"Drip... drip..."
The faint sound of water droplets falling into the void echoed. In this absolute silence, where even time seemed frozen, the sound was infinitely amplified, sharp and piercing.
Otsutsuki Hagoromo—the existence revered in the Ninja World as the Sage of Six Paths—frowned slightly and slowly opened his eyes.
Within his light purple pupils, the concentric ripples representing the truth of all creation and the control over life and death rotated slowly. However, they reflected only a pure darkness that seemed capable of swallowing all light and perception.
"This place... is definitely not the Pure Land!"
One moment, he was in the Pure Land eating hotpot and singing; the next, it was as if an invisible giant hand had dragged him into a vortex. There was no process, no resistance. When he "woke up," he was already inside this cage that even the Rinnegan could not see through.
It was an indescribable feeling of suppression.
As the Sage of Six Paths who established the order of the Ninja World, his perception could normally span the realms of the living and the dead, covering all things in heaven and earth. Now, he was smothered by a darkness as heavy as a mountain. Aside from what was directly in front of him, he couldn't sense even a breath of the outside world.
The environment gave him a sense of déjà vu—as if he had become the Ten-Tails and been sealed away.
An invisible barrier divided the dark space in two. He was trapped on one side, with cold, dead water beneath his feet. Directly in front of him stood a vermilion wooden gate, emanating an ancient and absolute power of imprisonment.
On the other side of the barrier stood an identical gate.
The Sage of Six Paths peered through the invisible barrier toward the opposite side. In the next instant, his Rinnegan constricted suddenly, and even his eternally steady breath hitched.
Behind the gate opposite him, a figure was tightly bound to a pink cross. Dense sealing talismans covered the entire body, leaving not a single inch of skin exposed.
What made his heart race even more was that even using the Power of Six Paths to sense her, the opposite side felt like a vacuum. He couldn't detect a hint of breath and could only conclude it was a woman based on her silhouette.
After a moment, the Sage of Six Paths attempted to leave the space but found no way out. His gaze calmed—not out of fear, but with the absolute gravity of facing an unknown threat.
Light flowed within his Rinnegan as he spoke in a voice carrying divine majesty.
"What entity dares to imprison me with a seal!?"
The echo faded, and no one answered. Only the eternal "drip" seemed to mock him.
Seeing this, the Sage of Six Paths stopped speaking. He lowered his eyes, and with a thought, a pitch-black Truth-Seeking Orb emerged silently. Under the infusion of his vast Power of Six Paths, it rapidly stretched and reshaped, finally turning into a uniquely shaped giant sword.
—The Sword of Nunoboko. The legendary divine sword of creation driven by the "will of the heart," possessing power enough to cleave through all tangible and intangible things in the world.
The moment he gripped the hilt, the Sage's long-dormant, vast power erupted. Golden light, like a rising sun, temporarily dispelled the darkness, and his figure blurred within the radiance.
In the next instant!
Pure power distorted space. The Sage of Six Paths turned into a bolt of golden lightning, the Sword of Nunoboko carrying world-destroying might as it slashed violently toward the vermilion wooden gate.
"BOOM—!!!"
A terrifying sound of impact swept through the area. The energy shockwave exploded in a sphere, and the water beneath his feet instantly evaporated and collapsed. Cracks spread frantically to the horizon, and the darkness was stirred like boiling water.
However, within a single breath, everything came to a dead stop.
As if an invisible hand had gently pressed down, the thunderous roar was erased, the turbulence was smoothed, and the light was snuffed out. The darkness settled rapidly, and the water surface closed back up, smooth as a mirror.
Dead silence returned.
The vermilion wooden gate still stood, its sealing patterns glowing as they had before. The vast Six Paths Chakra poured out by the Sage had been swallowed silently by the endless darkness and water, like water poured into sand, leaving not a single ripple.
After a long while, the Sword of Nunoboko dissipated. The Sage of Six Paths sat cross-legged in the void, his Rinnegan fixed on the undamaged gate, then quickly looked back at the sealed figure opposite him.
To be able to swallow his Six Paths Chakra... what kind of place was this? And who exactly was the sealed woman? Why did a distant, almost hallucinatory sense of...
Familiarity flicker in his heart?
Twelve years later, Spring in Konoha.
Outside the village, Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara were engaged in a world-shaking battle. Every collision sounded like heavenly thunder, making Konoha, miles away, tremble in fear.
The earth moaned, cracks spread, and the entire village felt like a small boat about to capsize in a storm.
