There was a place lost even to time.
Not sealed.Not hidden.Just forgotten.
A temple without walls.Without doors.Without gods.
Built before chakra had names.Before shinobi had nations.
Stone pillars stood crooked, leaning like old men whispering secrets to each other.
Roots strangled statues.Rain had carved its own kanji into the floor.
But still—The temple breathed.
It waited.
And on the seventh night of the red moon—
It opened its eyes.
Menma stood outside it.
Breathing slow.
The wind didn't move here.The air didn't stir.
The others had stopped behind him.
"This place…" the boy with the metal arms muttered, "feels like it's watching me."
Menma nodded.
"It is."
The one with the scars stepped forward.
"What is it?"
Menma didn't answer.
Instead, he knelt.
Placed his palm on the cold, cracked stone.
It pulsed.
A sound rippled through the temple—
Not loud.
Not sharp.
Just felt.
Like someone exhaling after being forgotten for too long.
The mute boy tilted his head.He stepped forward first.
No hesitation.
Menma followed.
One by one, they entered.
There were no walls.No ceiling.
And yet inside—
They were not outside.
The world faded.
Only the past remained.
Images moved through mist.
Not memories.Not illusions.
Reminders.
A baby crying in the arms of a masked man.
A boy stealing instant ramen under moonlight.
A genin leaping in front of his friend, ready to die for a test he couldn't pass.
Then—
The needle.
Golden. Shimmering.
Stitching something broken.
Each of them saw it.
Each of them understood.
This wasn't a temple.
It was a scar.
The wound left behind when Naruto let go.
A place the world didn't know it needed.
But needed all the same.
Menma stepped forward.
He raised the scroll.
The one passed from village to village.Unmarked. Unreadable to anyone else.
He spoke softly.
"For every name that was never written.""For every hand that reached and found no one.""For every child who didn't make it to the story's end—"
He placed the scroll at the center.
It burst into flame.
Not hot.
Cool.
Blue.
The fire spread—Carving seals into the floor.
Old ones.
Uzumaki ones.
Then it stopped.
And from the ashes—
A new scroll formed.
The mute boy picked it up.
Read it.
Nodded.
And smiled.
Not wide. Not bright.
But real.
Menma turned to the others.
"No more waiting," he said."We bring the forgotten back into the world."
The one with cracked glasses whispered, "And if the world fights back?"
Menma looked up at the skyless void.
At the stars that weren't there.
And saw a single spiral pulse once.
He grinned.
"Then we remind it who built it."
Outside the temple, the trees bent low.
The wind returned.
And the first sunrise in years touched that old ruin.
For once—
It didn't burn the stone.
It blessed it.
Because the temple without doors didn't need protection anymore.
It had inheritors.
—End of Chapter 98—