"Future," should have followed a predetermined ending.
"…an ending written together by countless heroes and villains. But."
The Great Toad Sage let out a long yawn.
"Ever since you appeared, it's like someone poured a whole bottle of strong liquor into a pot of sukiyaki. No one knows what flavor it will end up becoming in the end. Every original taste has been covered over by the existence called 'Ryosuke.'"
The heavy "scent of liquor" lingered inside the Great Toad Sage's dreams; just smelling a whiff of it was enough to make him drowsy.
Ryosuke sat cross-legged in front of the Great Toad Sage.
"What did the future you used to see look like?"
If he could learn the original storyline of Naruto through the Great Toad Sage, that would absolutely be a major gain for Ryosuke.
He waited for its reply.
The Great Toad Sage only shook his head slightly.
"I cannot explain the 'future' to you. It's not that I'm deliberately trying to hide it from you. It's just that…"
The Great Toad Sage scratched his head, "For example, many people, when dreaming, suddenly think up a brilliant idea, so brilliant they'll wake up in the middle of the night to jot it in a notebook, waiting to strike it rich the next day with that idea.
But after waking, they discover their notebook says things like, 'Sleep without underwear,' or, 'Bananas can be sold to monkeys.' Just nonsense."
Ryosuke thought it over,
"So, the future you observe inside dreams, once it jumps back through the timeline and returns to reality, the records you observed and the understanding attached to them… become distorted?"
The Great Toad Sage slowly took out a notebook and carefully wrote it down stroke by stroke.
"What are you doing?" Ryosuke asked.
"Your explanation sounds better than mine. If someone asks me again next time, I'll just answer like this."
After writing, the Great Toad Sage closed the notebook and said,
"I spent hundreds of years peering into the future of the shinobi world, knowing exactly which key moments, if pushed just a little, could guide the future toward the ending it was supposed to have.
The world would return to harmony, conflicts would be resolved.
But now, all of that has been overwritten. Before my eyes lies a chaotic, disorderly future. Because of this brand-new future, I've become… ha…"
The Great Toad Sage yawned again. The two wooden stakes propping up his eyelids snapped with a crack, scattering wood chips all over the floor.
"This is also the reason I wanted to meet you in person."
The Great Toad Sage's brows lowered, as if he were sinking into sleep. Within his kindly voice came a faint, ethereal echo, "Ryosuke, where exactly do you intend to push this world?"
The room fell into silence.
Time itself seemed to halt at that moment. Not just the Great Toad Sage, it was as though the entire world was waiting for Ryosuke to give an answer.
Ryosuke lowered his head, thinking deeply for a long while, then slowly shook it,
"To others, I might say many things. But since you possess the ability to peer into the future… I'll ask you to see for yourself."
"I also want to know, just how far I can go. And if one day, in the future you dreamt, I fail..."
Ryosuke gave a small laugh, "Then help me see, whether there will still be someone willing to tread the path I laid down, and continue forward."
The Great Toad Sage slowly opened his eyes, filled with pity. That look disappeared in a flash. He raised his teacup to cover most of his face, and when he lowered it again, he had already returned to his usual half-asleep, muddled state.
"Let's talk about the White Snake Sage then."
The Great Toad Sage clapped his hands. Sage arts released, forming a sealing barrier.
Within it, Ryosuke sensed an aura similar to a "preservation bag."
The Great Toad Sage said, "You can take out its Dragon Pill now."
Ryosuke nodded. Following his memory, he stabbed his arm into the snake head, little by little drawing out the White Snake Sage's Dragon Pill.
He opened his palm. Within the Great Toad Sage's barrier, the Dragon Pill's life energy did not leak the slightest bit, completely sealed tight.
Until now, he had only sensed it with ripple perception. This was the first time Ryosuke actually saw it.
Just like he had sensed, the Dragon Pill was a perfectly flawless sphere, half pure white, half golden.