Inside the Senju Clan compound, the atmosphere was as tense as a drawn bowstring. Women, children, and the weak had been gathered for protection, while the clan elites were on full alert.
Only on the far western side of the compound, in a remote and almost forgotten courtyard, was there a silence that felt out of place with the world-ending scenes outside.
Under the eaves, Senju Makoto leaned against a vermilion wooden pillar. He wore a loose bathrobe, eyes closed, appearing immersed in a dream he didn't want to wake from.
The fierce wind swept through the messy yard, blowing the hair off his forehead to reveal a clean brow. Moonlight flowed over his features—his nose was perfectly straight, his lip line well-defined, and the corners of his mouth held a natural, careless curve.
Though it was the face of a youthful teenager, it carried a rebellious edge—aloof, lazy, and devastatingly handsome.
Unfortunately, that handsomeness shattered completely the moment he opened his eyes.
His left eye looked one way while his right eye looked another; his gaze was scattered and lacked focus, yet it held a strange "purity." His eyebrows were even more unique, one raised and one drooping.
This indescribable "bizarre" aura formed a tragic, extreme contrast with his excellent physical features.
Just as Senju Makoto was dazed with his "each-doing-their-own-thing" eyes—
"THUD!"
The most terrifying impact since the start of the battle came from outside the village. A circular shockwave expanded crudely, destroying everything in its path. An airflow, weakened countless times but still violent, slammed into the porch of the small courtyard.
"Ugh!?"
Senju Makoto was sent flying like a cannonball toward the old tree in the corner of the yard. With a crisp "crack," a sharp branch, under the force of the impact, pierced through his abdomen without resistance.
"Pfft—!"
A warm fountain of blood sprayed instantly from the entrance and exit wounds, staining the mottled tree trunk and the bluestone floor. Intense pain, like a red-hot iron rod driven into his skull, exploded along his spine, shattering all his muddled consciousness.
Senju Makoto's eyes snapped wide open. His unfocused pupils suddenly constricted and focused in the midst of the agony.
the "purity" vanished, replaced by the blankness of impending death and the sudden explosion of countless broken images and memories deep in his mind.
At this moment, Makoto even saw his long-deceased great-grandmother coming to fetch him...
—He was not from this world.
To be precise, he was a transmigrator. He wasn't a soul possession; he had brought his memories from his past life since he was in the womb.
However, before the age of twelve, those memories were like a jammed videotape—blurred, intermittent, and chaotic, making him appear extremely eccentric...
Fortunately, his father had been rebellious enough to marry a genius girl from the Uchiha Clan despite the pressure from both families. Now, even though his parents were long dead and the Senju clansmen still held a grudge against him, they never doubted his "eccentricity."
They simply attributed all his behavior to "the naturally evil Uchiha bloodline..."
No one looked deeper, and no one cared. He was left in this remote courtyard to fend for himself.
Until just now, that violent impact and the sensation of pain acted like a sledgehammer hitting his brain, suddenly snapping the fragmented memories into place—past and present, the memories of two lives merged.
After sorting out his current situation, Senju Makoto just wanted to say: "Don't mess with me, new life..."
The intense pain, combined with his current desperate situation, caused his emotions to fluctuate violently.
He couldn't help but think of the frustration of his previous life—sleeping at home, only for a truck to fall from the sky and send him away before he could even delete his browser history.
Then he thought of this life; he had just figured out what was going on, only to be soloed by a tree branch... wasn't this transmigration for nothing!?
Were both lives just free trials?
Frustration, anger, and intense unwillingness surged through his cold limbs like burning lava.
At the peak of his emotions—
A burning, searing pain came from deep within his eyeballs. A hot, special chakra finally found a breach in the dam, surging from the deepest part of his body through his blood vessels and meridians toward his eyes.
Makoto couldn't help but blink.
"Click..."
A faint but incredibly clear sound echoed deep in his mind, like an eggshell cracking or a chain breaking.
"Hum!"
In the next second, his black pupils were suddenly covered by an eerie blood-red color. A single tomoe emerged from the center of the pupil and began to rotate slowly.
The Sharingan was awakened!
But this was useless; he was still nailed to the tree, unable to move.
The piercing wound in his abdomen was like a leaking bag. Warm life flowed out with the blood, his strength faded rapidly with his body temperature, and a bone-chilling cold began to spread from his extremities.
Makoto twitched the corner of his mouth, wanting to call for help, but his voice was hoarse and weak due to the heavy blood loss.
"Family... someone save me... I think I'm dying a little..."
"..."
"Hey... anyone... lend a hand... I think I can still be saved..."
