The red-haired boy came fully awake. His eyes flew wide and his mouth fell slightly open, and for a moment, he forgot to breathe, forgot to speak.
His purple Rinnegan reflected the brilliant sea of stars and his blue homeworld. Within his pupils, stars seemed to whirl, come into being, and fade into oblivion.
An unprecedented sense of wonder and awe, born of life's deepest instincts, swept through his body like an electric current.
The universe was vast-so vast that a person was less than a mayfly in the Shinobi World by comparison.
Yūji felt as though he had become a speck of dust in the universe, yet at the same time, he seemed to have formed some mysterious connection with the boundless starry sky.
"So this is..." Yūji's voice trembled, carrying an almost pilgrim-like reverence. "...the universe?"
He had never imagined that one day he would see the scene depicted in his textbooks so directly, so close, with his own eyes.
This vastness, where grandeur and solitude existed side by side, surpassed everything his imagination could conjure.
"Yeah."
Adult Naruto's voice sounded beside him, calm and gentle, as though he had merely taken his son into the countryside to see an unusual view.
He, too, looked up at the stars and the Shinobi World, his gaze deep, as though he was pondering something within that immensity.
"It's beautiful, and cruel."
The universe was vast, but to the Otsutsuki, it was merely one nursery after another. They used the Ten-Tails to harvest the energy of world after world, granting their clan immortality.
He lowered his gaze and gently patted his son's back, drawing him a little out of his awe and back to reality.
"We can stay here for a little while and take it in. But we can't stay