And Uzumaki Naruto, who had truly fought Otsutsuki Toneri before, knew very well just how strong Otsutsuki Toneri was. He was no ordinary opponent. At his peak, his strength had already been very close to Naruto's own strength right after the Fourth Great Ninja War.
The reason Naruto had been able to win back then still depended on that so-called Talk Release ability Kaede Kitahara mentioned. Otherwise, it probably would have been extremely difficult.
After all, Naruto's strength back then had already fallen short of his strength during the Fourth Great Ninja War.
Even without the Byakugan, Otsutsuki Toneri's strength was at least firmly at the Super Kage Level Kaede Kitahara had described. He would not be weaker than Nagato back then.
Otherwise, he would not have been qualified to stand watch over the stars from the moon on behalf of the Shinobi World.
And even so, he still was not a match for that Otsutsuki Fisherman?
"Sure enough, no matter which Otsutsuki it is, we can't let our guard down."
Seventh Hokage Naruto sighed.
No matter how he looked at it, these Otsutsuki were far too troublesome.
Any one of them needed to be treated like a deadly enemy.
"No. I have to warn Toneri ahead of time and tell him to be careful of the Otsutsuki from space."
Uzumaki Naruto's heart immediately sank.
Otsutsuki Toneri was an important fighting force on the Shinobi World's side. He could not be allowed to get taken out by a sneak attack so easily.
But there was no good solution. Without Otsutsuki Toneri acting as a sentry, the entire Shinobi World would be even more helpless against the Otsutsuki Clan.
"Worrying about it now won't help. It's not like you don't know how strange and unpredictable those Otsutsuki abilities are. The powers derived from the Byakugan and Rinnegan are troublesome. The only way you can deal with them is by finding a way to improve your own strength," Kurama said.
"Yeah. That's all I can do now."
Uzumaki Naruto sighed. Lately, every time he discussed the future with Kurama, they ended up reaching the same conclusion. Naruto had to raise his own strength. That was the only answer.
His current peak Super Kage Level strength was nowhere near enough.
And Naruto was not the only one who had suffered back then. He, the Nine-Tails, had also been pinned down and beaten half to death.
If they wanted to solve all the trouble waiting in the future, all those crooked side paths were useless. The only real answer was to become strong enough themselves.
[But now that I think about it, the coolest part of that battle wasn't Otsutsuki Toneri using Golden Wheel Reincarnation Explosion to cut the moon apart with one sword. It was Uchiha Sasuke, who only appeared for one scene. You have to admit, some people are born protagonists. Even if they only show up for one second, they're still the protagonist.
If that guy isn't here now, then I'm the only one who can protect the village, right? Cool!]
Seeing this sudden praise, Uchiha Sasuke was a little stunned. He was not used to Kaede Kitahara praising him so openly. After all, Kaede Kitahara teasing him had long since become the norm. Being praised this seriously was actually a rare thing.
"Did I say that?"
Uchiha Sasuke imagined the situation in which he would say those words, and he could only feel that it must have been extremely cool.
But clearly, behind those words was another village-destroying crisis.
"One sword… cut apart… the moon?"
Hatake Kakashi felt the veins on his forehead throb. Were those words? Why did he completely fail to understand them?
Was that something humans could do?
The previous battles between Super Kage Level fighters could already be called map-altering. From the moment Nagato used Massive Shinra Tensei to flatten Konoha in one move, it had given them a brand-new understanding of the upper limit of strength.
So battles between ninja could actually alter the map itself.
Compared to that, battles between Kage Level fighters were truly nothing.
And now, Kaede Kitahara's description had once again raised the height of ninja strength into an entirely different dimension.
Cutting the moon apart with one sword?
What kind of insane description was that?
The moon was such an enormous celestial body. Even if it was not as huge as the Shinobi World, even if it was not as absurd as the Shinobi World, cutting it apart with one sword was still a little too inhuman, right?
Only now did Hatake Kakashi truly understand what Kaede Kitahara meant by inhuman.
That definitely was not a level humans could reach.
That had to be beyond Super Kage Level and into Six Paths Level, right?
So this was what Six Paths Level meant?
Cold sweat immediately poured down Hatake Kakashi's back. Earlier, he had even laughed at Kaede Kitahara for being timid. In terms of strength, Kaede Kitahara could already be considered a major figure in the Shinobi World now. Only now did Kakashi understand that being considered a major figure in the Shinobi World meant nothing.
If that giant sword came down, people would be scattered into pieces. How were they supposed to fight that?
He remembered that when Kaede Kitahara first started writing in the diary, he had once mentioned that in the later stages, people did not compete with you over how fast they could release Ninjutsu or how fast they could form hand signs. So this was what the final battlefield looked like.
Everyone else was dumbfounded too. People could not imagine things they had never seen before, so it was difficult for them to imagine something this far beyond experience.
They could not imagine how absurd it would be to cut the entire moon apart with one sword.