The courtyard was too remote. The sounds of slaughter outside, the roar of collapsing buildings in the village, the tense shouts and running of clansmen in the compound... all the sounds mixed into a background noise of death, completely drowning out the weak plea for help in this corner.
Makoto felt his body getting colder and his consciousness sinking. But after a while, the expected death did not come.
"Wait... isn't this near-death time a bit too long? I've watched my life flash before my eyes twice already..."
A hint of doubt crossed his groggy mind. Enduring the dizzying pain, he concentrated his newly cleared mind to carefully sense his body.
The pain in his abdomen... seemed to be lessening?
That feeling of life constantly draining with the blood... seemed... to have stalled? Not only that, there seemed to be a faint but definitely real warm current flowing out from the deepest, most core part of his body toward his cold, stiff limbs.
The instinct to survive instantly overruled everything. Makoto used all his remaining strength to take a deep breath—the cold air mixed with the thick scent of blood pulled at his wound, bringing a new wave of agony, but he was already somewhat numb.
His hands trembling, he felt for the thick, slippery tree branch sticking out of his body. Makoto gritted his teeth, veins popping on his forehead, as he poured all his remaining strength into his arms—
"Break for me!!"
With a muffled thud, the arm-thick branch snapped.
Without support, his body slid softly down the trunk, falling heavily onto the cold, hard bluestone floor. The abdominal wound was violently yanked, and he spat out a mouthful of dark blood mixed with internal fragments.
Makoto curled up like a shrimp, his whole body shaking violently. Cold sweat and blood soaked his thin bathrobe.
He lay on the ground gasping for air. After what felt like a century, he struggled to use his trembling arms to prop up his upper body. He looked down at his abdomen; the broken branch still had nearly a foot left inside him.
"Damn it..."
Makoto cursed. Having never learned first aid in either life, he could only rely on his most basic logic: keeping this thing in his gut definitely wouldn't end well.
His right hand pressed firmly above the wound, while his left hand shakily gripped the protruding branch. A look of ruthlessness flashed in his eyes.
"One, two..."
He whispered the count, both to encourage himself and to gather his dwindling strength.
"Three!!"
"AHHHH—!!!"
With a mournful cry, Makoto's arm yanked violently, hard-pulling the blood-and-flesh-stained branch out of his abdominal cavity.
Blood gushed out like an opened floodgate, instantly staining the ground beneath him red. The extreme pain made his vision go dark, and he nearly fainted.
But he knew he had to stop the bleeding first.
With his last breath, he scrambled on all fours into his simple bedroom, looking for bandages...
His gaze accidentally swept over his bleeding abdomen, and then, he froze. His mind was filled with confusion.
The blood... didn't seem to be flowing that fast...
"Wait, brother?"
By the dim moonlight through the window, Makoto clearly saw the edges of that terrifying piercing wound healing at an incredible speed.
In just a few dozen breaths, the arm-sized hole shrunk to a shallow red indentation. A few seconds later, even the indentation was almost gone, leaving only a pale pink mark slightly lighter than the surrounding skin.
If not for the blood covering him and the thick metallic scent, Makoto would have thought the near-death state just now was a too-realistic nightmare.
He reached out a finger and cautiously touched the new skin. It felt smooth, firm, and elastic, no different from the surrounding skin.
"This healing speed has the aesthetic of a Jinchuriki..."
"But even for a Jinchuriki, passive healing isn't this ridiculous, right?" Makoto frowned, thinking to himself: "It's almost like... an immortal body?"
Memory fragments flashed—those vague palpitations and whispers from inside his body that had been ignored due to his "eccentricity."
"Is there... something sealed inside me?"
Once the thought arose, it couldn't be suppressed. Previously, his memories were chaotic, and his instinct felt fear and rejection toward that unknown place in his body, so he never dared to "look."
Thinking about it now, this near-miraculous healing power was definitely related to that thing.
"It hasn't hurt me despite being sealed for twelve years, so the danger level shouldn't be high..." Makoto slid down the wall and sat on the floor, his mind analyzing rapidly.
"Instead of being on edge and living in fear every day, it's better to go investigate."
Waiting passively for unknown fear to descend was not his style. Senju Makoto sat cross-legged, forcing himself to ignore the faint rumbles and vibrations outside. He took a deep breath, trying to calm his racing heart.
His consciousness withdrew from the external disturbances—quiet, focused, like the water of a deep pool.
Then, he cautiously reached toward the "place" that had been silent for twelve years but was now vibrating with a faint resonance...