"Wait a minute," Senju Tobirama said, stroking his pale chin thoughtfully.
"How exactly did the descendants of Ōtsutsuki Hamura on the Moon observe events happening down here in the Shinobi World? Even with the legendary telescopic vision of the Byakugan, there has to be a physical limit to its optical range, right?"
"And practically speaking, how did Ōtsutsuki Toneri even physically reach the Shinobi World in your timeline? Given their severely inbred, low-intelligence state, they shouldn't have possessed the logistical capacity to construct a vessel capable of traveling through the vacuum of space."
"So we need to consider how Ōtsutsuki Hamura ascended to the Moon in the first place, and whether he purposefully left a backdoor method for his descendants to return to Earth."
Orochimaru interjected, his snake-like eyes gleaming. "According to Makoto's story, Ōtsutsuki Hamura originally intended for his lunar descendants to strictly protect the Shinobi World his brother Hagoromo created. Therefore, logically, he must have left them a viable, mechanical method to return to the surface in times of crisis."
"Exactly," Tobirama agreed, nodding. "Based on the intelligence i gathered from Makoto, Ōtsutsuki Toneri indeed possessed a permanent spatial Teleportation Formation for traveling instantly between the Moon and the Shinobi World. However, it was destroyed during the battle on the Moon in the original timeline."
"As for the Teleportation Formation's exact coordinates, all we know is that it was located somewhere within the Land of Fire, near the northern border of the Land of Lightning—specifically hidden deep within an underground cave."
The place had a highly unique, magical feature: a glowing, subterranean hot spring that physically wouldn't wet your clothes or skin if you fell in.
Deep beneath the surface of that impossible spring lay the actual, physical entrance to the spatial alternate dimension.
"That specific location serves as the sole transit station between the Shinobi World and the Moon," Makoto explained calmly.
He completely understood what everyone in the room was tactically thinking.
Ōtsutsuki Toneri currently posed no immediate, active threat to the Shinobi World, but his mere existence meant he remained a ticking time bomb.
Most importantly, Toneri could actively observe the Shinobi World through the massive, artificial Tenseigan battery hidden in his castle.
Though physically blind himself, he could perfectly sense and monitor everything happening below through the giant eye.
When Toneri was just a young child, his deranged father had brought him to the giant Tenseigan, pointed down at Earth, and specifically singled out the toddler Hyūga Hinata as his destined bride.
In most cases, the giant Tenseigan was exclusively used to creepily monitor the main Hyuga Clan compound, occasionally glancing at other major geopolitical events in the Shinobi World.
If Toneri weren't physically blind, the word "surveillance" could easily be replaced with "voyeurism."
Because Toneri could actively observe the Shinobi World, any massive, geopolitical changes down there could easily trigger his paranoia and cause his premature, hostile arrival.
If he actually came down to the Shinobi World right now, Hanabi would undoubtedly be safe under Makoto's heavy protection in the Rain Village.
That left only the vulnerable main Hyuga Clan compound sitting in Konoha.
When choosing between permanently stationing elite forces to babysit the Hyuga Clan, or secretly guarding the single logistical chokepoint of the Teleportation Formation, any rational military commander would instantly opt for the latter.
Guarding the Hyuga Clan in Konoha would mean receiving news of an attack only after the VIPs had already been abducted, requiring a massive, messy pursuit mission.
Worse, if cornered by Konoha forces, the usually dumbass Toneri might suddenly become smarter in a panic, preemptively snatching Hinata or Hiashi's Byakugan to forcefully activate his own Tenseigan and unleash the Golden Wheel Reincarnation Explosion right in the middle of the village.
That would be a casualty-heavy disaster!
By quietly guarding the Teleportation Formation's exit instead, they would instantly know the exact microsecond Ōtsutsuki Toneri arrived in the Shinobi World.
This would give them a massive tactical advantage, allowing them to ambush and eliminate him in an isolated cave long before he could even attempt to obtain a Pure Byakugan.
"I understand the strategy perfectly," 'Black Zetsu' hissed, instantly grasping Makoto and the Hokage's intentions.
"I will immediately deploy a squad of specialized White Zetsu to locate this specific cave and permanently station several concealed units there to guard the exit."
"Good. Let's proceed with that containment plan for now," Makoto nodded in approval.
Why didn't they simply use the Teleportation Formation themselves, march an army up to the Moon right now, and eliminate Ōtsutsuki Toneri in his sleep once and for all?
Because the alternate dimension connecting the two worlds was highly treacherous and heavily booby-trapped.
It contained magical, floating spheres that aggressively projected a person's deepest memories and regrets into genjutsu, and a single moment of carelessness could lead to an elite strike team being permanently trapped within their own minds.
Moreover, as Ōtsutsuki Hamura's sole surviving heir, the blind Toneri likely held ultimate administrative authority over the Teleportation Formation's security systems.
In short, there was absolutely no need to take unnecessary, high-casualty risks to hunt down a single blind teenager when they could just wait for him to walk into their ambush.
As for the new, reality-warping ability he had just casually tested on Hanabi?
To be honest, Makoto wasn't exactly sure how physically powerful the karmic backlash would actually be.