Immediately afterward, a video appeared below. Everyone hurriedly clicked in.
The scene had only just begun when, beneath the moonlit night, a group of black-robed, masked figures descended from the sky.
"The Hyuga Clan Compound."
Hyuga Neji instantly sat up like a spring, not even caring about the pain in his hand.
Because he knew this place far too well. It was the Hyuga Clan Compound. More accurately, it was the house of the Hyuga Clan Head. His uncle's house.
He had to come here almost every few days, so he knew the layout of this place very clearly.
As for the others, apart from Seventh Hokage Naruto, who was also very familiar with the place as the Hyuga Clan's son-in-law, the rest more or less recognized it too. Many parts of the Hyuga Clan's layout were extremely distinctive and clearly different from other places.
They had all visited at least once or twice. Only the brothers Uchiha Itachi and Uchiha Sasuke had never entered the Hyuga Clan's territory. After all, calling the two clans enemies would be a little excessive, but calling them competitors for hundreds and thousands of years was absolutely accurate.
So normally, they would not go near each other at all.
Those people descended from flying objects high in the sky. Almost immediately, they captured Hyuga Hanabi, who had grown up a little by then, right on the spot.
The other side seemed to know exactly where Hyuga Hanabi was. They took her away directly, almost without alerting the Hyuga Clan guards.
During the entire process, only Sai, who was sketching outside the village, discovered them and chased after them with Super Beast Imitating Drawing. But with his strength, there was no way for him to rescue her.
And those people were not satisfied with capturing Hyuga Hanabi. They also captured Hyuga Hinata, who had wanted to come near Uzumaki Naruto's house and confess to him. In the end, it was only through Uzumaki Naruto fighting hard that Hyuga Hinata was rescued from their hands.
"We really were young back then. Being young is nice."
For everyone else, they were watching fragments of the future. Only for Seventh Hokage Naruto was this a scene from the past.
Because of that, his mood was completely different from everyone else's. At his point in time, the matter had already been resolved.
So he could watch what had happened in the past with a relatively relaxed mindset, while everyone else looked incredibly solemn.
"Naruto's Taijutsu can become this good in just a few years?"
Uchiha Sasuke watched the smooth, fluid combat in the video. Seeing Uzumaki Naruto show no sign of falling behind even when surrounded by a group of enemies, he could not help sighing inwardly.
That Taijutsu was almost absurdly smooth. It was hard to imagine that Uzumaki Naruto, back in the Ninja Academy, had been the kind of student who was bad at Taijutsu, Ninjutsu, and Genjutsu.
Especially when Naruto swiftly and cleanly took down those masked figures. His strength had grown tremendously.
"He can already use Rasenshuriken so easily at this point?"
Namikaze Minato watched his son at this stage casually use the Wind Release: Rasenshuriken, a technique he had once needed to give everything he had to perform.
He remembered that the first time Naruto used it, he had still been very unskilled. There had also been enormous problems with it. He had even needed to enter Sage Mode or Nine-Tails Chakra Mode to throw the Wind Release: Rasenshuriken, which was what gave that Ninjutsu practical meaning in battle.
But now, in his normal state, Naruto could do it with ease. He could even control the Wind Release: Rasenshuriken's attack direction, as well as the range and size of its power.
That was enough to prove that Naruto at this stage had clearly made tremendous progress. Judging from his appearance, this should be two or three years after that earth-shaking ninja war.
His hair had been cut into a neat crew cut, and he looked taller too.
He was not like the Uzumaki Naruto in the earliest video from Kaede Kitahara's diary, where he had been the shortest one on the team. Clearly, he had been malnourished from long-term hunger, which made Namikaze Minato's heart ache in silence.
Now, seeing the future Naruto grow tall and lean, clearly having caught up nutritionally, with his height back to normal, Minato finally felt reassured.
Although Naruto had suffered greatly in the future without him as a father, fortunately, the outcome was good. Amid his sadness, that was the only thing that brought him comfort.
"They're not real people. They're puppets?"
Uchiha Itachi noticed that none of the figures struck by Wind Release: Rasenshuriken burst with blood. Nor had they used the Body Replacement Technique at the critical moment. They were puppets.
He had not expected the Otsutsuki on the moon to be so skilled in the Puppet Technique.
This was even more shocking than watching Mukade use the Dragon Vein's energy last time to control those puppets in an attempt to conquer the world. Mukade's puppets had still looked stiff. They did not hold up under close observation.
But these were completely different. They were no different from ordinary people. Once they put on clothes, if not for being struck by Uzumaki Naruto's Wind Release: Rasenshuriken and sliced directly in half, it would have been almost impossible to tell them apart from normal people.
And within visible range, there was no puppeteer controlling them either. Compared with these, the puppeteers of Sunagakure were far too inferior. It was practically like primitive people encountering advanced technology.
Even Sasori's Puppet Technique, as a companion within the organization, could not compare to what was shown in this video.