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[Caterpillar] Side Story - Part 2
🕑 Added 2024-03-16 22:52:57 +0000 UTCResolved to fight until his last breath, Sasuke lunged at the Rabbit Goddess with all his might when a grey and white circular portal, different from those created by Kaguya, suddenly ripped the violet skies above the gravity world open and a large metallic object came out of it, falling towards the ground like a meteorite.
With his enhanced eyesight, Sasuke could see that the metallic object wasn't natural. It appeared to be man-made, a vehicle of sorts. But even after that object caught on fire from the friction with the atmosphere, he did not pay it any mind. He quickly turned his attention back to Kaguya who, much to his surprise, had activated her Byakugan and started watching the falling object as if transfixed, seemingly ignoring his presence.
'This is my chance!' Sasuke thought.
But right when lightning engulfed his right hand and he was about to strike her down, Kaguya raised her hand and aimed in his direction without even turning her head. With Byakugan's 360-degree sight, she could see his every move even while paying attention to the flaming object in the sky. Sasuke's only option was to dodge to the side as fast as he could to avoid the deadly bone projectile shot from her palm.
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"Ow, ow!" Thea whined as she crawled out of the burning wreck that her spaceship had become.
Although she had crashed from such a high altitude, other than a comically large bruise on her forehead, there were no other injuries. Despite that she looked like a young teenage girl, she was still a goddess; her toughness was far beyond that of regular people.
The white baby fox was not as lucky or as durable as her though, Miyuki had fainted from the crash. Flying away from the burning wreckage with the little fox in her arms, Athena was occupied with thoughts of dread at the idea of facing her parents.
'I'm dead. Mom is going to go ape-shit. I'm sooo dead! And dad...'
She could vividly remember what happened the last time her parents got truly angry at her. She had beaten up some bullies at school and had almost killed them by accident due to not controlling her great strength. Her mother's punishment made her shiver just thinking about it, she reckoned that her left buttock had never been the same after that. But what had hurt her even more than the ass-whooping she got from her mother was seeing her father's disappointment. For weeks after that incident, she had done everything in her power to make her father smile at her again.
So consumed she was by her thoughts that she almost didn't notice that she wasn't alone on the strange planet that she had crashed onto... until a pitch-black portal appeared in the sky not far from her and a strange-looking woman came out of it. Her white hair was even longer than she was tall, two white horns grew out of her forehead, her skin was deathly pale and her eyes looked as if she was blind, with no pupils in them.
A pit appeared in little Athena's stomach and she subconsciously stepped back when her senses finally registered the enormous amount of chakra contained in that woman's body.
Lightly throwing the unconscious fox up in the air to free her arms, Thea instantly went through the hand seals necessary for casting the Kage Bunshin technique. Two shadow clones popped up next to her and, before the fox had yet to fall down, one of the clones snatched her from mid-air and flew away to safety at a speed that nearly broke the sound barrier.
The other shadow clone brought her hands on top of the original Thea's and a golden sphere of chakra appeared in her palm.
"Who are you, child?" Kaguya asked and the veins around her eyes bulged as she activated her Byakugan once more to study the girl's chakra in detail.
"Don't come any closer!" Thea shouted threateningly and the golden ball of chakra in her hand suddenly grew as big as a basketball. It was her father's technique Oodama Rasengan.
Kaguya seemed not to hear her warning because she flew right at her and raised her hand to grab her. However, in the next moment, Athena pushed the big Rasengan in her hand straight into Kaguya's chest.
What happened next shocked everyone present at the scene, whether it was Kaguya and Black Zetsu themselves or Sasuke and his group who had been spectating from the side: instead of Kaguya easily absorbing her ninjutsu as she had done every time before that, the golden Rasengan slammed into her chest unhindered and blasted her away like a cannonball.
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Sasuke couldn't believe his eyes.
'How the hell did her ninjutsu work on Kaguya?!'
His eyes narrowed when he thought about the technique that she had cast.
'Also, no matter how I look at it, that was...that was Naruto's Rasengan.'
On top of it all, the little girl also had 3 pairs of whisker-like birthmarks on her cheeks, just like Naruto.
'Are they related somehow? Or is she the daughter of another jinchuuriki?'
But how was she not affected by the Infinite Tsukuyomi? How did she use that space-time technique to reach their current dimension? Why couldn't Kaguya absorb her Rasengan? How did she even learn that technique in the first place? There were so many questions on his mind, he didn't even know where to start and his companions, Kakashi and Sakura, were burning with curiosity just like him too.
