An Instant!

"Crack... crackcrackcrackcrack!"

A rapid series of dense cracking sounds rang out as Rock Skin crawled from Hirohiko's hands behind his back, almost instantly spreading over his entire body. It covered him in a thin suit of Rock Skin armor, making him resemble a grayish-white statue, leaving only a pair of Three Tomoe Sharingan gleaming a vivid scarlet.

So... so fast! Even though he had already sensed that speed, it was still... so fast!

Yet in that instant, within those exposed scarlet eyes, slightly widened, an uncontrollable shock flickered.

"Crackle..."

An arc of electricity lit up those scarlet eyes. At the same time, it illuminated a basin-sized clenched fist that had suddenly entered his vision.

"Crackle... crackle..."

Then came a second arc, a third, a fourth, continuously surging forth with crackling sounds. The blue-white flashes of current repeatedly lit up the Sharingan as their pupils shrank, widened, then shrank again, along with that basin-sized fist drawing closer with every flash, and the burly, imposing, slightly aged figure behind it... the Third Raikage! Damn it!

My body... feels like it's frozen! Beneath the Rock Skin, Hirohiko clenched his teeth. Every movement of this burly Kumogakure shinobi, every change in motion, every minute twitch of his muscles—even every release of lightning and every tremor of his hair—was reflected in his Insight Eye. Yet his body seemed frozen, unable to move.

His dynamic vision had kept up, but his body had not. His eyes had followed the motion, but his body had yet to react.

As Hirohiko gritted his teeth, the Third Raikage's lightning-wreathed fist was already right before him.

This brat... he did that on purpose just now! He couldn't possibly not know that using a ninjutsu like Iwagakure's Hardening Technique would create an instant of vulnerability. The moment the Rock Skin covered