Seeing that Makoto and Minato had settled on a way to deal with Urashiki after only a few exchanges, the older Sasuke raised no objections.
Ninja battles were information wars. Even when fighting godlike beings, that saying wasn't completely useless.
Without knowing the enemy's specific abilities, there was little point in devising an elaborate strategy. The best they could do was adapt as things unfolded.
As for the Ōtsutsuki Clan, aside from Kaguya, Makoto knew very little about its other members. He didn't have a god's-eye view of them, since he had never watched that non-canon sequel.
The older Sasuke said, "When the time comes, Team Seven will carry out their mission as usual. Boruto and I will protect them from the shadows."
Even though the boy in front of him wasn't this world's Minato's grandson, Minato still objected.
"Boruto is still too young. Sasuke, are you sure you want to bring him along?"
Boruto: "..."
This grandpa wasn't lovable at all. He was obviously calling him a scrub.
"I'm sure. He might produce some unexpected results."
The older Sasuke wasn't lying.
Urashiki treated Boruto differently, and there was another important reason as well. If Boruto stayed in Konoha, it wouldn't take even half a day before every bit of information in his head was squeezed out by his grandmother.
It wasn't that Sasuke distrusted Konoha. He simply didn't want this world's future to be influenced too heavily by information from his own world.
Makoto didn't know much about the Ōtsutsuki beyond Kaguya, but he did know that members of that clan were notoriously difficult to kill.
Before dying, they would often package all of their information and implant it into a suitable host, creating something called a Kāma to carry out a resurrection process.
They were practically like viruses.
And Makoto happened to know that Ōtsutsuki Momoshiki had been killed by Boruto.
After hearing Sasuke say that bringing Boruto along might produce unexpected results, Makoto glanced at the boy and suspected that Momoshiki might be residing within him.
But after examining him with his senses, he found nothing unusual.
It seemed that before the resurrection process began, a Kāma remained deeply concealed and was extremely difficult to detect.
"Makoto-senpai, do you also think I shouldn't come?" Boruto asked.
"No. I think neither you nor Sasuke should come."
"What? My sensei is as strong as my dad! He's one of the—"
The older Sasuke cut him off.
"Boruto, be quiet."
Makoto knew what Boruto wanted to say.
One of the saviors of your world, right?
So what?
Power-ups were temporary. Once they were gone, they were gone.
At this point, his account was practically on the verge of being banned.
Just look at how worn out he was.
"I can sense that your sensei really was incredibly powerful in the past. He pushed his Yin chakra to its absolute limit. Both of his eyes possess dōjutsu power far beyond an ordinary Mangekyō Sharingan—especially the left one.
"But I don't know what happened afterward. Perhaps some kind of protective mechanism failed.
"Now, that extreme Yin chakra is actually producing the opposite effect. It's dragging down his entire body."
Sasuke's Rinnegan was different from Madara's.
It hadn't awakened through the fusion of Indra's and Asura's chakra. The Hashirama cells that Kabuto used to heal Sasuke didn't contain sufficiently pure Asura chakra either.
His eye had been awakened directly through the Sage of Six Paths' Yin Power, resulting in a single six-tomoe Rinnegan.
It was powerful, but not sustainable.
The older Sasuke frowned.
"What do you mean by dragging down my entire body?"
"It means your Yin and Yang are out of balance."
"Your Yin chakra has become too powerful and is suppressing your Yang chakra. That's why you're so weak now and unable to bring out your full strength."
"An imbalance of Yin and Yang, huh..."
What could he say?
All he could say was that Higashino Makoto had astonishing insight.
Back when he and Naruto fought Kaguya, and later when he battled Naruto himself, he had been unbelievably powerful.
Who would have thought that only a few years later he'd end up this run-down?
"Makoto-senpai, since you can see what's wrong with sensei, can you fix it?" Boruto asked.
"Of course.
"Did you not know that I'm actually a medical ninja too?
"Sasuke, would you like me to treat you?"
Boruto thought, How the hell would I know? Nobody ever told me.
The older Sasuke didn't believe medical ninjutsu would be of much use to him, but he wanted to see Makoto's abilities.
"Sure."
Makoto raised his left hand.
No green medical chakra appeared in his palm.
Instead, the skin instantly transformed, revealing a brilliant white sun.
It even emitted a faint radiance.
The older Sasuke exclaimed in shock, "The Sage of Six Paths' Yang Power?!"
After traveling the shinobi world for so many years, Sasuke had seen almost everything.
But this?
This was definitely new.
How was this medical ninjutsu?
The man standing before him looked more like a living Sage of Six Paths.
Makoto shook his head.
"Wrong."
"It's True Yang Power. It has nothing to do with the legendary Sage of Six Paths."
"Also, would you like me to restore your missing left arm?"
Sasuke had never regenerated his lost arm the way Naruto did.
It wasn't because Konoha lacked the means.
He had deliberately left it that way as a reminder of the mistakes he had made.
It was a form of self-atonement.
But now he had to face the Ōtsutsuki Clan.
And who knew what even stronger enemies might appear in his world in the future?
