The palace groaned as fractures split the walls of ice. Shards rained like glass, catching the dim starlight. A figure stumbled forward — hair matted, eyes bloodshot. Toneri ōtsutsuki had broken free.
His breath fogged the air as he staggered into the open. His body was trembling, but his voice tore through the void.
Toneri (screaming):
“YOU FUCKING BASTARD—SHIBAI!!!”
A blur of motion. He didn’t hesitate. Didn’t think. In one divine strike, he split Shibai in half.
And yet — the so-called god only grinned as his form unraveled.
Shibai (grinning, fading):
“I’m taking your queen… to my world.”
The words detonated inside Toneri’s chest. He fell to his knees, pounding the frozen floor until blood seeped from his hands.
Toneri (shaking, weeping):
“WHY… WHY DID YOU ALL LEAVE ME TOO?!?
I TOLD YOU—THIS WORLD—IT KILLS LOVE!!
YOU NEVER SAW ME! NEVER SAW MY PAIN!”
Behind him, a cocoon of cosmic energy shimmered into existence. Inside floated Aria, serene, unreachable.
For the first time in eternity, Toneri spoke her name without reverence, without title — just a man calling for the woman he lost.
Toneri (screaming):
“ARIAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!”
He vanished in a flash of space-bending chakra.
When the winds calmed, he reappeared beside a figure slumped like a statue. Kashin Koji sat still, eyes open, heart stopped.
Toneri froze. His lips trembled.
Toneri (whisper):
“…No.”
They had once sat together in secret, the Divine Tree’s vines shielding them.
Kashin’s hand rested on Toneri’s shoulder. His smile was faint, but it carried warmth.
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Kashin:
“The day Sylus dies… I’ll die too. Right here.”
Toneri (uneasy):
“Don’t say shit like that, man.”
Kashin (softly):
“He’s my soul, Toneri. Just like Aria is yours. I pushed him toward love… I just hope it doesn’t backfire.”
Through the vines, they saw Sylus and Aria asleep beneath the stars. Her hand in his. His chin resting against her hair.
For a moment, the world was gentle. For a moment, peace existed.
The calm before obliteration.
Back in the present, Toneri clutched Kashin’s corpse. He didn’t scream at first. He just held him — shaking, waiting, hoping the body would stir.
But silence answered.
And then the cry broke loose.
Toneri (roaring into eternity):
“WHYYYYY!! WHYYYYY YOU LEFT ME TOOOOOO!!!
WHY DIDN’T YOU SEE MY PAIN?!
I AM… SO ALONE IN THIS WORLD!!!”
For one million years, he sat there. Screaming. Begging. Breaking.
Until silence devoured his voice. Until Kashin’s body rotted into dust between his arms.
Finally, he buried him — a single grave beneath a collapsing galaxy.
The silence was broken by laughter — not his, but hers.
Hinata’s soft giggle echoed in Toneri’s ears as Naruto stumbled over his words. Hidden in the shadows of the moon, Toneri watched.
His eyes widened. He saw Sylus in Naruto.
He saw Aria in Hinata.
Toneri (shaking):
“No… No, no no no… They’ll die too. Just like before.”
From that night, his desire to protect twisted into obsession.
Control.
Fear masked as righteousness.
Naruto’s fists cracked across his face.
Naruto (roaring):
“I WON’T LET YOU TOUCH MY HINATAAAA!!!”
Each strike broke Toneri’s bones, but he didn’t fight back. He only smiled, blood dripping down his chin.
Toneri (thinking):
“My desire to protect… turned into obsession.
I lost myself.”
And in the blur of fists, he saw Sylus’s face in Naruto.
If only he’d had someone to stand beside him.
If only he had what Naruto had.
If only… he hadn’t died alone.
The room was silent. Naruto, Sasuke, Kakashi, and Shikamaru sat across from him. Toneri’s hands trembled as he spoke, voice breaking like glass.
Toneri:
“Aria… my queen… has been sealed for 10 billion years.
But Sylus… and Kashin… they’re here again. In Yuta. In Ryouta.”
He dropped to his knees, forehead pressed to the floor.
Toneri (pleading):
“Please… help me. Let her see them again… even once.
Please, before I break for good.”
Naruto placed a hand on his shoulder. His voice carried both steel and compassion.
Naruto:
“We’ll bring her back.”
Sasuke’s eyes narrowed, but his words were steady.
Sasuke:
“She deserves to see her Sylus — even if it’s Yuta.”
Kakashi’s lone eye flickered with thought.
Kakashi:
“You were broken. But your story won’t be wasted.”
Shikamaru leaned back, voice low but heavy.
Shikamaru:
“Ten billion years is too long for anyone to suffer.”
Naruto tightened his grip on Toneri’s shoulder.
Naruto (firmly):
“We’ll help her see them, Toneri. That’s our promise.”
The room fell silent again. But this time, it wasn’t despair.
It was resolve.
To Be Continued…
loneliness stretched across eternity.
Toneri’s breakdown — holding Kashin’s corpse for a million years, screaming into silence — is the rawest he’s ever been shown. For the first time, we see him not as a zealot or villain, but as a man who loved, who lost, and who broke under the weight of time itself.
this cycle didn’t begin with Naruto and Sasuke. It’s older, deeper, and more tragic. When Toneri finally begged for help in the Hokage’s office, it wasn’t the plea of a god — it was the plea of someone who had been abandoned for ten billion years.
14 – “Hearts of Gods and Fathers”) will be about rebirth. Both in the celestial realm, and in the hospital on Earth. Life and death, loss and joy, all colliding in the same breath.