He had actively tried to minimize its metaphysical impact to the lowest possible setting.
But he was absolutely certain that Ōtsutsuki Toneri would be physically affected by it.
As mentioned earlier, Toneri had obsessively watched Hyūga Hinata with his father when he was young and had creepily considered her his personal, future property.
This also meant that, from that time onward, he had arrogantly viewed any pure Hyuga Clan member's Byakugan as merely a spare part meant for his own empty eye sockets.
Since Toneri had been subconsciously harboring deep malice and predatory intent toward Hanabi's eyes, he would naturally be targeted by the automatic Calamity Makoto had attached to the girl.
However, Makoto couldn't definitively determine the exact, physical extent of the gruesome damage this karmic attack would inflict on the moon prince.
...
On the Moon:
Ōtsutsuki Toneri dazedly stood up, shivering, completely submerged waist-deep in a literal sea of ancient, freezing shit.
Because there were absolutely zero natural decomposers, bacteria, or insects on the sterile Moon, the Ōtsutsuki Clan's biological waste simply couldn't decompose naturally.
For millennia, it had just been endlessly pumped and stored in massive, subterranean caverns.
Fortunately, the Moon was vast and deep enough to accommodate a thousand years' worth of shit without the sheer volume overflowing into Kaguya's planetary seal.
"What exactly is happening?" Toneri muttered helplessly, shivering in the dark, foul-smelling cavern.
Though physically blind, Toneri possessed terrifyingly acute, superhuman senses.
Yet he had sensed absolutely nothing before the strike.
Had an invisible enemy launched a devastating attack?
Where was this enemy hiding?
Why had the lethal attack completely vanished after a single, surgical strike?
Based on the physical angle of the impact that destroyed his outhouse, it seemed as if an impossible arrow had been fired from a lower, diagonal angle—meaning it came from deep within the core of the Moon itself—piercing straight up through the floorboards to wound him.
'Could it have somehow been fired from the Shinobi World below?'
'Impossible.'
He arrogantly refused to believe anyone in that primitive Shinobi World possessed the power to launch a pinpoint strike across the vacuum of space to hit the Moon.
'Then what the hell was going on?'
'Could it be...?'
Ōtsutsuki Toneri's pale face suddenly drained of all color as he realized something truly terrifying.
The massive Moon they lived on wasn't just a natural satellite made of dead rock.
It was a literal, planetary-scale prison!
It contained the ultimate seal imprisoning their dreaded ancestor, Ōtsutsuki Hamura's demonic mother—the terrifying Chakra Progenitor, Ōtsutsuki Kaguya!
That completely undetectable, unavoidable attack must have come from Kaguya herself, lashing out from her eternal prison!
'Had the planetary seal finally weakened after a millennium?!'
Toneri couldn't be absolutely sure.
The entire physical mass of the Moon was the seal.
It wasn't as if the Moon had somehow become less "tight," causing the magical seal to loosen, was it?
The foul, pressurized rain of shit finally stopped falling from the shattered pipes above.
Toneri temporarily ceased his panicked, existential thoughts.
He disgustedly swam out of the massive shit pond, dried his shivering body off, and used his chakra to change into fresh, unsoiled royal clothes.
As for his gruesome physical wound, the golden beam had miraculously cauterized the flesh, so it had already stopped bleeding.
The unnatural, physics-breaking nature of the clean wound further confirmed Toneri's terrified conviction: this attack had indeed come from the godly power of Ōtsutsuki Kaguya!
The wound absolutely refused to heal using his normal medical ninjutsu, he could only stop the bleeding and numb the blinding pain.
Through a quick frantic self-examination, Ōtsutsuki Toneri confirmed that his internal chakra pathways and his dick were still completely intact, allowing him to eventually proceed with his grand, psychotic plan to destroy the Shinobi World and breed a new race with a pure-blooded Hyuga princess.
He forcefully dismissed the shattered outhouse, his cleanly half-severed nose and his missing balls as highly inconvenient, but ultimately insignificant flesh wounds in the grand scheme of his holy mission.
'If they won't heal, so be it. I can endure,' he thought, his jaw clenched in pain.
Still deeply terrified by the possibility of Kaguya's planetary seal weakening, Toneri returned to his original, destroyed location.
Taking a deep breath, he plunged directly back into the freezing shit cesspool and began swimming downward through the filth, determined to physically check the lowest, darkest depths of the Moon's core for cracks.
The Moon's interior was vast, dark, and hollow, and the Ōtsutsuki Clan's ancient, automated defenses actively blocked his own sensory jutsu, forcing the blind Toneri to search the miles of subterranean caverns slowly and methodically by hand.
During this miserable expedition, the White Zetsu scouts on Earth finally located the exact coordinates of the Teleportation Formation's cave.
The ancient, magical formation remained perfectly intact and appeared to be fully functional.
As strategically planned, four White Zetsu immediately stationed themselves in the shadows of the cave, ready to instantly notify Makoto via their hive mind of any spatial fluctuations or developments.
However, upon receiving the report that the gateway was secure, Makoto now had a brand new unhinged idea.
He immediately left the Hidden Rain laboratory and headed straight for the glowing hot spring in the Land of Fire.
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