"You... who are you?!"
The White-Brow Great Toad Sage's voice was low, carrying a faint, uncontrollable tremble. Sage Chakra flowed quietly through his body, but he forcibly suppressed it and did not act rashly.
The White-Brow Great Toad could clearly sense that the terrifying aura from the other party was unfathomable, far beyond any existence he had ever known.
Even stronger than the old-timers of Mount Myoboku, Ryuchi Cave, and Shikkotsu Forest he had seen when he was young.
"Who I am isn't important."
"You people of Mount Myoboku should stay where you belong. Don't interfere too much with the human world. Just fulfill your role."
Arisu looked at him calmly and spoke in an even tone.
The White-Brow Great Toad frowned deeply, his long white brows nearly twisting together.
"Why do you know Mount Myoboku Sage Art? And why did you pass it on to Hagoromo?"
Suppressing the shock in his heart, the White-Brow Great Toad couldn't help asking.
The person before him was unfathomably powerful, so he naturally didn't dare offend him lightly. But this concerned the inheritance of Mount Myoboku Sage Art, so he had to ask.
Arisu's gaze shifted slightly and fell on the White-Brow Great Toad.
Strictly speaking, it was the White-Brow Great Toad himself who had taught him Sage Art.
Of course, that was during the first cycle.
But could he tell the White-Brow Great Toad that it had personally taught him Sage Art step by step in the first cycle?
"You don't need to know about my Sage Art. As for Hagoromo's Sage Art... he was destined to possess Sage Art. I merely corrected fate.", Arisu spoke slowly.
After saying that, Arisu paused slightly and looked at the White-Brow Great Toad. A trace of complexity flashed through his eyes.
With one glance, Arisu could tell that the White-Brow Great Toad did not have much time left.
"You don't have much time left. Hurry and raise Mount Myoboku's next generation."
Arisu gave the White-Brow Great Toad a quiet reminder.
The moment those words were spoken, the White-Brow Great Toad Sage's body trembled slightly. They had struck the deepest hidden wound in his heart.
"When a person is about to die, there's not much I can do anymore. Still, I've lived for over a thousand years, so I'm satisfied..."
The White-Brow Great Toad sighed softly. The sigh sounded old and weary. In the end, he simply nodded silently and said nothing more.
Seeing that he understood, Arisu said no more.
The next moment, his figure gradually became transparent like mist and slowly faded away where he stood...
"Please wait..." Seeing that Arisu was about to leave, the White-Brow Great Toad had just been about to ask a few more questions.
But Arisu had already turned into specks of light and completely vanished from the core hall of Mount Myoboku without leaving the slightest trace.
After Arisu left, the White-Brow Great Toad Sage remained where he was, his brows tightly knitted, unable to calm down for a long time.
The White-Brow Great Toad stretched out his withered hand and gently pressed it against his chest. Thinking back to the face he had just seen, he murmured, "Have I seen this person somewhere before..."
That sense of familiarity grew stronger and stronger, like a thorn lodged in his heart that refused to go away.
Suddenly, the White-Brow Great Toad's eyes lit up. He spun around, his figure instantly turning into an afterimage as he hurried toward the library in Mount Myoboku's inner hall.
"That's right! I've definitely seen this person before!"
"I must have seen him when I was little!"
The White-Brow Great Toad searched through layers of bookshelves, flipping through ancient scrolls and paintings while talking to himself anxiously.
"I think I saw a portrait of this person when I was very young! That's right... Grandfather secretly showed me one back then..."
"When I was little, Grandfather showed me a portrait..."
Dust filled the library. The White-Brow Great Toad's hands trembled as he unfolded one ancient painting after another that had been sealed away for a thousand years.
Finally, inside a stone box covered in dust at the deepest part of the library, he found a yellowed scroll.
The moment he slowly unrolled it, the White-Brow Great Toad Sage's breathing nearly stopped.
In the painting, the man dressed in a purple robe had handsome, refined features and an extraordinary bearing. He looked almost exactly the same as the Arisu who had just appeared before him.
"It really is him..."
The White-Brow Great Toad Sage's eyes widened, his voice hoarse.
"That was already over a thousand years ago... Grandfather said this portrait had been passed down from an even more ancient age... Who exactly is he... Why did he appear in Mount Myoboku..."
For a while, the only sounds left in the library were his heavy breathing and the faint rustling of the scroll.
———
Arisu had already left Mount Myoboku and had no idea how shocked the White-Brow Great Toad was.
At this moment, Arisu turned his attention elsewhere.
Through covert observation, he quickly locked onto the figure hidden in the shadows, Black Zetsu.
After observing carefully for a while, a hint of amusement flashed through Arisu's eyes.
"Interesting... This guy isn't normal either."
At a glance, Arisu saw through Black Zetsu's true nature. It was not this world's native consciousness, but an outsider's soul that had forcibly taken over Black Zetsu's body.
A typical transmigrator.
In the scene, Black Zetsu was using his strange abilities to move silently between different city-states.
Sometimes he would sneak into a wealthy merchant's mansion and pocket a few valuable treasures. Other times he wandered through marketplaces, watching the excitement.
Since he didn't need to eat or rest, he simply treated the whole world as his own backyard, traveling everywhere and enjoying life without a care, completely lacking the ambition the original Black Zetsu had to scheme for Kaguya's revival.
Arisu then shifted his perspective to Black Zetsu.
As the sun set, Black Zetsu stood atop a steep mountain peak. Facing the howling mountain wind, he looked down at the magnificent landscape of endless mountains below.
"Whew... It's damn beautiful."
A strong sense of satisfaction welled up inside Black Zetsu.
In his previous life, he had been nothing more than an ordinary office worker who worked so much overtime he had gone bald. He didn't even get a proper vacation all year, let alone travel.
Now that he had been reborn into the Naruto world and had taken over Black Zetsu's body, which practically never aged and possessed powerful abilities, he naturally wanted to enjoy himself.
Black Zetsu waved his hand casually, found a clean, soft patch of grass, lay down, spread out his limbs, looked at the sky gradually turning red with the evening glow, and muttered to himself, "If I hadn't stirred up so much trouble in the original story, maybe the Naruto world wouldn't have had so many tragedies... Thinking about it now, the original Black Zetsu really had nothing better to do."
A lazy smile appeared at the corner of Black Zetsu's mouth as he continued murmuring, "I'm not doing any of that crap now. I'll just coast along for a few hundred years first... I'll get on good terms with Asura and Indra, and I won't drive a wedge between the two brothers anymore. From now on, I'll honestly be a dream-maker in this world, helping a few characters fulfill their wishes. Wouldn't that be great?"
Black Zetsu thought that if he could, he could prevent many of the tragedies from the original story.
"Besides, I don't have any feelings for that woman Kaguya anyway. Why should I go to all the trouble of reviving her? She can stay sealed away as the Chakra Goddess. I just want to slack off."
Black Zetsu stretched lazily, his tone becoming even more relaxed.
Thinking about all the countless tragedies caused by his actions in the original story, Black Zetsu felt a lingering fear.
"I was the source of all those tragedies... So if I just lie flat now, won't that solve it? As long as I don't cause trouble, there naturally won't be so much crap."
Black Zetsu closed his eyes in satisfaction, feeling the breeze brush across his face. The smile on his lips grew wider.
At this moment, Black Zetsu felt more relaxed and at ease than ever before.