Chapter 457: Humbled Arsenal
The silence in the throne room of the Hidden Light Village was absolute. It was a silence that Arthur Bennett had cultivated meticulously, a barrier against the world outside.
Buried deep beneath the Sun Stream Plaza in the Land of Birds, he sat alone on his throne. His chin rested on his fist as the morning light of the chamber cast a shadow across his face.
To the world, he was a cautionary tale sealed within a glass orb, hidden in the deepest vault of an unknown area. To the few who knew the truth of his current location, he was a lord in exile.
Not many understood the complexities of Arthur’s mind. It had evolved completely at some point in time upon arriving in this world. He was always factual, knowledgeable, and wise thanks to his faith. But the day he had become Hoshikaze, it was as if his IQ had boosted beyond normal parameters.
Things had been like that since, and it was that same faith that had kept him standing strong against the world that wanted to stop him at every turn.
As he sat there on his throne, he kept his eyes closed, letting his mind drift through the mental calendar of the timeline.
He knew the when of things. He had memorized the chronology of the ninja world before he ever stepped into it. But the where was becoming problematic.
The original Shippuden timeline was notoriously condensed. The entire series, from Naruto’s return to the village to the conclusion of the Fourth Great Ninja War, spanned less than a year. Even the war itself—a cataclysmic event involving tens of thousands of shinobi—took place over the course of barely two days.
’There’s still time left before the start,’ Arthur’s voice echoed in his head.
He began to recount the events, ticking off arcs like items on a grocery list. The Rescue of the Kazekage. The Reunion at the Bridge. The Immortal Duo. The Pain Invasion. The Five Kage Summit. This list hardly regarded the filler arcs.
The timeline was a mess of canon events and anime-original detours.
The Three-Tails arc involving Guren? The Six-Tails arc with Utakata?