Jasper knew he couldn't stay here long. He needed to find a way out. Yet to do so, he had to get past Toneri.
Not to look weak, he challenged, "Go ahead and try."
Then immediately, the two engaged in a quick taijutsu fight.
Jasper went for a low sweep, which was easily dodged. He tried to capitalize by throwing a series of palm strikes toward Toneri's chest, but Toneri dodged to the side before responding with a swift sweep that knocked Jasper off balance.
The latter was quick to recover; he spun into a low stance and unleashed another flurry of palm pushes and elbow strikes. Toneri blocked a few, then sidestepped and responded with a palm of his own that landed in Jasper's ribs, pushing him back.
Jasper was familiar with combat, but Toneri's movements were far different than those on earth. Despite the latter missing his eyes, he seemed to anticipate Jasper's attacks.
"I'm not done yet, punk!" Jasper said, throwing more punches and kicks.
Each one met with a block or dodge. When Toneri felt another opening, he went straight for Jasper's eyes but was immediately thwarted with a well-timed smack against his hand.
"That was a good block," Toneri praised. "But how long will you last?"
As the fight raged on, Jasper realized that Toneri had the advantage. His opponent's senses appeared to extend far beyond normal limits, which made Jasper's focus split between attacking and defending at poor intervals.
His muscles had also ached from the previous fight with Orochimaru, and his chakra was running low.
Still, he pressed on, knowing he couldn't afford to give up.
When Toneri overextended himself during an exchange, leaving a gap in his defense, Jasper seized the moment and launched a swift series of strikes that pushed Toneri back.
The fight was intense, but Jasper's fatigue was finally catching up with him.
"Guess you're not all show," he smirked, hiding his tiredness, "but I've got somewhere else to be."
Straightway, he darted to the left exit and ran through a side corridor that he hoped would lead out of the castle.
Toneri just watched him go in silence.
"So he chose to run…" he whispered to no one in particular.
Outside the castle, Jasper didn't stop. He sprinted through the corridor, down stairways, and through strips, trying to put distance between himself and Toneri.
Since the castle was built within the inner moon, he knew that hiding here was only temporary. The moon was a vast, open space with few places to hide, especially from someone like Toneri, who seemed to have senses spread across the entire lunar surface.
Minutes passed as Jasper ran until he eventually found an exit to the outside. There, he darted to a forested area to find some cover.
The trees were sparse, but their shadows provided a little relief. So he hurried into the underbrush and tried to lodge himself among the branches and leaves.
Believing it to be safe, he focused on calming his breathing while trying to suppress his chakra signature so that Toneri wouldn't immediately detect him.
Just as Jasper settled into the shadows, he heard a clear voice cut through the silence: "No matter where you run, I'll find you." It was Toneri, and he felt eerily close by.
"Dang it," Jasper muttered under his breath.
His legs quickly pushed him forward, faster this time. How had Toneri found him so easily, he wondered? Forget heightened senses; something had to be at play.
Then Jasper came to a conclusion: Toneri's senses were likely spread throughout the whole moon. His awareness wasn't localized; it was vast and all-encompassing.
Believing this, Jasper made a decision: he needed to hide not just his chakra signature but also his entire being as if he didn't exist.
'I need to blend in this environment somehow,' he thought.
As he moved, a brigade of puppets suddenly emerged and tried to surround him.
Jasper's strength was waning, but he refused to give up.
"Get outta here!" he challenged.
Jasper's fists flew as he faced the puppet soldiers. With each punch, he shattered wooden limbs and cracked their faces. Their strikes were fast, but he avoided them and closed the distance to strike himself.
Despite their numbers, he fought hard and turned their own mechanical movements against them.
Bang, crash, smash!
Finally, the last puppet fell apart, allowing him some breathing room.
Why hadn't Toneri shown up?
'That bastard's probably trying to drain me of all that I have,' Jasper believed.
He looked around and tried to gauge his surroundings. Then immediately, he heard Toneri's voice again: "You're running out of chakra, I see…"
"Crap…!"
Jasper knew he had to act fast. So he broke into another run, despite how tired his body was.
Here was a man that believed himself above everyone else. But now, he was being pushed to his limits.
His journey on foot led him to an open desert. This was both good and bad. Bad because it was an expansive, arid landscape with no cover. Plus, his chakra was almost depleted.
As for the good, he had just enough left to perform one final technique.
"Transparency jutsu…!"
Straightaway, his body seemingly blended with his surroundings and made him virtually invisible. He suppressed his chakra to further minimize his presence, then sank into the sand and rocks of the desert floor.
The moon's artificial sun bore down on him, but he remained hidden beneath the surface, lying still as the heat pressed against his skin.
'To think I'd be using this crummy technique,' he thought to himself.
