Just as Arata was about to set off, the system notification finally popped up.
[Ding! Civilian rescue completed. Death toll did not exceed 500.
Option conditions fulfilled.
Reward granted: Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan.
Please check and accept.]
Arata had actually been wondering why the reward still hadn't arrived, even after all the refugees had already been delivered to a safe location.
Now it finally showed up—apparently this damn system was a bit slow when it came to handing out rewards.
That said, Arata wasn't in a hurry to claim it right away.
First, he needed to return to Konoha and properly finalize the Uzumaki clan's entry into the village. Once that was done, he would receive another reward anyway—he could just collect them together then.
Besides, even if he claimed it now, the immediate boost to his strength would be limited. Once he returned to Konoha, his current power was already more than enough to put pressure on Sarutobi Hiruzen. There was no urgent need to activate the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan right away.
He could save that reward for a calmer moment.
Still, Arata couldn't help feeling curious about what abilities the system-granted Eternal Mangekyō would give him.
Aside from the mandatory Susanoo, a Mangekyō Sharingan normally came with a unique ability in each eye—techniques like Itachi's Amaterasu or Obito's Kamui intangibility.
If possible, Arata really didn't want abilities related to Kamui or intangibility. He already had both. Since the Sharingan was known as the "Eye of the Mind," the abilities awakened by the Mangekyō were usually tied to the user's deepest thoughts at the moment of awakening.
The problem was—Arata himself didn't even know what ability he truly wanted.
Pulling his thoughts back, Arata stopped dwelling on the reward and turned to Uzumaki Yūki.
"Let's move out. It'll take quite a while to get back."
After that, Arata began transferring the remaining elderly, women, and children of the Uzumaki clan into the Kamui space.
Seeing this, Yūki recalled how Arata had earlier transported refugees in batches and immediately understood his plan.
At the same time, he couldn't help but admire Arata's mastery of space–time ninjutsu. This technique was practically a weapon of war.
With something like this, transporting supplies in the future would be absurdly convenient.
After all, Arata's Kamui space was practically as vast as the entire shinobi world.
To move objects into Kamui, the user needed to focus their Mangekyō on the target. But to bring things out, all that was required was sufficient sensory range—anything within that range could be transferred back.
Obito had done something similar in the original timeline, but his sensory abilities were fairly average, severely limiting the amount he could move at once.
Arata, however, possessed top-tier sensory perception—his "mind net" was among the strongest in the shinobi world.
As long as something lay within his perception range, he could freely relocate it.
Along the journey, Arata and Yūki also had to look after the Uzumaki clan's elderly and children. Leaving them behind in this town was pointless.
As members of a major ninja clan, they were destined to live in Konoha, so they had to be brought there to settle down.
As for the adult Uzumaki ninja, they would return to Konoha on their own once disaster relief was fully handled.
Fortunately, the main group had already resupplied here with food and water. Otherwise, Arata would have had to keep making trips back and forth to the Kamui space.
Although Arata could freely move people and objects in Kamui, the exit point itself depended on his own location.
If he didn't personally travel back to Konoha, the people inside Kamui wouldn't be able to return there either.
There were only a few thousand elderly, women, and children from the Uzumaki clan—easily accommodated within Arata's Kamui space.
Entering this mysterious space for the first time, they whispered among themselves, curiously observing their surroundings.
They quickly guessed that this was probably the same place Arata had taken Yūki earlier.
Once again, the sheer scale of the Kamui space stunned them. Just the endless expanse alone made it seem even larger than the Land of Fire itself.
Such an enormous space—was it something Arata had created himself, or something he had discovered?
It was also this space that finally explained where the hundreds of thousands of civilians who had appeared out of nowhere earlier had come from. Only a place this vast could possibly hold that many people.
Arata had no time to explain things one by one. After tossing them into the Kamui space, he left them alone.
In the end, even Yūki himself was sent into Kamui.
Yūki's speed was respectable—among elite jōnin, he was near the top—but compared to Arata's lightning-fast movement, he was no faster than a snail.
Besides, having Yūki inside Kamui meant someone could keep an eye on the Nine-Tails, ensuring nothing went wrong.
Once Arata was traveling alone, he went all out.
By dawn, he had already arrived at the gates of Konoha.
And this was without even activating Lightning Armor to boost his speed—just relying on pure physical movement. Otherwise, he would have arrived even sooner.
The moment Arata reached Konoha's entrance, he immediately sensed something was wrong.
First, his gaze went to the Hokage Rock on the cliffs behind the village. It was now riddled with cracks, looking as though it might collapse at any moment.
The Third Hokage's stone face was especially bad—split cleanly down the middle, leaving it looking absurd from a distance.
Next, Arata spread out his sensory network to scan the entire village.
As expected, the damage wasn't limited to Hokage Rock. Konoha itself was in shambles.
A massive, bottomless fissure ran straight through the village's main road, stretching across Konoha from end to end.
Countless buildings had collapsed. Ninja were rushing back and forth carrying out rescue operations, while others sprinted toward the outskirts—clearly messengers relaying information.
Seeing this, Arata glanced back in the direction he had come from.
Sure enough, even from here, he could faintly see traces of barren, crater-like terrain in the distance.
It seemed that his battle with Madara—unfortunately—had been fought in a truly terrible location. Even Konoha, so far away, had been caught in the aftershocks.
There was nothing Arata could do about it. He hadn't chosen the battlefield. Madara had insisted on emerging within the Land of Fire, and Arata could only respond.
After all, enemies weren't kind enough to negotiate a change of venue before fighting.
Looking at Konoha's devastated state, Arata could only offer a silent prayer that there hadn't been too many casualties.
If the village survived war only to be wrecked by the aftershocks of his own battle… that would be a sin too heavy to bear.
Suddenly, he thought of Shizune and Kushina.
Alarmed, Arata immediately expanded his perception, searching for them.
When his senses reached the Senju residence, he found it intact—unchanged from before. He let out a long breath of relief.
A moment later, he located Shizune and Kushina inside one of Konoha's shelters.
To his surprise, the two were getting along quite well.
The slightly older Kushina was even feeding Shizune breakfast.