Chapter 714 - 714: My Tenseigan Princess

"Eh, what is this place?" Naruto exclaimed, glancing around curiously as they finally emerged aboveground. "Is this really the moon? It looks nothing like it does when it's in the sky, ya know!"

"You lied to onee-sama about your long-range teleportation jutsu," Karin said tersely, her eyes narrowing dangerously as she glowered at Tenten. "You knew that spring was down there to begin with, didn't you? How long have you known about this space-time formation? Are we really on the moon?"

That space-time tunnel they had found at the bottom of a spring filled with a strange liquid that was definitely not water was strange enough on its own without the mystery of how Tenten seemed to know exactly where she was going.

"This sensation," Hinata murmured, gazing at her surroundings. "It feels strangely familiar…"

The wind picked up, ruffling the leaves of the surrounding trees and Naruto's long, blond hair. It carried the scent of salt… had the space-time formation taken them somewhere near the coast? Her heart thumping rapidly in her chest, Hinata watched as Naruto clambered up into a tree to get a better view of their surroundings.

Sakura wasn't here, so she had him all to herself… oh, should she tell him? Would he be mad?

"I'm not going anywhere until I get answers," Karin said crossly. "Explain yourself, senpai."

"It'd take too long to explain," Tenten sighed, rolling her eyes. "You can tell whether I'm lying or not by examining the oscillations in my chakra, right? Then believe me when I ask you to trust me; everything I do is for the Hidden Leaf Village."

Karin folded her arms under her plump chest, unconvinced.

"There's a line I've heard before," she said sarcastically. "And in my experience, the kind of person who asks you to trust them blindly is usually the last person you should give your trust to."

Naruto peered into the distance.

Beyond the forest, he could see the coastline and the ocean, which seemed to curve in an unusual fashion, swelling downwards like a concave lens rather than arching up towards the middle like a convex lens as it did on Earth. Could they really be on the moon? The sun shone overhead, and the sky was blue and filled with fluffy clouds, just like back on Earth…

He glanced down. Karin was picking a fight with Tenten.

"C'mon, let's not fight, guys," Naruto said peaceably. "We're on a mission, ya know? Sakura-chan is counting on us."

"There's a village about thirty kilometres in that direction if we follow the coastline that way," Hinata said timidly, pointing to her right. "It looks abandoned, but maybe we'll find some clues…"

Tenten shook her head.

"That's not our destination," she said, pointing straight up. "What we're looking for is up there!"

"The sun?" Naruto said in disbelief. "We'll burn up like chashu pork under a blowtorch, ya know!"

Hinata's stomach rumbled.

"It's an artificial sun," Tenten sighed. "Look, just take us up there, and you'll see what I'm talking about."

Naruto entered Six Paths Sage Mode and mobilised one of his nine Truth-Seeking Orbs, shaping it into a flat platform they could all stand on.

"All aboard," he said numbly, blushing slightly as he did so.

He could still remember embarrassedly admitting to Sakura-chan that he did not actually know how to make them himself after she had asked him for tips and tricks on condensing one. When she learned that he had no idea how he was even manipulating them, she told him never to lose the ones that had appeared at his side when Six Paths Super Gramps had lent him his chakra, because they would not be coming back.

Thus began their ascent, Hinata flying at Naruto's side as he pulled a jet black, oval platform behind him, with Karin and Tenten carefully balancing upon it. The sunlight grew harsher as they approached the artificial sun, yet somehow not hotter.

"There's the welcoming committee!" Tenten called as several black shadows flitted out of the artificial sun's surface and dived towards them. Just as she had expected, the enemy was not about to let them approach their stronghold so easily. "Take them down!"

With Naruto and Hinata by her side, the two strongest shinobi in the Hidden Leaf Village, there was no doubt in her mind that any battle they encountered along the way would end in their victory!

"Wait."

The puppets swarming out of the sun abruptly halted in mid-air, and a pale-skinned man dressed in white robes separated from their midst and slowly descended towards them. Tenten immediately realised that this must be Toneri, but his eyes were open, neither Byakugan nor Tenseigan…

"It's not the real one," Tenten realised. "It's a puppet like the others, just a very well-made one!"

"Wait, I know you… I often sense your presence in the Hyūga clan's compound…" Toneri said slowly, speaking through his puppet. "You use autonomous Ōtsutsuki puppets as well, the same design my clan developed on the moon… how did you come by our technology?"

In the future, after the Hidden Leaf Village was annihilated, Tenten wandered the world, searching for a miracle that might restore all she had lost. After many years, she ended up finding a way to reach the moon, where she hoped to find some lost relic of the Ōtsutsuki, and she happened upon the ruins of a castle, where she found Toneri himself frozen in time.

She studied his Ōtsutsuki technology, combining it with future scientific ninja tool technology to create the most advanced autonomous puppets in the world… and when she returned to the past, she naturally recreated her designs using the materials she could find at the time.

"Guess," Tenten said coolly.

"So, that's why you knew everything about this place," Karin realised. "You've been here before!"

Before in the future, that is.

"Well, no matter," Toneri replied disinterestedly. He floated down to Hinata's side, and she took up a fighting stance in mid-air. "Such pure eyes…" he said in wonder. "My Byakugan… no, my Tenseigan Princess… soon, we shall be the same…"

His eyes flitted to Naruto and company.

"As for you extras," he added coldly, "you are not welcome here."