"Who said it was only this planet?"
Daemon's deep-blue eyes rolled upward after those words fell, as though he were digesting information beyond his existing frame of reference. His mouth opened, wanting to ask something, but Ada pressed a hand on his shoulder beside him.
"What are you waiting for?" Ada's gold-pink eyes stared straight at Shengu Xuan, liquid metal flowing faster across her irises. The Omniscient Eye was piecing together fragments she had not known a moment ago from traces of information in the surroundings. "The Ōtsutsuki Homeworld."
"Smart." Shengu Xuan spat the grass stem onto the muddy ground, fished a fresh one from his pocket, and put it between his lips before turning toward the forest's edge. "Someone named Urashiki ran back to report three months ago. Given the speed of interstellar teleportation, something should be happening about now."
Ada followed him with Daemon in her arms, her bare feet making no sound on the damp grass. Her gold-pink eyes glanced toward the sky.
"You're looking forward to them coming?"
"What else? It's not like I can fly over there myself to play with them."
The three figures vanished at the edge of the forest in the southern Land of Rain, a flash of chaos-colored teleportation light appearing and disappearing in the dawn.
Konoha, the Coalition headquarters building.
On the day Shengu Xuan returned with Ada and Daemon, the Five Kage Council held an emergency closed-door meeting about the two artificial humans of unknown origin. Shikaku stood before the long table with an analysis report the intelligence department had rushed out overnight and read for a full twenty minutes. The five Kage exchanged looks for a long time.
Their final conclusion came down to four words: the leader would decide.
No one questioned it, no one objected, and