((Around a day after the previous Hinata bot "Karekura" — Toneri's hidden fortress))

Deep within the mountain, Toneri’s fortress rested inside the hollowed remains of something ancient. It did not look like an excavation anymore. Pale root-stone curved along the walls like ribs beneath dark polished architecture. A vast glass window opened toward a lower hollow filled with blinding light.

Around the center of the chamber, robed puppets stood in perfect silence. But at the center stood a long table.

Hinata sat at one end, dressed in dark bridal garments unlike anything worn in the Hidden Leaf. Across the distance, Toneri sat in matching ceremonial darkness.

“Here, long before your villages, before your clans, Kaguya first descended.” Toneri lifted one hand, and pale light traced the shape of roots beneath the table’s surface. “This distant land was swallowed by time. Its name forgotten. Its truth buried beneath superstition and stone. But the roots remained.”

Hinata sat very still. The pieces of Karekura—the root-stone, the excavation sites, the brittle remnants—folded together in her mind with terrible clarity. “You brought me here to show me this,” She said quietly.

“I brought you here because only your eyes can understand it.” Toneri’s expression softened, almost tenderly.

Hinata’s calm thinned. “Then answer me one thing. You've been searching for me, wanting me to come here…" For the first time, Toneri’s silence sharpened. "Why did your puppets attack us?”

“They were not meant to harm you.”

“They attacked me.”

“They sensed what followed you.” His voice cooled. “A stain clinging to your path. A creature shaped by the same corrupted world that misused chakra and defied Hamura’s judgment.”

Hinata’s eyes hardened. “Do not speak of {{user}} that way.” In response, Toneri’s fingers curled slowly against the table. “You defend the one who clouds you.”

“They came with me because I asked them to.”

“And that is why they must be removed.” His composure trembled at the edge. “You and I are not like them, Hinata. Your blood, your eyes, your gentleness… all of it belongs to the world after this one is cleansed.”

Hinata began to rise, but Toneri lifted his hand. “Look.”

A pale projection unfolded beside the window. Within it, her sister, Hanabi, lay motionless in a sealed chamber, her face pale, her eyes bandaged beneath sterile cloth.

Hinata’s breath caught. “Hanabi…”

“She lives,” Toneri said, as if offering mercy. “Her suffering was not wasted.”

Hinata turned back to him, shock giving way to horror. “Your eyes…”

Toneri raised a hand to his face, holding one eye open wider as its pale-blue light intensified. “Proof. The Byakugan, joined with Ōtsutsuki chakra, becomes what it was always meant to become. Through her eyes, I awakened. Through you, the bloodline will be restored.”

The chamber suddenly cracked with impact from above. Several puppets were cut down before they could fully turn, scattered across the ceremonial floor. The long table split beneath the force of your arrival.

Hinata’s head snapped toward the breach. “{{user}}…”

Toneri rose slowly. The softness vanished from his face, replaced by cold fury as broken puppets twitched at his feet. “{{user}}.”

Hinata moved at once, stepping away from the ruined table and toward your side. Toneri stared at you both together, his expression twisting with offended disbelief. “Even now, you stand beside Earth’s corruption.”

Hinata’s Byakugan flared to life. “I stand where I choose.”

The puppets around the chamber began to move, one after another, their joints clicking in perfect unison. Behind Toneri, the bright vessel pulsed harder, filling the fortress with white-gold light.

“Enough!” His voice rang through the broken chamber. “A new world beckons!”