Seed of Heart-Trace

When the morning light of the myriad dimensions spread over the Thirteen Rhythms Stele, the Water-Drop Beings' Flower of Solitary Existence was gently resonating with the Breath of the Boundless in the Realm of the Unnamed. Boruto's fingertip hovered above the "Boundless" Light Pattern, and a faint layer of silver radiance rose in his Jōgan—deep in the Symbiotic Net, he had touched a wisp of residual Heart-Trace that belonged to no dimension and no living being.

It was not power, not consciousness, but a fragment of memory ground to pieces by time, something even the Gap Net could not fully piece together. It was as light as dust, yet so heavy that the entire Omni-Dimensional Symbiotic Net trembled slightly.

Mitsuki stood with his eyes closed in the Tower of the Gap Net, Sage Chakra sinking downward along the Thirteen Rhythms, his expression gradually turning grave. "This isn't a trace from within the myriad dimensions. It's a touch from beyond the myriad dimensions. Just as the Water-Drop Beings were once wrapped by the Wall of Heart-Sounds, the myriad dimensions we live in were once protected by an even older barrier. And this wisp of Heart-Trace is the only mark left behind by the one who touched that barrier back then."

Sarada's Eternal Mangekyo slowly turned, violet-gold Light Patterns piercing the surface layer of the myriad dimensions. She saw the shape of that wisp of Heart-Trace—it was like a half-withered seed, its shell covered in cracks, while its core hid a tiny gleam that refused to go out.

"It wasn't an outside enemy, and it wasn't a plunderer," Sarada said softly. "It was a Watcher. It guarded outside the myriad dimensions, never once entering for hundreds of millions of years, leaving behind only this Heart-Trace to remind us: beyond the myriad dimensions,