gloating that he used him to bring back his "mother" all along, while Madara is painfully turned into the Rabbit Goddess' vessel. Horrified, Naruto, Sasuke, their last teammate Sakura Haruno and Kakashi can only watch as Kaguya reappears, ready to claim the world as her own and to turn the entire population into White Zetsus.
Kaguya Otsutsuki Strikes[]
| “ | This place… This ground is my nursery. I cannot let you damage it anymore… Let us stop fighting. Here. I will have you vanish right now. | „ |
| ~ Kaguya Ōtsutsuki (before fighting the heroes). |
Kaguya recognizes Naruto and Sasuke as her grandsons' reincarnations, who gained their powers from Hagoromo, with her Byakugan eyes. She teleports her foes into her Volcano Dimension, sending them fall in the lava. Sasuke summons the giant eagle Garuda to escape and saves Naruto, while Kakashi grabs Sakura and uses a ninja scroll as a rope to avoid falling, pinning the unconscious Obito to the wall with a kunai (ninja dagger).Sasuke states that only he and Naruto stand a chance, implying that he is fully willing to let the others die if needed, but Naruto disagrees.
Unimpressed, Kaguya fires Rabbit Hair Needles to bypass Sasuke's incomplete Susanoo and strike Garuda's pressure points, disabling his wings, while Kakashi's rope burns. Luckily, Naruto can fly, and saves them with Kurama’s chakra arms. Kaguya rushes at them with a flurry of Eighty God Vacuum Fists chakra punches, which Naruto can barely block with his own, shaking the whole volcano. Sasuke attacks her from above with his full-powered Susanoo, but she sees him coming and destroys Susanoo with her chakra aura, sending him plummeting into the lava.
Naruto catches him and turns one of his Truth-Seeking Spheres into a floating platform for him, but Kaguya warps behind them through a space rift and seize their faces, forcing them to turn around towards her. She paralyses them and starts draining their chakra. Since they remind her of her sons, she starts crying, before furiously stating that she hates them.
Black Zetsu engulfs them and starts draining their chakra. As they know Kaguya's name, he deduces that Hagoromo's ghost, granted them the Yin and Yang power to seal her again if they can touch her at the same time. He then shows them the Rabbit Goddess' first defeat and his centuries of manipulations, sending images of the events into their minds. (In the anime, he tells them Kaguya's entire life, which is depicted in flashbacks.)
Livid, Naruto breaks free of the paralysis and rips Black Zetsu off them, stating that a mother should rejoice for her children's independence. But a Black Zetsu scoffs at his insults and enters Kaguya's left sleeve. Meanwhile, a clone of Naruto is telling everything to Kakashi and Sakura, and decides to revive Obito and enlist his help.
Sasuke attacks Kaguya with Amaterasu, but she effortlessly withstands and dispels it and Naruto shape-shifting clones into gorgeous, naked boys as a distraction. Astonished by such a goofy technique, Kaguya drops her guard for a second, enough for Naruto to punch her. Sasuke teleports them near and they very nearly seal her, but she teleports everyone to her Glacier Dimension, before instantly sealing them and herself in a giant block of ice.
Kaguya warps outside the block and rushes to absorb her foes' chakra, but Sasuke uses Amaterasu to melt the ice and drive her away. At Black Zetsu's suggestion, she uses her space rifts to grab Sasuke and warp him into her Desert Dimension.
Naruto narrowly escapes a second rift and flies away, but she warps herself away and has the whole glacier attack him from all sides. Overwhelmed, he makes it look like that she trapped him in between giant stalagmites to lure her in the open.
Meanwhile, Naruto's clone reanimates unconscious Obito and tells him everything. As Kaguya reappears, Obito notices her space rift and deduces that Sasuke has been sent to another dimension. Kaguya notices them but pays them no mind, lunging at Naruto. Using the power of Kokuō, the Five-Tailed Horse, the boy creates hundreds of clones, but she disperses them with her chakra arms, before warping out of the Glacier Dimension. However, Naruto was counting on it and is able to follow her into the rift towards her Tundra Dimension.
Impressed, Black Zetsu suggest that Naruto must be killed, to which Kaguya (reluctantly) agrees. She warps a Murderous Ash Bone through a space rift to strike him from behind, and he dodges it, but it leaves him open for a frontal shot, and he crumbles into dust. Fortunately, the Naruto who was "killed" was a clone sent for recognition, and when they return into the Glacier, they find an army of clones waiting for them.
In fact, Naruto, Obito and Sakura planned all of it as a diversion, so that Obito could synchronize his dimensional power with Kaguya's space rifts to enter the Tundra Dimension alongside Sakura. There, they warp to Obito's Kamui Dimension, with Kaguya and Black Zetsu sensing them but mistaking them for vanishing clones due to their disappearance. They return to the Tundra after Kaguya and Naruto depart, and combine their powers to open a gateway between Kaguya's other dimensions in search for Sasuke.
After escaping death when mistakenly opening a gateway to the Acid Dimension, they finally rescue Sasuke, who teleports near them. As Kaguya is effortlessly laying waste in Naruto's clone army with waves of pure force, giant chakra arms and Murderous Ash Bones, Obito, Sakura and Sasuke return to the Glacier Dimension.
