Guided by his will, the river of fate, untouchable by all living beings, rippled at that moment, and countless fragments of the future surged toward him like a tide of disturbed stars, pouring into his sight.
Within the vision stood an enormous box-shaped object, each of its four sides carved with a human face, towering silently in the darkness.
The four faces each bore a different expression: Joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness. They were lifelike, yet radiated an indescribable eerie ferocity, as though they imprisoned every extreme emotion of the human world within themselves.
Then, in the next instant, cracks inexplicably began spreading across the box. Countless fissures branched outward like a spider's web, simultaneously splitting open from the corners of each face's eyes, mouths, and foreheads.
The expressions on those faces began to distort.
Joy seemed to become weeping, anger became fear, sorrow turned into laughter, and happiness descended into madness.
Then, with a deafening roar, the Box of Ultimate Bliss shattered completely!
Fragments exploded across the sky, every piece gleaming with the luster of a strange material that was neither metal nor wood, neither stone nor jade, as though it belonged to something beyond this world.
At the same time, the countless wronged souls and vengeful spirits imprisoned within the box for untold ages all burst forth with piercing shrieks. Their overwhelming resentment stained the entire sky black.
Those fragments drifted through the void like stardust before falling away, while the wronged souls and vengeful spirits transformed into countless afterimages and mournful wails filling the heavens.
Then, beneath the swirling canopy of shattered fragments and millions of vengeful spirits, a lone figure slowly emerged.
It was a young monk dressed in white robes, perfectly clean and untouched by dust, like a solitary moon overlooking a deep abyss.
His steps were neither hurried nor slow. With every step he took, the shattered fragments beneath his feet crumbled silently into powder and vanished.
With every step he took, countless hideous wronged souls and vengeful spirits swept past his side, yet the moment they touched those moon-white robes, all their malice dissolved away.
They transformed into specks of golden light, their twisted faces returning to peaceful serenity before disappearing into the void, finally passing on to the Pure Land.
Within the endless black sky, he walked on just like that. Wherever he passed, powdered fragments paved his path while golden radiance fell around him like rain, as though he walked between hell and paradise, with himself serving as the only boundary separating the two.
The young monk's face was half illuminated and half obscured amid the intertwining black and golden light. Before it could be seen clearly, the vision abruptly zoomed in, meeting his eyes.
They were a pair of crimson eyes.
Crimson like blood.
Crimson like karmic flames.
Crimson like the very instant when destruction and rebirth converged in this world.
Deep within those crimson pupils, the three tomoe spun rapidly, and as they revolved at incredible speed, they suddenly intertwined and transformed.
In the end, the tomoe completely shed their original form, replaced by a pattern engraved prominently within them.
A Manji (卍).
It was unmistakably the Mangekyo Sharingan!
Yet unlike ordinary Mangekyo Sharingan, which appeared sinister, ominous, and grotesque, the young monk's Mangekyo Sharingan was filled with boundless compassion and mercy. The manji pattern was deeply embedded within the crimson pupils, as though it were a sacred mark forged from an immense vow.
Even more extraordinary was that the awakening of an ordinary Mangekyo Sharingan usually required unimaginable suffering and overwhelming negative emotions to force one's eyes open through madness and hatred.
But the Mangekyo Sharingan possessed by this young monk, however, seemed instead to have opened after gazing upon hell itself, after witnessing every suffering endured by all living beings with boundless compassion, unwavering resolve, and supreme enlightenment.
It was an eye of great vows born amidst endless wronged souls, an eye of enlightenment, an eye that existed to deliver the world.
At that moment, the young monk softly recited scriptures for the departed as he strolled among millions of wronged souls and evil spirits, like the Buddha shedding tears out of pity for the suffering of all living beings, unable to bear their torment or leave those wronged souls without refuge.
With a heart of boundless compassion and those eyes that existed to save the world, he vowed to deliver every resentful soul.
That young monk was none other than Genjo.
Genjo, whom even the Sage of Six Paths could not see through.
On the day the Ninja Way Origins Research Society was established, just as Shinichi had anticipated, the Sage of Six Paths' gaze had indeed turned toward Konoha.
After all, Shinichi Higashino was the greatest variable in his prophecy, and now he had even founded a society under his name and ideals. Naturally, he intended to take a careful look.
That day, he saw many things that pleased him, as well as the mysterious monk Genjo, who made his brilliant appearance at the very end.
Heaven knew what kind of overwhelming shock swept through the Sage of Six Paths' heart when he saw Genjo perform Wood Style.
Afterward, the Sage of Six Paths began investigating Genjo's origins throughout the Shinobi World, only to find that everything appeared perfectly normal.
From his birth to his upbringing, and then to his emergence into the world, every stage of his life was clearly traceable. Every part of his history could be verified. Everything perfectly matched the life one would expect of an exceptionally gifted young monk.
Yet it was precisely this excessive normalcy that made the Sage of Six Paths sense something was wrong.
He investigated repeatedly and pondered for a long time before finally realizing that Genjo's normal situation was simply too perfect, too seamless, as though it had been deliberately fabricated.
However, realizing that something was wrong was one thing. No matter how deeply he investigated, he could never discover a single flaw, nor could he identify the true source of that unease.
Although the Sage of Six Paths never personally intervened or tested him, Genjo, whose origins even he could not discern, had from that day onward become someone he kept firmly in mind.
Then, just moments ago, an inexplicable stirring arose within his heart, as though something intimately connected to him was taking place.
He immediately activated his prophecy technique, and thus witnessed the scene before him.
The Box of Ultimate Bliss and Genjo.
The Box of Ultimate Bliss was something he had personally created in ancient times before ultimately choosing to leave it behind in the Shinobi World; as for the reason why, it was a long story, one that could be set aside for now.
And now, this young monk whom even he could not understand had become entangled with the fate of the Box of Ultimate Bliss.
Using Wood Style before had been one thing, but now he had even revealed the Mangekyo Sharingan!
This only made the Sage of Six Paths find him even more unfathomable.
The young monk gave the Sage of Six Paths a strange sense of familiarity, as though he had seen him somewhere before, yet at the same time had never met him at all.
Yet the Sage of Six Paths was absolutely certain that this young monk was not his descendant.
There was not the slightest trace of Indra's bloodline within him, nor was there the faintest remnant of the God Tree or the Ten-Tails.
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