From that day onward, Princess Kaguya never asked to go out and play again.
The Princess Kaguya of that night vanished forever, like flowers in a mirror or the moon reflected in water...
Even Yuya did not know
whether that passion-clouded... kiss... had been an illusion...
The aura around her grew increasingly strange, and her demeanor increasingly cold.
She seemed to have reverted to her former self, colder even than she had been before.
She shut herself inside her house day and night,
refusing to see anyone.
Yet death brought a terrible fear, and no behavior was beyond someone facing it.
[Warning: your bonded companion, Kaguya Otsutsuki, is being consumed.] [Time remaining until complete consumption: 97 days, 13 hours, 21 minutes, 37 seconds.] [Time remaining until complete consumption: 97 days, 13 hours, 21 minutes, 36 seconds.]
The cold countdown kept ticking,
constantly reminding Yuya how little time he had,
yet there was still no word of that girl.
It was not just Princess Kaguya.
Along with her changes came Yuya's increasingly oppressive despair,
and even madness...
He dispatched more and more people and clones to search for that person,
even shutting down more and more businesses to do so.
The Second Pavilion's finances suffered a severe decline.
But what did that matter?
Apart from Princess Kaguya, nothing else mattered to him anymore.
Yuya sent clones to keep Princess Kaguya company,
while immersing himself in training.
Deep within the dense forest on the Back Mountain of the Land of Ancestors.
Yuya sat cross-legged.
He had been sitting there for a long time.
At that moment, he was entering a wondrous state,
his mind completely empty.
He seemed immersed in another world,
where the wind, the rain, the shifting soil,
and even the growing trees
were all clearly audible to him.
His perception was expanding without limit.
After a long while, a wondrous energy spread around him.
It was the energy of nature.
The moment that energy appeared around him,
it gradually began mixing with the chakra and spiritual energy within his body.
Once that mixture reached a certain ratio,
faint markings began appearing around his eyes.
[Due to your extraordinary comprehension, you have automatically comprehended Mount Myōboku · Sage Mode.] [Mount Myōboku · Sage Mode] [Perception increased 50-fold.] [Health increased 10-fold.] [Strength increased 10-fold.] [Speed increased 10-fold.] [Recovery increased 10-fold.] [Ninjutsu power increased 10-fold.] [Senjutsu chakra production rate: 10.]
The system's quiet notification sounded.
But Yuya seemed not to hear it,
remaining seated cross-legged.
The red markings beneath his eyes slowly faded again, until they disappeared entirely.
In an even more wondrous state, he was merging with the natural world.
At that moment, he seemed to vanish completely from heaven and earth,
or rather, to have achieved an even more perfect union with them.
At the same time, an indescribable aura began spreading around him.
His bearing was ethereal and otherworldly, steeped in mystery, as though he did not belong to this world.
Yet on closer examination, it also held nature's weight and grandeur.
Even the surrounding flowers, grasses, and trees seemed to lean toward him in celebration.
At that moment, he seemed to have become the center of nature.
With his comprehension, Yuya had taken the borrowing and circulation of natural energy to their utmost limit.
This was a more perfect Sage Mode, surpassing even the one in the original story,
without any side effect of turning into a stone toad.
The next moment, Yuya opened his eyes.
Mountains, rivers, lakes, and all the myriad things of nature seemed to appear within them,
only to recede in an instant, returning to stillness.
Yet an ineffable aura of antiquity and weathered age continued to surround him.
Standing atop the mountain, he seemed to have come from a distant ancient age.
That was the profound weight of nature.
"Even without the eye markings, it still affects my demeanor, thoughts, and emotions?"
Yuya murmured, his expression cold and indifferent.
At that moment, he seemed to exist in a state of absolute rationality,
looking down on everything from a god's perspective.
He held life in contempt and seemed unable to muster the slightest interest in anything.
He was like cold, unfeeling nature itself.
Even his obsessions seemed to fade at that moment.