As Naruto is distracted by their arrival, Kaguya seizes him with her hair and stabs him with a Murderous Ash Bone palm-spear. However, this was another clone, to whom Naruto gave his Truth-Seeking Spheres to make it look like the real one and use it as a bait. Irked, Kaguya teleports them all in her Gravity Dimension where they cannot move, and fires two Murderous Ash Bones to kill Naruto and Sasuke.
Kakashi and Obito manage to shield them, but Obito uses his powers to save Kakashi and gets willingly struck to atone for his crimes. As he is slowly crumbling into dust, indifferent to Black Zetsu's taunts, he thanks Naruto for redeeming him and encourages him to fulfil his dream of becoming Hokage. Before passing on, Obito uses Kamui to somehow contact Kakashi's spirit and grants him his Sharingan eyes, so that he could use them at full power.
Sasuke uses his Rinnegan to teleport next to Kaguya, but she sends everyone back to her Tundra and flies away. He uses his fully-powered Susanoo to chase her in the skies, but she evades him. Infuriated by Black Zetsu's gloating, Naruto uses his instant move to strike Kaguya and sever her left arm, with Black Zetsu still attached to it. He then shapes Truth-Seeking Spheres into spears to pin him into the ground.
Kaguya's Rabbit Ten-Tails form, as seen in the video game.
Kaguya overwhelms Sasuke's Susanoo with chakra blasts, but it enables Naruto to fire Rasenshurikens (his mightiest technique) infused with all the Tailed Beasts' powers. Such wound disturbs Kaguya's chakra, turning her into her Rabbit Ten-Tails form.
The demon attacks them with ten claw-like tentacles and nearly absorbs Sakura, but Kakashi saves her and conjures his fully-powered Susanoo with Obito's Mangekyo Sharingans. Kakashi sever the Beast's tentacles by warping his Susanoo's shurikens through the Kamui Dimension, but it creates more.
Kaguya draws power from the Infinite Tsukuyomi's victims to turn back to normal, preparing to destroy the entire dimension with an Expansive Truth-Seeking Sphere. Luckily, Kakashi devises a plan to stop her for good, calling it their team's last mission.
Final Defeat[]
| “ | Again… I, the ancestor of all chakra… am defeated by these scattered chakras… Why!!?? | „ |
| ~ Kaguya, unable to process that might is not everything. |
Naruto and Sasuke rush at Kaguya, while Kakashi covers them with his Susanoo, but Kaguya fires many Murderous Ash Bones at high speed, which he only escapes by phasing through them with Kamui. He immediately uses the opening to strike her at full might, sending her plummeting to the ground. As Naruto and Sasuke rush to her from either side, she fires Murderous Ash Bones at Naruto, while Black Zetsu (using her powers through her severed left arm) warps another one at Sasuke through a space rift. However, these were but shape-shifted clones of Naruto. She attacks the real ones, but Kakashi warps her bones away and they rush at her.
As a panicking Kaguya flies upwards to escape, Sakura was waiting in ambush and jumps from Kakashi's Susanoo. She punches the Rabbit Goddess hard enough to break her horn, sending her right into her comrades sealing touch, while their beaming teacher expresses his pride at his students.
Naruto's and Sasuke's power forms a gigantic sphere of debris around her to seal her again. Flabbergasted at being bested again by "scattered chakra", the defeated goddess turns back into the Ten-Tailed Beast, but the nine Tailed Beasts break free from her. Black Zetsu watches in dismay, hoping that the heroes might forget him, leaving him free to start yet another scheme. No such luck, Naruto would not have none of that. He hurls him into the sphere of rocks to be sealed with her for eternity, calling him "a brat unable to leave his mommy's side".
The sphere turns into a moon and flies into space. Kaguya and Black Zetsu being sealed in a dimension that only she can access, there is no way they could be freed again, cleansing the Ninja World from their blight once and for all. Then, Hagoromo's ghost is able to summon the heroes and the Tailed Beasts back into the real world, by drawing power from the ghosts of all the departed Kage whom he summoned, congratulating their awesome victory.
Legacy[]
As atonement for betraying Naruto and the others, Sasuke decided to venture and seek out Kaguya's temples containing information. This was due to the fact that, upon Black Zetsu revealing Kaguya's origins and motives, more of Kaguya's race still existed, and as they wished to find out what happened to their traitorous clanswoman, would arrive on Earth at any time, and likely destroy it to gain the Chakra Fruit.
True to this, 15 years later, Momoshiki, Kinshiki and (anime only) Urashiki did come to Earth to investigate Kaguya's disappearance and, upon doing so, confirmed her worst fears that they intended to kill her for her betrayal. Due to the surviving White Zetsu slowly becoming more active, the Shinobi villages were tipped off to their impending arrival and were somewhat prepared and eventually, Momoshiki and Kinshiki were killed, with Urashiki suffering the same fate sometime later.
Without Kaguya's knowledge, her ex-partner Isshiki survived, having shrunk himself into the head of a monk named Jigen and taking over his body. Isshiki waited for thousands of years, planning to find a suitable vessel to reincarnate through with Kāma and finish what he and Kaguya were sent to Earth for and cultivate a God Tree, eventually finding a vessel through a boy named Kawaki. After he was forced to reincarnate through Jigen, who was unsuitable as a vessel, he was tricked into branding a Shadow Clone with his Kāma, causing him to crumble into dust before being killed by Kawaki, finishing what Kaguya failed to do.