Chapter 432: The Eyeless Youth
The red-haired youth was now fully awake. He widened his eyes, his mouth slightly agape, forgetting to breathe and speak for a moment.
Those purple Rinnegan reflected the brilliant galaxy and his blue home; in his pupils, stars seemed to be rotating, being born, and being annihilated.
An unprecedented shock and awe, originating from biological instinct, swept through his entire body like an electric current.
He felt as if he had become a speck of dust in the Universe, yet also as if he had established some mysterious connection with this vast starry sky.
"Is this..." Yuji's voice trembled slightly, carrying a near-pilgrim-like reverence, "...the Universe?"
He never imagined that one day he would be able to witness the scenes depicted in textbooks so directly and from such a close distance.
This vastness, where magnificence and loneliness coexisted, far exceeded the sum of all his imagination.
"Yeah."
Adult Naruto's voice sounded beside him, calm and gentle, as if he had simply taken his son to the outskirts to see a special view.
He also looked up at the starry sky and the Ninja World, his gaze deep, seemingly pondering something within this vastness.
"It's beautiful, but also cruel."
The Universe is vast, but for the Otsutsuki, it is merely one nursery after another; they use the Ten-Tails to harvest the energy of world after world to grant their clan eternal life.
He withdrew his gaze and gently patted his son's back, pulling that shock back to reality a little:
"We'll stay here for a while, just to experience it. We can't stay too long."
"The 'me' of this time period will also be coming to the Moon soon for certain reasons."
"If we stay here too long or leave traces that are too obvious, it might cause unnecessary space-time interference. So, take a look, remember this sight, and then we should leave."
Hearing this, although Yuji's heart was full of reluctance and he wished he could stay here for a few more days to look at every star and record this unparalleled scenery with a camera...
...he hadn't brought a camera, and he understood that his father was right; the taboos of space-time must be observed.
He suppressed the disappointment in his heart and nodded heavily, striving to imprint the scene before him deep into his mind.
After a moment, Yuji seemed to think of something. His eyes suddenly lit up again, and his previous disappointment was replaced by a new excitement.
He squatted down, grabbed a handful of soil from beneath his feet, and suggested excitedly:
"Right, Dad! I can pack some 'lunar soil' to take back! This is dirt from the Moon; taking it back for the Hidden Leaf Village scientists to study, or even just as a souvenir, would definitely be worth a lot."
He was already imagining the envious expressions on his friends' faces when they saw the "local specialty" he brought back from the Moon.
However, hearing his son's "profitable" idea, adult Naruto couldn't help but chuckle softly, shaking his head with a tone of helplessness and amusement.
"Silly boy, do you remember what I told you in the cave earlier?"
Naruto reminded him, "About how the Moon came to be?"
Yuji blanked for a moment, then recalled the story his father told about the Six Paths Sage sealing his mother: "I remember. The Six Paths Sage used 'Super Chibaku Tensei' to pull up a part of the Ninja World's land, turning it into the Moon to Seal his mother..."
Halfway through, he realized it himself. His voice gradually trailed off as he looked at the so-called "lunar soil" in his hand, his expression becoming a bit strange.
Naruto nodded, confirming his thoughts: "Exactly. So, the 'lunar soil' you're stepping on and holding in your hand right now isn't actually some extraterrestrial substance in essence."
He paused and pointed to that azure planet in the distance.
"They are the soil of the Ninja World. It's the part that was stripped from the Ninja World and sent into the sky by the Six Paths Sage back then. After being washed by the space environment for long ages, its composition might have changed slightly—becoming drier and more barren—but its roots are still the Ninja World."
He patted Yuji's shoulder: "So, in terms of scientific research value, it might not be as high as you imagine."
"Similar samples with many of the same properties can be found in the Ninja World. At most, it's just a kind of 'hometown soil' with special historical significance."
After hearing this, Yuji looked at the handful of dusty "lunar soil" in his hand, and most of his excitement from just now instantly deflated.
After all that, the "Moon specialty" he almost treated as a treasure to take back was actually just dirt from back home.
It had just been "airlifted" into the sky and stayed there for a few hundred years.
"Fine..."
Yuji resentfully scattered the "lunar soil" in his hand back to the ground and clapped his hands. "All that excitement for nothing."
"It wasn't for nothing; you can take some back to keep as a souvenir of this journey."
Naruto smiled, "At least you saw the Universe with your own eyes, and saw what the Ninja World looks like. This experience is more precious than any specialty. Alright, time to go."
Shortly after the father and son left, an eyeless white-haired youth arrived in the area, riding a wooden circular platform.
"Hmm?"
Toneri tilted his head slightly, his eyeless gaze "falling" precisely on the spot where Naruto and his son had just stood.
His brow furrowed.
"An illusion?"
Toneri whispered to himself.
He had absolute confidence in the accuracy of his perception, but because of that, this sudden "sense of strangeness" made him even more alert.
The Moon, this lonely satellite chosen by the ancestor Hamura as a place of guardianship and isolated from the Ninja World for thousands of years, theoretically shouldn't have any outsiders able to reach it, except for the descendants of the guardians and the sealed core.
Soon, he sensed the uneven spots on the ground.
"How could... someone be here?"
Is it someone who accidentally discovered the passage?
Although Toneri hadn't seen another human since his father's passing, someone's arrival was not good news.
For Toneri, who bore a special mission and held his own unique views on the current state of the Ninja World, the arrival of people from the Ninja World meant variables; it meant the secrets and plans he had long guarded might likely be interfered with.
People of the Ninja World are the greediest and most tyrannical. Their struggles have not ceased for hundreds of years. There's no telling what evil deeds they might commit upon coming to the Moon.
"I must investigate clearly."
Toneri instantly made a decision in his heart.
He could not allow unidentified visitors from the Ninja World to move about on the Moon, whether they had entered accidentally or had other motives.
He needed to find them, clarify their intentions, and then... take appropriate action.
Toneri mobilized the power of the Giant Tenseigan within the shrine to begin scanning the entire Moon, but after scanning several times, there were still no results.
"Have they left?"
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