Boruto saw it.
It was not an illusion, not an illusion, but a torrent of information injected directly into his nervous system. He stood at a certain observation point beyond time and space, witnessing the operation of the "bridge".
Nursery stage. Select planets with potential, sow the gene seeds of the Ōtsutsuki Clan, and wait for the native intelligent life to evolve to the extent that it can carry the "bridge". The earth is at the end of this stage, and the appearance of the Purifier marks the final stage of evaluation.
Harvest stage. If the planet meets the standards, the "seeds" hatch and release a complete "bridge" structure, which extracts, compresses, and transmits the biological energy of the entire planet back to Otsutsuki. The countless mass extinctions in the history of the earth are all by-products of this process - failed experiments are cleaned up to make room for the next round of sowing.
Administrator stage. A very small number of planets will produce special individuals that can be deeply integrated with the "Bridge" without losing their autonomy. These individuals become "Nursery Administrator", responsible for supervising the harvesting process of multiple planets, gaining near-eternal life and interstellar perception.
Boruto understood why the seed "recognized" him. His awakening was not an accident, but the inevitable result of the fusion of Otsutsuki genes and the planet's neural network. He is a candidate, a potential... executioner.
But the memory doesn't end there.
Outside the standard process of harvesting, the seeds showed another possibility. The screen switched, and Boruto saw other planets, other civilizations, and other candidates similar to him. They stood at the crossroads of choice, facing the same temptation - power, eternity, and a form of existence beyond the ordinary.
Then they refused.
The first picture: a civilization composed of crystalline life. Their candidates transformed themselves into energy bombs at the last moment of seed hatching, and died together with the seeds. The planet survived, but the civilization regressed back to the Stone Age.
The second picture: A storm of wisdom on a gas giant planet. Their candidates choose to disperse themselves to every individual in the world, diluting the connection of the "bridge" and making the harvest unfocused. The cost is that they lose their unified consciousness and become countless independent and short-lived thinking whirlpools.
The third, fourth, tenth, twentieth...
Each "rebel" paid a heavy price, but each succeeded in stopping the Reaping. Their methods varied, but the core was the same: refusing to be managers, refusing to join the ranks of the Reapers, even if it meant losing everything.
The last picture made Boruto stop breathing.
It was a planet that was strikingly similar to the Earth, with blue oceans, green continents, and white clouds. Their candidate was a woman, with Light Pattern similar to Boruto. She did not choose destruction or dispersion, but chose the third path--
She cheated on the seeds.
She pretended to accept the transformation, and the moment she became an administrator, she used the newly acquired authority to modify the basic protocol of the "Bridge". Instead of preventing harvesting, she redefined the "standards". She changed the evaluation criteria from "energy production efficiency" to "civilization diversity index", and from "controllability" to "unpredictability".
Result: That planet was judged to be "not eligible for harvesting", not because it was not good enough, but because it was too "interesting" - chaotic, contradictory, and full of surprises. Such a planet's value to the harvesting network exceeds that of a simple energy source.
"Bridge" left, but stayed to observe Node. That woman became the first "Gardener", not a servant of the Reapers, but a guardian of the planet, guiding the development of civilization through the ages and ensuring that it remained "unworthy of harvesting".
The woman in the picture turns around and looks at Boruto as if across time and space. Her face is somewhat similar to that of the man in black robe, but she is older and more tired.
"The choice is not either/or," her voice sounded directly in Boruto's consciousness. It was not the mechanical sound of seeds, but the tone of real humans - or, in other words, former humans - "Become an administrator and then betray it. This is the only way to protect your planet without being destroyed. But the price is..."
The screen switched to show the woman's final fate. The moment she revised the agreement, she was marked as an "abnormal" by "Bridge". She gained eternity, but was also hunted for eternity. Every planet she guarded eventually became her tombstone - she repeated the same choice, protection, then escape, and then protection again in countless worlds.
"The price is to become a wanderer," she said, "Hiding in the cracks of the universe until the Bridge finds you, or you find a way to destroy it completely."
The memory ended. Boruto fell to his knees, and Light Pattern flashed violently due to information overload.
The seed is waiting for his choice. The golden Light Pattern pulses gently, seductively showing the easy path - to accept transformation, gain strength, become the steward of the planet, protect the earth from harvest... and become an accomplice in the harvest of other planets.
Or, he can become a "rebel". Refuse, fight, maybe die, maybe let the planet be buried with him.
Or, the third way. The most dangerous way.
Boruto raised his head and looked at a certain location in the core of the seed. During the memory transfer process, he noticed the structure of the seed - not perfect, but defective. The trace left by the "gardener" woman countless years ago, a tiny, almost imperceptible back door.
She is not only protecting her own planet, she is leaving hope for those who come after her.
Boruto did not make an immediate choice. He needed more information, needed time to understand the backdoor, and needed to discuss it with Sarada, with his father, and with those who trusted him.
But he couldn't leave empty-handed.
Around the base of the seed, he found a storage array of memory crystals. Hundreds of crystals, each of which sealed the last picture of a planet. He chose one of them - not randomly, but the one that produced the strongest Resonance with his Light Pattern.
The moment the crystal was taken away, the alarm sounded.
It was not the seed's alarm, but the defense mechanism of the city itself. Boruto felt the entire space begin to shrink, the dome's force field flickered erratically, and the seawater was seeping. He only had minutes to escape.
He rushed towards the entrance, Light Pattern dragging a long trajectory behind him. At the last moment when he passed through the force field interface, he looked back -
The seeds were looking at him. The golden Light Pattern formed a certain pattern, not an attack, but... farewell? Or, anticipation?
Then the sea swallowed him.
The process of ascent was painful. Boruto held the crystal tightly, feeling its pulsation in his hands, conveying the sealed memories. His Light Pattern was operating at full strength, resisting the water pressure and lack of oxygen, but the damage had been done - when he finally broke through the sea, his form was already unstable to the point of collapse.
"Go back," Boruto said hoarsely, thrusting the crystal into her hand, "And contact Kurotsuchi. Not a surveillance agreement... an alliance. A true alliance."
"What is this?"
"The answer," Boruto closed his eyes and let exhaustion drag him into coma, "Is also a question. A question about the 'rebels'."
At the last moment before losing consciousness, he heard the whisper of the planet. Not fear, not loneliness, but some kind of... hope? Zeroth Generation Node's seal, the gardener's warning, the identification of the seeds, the sacrifice of the rebels - all the pieces began to piece together a picture.
The earth is not the first planet to face this choice. Nor will it be the last.
And he, Uzumaki Boruto, is neither a savior nor a victim. He is a variable, an accident, a possibility that has never appeared in the calculation of "Bridge".
This may be their only chance.