"Princess Kaguya..."
He murmured her name.
Feeling the heat that still burned within his heart,
he breathed a sigh of relief.
[Due to your extraordinary comprehension, you have comprehended New Sage Mode based on Mount Myōboku · Sage Mode.] [Sage Mode] [Perception increased 100-fold.] [All attribute multipliers changed to 100-fold.] [Senjutsu chakra production rate: 100.]
"Ten times the boost of the original Sage Mode?"
Yuya murmured.
That was terrifying. Ordinary Sage Mode only provided a mere tenfold boost.
His... went straight to a hundredfold...
Yet he felt that this was how Sage Mode ought to be.
He had reverse-engineered his Sage Mode from the three great versions of Mount Myōboku, Ryūchi Cave, and Shikkotsu Forest, taking the strengths of each.
He had restored Sage Mode to its truest form. It was far more than merely twice as powerful.
When every attribute gained another tenfold increase,
the gap widened instantly into an insurmountable gulf.
Compared with his Sage Mode, the three great versions of later generations seemed incomplete instead.
Beyond that, the most important aspect of Sage Mode was its senjutsu chakra production rate, which directly determined his senjutsu reserves and endurance.
One only had to look at how briefly Naruto's Sage Mode lasted.
It was practically two hours of charging for five minutes of action. Absurdly short.
He, on the other hand, had no need to worry about endurance, with his hundredfold senjutsu chakra production rate.
His consumption could not even keep up with his recovery. Without exaggeration, as long as he wished, he would have endless senjutsu chakra and could keep Sage Mode active forever without it ever sputtering out.
Then there was his perception.
At that moment, in this special state,
Yuya discovered that everything happening within a ten-li radius reached his senses clearly.
Countless flowers, grasses, and trees, and even everything in nature,
seemed to have become his eyes and ears.
They even faintly conveyed their emotions to him.
The next moment, he stopped sensing them.
The senjutsu chakra he had produced surged within him.
An azure sphere of light appeared in his palm,
then visibly expanded dozens of times over in an instant.
Countless surrounding trees snapped and were hurled away the instant the sphere appeared.
The sphere had not even struck yet,
but the sheer outpouring of chakra and the force field spilling from it
already caused the ground to sink into a curved depression.
Viewed from above, it looked as though a dazzling little blue sun had appeared within the forest.
"Interesting."
Yuya murmured.
He dispersed the Sage Art · Ultra-Big Ball Rasengan.
The next moment, a thought sprang into his mind,
and countless trees shot up from the ground in response.
The land, riddled with scars from Yuya's experiments with various ninjutsu,
now flourished with new life.
The trees raced to grow, and before long,
towering trees, each taller than those that had stood there before, began covering the entire forest.
[Due to your extraordinary comprehension, you have automatically comprehended kekkei genkai · Wood Release.]
But that was not the end.
At the same time, countless hailstones began falling from the sky.
The earth churned, and lava emerged.
A corrosive gas also began spreading through the forest.
[Due to your extraordinary comprehension, you have automatically comprehended kekkei genkai · Ice Release.] [Due to your extraordinary comprehension, you have automatically comprehended kekkei genkai · Lava Release.] [Due to your extraordinary comprehension, you have automatically comprehended kekkei genkai · Boil Release.]
Yet those countless towering trees remained standing,
their vitality growing even stronger.
"Wood Release..."
Yuya murmured.
The power of Wood Release made Yuya furrow his brow.
It represented the most vigorous life energy in nature,
and among the many kekkei genkai, it was the most powerful and vast.
Paired with a sage body, the power of Wood Release could be brought to its absolute limit.
When he comprehended natural energy,
at the instant he activated Sage Mode,
the fusion of chakra of different natures
and the kekkei genkai it produced
seemed to become instinctive to him.
"Can I calculate where that girl is now?"
Yuya furrowed his brow.
With another qualitative leap in his strength, that thought resurfaced again, impossible to suppress.
Before you continue