The Sage of Six Paths could feel that something had gone slightly wrong.
This was not how things were supposed to develop.
After thinking for a long time, Hagoromo finally came up with a solution.
Naruto himself was basically fine.
He had merely wandered a little off course.
And Hagoromo actually approved of the shinobi world's current method of using illusions to let people experience an entirely different life, allowing them to grow and mature through it.
So he made a decision.
He would make a few adjustments of his own to Heaven's Will and use Engraved Tsukuyomi to guide Naruto from inside the illusion.
Hagoromo had already realized that Naruto's refusal was not simply because he believed the Sage of Six Paths in front of him was only part of the game.
Naruto genuinely disagreed with the idea of preventing Kaguya's return.
So Hagoromo intended to let Naruto personally experience just how dangerous his mother's resurrection could be.
That way, even if Naruto continued believing Hagoromo was merely an NPC inside the illusion, his stance in the real world might still change.
Once Hagoromo made up his mind, he acted immediately.
Besides, talking to Naruto had already exhausted him.
So he withdrew his actual consciousness from their conversation, leaving behind only an empty projection.
The Sage of Six Paths standing before Naruto had now genuinely become a guide NPC.
Meanwhile, Hagoromo's true consciousness sank deeper into the Engraved Tsukuyomi world.
He intended to inspect the key story nodes Kushina had originally created and modify them.
However…
Whether it was Orochimaru's modifications or Kushina's, both were fundamentally edits made on top of Uchiha Hikari's Engraved Tsukuyomi.
Neither of them was the true owner of the technique.
Hikari had merely granted them administrator privileges.
It was similar to when Hikari first met Makoto and allowed him limited access to Tsukuyomi so he could show her the state of the shinobi world.
So when Hagoromo tried to access the administrator functions—
Uchiha Hikari naturally noticed.
More importantly, Engraved Tsukuyomi was fundamentally a combination of Yachihoko and Tsukuyomi.
The "Engraved" part referred to the Yachihoko mark.
Only someone whose chakra had been absorbed through Yachihoko's engraving could enter the Engraved Tsukuyomi world.
That was part of the technique's underlying logic.
And when Hagoromo entered just now, he had willingly accepted the mark.
Yachihoko's absorption was not omnipotent.
Much like the Rinnegan's chakra-absorption ability, there were certain abstract forms of power it simply could not absorb.
For example, the reincarnated Indra and Asura chakra carried by Sasuke and Naruto.
Or Hagoromo's wandering spirit itself, along with the Yin and Yang powers he carried.
But right now, Hagoromo had manifested in a concrete enough form to interact with the illusion.
And he had voluntarily allowed himself to be marked by Yachihoko.
So Uchiha Hikari had no intention of being polite.
She could not absorb his Yin or Yang power.
Nor did she particularly want the power belonging to the father of those two suspicious bond-type reincarnations.
She simply refused to let some creepy old man—the father of the two greatest sources of suspicious bonds—wander freely through her illusionary world and do whatever he pleased.
Why should he get special treatment?
Just because he had the Rinnegan?
Did that make him superior?
Hikari instantly entered Sage Mode.
Using the natural energy Makoto had given her access to, she amplified Yachihoko's absorption and ripped the Sage of Six Paths straight back into his wandering-spirit state.
Hagoromo was caught completely off guard.
From his perspective, the ordinary chakra suction suddenly intensified.
Then, within the darkness of the illusion, a brilliant light erupted.
The absorption became so overwhelming that even Hagoromo could not resist it.
The chakra maintaining his manifestation was drained dry in an instant.
And with that, he was thrown back into the powerless spiritual state where he could neither interfere with nor properly observe the shinobi world.
Hagoromo did not even know what had happened.
At the instant his chakra vanished, his first thought was that his mother, Kaguya, had attacked him.
But when he thought back on it afterward, the brilliant power he had felt was completely different from Kaguya's.
With no better explanation, Hagoromo could only classify it alongside the strange powers previously displayed by Urashiki, Momoshiki, and Makoto.
Now that he had lost the power anchoring him to the living world, Hagoromo would not be able to manifest again unless another reincarnation of Indra awakened the Rinnegan and drew out the power of the Six Paths.
…
While the Sage of Six Paths was miserably crushed by a descendant who had somehow surpassed her ancestor, Naruto was having a wonderful time.
The moment Hagoromo reverted into a genuine NPC guide, his dialogue suddenly became much more natural.
"Hurry up, hurry up! I want the Sasuke template! I want to become Sasuke!"
Naruto impatiently urged him on.
"Naruto, there's no need to rush."
The NPC Sage waved one hand.
"I recommend another template first. Take a look before deciding."
A panel appeared in front of Naruto.
Its title read:
Uzumaki Menma — Both Parents Alive
The moment Naruto saw those words, all his earlier shouting about wanting to become Sasuke disappeared.
He fell completely silent.
Could he…
Actually experience what it was like to grow up with both his father and mother alive?
Naruto's excitement surged immediately, followed by a wave of emotion.
"Thank you, Kakashi-sensei…"
He sniffed and wiped at his eyes.
"For giving me such an amazing gift…"
Then—
A warning bell suddenly went off in his head.
Naruto looked sharply at the NPC Sage.
"Wait."
His expression turned serious.
"Before I choose it, tell me something.
"In this template… what exactly are my mom and dad like toward me?"
Naruto had suddenly remembered Gaara's past, which he had learned about around the time of the Chūnin Exams and the Konoha Crush.
Back then, Naruto had said that he had often imagined how wonderful it would have been if his parents were still alive.
But if his father had been someone like Gaara's father, Rasa…
Then maybe it would have been better if they really were dead.
Naruto naturally recognized the name Uzumaki Menma from the Limited Tsukuyomi stories.
But hadn't he originally been about to create a world involving those bizarre Tailed Beast stories?
The "NPC Sage of Six Paths" had even mentioned something like that earlier.
If this Menma template followed the same kind of logic as Limited Tsukuyomi, then Naruto definitely did not want it.
In Limited Tsukuyomi, Minato had somehow become his son's romantic rival over the Nine-Tails.
That was outrageous.
Of course, Naruto personally interpreted that as his father competing with him over Sakura rather than believing he himself had actually developed feelings for Kurama.
Either way, he wanted details first.
What kind of parents did this Uzumaki Menma template actually give him?
He did not want to see the words Both Parents Alive, choose immediately, and then discover that his father spent his childhood stealing everything important to him or behaving in some completely deranged way.
The first possibility had already appeared in Limited Tsukuyomi.
And Gaara's relationship with Rasa had left Naruto with enough terrible examples to fuel his imagination for years.
Some of the things Naruto had heard about Gaara's family still haunted him.
Every time Naruto started imagining how wonderful it might have been to grow up with parents, memories like those dragged him straight back to reality.
Sure, this Menma template specifically said both parents were alive.
With Kushina around, maybe nothing too outrageous could happen.
But Naruto still did not trust it completely.
After all, he had secretly read several of Jiraiya's and Kakashi's adult novels.
Some of those stories included people doing questionable things while insisting:
"Don't tell Mom about this."
So having his mother nearby did not necessarily guarantee safety either.
And worse—
Kakashi-sensei had told Naruto that his father, Namikaze Minato, possessed the extraordinarily powerful space-time ninjutsu known as Flying Raijin.
Which meant Minato could appear anywhere at any time—
And disappear just as quickly.
There would be no way to guard against him.