The black sphere flew skyward. The enormous Tengai Shinsei was instantly drawn toward it.
The meteor began to break apart. Gravity spread outward from the black core in a sphere. Cracks appeared across the meteor's surface, radiating in every direction. Cracks became fissures, fissures became fragments, fragments became streams of rubble, and those streams became clouds of dust.
The meteor visibly shrank as the black core devoured all its mass, then reshaped and compressed it.
What hung above them was no longer the doomsday meteor poised to destroy the Capital of Fire. It was a tiny new planet, its surface covered in layers of gray rock. It looked like a second moon.
By rights, that immense gravity should have torn the entire Capital of Fire apart and made it part of the Chibaku Tensei.
From the foundations of the city to its farthest walls, from the Daimyo Residence to every house in the commoners' district, everything should have been uprooted by the black core's pull and gathered into a new sphere in the sky.
But Satsuki's Rinnegan gave her perfect control over that gravity. She directed the Chibaku Tensei solely at the meteor she had drawn down from space.
She shaped the gravitational field with precision, confining it strictly to the meteor's volume. Not a trace escaped.
Satsuki could have used ninjutsu to destroy the Tengai Shinsei without leaving so much as a speck. One swing of Susanoo's Chakra Greatsword would have reduced it to cosmic dust.
But she had done this to show the Daimyo just how exacting her control over a force of nature could be.
If they fought, Satsuki could destroy a city without harming one particular person inside it. She could make gravity act on an enemy's body alone while leaving the cup of tea beside