God Damn It, Kyuubi!

Beyond the simmering heat

So she wasn't the only one, huh?

It was laughable. An embarrassing moment on her part, because how could she be so foolish to assume that she was the only one being thrown into this dimension?

Foolish. So dreadfully foolish.

But the Hatake boy was foolish too.

She has been considering the Ghost as a pest that she could eliminate later—or perhaps use as a pawn at some point in the future—but things changed when Zetsu came to her with news of the chaos that was happening in Ame.

From a pest, the Ghost suddenly became an actual threat.

It was such a good thing he decided to be more forward with his identity while subduing the Sanbi. A literal monster brawl between the Sanbi and an unknown gigantic lightning wolf would surely attract everyone's attention.

And wasn't that a foolish move from the pesky child, to reveal his identity like that?

He would have been better off remaining incognito outside of her radar as an unknown entity rather than flat-out revealing himself as a fellow traveller from the original timeline. The revelation made sense of the entirety of his abilities, as well as giving Kaguya hints of the extent of his powers. He unknowingly laid all of his cards on the table, revealing himself to the enemy he didn't realise he was fighting, while she was still incognito, safe to pull the strings behind her pawns in Kiri.

Foolish little brat.

And it seemed that he was merged with Kyuubi and the troublesome brats too. This would've been bad news if they still possess the power that capable of sealing her but the Hatake boy merged with those brats without inheriting Hagoromo's power.

Which would mean that Indra and Ashura were automatically no longer a threat to her.

This time, a genuine smile bloomed from her painted lips.

"Is he someone you know, Mother?"

Kaguya cast a brief glance at Zetsu—barely acknowledging him—before shifting her gaze back towards her unconscious puppet, still so impressed at the extent her Kakashi was able to progress her plan as compared to Madara did back during the first time around.

She ignored Zetsu's question, though.

Threading her fingers through sage spiky hair, she reinforced her son's genjutsu with her own, making it even more difficult to be broken or detected by anyone.

His compassion was the cause of his own downfall, this young one.

Kakashi was right to manipulate the humane part of the Mizukage's heart. It was laughably easy to get this one under their genjutsu, even with the bodyguards he kept around. Yagura walked straight into their clutch—his own compassion to a fellow mother backfired, as Kakashi was quick to put the Mizukage under his control while Zetsu dealt with the rest of his troops.

They have no use of Yagura's original bodyguards, so she has easily swapped them with Zetsu clones.

The Mizukage himself, however, was not as easily replaceable.

Kakashi has stopped her when she wanted to replace Yagura with yet another mindless Zetsu, having seen through the man's memories enough to notice that it would be nigh impossible to fake the bond that Yagura has with the successors of the current seven swordsmen. It would've been easier if they just replaced the Mizukage with a fake, rather than risking a break-able genjutsu, but Kakashi didn't shut up about the bond that Yagura has shared with the future swordsmen. Thus, Kaguya decided to listen, trusting Kakashi to have a better understanding of what he was saying. It was one of the bizarre things of this timeline that she has yet to fathom, but Kakashi was adamant that they would be found out quickly if they replaced Yagura, so mind-controlling the Mizukage was a safer option.