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At first, little Thea didn't recognize the woman in front of her but she acted upon her instincts and attacked her before the Kaguya could get her claws on her. However, when she saw a gigantic construct of purple energy resembling a mythical winged samurai and the three people standing inside the gem on its forehead, realisation finally dawned on her... and she became mute with surprise.
Naruto had told his daughter many stories about his adventures (or misadventures) and he had told her about his childhood and the Elemental Nations too. While other kids went to sleep listening to stories about princesses and white knights, Thea went to sleep while listening to stories of Naruto's adventures as a shinobi or Diana's fights against Earth's supervillains and the like. And for the girl to better visualize their stories, her parents often used a Henge to show her exactly what some of the important characters in their stories looked like.
She didn't recognize the Rabbit Goddess at first because she did not appear in those stories often but when her eyes fell on Uchiha Sasuke, Hatake Kakashi, and Haruno Sakura, everything became clear in her head...
...Somehow, she ended up in the Elemental Nations. Following that, she recognized the identity of the horned woman that she had just sent flying which in turn also made her realize the present situation: she had arrived during the last war of her father's homeworld, the 4th Shinobi War.
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As Team 7's remaining members approached her, little Athena asked them before they had the chance to say anything:
"Are you Kakashi, Sasuke, and Sakura?"
She wanted to double-check and make sure she wasn't mistaken about their identities.
If the three of them were surprised before, it was nothing compared to now, when they heard the girl saying their names. Not one to care about tact or good manners in the present situation, Sasuke asked, his eyes narrowing at her:
"Who the hell are you? How do you know our names? Are you, by chance, related to Naruto?"
Thea didn't have time to answer him because all of a sudden, all four of them fell from the sky as gravity increased many times over. Sasuke could not keep up his Susanoo and the three of them collapsed on their hands and knees, unable to stand.
"Not this again!" Sakura bemoaned.
The last time Kaguya manipulated gravity, she killed Obito, with the rest of them only surviving thanks to his sacrifice.
While Sasuke, Kakashi, and Sakura were struggling to not get flattened under the insane gravity, Kaguya raised her hands (albeit with difficulty) and aimed at them. At the sight of the two ashen bone spikes coming out of her palms, their faces became pale.
'Is this the end?' they thought.
Kakashi struggled with all his might to stand again and jump in front of Sasuke to protect him with his body...however, he couldn't pull off that miracle a second time. Realistically, it didn't make sense that he and Obito had been able to stand the previous time while Sasuke and Naruto hadn't been able to move an inch.
It was while they were on the edge of despair that the sound of a sword leaving its sheathe was heard, followed by a loud wooshing sound.
Kakashi, Sasuke, and Sakura watched wide-eyed as the young teen girl stood up seemingly effortlessly and quickly jumped up in front of Kakashi. With the sword she wielded in her right hand she slashed sharply at the bone stake that was about to impale him and with her left hand, she threw her round golden shield like a frisbee in the trajectory of the bone spike that was about to kill Sasuke.
The bone projectiles that they had dreaded until then were smashed into pieces like rotten wood when they collided against the girl's sword and shield.
It wasn't only the three of them who could hardly believe their eyes, Kaguya and Black Zetsu were just as startled too.
What none of them knew, however, was that little Athena's golden shield and silvery sword were made from the same metal as her mother's weapons and bracelets, from Amazonium. It was a metal that could tank and deflect even the God of Evil's Omega Beams, to speak nothing of lesser attacks such as Kaguya's Dead Bone Pulse projectiles.
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As their battle entered a momentary lull, Thea took the chance to speak with the people behind them.
"I don't know how I got on this planet or at this point in time. It doesn't make any sense to me. But I know that if we don't fight together, we're all going to die."
Naruto and especially Diana had trained their daughter to the bone whenever they were not away on bounties and she was not busy with school work. On one hand, they wanted Thea to fully grasp the extent of her powers and understand how dangerous she could be for regular people and on the other hand, they also wanted their daughter to have the strength to protect herself and the ones around her.
That said, while Thea was no stranger to fighting, never before had she faced a perilous situation. She had never been in a life-and-death battle and she had definitely never fought for real against a deity.
Her mouth was dry, her pulse was erratic and her hands were clammy from nervousness but she tried to not let it show on her face. Her parents had drilled into her the concept of never revealing any sort of weaknesses in front of the enemy.
