Night had deepened.
In the courtyard of the Uchiha Residence, even the chirping insects seemed frozen by the moonlight, utterly silent.
Shinichi had not returned to his room. He sat alone beneath the veranda, neither looking at the moon nor chewing on a stalk of foxtail grass. He simply sat in silence.
That silence was more unsettling than when he and Tsunade had been giving each other the cold shoulder.
[Host.]
A mechanical synthesized voice, with a faintly foolish quality to it, sounded in his mind.
Over the past twenty years, that voice had spoken less and less often, like an old radio running out of power.
"Mm."
Shinichi answered from deep in his throat without even lifting his eyelids.
[Final mission settlement report generated.] [During the past twenty years, host Uchiha Shinichi has shirked his duties, refusing to carry out a total of 1,342 side missions and 7,895 daily missions...]
"Stop."
Shinichi cut it off impatiently.
"Get to the point. Have I saved up enough of your lousy points to trade for a space battleship and fly it over to blow up the Ōtsutsuki homeworld?"
The voice in his mind fell silent for a moment.
[...Calculations indicate that the points required to redeem a space battleship are approximately 900 billion times your current total. This proposal is rejected.]
"Tch. Useless thing."
Shinichi curled his lip, his tone carrying its usual disdain.
[However,]
For once, the system did not let him derail it.
[All existing points, energy, and this system's core computational privileges can be exchanged for the final reward.]
Shinichi's body stiffened almost imperceptibly.
He said nothing more, only listened in silence.
``` [Final mission: protect the ninja world.]
[Mission objective: completely eliminate the threat posed by the Ōtsutsuki