Within Mount Myoboku's towering Temple, bright yellow flames illuminated the entire hall and dispelled the darkness, yet seemed to avoid the faint, eerie glow emitted by the Crystal Ball placed atop the Doctoral Cap.
"So this is what the Ten-Tails looks like."
Fukasaku's single frog eye rapidly widened. He tightened the cloak behind his shoulders, concealing his inner shock.
The aged Great Toad Sage lowered his gaze and stared at the Ten-Tails within the Crystal Ball, its peerless ferocity enough to drain heaven and earth of color. A trace of nostalgia flickered across his weathered face. "This is merely an incomplete Ten-Tails."
"Lord Elder, the Ten-Tails has disappeared!"
Fukasaku, who had been staring fixedly at the Crystal Ball, abruptly rose to his feet. Looking at the Ten-Tails' body twisting space in a dizzying swirl, he trembled his white brows, drew a deep breath, and said gravely.
"Don't make such a fuss. You've cultivated Sage Jutsu and lived for eight hundred years, after all." The Great Toad Sage nonchalantly picked up the wine bottle beside him and took several gulps. "Good thing Shima went to look after Gamabunta, Ken, and Hiro. If they saw you in this sorry state, they'd definitely have something to say."
Fukasaku steadied his trembling mind, sat back down, and continued watching the scene inside the Crystal Ball. The vanished Ten-Tails and the sphere Madara had formed left a bitter taste in his mouth, while the shock in his heart was beyond words.
The regret of his life as a frog would be made up for at this very moment—he would witness the birth of a sage with his own eyes.
Stardust fell.
Madara, bearing the form of a sage, appeared in the Shinobi World, his image clearly reflected within the Temple through the Crystal Ball.
Fukasaku