Even while she didn't take her eyes off the horned woman in the distance, Thea muttered a prayer to the Goddess of Heroes, Courage, and Strength, to Diana of Themyscira, to her own mother.
"Mother, give me strength."
Thea's blue eyes were lit with a golden hue and all hesitation and fear disappeared from her heart.
"Tate!" the girl shouted and the golden shield that she had thrown away before suddenly dislodged itself from the ground and flew straight to her left forearm.
Smashing her sword against her shield two times to psyche herself up, little Athean let out a battle cry and charged.
"Mother! Dodge it fas-!" Black Zetsu shouted urgently when he saw how a massive crater was blasted into the rock-hard ground under the girl's feet as she launched herself at them.
But he couldn't even finish his sentence before Thea was upon them. A deafening shockwave exploded when the girl smashed her shield into Kaguya's chest and hurled her into the distance like a rocket, her body leaving sonic booms in its wake.
Spittle and blood burst from the Rabbit Goddess's mouth when she crashed into a rocky mountain, the impact reducing the impressive landform into a pile of debris.
"Mother!" Black Zetsu cried out in panic and glared hatefully at the girl who was now flying towards them with her sword raised above her head to finish them.
The moment that Thea's shield bash knocked Kaguya back and she lost control of her gravity technique, Sasuke did not hesitate to leave Kakashi and Sakura behind and shunshined ahead, intent on capitalizing on the opening that the little girl had made for him.
He didn't know how in the world was it possible for a girl that young to have such monstrous physical strength and he had many other questions related to her identity but those would have to wait until after they finished dealing with the mad goddess.
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With the strange little girl about to cut her down with her sword and with Indra's reincarnation about to stab her with his black lightning-coated hand, Kaguya could only resort to using her area of effect space-time technique to escape.
However, betraying the Rabbit Goddess's expectations, little Athena did not appear to be flustered at the sight of the underground cave filled with magma. Her chest filled with her mother's courage, Thea was relentless in her pursuit.
A moan of pain came from Kaguya as Thea cut her right arm off from the shoulder. The little girl slashed again with her silvery god-slaying sword to deal the finishing blow but she suddenly felt someone grab her by the shoulder and throw her roughly to the side.
And it was not a moment too late. A deadly stream of magma exploded out like a geyser in the spot where she had been before.
"Don't be reckless!" Sasuke warned her. "You can't afford to go wild against Kaguya. One wrong move and you die."
"Yes. Thank you," Athena said and nodded obediently.
She was still lacking when it came to real battle experience so she listened to his words and backed away.
But the stream of magma that came to attack Thea wasn't the only one. Kakashi and Sakura also found themselves on the receiving end of the goddess's indiscriminate magma attacks.
"Forget about them!" Sasuke yelled when he saw Athena rushing at Sakura to save her from the tough spot she was in.
"Shit!" he cussed. "At this rate, she's going to end up just like Naruto!" he said in annoyance.
His prediction proved to be right a second later seeing as, while Thea was distracted with saving Sakura from falling to death into the lake of magma below, a tiny portal opened in her blind spot and an ashen bone spike flew out of it, stabbing deeply into the back of her little shoulder.
Thea all of a sudden felt most of her strength leave her body and she lost control over her flight too. Nevertheless, despite her injured shoulder and abruptly losing all feeling in the left side of her body, little Athena did not let go of Sakura's waist, gripping her so tight that the pink-haired girl winced in pain. What a grunt of exertion, Athena mustered all her remaining strength to stab her sword into the wall of the cave, stopping their fall only a few dozen feet above the sea of fire below.
"Now, Mother! Now it's our chance! Kill her!" Black Zetsu hollered and Kaguya heeded his words.
Watching the Rabbit Goddess disappear into a black portal, little Thea realised the gravity of her predicament.
'She's going to kill me!'
She couldn't feel the left side of her body due to the ashen bone spike that had lodged itself and crumbled into her shoulder and she had lost control over her flight and other powers too.
Half paralyzed, barely hanging onto her sword at only a few dozen feet above a lake of magma and with a murderous goddess about to kill her at any moment, Athena Uzumaki did exactly what any other girl her age would do after getting in big trouble: she cried for her parents.
"Daddy! Help!"
At her cries, an explosion of blinding silvery and blue lights filled the cave. While everyone was struggling to regain their eyesight, a rough voice filled with anger reverberated in the underground world:
"You dare lay a hand on my daughter?"
For the first time since becoming a goddess, Kaguya felt fear.
