Naruto Uzumaki's consciousness body slowly opened its eyes.
"How was it? Did you find the relevant information, Naruto Uzumaki?"
Rei Kaguya's voice reached his ears, waking Naruto from the lingering shock of the sea of information before he had fully recovered.
Naruto shook his head hard. Only after forcing his brain, which had been stuffed full of all kinds of information, to operate again did he slowly speak in a strange tone and rhythm, as if he had not spoken normally in many years.
"I found… information on Isshiki and… and the origin of natural energy…"
"Mm. We can discuss Isshiki's information later. First, tell me about what you learned regarding natural energy's origin…"
"Okay."
Naruto Uzumaki took a deep breath and began describing the story of natural energy's origin, starting from Kaguya Otsutsuki giving birth to the brothers Hagoromo and Hamura, in a calm tone that even surprised himself.
During his explanation, Naruto's tone and rhythm gradually returned to normal.
And those eyes, which had become somewhat aged and indifferent after receiving too much information in a short time, gradually regained the color that suited his personality all along.
"…Gamamaru, or rather, the Great Toad Sage, as well as the White Snake Sage of Ryuchi Cave and Katsuyu of Shikkotsu Forest, were the first beings to sense natural energy's existence after Kaguya Otsutsuki gave birth to children and returned chakra, which should have been concentrated in one person, to the living beings born on this planet. They obtained special abilities from it and ultimately sublimated them into their own Sage Arts."
"But aside from them, humans capable of mastering Sage Art power only appeared much, much later, and their numbers were extremely few… Was it because we were more inclined to rely on chakra and ninjutsu?"
Listening to Naruto Uzumaki, Rei Kaguya thoughtfully pressed the tips of his ten fingers together. Then he slowly said, "That possibility cannot be ruled out… But compared to that, I still feel that the fact that natural energy was born at the point when Kaguya Otsutsuki gave birth to children is more worthy of deeper thought."
"Is it different from your guess?" Naruto Uzumaki asked back, his eyes clear.
"According to my original conjecture, natural energy, which can combine with chakra to form Sage Art power, should have officially appeared when the Sage of Six Paths divided the Ten-Tails' chakra sealed within his body, gave them will and self, and returned them to the earth… If that were the case, natural energy's birth would be an extremely accidental miracle."
Rei did not deny the mistake in his conjecture. He simply looked at the points of informational light Naruto Uzumaki displayed with an extremely serious expression, his gaze cold and sharp.
"But if it was born from the act of Kaguya Otsutsuki giving birth to children… then there is far more room to operate and make use of this."
"Why make that judgment?" Naruto Uzumaki asked with a frown.
"Because the latter situation means that even if we do not insist that everyone who eats a chakra fruit be a saint with a perfect personality, we can still allow natural energy, this power capable of opposing the Otsutsuki clan, to sprout again on a harvested planet."
Rei spread his hands, pointed at Naruto Uzumaki, then at himself, and calmly gave his answer.
"If it were the former situation, then even if the Ten-Tails fell into our hands, it would be very difficult for us to spread natural energy as a power to resist the Otsutsuki clan…
"After all, absolute saints like the Sage of Six Paths and Ancestor Hamura—gods born sitting high above the clouds, yet still sincerely loving the humans crawling through mud and dust, humble and tiny as ants, and willing to betray the divine class they belonged to for humanity's sake—are beings one may encounter but never demand, no matter the circumstances… Even you and I probably could not make such selfless choices every single time, right?"
Naruto Uzumaki opened his mouth, but ultimately swallowed his words.
Because he was inside the Ten-Tails, Naruto Uzumaki could sense more clearly the emotions hidden in Rei Kaguya's words, as well as the things Rei had not directly spoken aloud.
On the surface, Rei Kaguya was saying that he and Naruto could not do something so selfless.
In reality, he was hinting to Naruto that even Kaguya Otsutsuki, who later fell into madness, had once been the Rabbit Goddess who pacified an age of chaos and created peace when she had first eaten the chakra fruit.
If Kaguya Otsutsuki's spirit could continuously deteriorate and fall over the passage of long years, then would that deterioration and fall truly never happen to him?
Thinking of how, after becoming Hokage, he had gradually been bound hand and foot by various real pressures and problems, no longer able to speak his mind as he had in his youth or challenge every difficulty with fearless resolve, Naruto Uzumaki understood.
In the end, he too was only a human whose soul was bound by gravity.
And just as Naruto accepted this fact and was about to ask about some of the other things Rei had mentioned earlier, the originally stable void space suddenly began shaking without warning.
The violent impact made the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path let out a pained, ferocious roar. At the same time, it caused the consciousness bodies of the two people inside it to become unstable.
Naruto Uzumaki was just about to sense whether the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path had gone berserk after absorbing the Tailed Beasts' chakra when he heard Rei Kaguya speak in a somewhat regretful tone.
"Tch. He arrived much faster than expected… I really do not know whether he is simply too in tune with you, or whether he has truly transformed completely in the future."
"What are you… talking about?"
"Nothing. The basic purpose of this trip has already been fully achieved. Although if your spirit stayed inside the Ten-Tails a little longer, it might have been able to transform your body more thoroughly. But since the person interrupting this process is Sasuke Uchiha, even you should not have much reason to blame him, right?"
After saying that, Rei Kaguya's consciousness body disappeared from the void space inside the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path.
Naruto Uzumaki's consciousness body froze in place for a moment. Then, as if waking from a dream, he suddenly slapped his fist into his palm and vanished from the spot with the same swiftness.
Outside this consciousness space, Sasuke Uchiha was holding his sharp Kusanagi Sword in a reverse grip.
His gaze was fierce as he looked at Orochimaru, whom he had just cut in half at the waist, at Nagato behind him, who was controlling the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path with a helpless expression, and at Naruto Uzumaki, whose back was currently pierced by black rods created from Yin-Yang Release by the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path.
"Get out of my way, Orochimaru! Do you want me to kill you again!?"