The moment Shinsei spread his wings, moonlight streamed through the gaps in the feathers and fell upon Hinata.
Before she could react, Shinsei had already walked up to her, bent down, put one hand under her knees and the other hand on her back, and lifted her up in his arms.
"Hold on tight."
Hinata felt a sudden, explosive reaction in her mind, as if something had exploded.
Her face flushed red to her ears, and she didn't know where to put her hands, so she just stood there frozen in mid-air.
Little Nine perched on Shinsei's shoulder, squinting her eyes, her tone full of mockery.
"Little Hinata, why is your face redder than my tail?"
"I... I didn't..." Hinata whispered in protest, her voice barely audible, her eyes darting around before finally settling on the ground.
She felt she should say something, but her heart was pounding so hard that the words stuck in her throat.
Shinsei glanced down at her, didn't smile, but simply checked her center of gravity. Then, his wings suddenly unfurled, a flash of white light, and the two humans and the fox were already off the ground.
The wind whistled in my ears.
Hinata kept her eyes tightly closed, her hands unconsciously gripping Shinsei's clothes. She could feel Shinsei's arms were very steady, like a pair of vises that would never let go.
After a long time, she cautiously opened her eyes and found that the ground was already too far away to see.
Beneath my feet stretched endless clouds, and above me, the moon drew ever closer, its enormous surface occupying half the sky.
The moonlight was cool and bright, casting a silvery glow on her cheeks. With each flap of Shinsei's wings, tiny specks of light would flutter from the tips of his wings, like stars falling behind him.
Little Nine perched on Shinsei's shoulder, its tail swaying in the wind like a tiny flag.
"Hey Shinsei, your wings are pretty good. A little cooler than my Nine-Tails Mode, just a little bit."
"Just a little?" Shinsei chuckled. "Then you should conjure up some wings too."
"Hmph, I make a living with my looks, I won't compete with you on such flashy but impractical things."
Little Nine was sharp-tongued, but its claws gripped Shinsei's shoulder tightly, clearly indicating that it also felt the height was somewhat risky.
The closer you get to the moon, the thinner the air becomes.
Hinata's breathing became somewhat difficult, and she felt a tightness in her chest.
Shinsei noticed Hinata's expression and called out softly.
" Xiaobai."
Xiaobai covered Shinsei and Hinata with white Chakra, completely enveloping them.
With a "pop," a large amount of air surged out of Xiaobai's body.
It turns out that just now, Xiaobai compressed the air with his own Chakra and only released it now.
The fresh air made Hinata feel much better. She looked at Xiaobai's dragon head, unable to contain her curiosity.
" Xiaobai has become much smarter."
"Yes," Shinsei nodded in agreement, "It's still growing, and it will become smarter and smarter in the future."
Upon hearing Shinsei's praise, Xiaobai extended another long tail from Shinsei 'Shinsei body, wrapping it around him as if it were being affectionate.
Their enormous white wings flapped incessantly, lifting them further and further off the ground.
As we passed through a thin layer of clouds, the moon overhead grew larger and larger, while the Earth beneath us seemed to shrink smaller and smaller.
However, as the saying goes, "looking at a mountain makes a horse run itself to death," and this seemingly ever-getting closer distance actually took an incredibly long time to materialize.
Shinsei felt Hinata in his arms getting lighter and lighter; they had broken free from the gravitational pull of the Shinobi World.
So he simply put Hinata down and took her hand. The two of them were enveloped in white Chakra and flew through the starry sky.
Finally, as the moon grew larger, the two began to feel gravity, so they adjusted their posture and positioned their feet towards the moon.
As the wings unfolded and the aircraft slowed down, a fine cloud of dust was kicked up the moment its feet touched the lunar surface.
The dust rose slowly and then fell gently, like a blanket of silvery-gray snow.
Hinata was gently placed down by Shinsei, her feet landing on the lunar surface, her body swaying slightly due to the change in gravity.
She looked around and saw an endless desolation. The moon was a darker gray than it appeared from the ground, its surface cratered and uneven, with large craters that seemed bottomless. Tiny dust covered every inch of the land, giving off a cold, eerie light.
The sky above was a deep black, and the stars were ten times brighter than they appeared from the ground, like scattered diamonds.
The distant horizon was slightly curved, and the curve of the moon made everything look like it was standing on a giant gray bead.
"This is the moon..." Hinata murmured softly. Her voice didn't travel far in the thin air, but Shinsei heard it.
"More desolate than you think, isn't it?" Shinsei folded his wings and stretched his shoulders. "But this isn't the real end."
