Right now, as Kaitian-3 was being built, the seventeen interstellar cannons that had been sitting in the warehouse collecting dust were pulled out again, polished until they shone. Toneri could be said to be stuck in a dilemma.
If he didn't act, then in thirteen days Ryosuke would ride a rocket over.
If he acted and smashed the moon down, it would just be setting off a big firework for everyone in the shinobi world, a loud bang and that's it.
Just when Toneri didn't know what to do, he heard four words from Hidan's mouth, "Absolute Darkness."
Perhaps after awakening the Tenseigan he received the protection of his ancestors. Having lived on the moon since childhood, always overlooking the shinobi world, watching day and night the moon's shadow falling upon it, when he heard those words, Toneri immediately thought of one possibility.
Using the moon as a giant sun-blocking panel to seal off all sunlight.
"From this moment on, cold and despair will become humanity's final echo."
Toneri narrowed his eyes and spoke lightly, his tone full of indescribable pride.
Of course he felt proud.
Wasn't Ryosuke so full of himself?
Didn't he claim he would come to the moon to find him?
And now?
Toneri imagined this, manipulating his puppet to descend on a city, and when people saw Ryosuke appear, the flicker of hope in their eyes, he would sneer, "The 'scorching sun' you longed for will never rise again."
[T/N: Getting Amohoreous flashbacks]
"Peh!"
A big mouthful of thick spit flew toward Toneri, crudely interrupting the emotional speech Toneri was planning to give after his plan's completion… or rather, interrupting his petty triumph.
Toneri plunging the entire shinobi world into eternal night, in his eyes, this was a trump card that would solve Ryosuke once and for all. With his personality, of course he wouldn't quietly complete something like this without showing off.
He specifically gathered several spectators.
Hidan, Hinata, Hyuga Hiashi, and Hanabi.
Among them, Hiashi and Hanabi had their eyes covered with gauze; they couldn't see anything, were still unconscious, and were being held up by two puppets.
The real spectators were only Hidan and Hinata.
That mouthful of spit earlier came from Hidan. He glared at Toneri.
"What's so funny?"
"Absolute darkness? You think you're worthy?!"
"If I take a dump on your face, that's absolute darkness too, and it'd suffocate your dumb ass!"
Toneri had lived his whole life on the moon; he had never heard such filthy words. His pale Otsutsuki face turned bright red, and he wanted nothing more than to slap this bastard to death.
But remembering that Hidan had mentioned his Jashin cult before, and that if he slapped him dead it might actually make Hidan happy, he reluctantly held back. He couldn't understand and asked, "What madness are you throwing?"
"Ever since I proposed this plan, you've been opposing it, and I don't understand why."
Toneri walked up to Hidan.
"You're the one who said you wanted to cooperate with me to deal with Ryosuke."
"You're the one who said the Jashin cult's goal is to kill everyone in the world so that human souls may return to the Jashin Lord's embrace."
Toneri pointed at the planet shrouded in eternal night.
"I'm helping you accomplish it, yet not only do you not thank me, you curse me?"
If not for the fact that Hidan had provided crucial information, telling Toneri that Ryosuke had interstellar weapons, allowing Toneri to avoid losing the moon, his final trump card, Toneri would've long ago chopped Hidan into mince and thrown him into the endless void of space.
Undying, immortal?
Then he could just float in space forever.
Hidan's expression was cold, something he had never shown before. Not when the white-haired cult leader died, not when he fought Ryosuke, never had Hidan shown such terrifying eyes.
"Because you're not killing people."
In the Jashin cult, killing means experiencing the victim's pain yourself.
Only by truly experiencing the weight of life can one understand what "the body is empty, death is homecoming" means, so the soul can properly return to Lord Jashin's embrace.
That was why Hidan disliked using "mosquito sucking blood to kill people."
Because it disrespects human life.
Hidan loved humanity. The reason he joined Akatsuki, joined the Jashin White Snake, and fought against Ryosuke all the way until now wasn't because he hated Ryosuke. In fact, he liked Ryosuke very much.
In terms of cherishing life, Hidan felt he and Ryosuke were the same kind of person.
Only, in order to better bring "happiness" to the world, Hidan had no choice but to stand on Ryosuke's opposing side.
But Ryosuke only stopped Hidan from killing people.
Toneri?
He was wasting the lives of tens of millions of living beings in the shinobi world all at once.
Hidan stared coldly at Toneri, "Jashin will curse you."
Toneri quietly listened, and after a long silence, suddenly slapped his thigh and laughed.
He felt a little sorry for Ryosuke, being targeted by such a brain-damaged lunatic. That so-called Jashin White Snake cult must be a similarly deranged group.
Shaking his head, unwilling to waste more words with Hidan, he waved his hand. Two puppets came forward, removed their socks, and shoved the corpse-smelling socks into Hidan's mouth.
Toneri walked behind Hidan, crouched down, grabbed his head roughly, forced open his eyelids, and made him look at the dark world below, "I'll make you watch as the lives you 'cherish' disappear one by one."
"When the last person dies, I'll send you on your way."
Hidan trembled all over with rage.
Just then, a tiny voice from Hinata drifted over, "It's so dark… Naruto-kun must be scared, right?"
"I remember he's afraid of ghosts."
Toneri's smug smile vanished and transferred onto Hidan's face.
With the sock in his mouth, Hidan mumbled two unclear words, "Simp."
"And besides…"
Hidan's gaze fell on the shinobi world.
"Your so-called absolute darkness is nothing special."
———
Ryosuke watched as the world was swallowed by darkness bit by bit.
But the next second...
Click!
Samui turned on the light.
When it gets dark, you just turn on the light.
One light after another flicked on.
The institute returned to full brightness.
And not just the institute, only a few months had passed since the war ended, and one of Ryosuke's directives to all nations was to lay roads and build power grids as much as possible.
Genin and chunin, insignificant and numerous expendables in war, but put them in worker uniforms, give them tools, and they became super construction troops capable of crossing mountains.
After four months, except for a few tiny villages buried deep in forests and mountains, most settlements had electricity.
From the moon looking down, the shinobi world remained dark for only a few seconds before dots of warm yellow light lit up. Those lights were like a heavy slap across Toneri's face.
Samui walked over and asked, "You guessed something like this would happen?"
Ryosuke shook his head.
How could he have guessed that this so-called "absolute darkness" would be the moon becoming a giant sun-blocking panel, creating a worldwide solar eclipse?
Besides, a flattened shield made of cosmic dust and meteorites would inevitably have gaps and holes.
Is that absolute darkness?
Ryosuke didn't know.
But he knew one thing.
This disaster wasn't something that could be solved just by turning on lights. Feeling the temperature dropping rapidly, Ryosuke exhaled a breath of white mist and told Samui,
"Call the leaders of each village and country. In five minutes, we're holding a meeting for the entire shinobi world."
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