Sage Art and Natural Energy

The Katsuyu Sage's massive body trembled slightly amid the spreading dampness, not from fear, but from a shock that spanned a thousand years.

The chakra Tenseigan mode Menma displayed now had awakened memories buried within it for a millennium.

It came from the distant past, when the God Tree had towered over the earth, when the woman named Otsutsuki Kaguya had ruled this planet in a similar form, radiating that crushing pressure.

However, Menma's chakra aura was not entirely the same as Kaguya's.

Kaguya's power was closer to pure "devouring," like a black hole.

But the golden chakra flowing around the boy before it, though equally vast and majestic, carried an active quality of "inclusiveness," as if the stars themselves were breathing, evolving.

That subtle difference allowed the Katsuyu Sage, amid its shock, to see a completely different possibility.

Freedom...

To the Katsuyu Sage, who possessed a nearly eternal life, this word carried a complex and heavy meaning.

Although it could use contractors like Tsunade to summon a small portion of itself to the Shinobi World, briefly feeling the warmth of the sun and the brush of the breeze while observing the changes in the human world, that was no more than glimpsing a corner of the world through the cracks of a cage.

Its true main body, as vast as a mountain range, had only been able to dwell in this Shikkotsu Forest for a thousand years—a place that was safe, yes, but ultimately stifling.

Every "breath of fresh air" felt more like a pitiful comfort for its long life of confinement.

Now, the boy before it had not only displayed power on par with Otsutsuki Kaguya, he also seemed... truly to be seriously considering the possibility of taking it away from this "cage."

That promise was like a