Three Years Later.
The Fourth Great Shinobi War had come and gone like a fever dream. The map of the world had been rewritten, scorched, and then painstakingly taped back together. Peace, fragile and new, sat over the five nations.
High in the mountains of the Land of Waterfalls, the abandoned temples of the Tenjō clan had begun to glow.
They didn't glow with fire or chakra, but with a strange, bioluminescent frequency—as if the stones themselves were vibrating with the memory of light. They had activated the moment the world nearly ended during the Infinite Tsukuyomi. It was as if the "Real" reality had reached out to Arahata's records to anchor itself.
Naruto Uzumaki, now a hero of legend and a candidate for Hokage, climbed the final steps to the temple's entrance. His arm was bandaged, the weight of the world still heavy on his shoulders, but his eyes were bright.
Standing at the gates was a woman in a grey traveler's cloak. Her hair had a few streaks of white now, and she still wore a silk blindfold.
"Mei-chan," Naruto said, offering a tired smile.
"Lord Hero," Mei replied, her voice echoing the soft sound of the nearby streams. "You've come for the Archive."
"The Elders back in the Leaf are still arguing about it," Naruto admitted, looking at the shimmering entrance of the main temple. "Some say we should use it to make sure another war never happens. They want to see the 'Branches' like he did."
Mei turned toward the temple. Inside, the air was filled with trillions of suspended golden motes. These were Arahata's final 71 hours of life—the unfiltered data of the Jūgan, left behind not as a weapon, but as a map of the absolute Present.
"They won't find what they're looking for," Mei said. "I've been the Guardian here since the war ended. Many have entered. The ones who want to control the future usually come out screaming."
"And the ones who don't?"
"They come out and go home to their families. They stop worrying about what might happen, because they realize the 'possible' is a desert, but the 'is' is a garden."
Naruto walked to the entrance and read the inscription carved into the lintel. It was written in a simple, precise hand—likely Ren's.
"He wanted to perceive everything. In the end, he perceived nothing, and found it enough. Enter if you can tolerate enough."
Naruto stood there for a long time, thinking of a dying man who had found peace in a bowl of miso ramen. He remembered the golden eyes that had looked into his soul and found nothing but a straight line.
"Ren-kun is well?" Naruto asked.
"He's in the village below," Mei said. "He teaches children how to use the Gentle Fist to find their own center, rather than hitting someone else's. He says he likes that children's futures are too messy to calculate."
Naruto nodded. He didn't enter the temple. He realized he didn't need to. He had seen Arahata's greatest technique—the one where he finally closed his eyes.
"Tell him I said hi," Naruto said, turning back toward the mountain path. "And Mei... thanks for keeping the place quiet for him."
"It's easy to keep it quiet," Mei whispered, "when the man it's built for is finally sleeping."
As Naruto descended the mountain, a single gust of wind blew through the Tenjō temple. Inside, the golden motes of the Probability Archive shifted. For a split second, they formed the image of a man in a tattered white haori, standing on a torii gate, looking out at a horizon he no longer needed to map.
The image vanished into a blur of grey mist and unfallen rain.
The archive was empty, because it held everything. Arahata was gone, because he had finally refused to hold onto the future.
And in the silence of the Land of Waterfalls, it was enough.
THE END.