It was time to recover his full strength and protect his world once more.
Protection was also a form of atonement.
"Will this consume too much of your energy?"
"Of course it will. But don't worry—I'll be fine after a night's rest."
"Then let's do it. I'll be in your debt."
After saying that, the older Sasuke removed the bandages from his left arm, revealing the healed stump where it had once been severed.
Beside them, Minato sighed inwardly. He couldn't imagine what kind of enemy their world had faced to leave Sasuke so badly injured.
Fortunately, he didn't ask.
Otherwise, Boruto might have told him:
Your wonderful son—my wonderful dad—did it.
Makoto stepped in front of the older Sasuke and pressed his left hand, imbued with that miraculous Yang Power, against the area over his heart.
Instantly, a torrent of vitality surged through Sasuke's entire body.
The older Sasuke felt as though he had stepped out of a freezing winter and into warm sunlight. Every cell in his body seemed to burst into celebration as his strength rapidly returned.
And that wasn't all.
His missing left arm began to regrow.
Bone emerged first, extending from the wound and quickly restoring itself to its complete form.
Then chakra pathways, nerves, blood vessels, and the rest of the circulatory systems intertwined and took shape. Muscle regenerated, and finally everything was covered by newly formed skin.
Within a matter of minutes, the missing arm had been completely restored.
This wasn't a prosthetic grown from Hashirama cells.
It was his own flesh and blood regenerated from scratch.
As a result, there was no obvious difference in color. The new skin was slightly paler for now, but after some time it would become indistinguishable from the rest of his body.
In Makoto's previous life, this kind of severed-limb regeneration would have been nothing short of divine.
But in the shinobi world, there were many ways to accomplish it.
For Makoto, who had successfully mastered Yin-Yang Release and obtained Yang Power, it was even simpler.
All it required was chakra.
Although Minato already knew Makoto possessed this ability, every time he witnessed it, he still found it unbelievable.
Boruto was even more direct.
"A-Amazing... Is this really something a human can do? Makoto-senpai, are you sure you're still human?"
Makoto rolled his eyes.
"You little brat. Why are you insulting people?"
The older Sasuke flexed his newly restored arm.
Aside from feeling slightly unfamiliar, it was no different from before.
From now on, he was no longer that worn-out old dog.
He could stand proudly in front of his wife again.
"Thank you. I feel like I've returned to my former condition."
"Not quite," Makoto replied. "You'll only be fully recovered once you've gotten used to the arm."
The older Sasuke touched his right eye with his regenerated left hand.
"Your power... it won't cause any changes to my eyes, will it?"
"Of course not. I've only temporarily restored your strength and repaired your arm. Everything was rebuilt using your own cells as the foundation."
"If you want to completely solve the Yin-Yang imbalance, you'll have to continue training on your own."
"I see. This is enough for now."
...
Late at night, in Makoto's bedroom, three silhouettes intertwined beneath the dim light.
Tonight, Yūgao and Honoka were unusually enthusiastic, as though they possessed endless energy.
For a moment, Makoto found himself lost amid rolling mountains, unable to find his bearings.
"Did you two take the wrong medicine today?"
Honoka pouted.
"Even Naruto has a child now. How can we not work harder?"
"That's Naruto from another world. How old is Naruto here?"
"Then we should learn from that world's Naruto."
"Exactly," Yūgao agreed. "Damn it, we've been together for years and still nothing has happened. Our mothers are already running out of patience."
"You want to be a mother that badly?"
"Of course I do. So keep working hard, you bastard."
Makoto could only sigh.
He had been working hard all along.
If his wives' stomachs still showed no signs of change, what was he supposed to do?
Sometimes, having a life level that was too high wasn't necessarily a good thing.
The gap between his constitution and that of Yūgao and Honoka was simply too great. That was probably why no new life had been conceived despite all these years.
He couldn't help wondering how the Sage of Six Paths had dealt with the same problem back in his day.
In the end, Makoto had to expend every last bit of his divine power before both wives were finally satisfied.
During the quiet afterglow, Honoka suddenly asked, "Today was the first time I learned that parallel worlds exist. It's incredible. I wonder what the other me is doing right now."
"Dead," Makoto answered. "She never even made it to adulthood."
Yūgao blinked.
"Then what about me, Makoto-nii?"
"Ruined. A flower that no one ever picked."
"Hmph. You're lying again."
"I don't think so," Honoka said. "At least in my case, if you two hadn't appeared on Summoning Island back then, I definitely would have died."
"See?" Makoto said. "So when have I ever lied to you?"
"Hmph. Even if the other Honoka's story is true, how do you know about the other me? Did you secretly ask Sasuke?"
"No. There was no need."
"In their world, I don't exist."
"And besides me, who else would marry a woman like you?"
"You bastard. Have you no shame?"
"What do I need shame for? Having the two of you is enough."
"..."
If it was true, Yūgao felt that her counterpart in the other world had lived a miserable life.
What exactly had happened to leave her ruined?
The more she thought about it, the more grateful she became for her current life.
And if the seeds planted tonight happened to sprout, that would be even better.