There's an artificial space inside the moon, where the descendants of Hamura Otsutsuki live. We need to find the entrance.
Little Nine jumped off Shinsei's shoulder, sniffed the ground with its nose close to its nose, and held its tail straight.
"There are traces of residual Chakra. That kid named Toneri went in from this area."
Shinsei crouched down, placed his palm on the moon's surface, and sensed it.
He stood up and glanced in that direction, where there was a sea of moonlight, as flat as a frozen lake.
Let's go.
The three headed northeast.
The moon's gravity is only one-sixth that of Earth's, so every step you take can send you soaring far.
Hinata was not used to it at first, and almost fell after jumping a couple of steps, but Shinsei caught her.
Later, she mastered the technique of not walking, but jumping. She could leap three or four meters in a light, airy leap, as if flying.
Little Nine was even more exaggerated; with a single kick of its four legs, it darted far away, bouncing around on the lunar surface, leaving a trail of plum blossom-shaped claw marks.
After walking for about fifteen minutes, they found the entrance.
It was a crack hidden in the shadow of the crater, about the width of a person, and its depth was unfathomable.
There are traces of chiseling along the edges of the crack, and some ancient patterns are carved on the stone wall, but they are too blurred to see clearly.
Shinsei crouched down by the crack and peered inside; there seemed to be a faint light in the depths of the darkness.
"This is it," Shinsei said.
Hinata stepped forward, took out the Hyūga Secret Scroll from her bosom, unfolded it, and examined it against the crack for a while.
The entrance markers recorded in the scroll matched the patterns on the stone wall. She nodded.
"I'll go first."
As Shinsei spoke, he formed a hand Hand Seals, and a Shadow Clone emerged from the side.
Without saying a word, the Shadow Clone jumped into the rift first. A moment later, Shinsei's main body received the message transmitted back when the Shadow Clone dissipated.
"There's a safe place to land below."
Shinsei reached out his hand to Hinata: "Stay close to me."
Hinata hesitated for a moment, but still placed her hand in Shinsei's palm.
Her fingers were cold, Shinsei gripped them tighter. Then the two jumped into the crevice one after the other. Little Nine perched on Hinata's shoulder, its tail wrapped around her neck like a fluffy scarf.
The descent took longer than expected.
The surrounding stone walls were as smooth as mirrors, reflecting their rapidly falling figures. The lower they went, the dimmer the light became, until at a certain moment, light suddenly appeared beneath their feet.
They landed on a grassy field.
Hinata was stunned.
She looked up and saw a softly glowing sky above, like diluted sunlight, evenly spreading across every inch of the land.
The grass underfoot was tender green, soft to the touch. Not far away was a lake, its water crystal clear, with a few white flowers floating on its surface.
Further away, there was a massive castle, its white stone walls gleaming softly in the light. This was no interior of the moon; it was clearly a miniature human world.
" The Ōtsutsuki Clan has lived here for over a thousand years, so it's not surprising that they created some artificial environments."
Shinsei's gaze had already fallen on the castle, Mangekyō Sharingan caught the dense Chakra reactions around the castle.
"But the master here doesn't welcome us now. That Chakra is a puppet."
No sooner had he finished speaking than the sound of hurried footsteps approached from afar.
A dozen white humanoid figures surged from the direction of the castle. They had no faces, their bodies were made of some kind of jade-like material, yet they moved with extraordinary agility.
Each humanoid figure held a pale green light blade in its hand and silently charged towards them.
" Hinata, you just got the Nine-Tails Mode, it's a good time to try it out," Shinsei said.
Hinata took a deep breath, and a golden Chakra Cloak surged from her body. The Nine-Tails 'Chakra burned around her, and a powerful shockwave blew a circle through the grass.
A resolute glint flashed in her eyes. She clenched her fists, stomped her foot, creating a shallow crater in the ground, and transformed into a golden bolt of lightning as she charged forward.
The first punch landed squarely on the chest of a puppet, causing the jade doll to explode in half, scattering fragments everywhere. A second puppet charged in from the side, Hinata spun around and elbowed it, sending its entire head flying. The headless puppet ran forward a few steps before collapsing to the ground and shattering into pieces.
Hinata strike, unleashing the Chakra of her Nine-Tails Mode with every punch and kick. Each strike carried the destructive power to shatter everything, and in the blink of an eye, more than a dozen puppets were reduced to rubble.
Little Nine perched on Shinsei's shoulder, quite proudly saying, "Look, isn't my Chakra amazing?"
Shinsei watched Hinata's agile figure on the battlefield, smiled, and said nothing.
Deep within the castle, the enormous Tenseigan still awaits them.