And the moment his eyes fixed upon it, Ryosuke suddenly felt a wild, extreme desire, 'Eat it! Devour it!'
And then… shed the human body, transform into a dragon.
The desire wasn't only in his heart. Every cell, every bone, even his soul and consciousness were all shouting.
The Great Toad Sage's usually languid expression changed in surprise.
He hadn't expected that even with the White Snake Sage already dead, the Dragon Pill still possessed such strong bewitchment. Ever since the future had been overwritten by Ryosuke, more and more of these unforeseen events were happening.
The Great Toad Sage clapped his hands again, ready to suppress the Dragon Pill with his sage barrier, and at the same time warned Ryosuke, "Be careful! You absolutely must not be bewitched..."
Halfway through speaking, he noticed Ryosuke's calm expression.
Ryosuke tightly gripped the Dragon Pill, waves of ripples surging throughout his body, golden thunderbolts raging everywhere.
"Behave for me…"
Ryosuke coldly looked down at the Dragon Pill in his palm.
"…and stay put!"
Whoosh!
A gust of wind swept by. The Dragon Pill in his palm fell silent. All temptation, all seduction, vanished in an instant.
It was like an ordinary rock now, lying quietly in Ryosuke's palm, not daring to stir up the slightest ripple.
"It's really quiet now?"
This was the White Snake Sage's thousand years of cultivated life force, the crystallization of its dragon-transformation method.
Thinking of the bewitchment from just now, it likely still hid some last-ditch trick left behind by the White Snake Sage.
And yet, just like that, it had been suppressed so easily?
Ryosuke glanced at the Great Toad Sage's dazed face and shook his head slightly.
He had slaughtered the White Snake Sage itself. To suppress a stone that grew inside its head, what was so surprising about that?
Ryosuke pinched the Dragon Pill between his fingers, "How do I extract the life force inside? Just swallow it directly?"
"No! Absolutely don't do that!"
Hearing Ryosuke talk about eating the Dragon Pill directly, the Great Toad Sage's last trace of drowsiness vanished.
His normally slow speech suddenly doubled in speed, "It's a Dragon Pill. It's an allure no creature can resist… uh, other than you. Once swallowed, the life force inside will explode within your body."
"Either, under that overwhelming flood of life force, you'll keep overgrowing, becoming nothing more than a gigantic, mindless lump of flesh."
"Or, under the influence of the White Snake Sage's genes, your genes will be rewritten, and you'll become the next White Snake Sage."
"Whichever ending it is, for you, for those who trust you, and for the future you've overwritten, it will all be a catastrophe."
Ryosuke nodded slightly.
"That's all?"
"Huh?"
The Great Toad Sage thought he must have been asleep too long.
'What do you mean "that's all"? Wasn't that already more than enough?!'
But of course, it wasn't enough.
Because to Ryosuke, neither of those counted as problems.
His physique, his ripples, and his control over his own genes had already surpassed the limits of humanity. Even if there really was a problem,
Killer Queen appeared.
It gently touched the Dragon Pill, setting up the first bomb.
If anything truly unresolvable happened, Killer Queen would just blow up the Dragon Pill, solving the problem at the root.
Ryosuke decided to use the chance while the sage barrier was still up to consume the Dragon Pill right here.
He looked at the Great Toad Sage, whose eyes were so bloodshot with fatigue they looked ready to bleed, "Absorbing the Dragon Pill will probably take me some time. You look exhausted, want to nap a bit?"
The Great Toad Sage glanced at Ryosuke, then at the Dragon Pill in his hand, and let out a sigh. For the first time in hundreds of years, he spoke words he had never said before, "I can't sleep."
Ryosuke smiled, tossed the Dragon Pill into his mouth like a candy bean, and swallowed it.
═❀═❀═❀═❀═❀═❀═
patreon.com/XenosX
🥳Joining Patreon keeps me motivated and eager to work diligently, so please consider joining.🥰