Time passed. An hour, maybe more.
The sun's relentless rays made it hard to tell. But this was good because Jasper felt confident that Toneri hadn't found him yet.
His own mind was alert as he waited for any sign of Toneri's approach.
When another hour passed and Toneri hadn't shown, Jasper carefully decided to end the jutsu and stand up. His muscles protested, and he looked down at his skin. A tan had developed from lying under the artificial sun for so long.
"Tsk…"
He tried to think: how could he get off the moon? The problem was that his chakra was low, and he didn't know if his body could survive a travel to earth from the moon's surface.
Last he recalled, there was supposed to be a portal that could lead anyone back down. Yet that portal was located in a forested area, not the desert. And who knew if Toneri hadn't already set puppets or traps around the area?
Jasper's situation had become critical.
The weight of the news he'd just uncovered, that Arthur Bennett was alive, was information that could change everything. But what good was this news when he had no way to reach anyone?
"Shoot, I'm being so lame right now."
He looked out over the barren landscape and knew that he had to keep moving.
As time passed with him walking on foot, for the first time in a long while, he felt hunger gnawing in his stomach and thirst drying his throat.
The comfort of the Leaf Village had made him forget how essential these basic needs were. After having fought a Sannin, fleeing Toneri's pursuit, and surviving on low chakra reserves, Jasper was paying the price.
He paused and leaned against a rock that was close by. Exhaustion clouded his thoughts, so trying to recover all of his chakra seemed too hard right now.
Instead of panic, he decided to expand what little remained of his reserves. Maybe he could pick up some sign of water or shelter.
As his awareness extended outward, filtering through the quiet desert and distant mountains, he didn't spot a single sign of a puppet or Toneri. That was a little comforting.
Suddenly, his peripheral senses caught something: a faint, shadowy outline in the far west. It looked like a cave nestled against the mountainside—a shelter.
Jasper hesitated for a moment to weigh the risk. The desert was open, and Toneri's puppets could still appear out of nowhere. Still, he had no choice; he had to move.
With slow, deliberate steps, he began heading west.
The landscape was brutally hot, dry, and barren. And his legs burned with each step.
As he approached the foot of the mountain, he saw the cave's entrance. It was dark, narrow, and partially concealed by rocks with sparse vegetation.
The problem was that it was very high up.
'If I had more chakra,' he thought, 'this would have been easy.'
Many people forgot just how difficult it was to be a shinobi without that form of energy. It not only aided in combat, but it also greatly helped in survival situations like this one.
Who was Jasper, a well-pampered businessman, to rely on his own survival instincts? Assuming he had any.
Mustering what little strength he had, he began ascending up the mount.
The climb was difficult, but he forced himself to keep it up.
"Argh!" he said, scratching himself against a rough stone. It was just one painful move after another. "Dang it! Why does it hurt so much?!"
Frustrated, he activated the First Gate to make things easier.
The ascent tested his limits, and sweat mixed with dust covered his body once he finally reached the top of the cliff.
From there, he looked down into the shadowed mouth of the cave. It was a tight fit, but it offered shelter from the sun and perhaps some safety from Toneri's sensors.
Inside, the air was cool and damp. Jasper collapsed against the wall with ragged breaths. Never before had he been placed in this horrid situation.
Trying not to think about it, his first priority became restoring his chakra. Without that, he was way too vulnerable. So he briefly closed his eyes.
The first person that came up was Arthur. He didn't want to think about him right now. What mattered now was survival. If he became trapped on the moon forever or lost his eyes to Toneri, then knowing about Arthur's survival was meaningless.
Getting back to earth was the only goal left.
Before Jasper could think too deeply, a sudden sting struck the back of his head, causing him to yelp. He quickly jerked forward as pain shot through his skull.
When he looked behind him, he saw it: a scorpion with its tail curled and venom dripping from its stinger. Jasper quickly crushed the scorpion beneath his hand, grimacing at the effort.
The poison had already entered his body, and it was starting to make his mind foggy. He knew he couldn't let the venom spread, so he grabbed a jagged rock nearby and began sharpening the edges with trembling hands.
Then he reached behind his head and started cutting into the skin at the base of his skull. The pain was hot, sharp, and relentless as blood trickled down his neck.
What he was trying to do was create an opening to let the poison out.
Sweat dripped into his eyes, blurring his vision further, and his head felt heavy as his limbs grew weak.
After a while, his sight grew dimmer, and everything seemed to sway. How ironic to feel this way since he was a possessor of a dōjutsu that saw through virtually everything.
"How lame…" he said after his knees finally buckled.
He collapsed onto the ground, his breathing was now shallow, and he fought to stay conscious. The last thing he saw was the faint outline of the cave ceiling before everything went dark.