Several days had already passed outside the seal.
Standing before the enormous Tenseigan, Naruto failed yet another attempt and paced anxiously like a cat on hot bricks.
He had been separated from Kurama before, but those had all been special circumstances, or Kurama had simply gone out for a stroll. Never had he suddenly vanished like this, with no sign of him even half a day later.
At this point, Naruto did not know the Sage of Six Paths very well. Most of what he knew about him came from what the Nine-Tails had told him.
At the end of the Fourth Shinobi World War, a series of actions by Madara Uchiha had led to Naruto and Sasuke meeting the Sage of Six Paths.
That encounter had also shown the Nine-Tails and the others that the old Sage, who had seemingly passed away, had been drifting through the shinobi world all along. His chakra was an important force protecting the shinobi world, and he would always appear at critical moments.
But only those who possessed those memories knew this. The Sage of Six Paths had been absent from Shukaku's earlier account, and aside from the Nine-Tails finding that strange, no one present had paid it any mind.
To them, the Sage of Six Paths was a figure from legend, at most a mythical figure whose existence had been confirmed.
"Toneri, is there really no way to open this seal again?"
"All I remember is that this was a trap the Sage of Six Paths left for me. He didn't tell me anything else about this necklace." Toneri looked guilty. "I'm sorry."
"It's not your fault..."
Naruto let out a long sigh. Feeling this helpless was truly awful...
He had even considered trying to shatter the enormous Tenseigan before him, but