Some time later, inside an izakaya in Konoha.
"Man, things have been so bizarre lately. Would you believe it? I took a trip to the moon!"
"Sure, things are pretty peaceful these days, but how much have you drunk in broad daylight to start spouting nonsense?"
"Oh, get lost. You know me—I don't touch a drop!"
"Give me a break. Didn't your wife go back to her parents' place a few days ago? I treated you to Ichiraku Ramen that very night, and you insisted on pouring half a bowl of sake into your broth."
"Well, my wife's back now... hey, stop changing the subject! I'm telling the truth!"
Flushed with embarrassment at his companions' teasing, the Konoha ninja started talking about "going to the moon to help someone move," "hauling things alongside lifeless puppet maids," and "remembering his youthful days at the Ninja Academy while passing through a bubble, and realizing he and his wife had liked each other since childhood"...
His companions had only been joking at first, but the more they listened, the more something felt off. Was this bastard really spouting daydreams in broad daylight just to rub salt in their single hearts?
Conversations like these spread not only through the izakayas, but through other parts of Konoha as well.
They all involved people taking missions and then claiming they had gone to the moon, though their tasks varied. Some went as movers, some as construction workers, and others had slightly more outlandish assignments: testing whether crops could be grown there.
In the old Konoha, a mission that actually sent someone to the moon in the sky would have been a life-shattering event they would still be talking about thirty years later.
For the present-day Konoha, however, it was at most a novel bit of conversation.