The smoke blew away, and the Flying Thunder God Formula began to crumble under the impact. Naruto was hurled into a distant wall and coughed up blood.
Kakashi used Chidori to withstand the impact head-on, but even he staggered back repeatedly, blood seeping from beneath his mask.
"Five minutes..." Naruto struggled to his feet and glanced at the kunai in his hand-one of them had already cracked. "I'm still nowhere close..."
The black humanoid slowly approached Naruto.
Its body kept changing as it walked, sometimes resembling Shukaku, sometimes Gaara, and sometimes becoming an indescribable mass of pure malice.
"Your soul is special." It stopped before Naruto and extended a hand made of black slime. "So full of light, so full of hope... utterly nauseating. Let me stain you black. Let me turn you into something just like me-"
Its hand stopped in midair.
A blade had thrust out through its chest.
It was not a physical piercing-the black humanoid's body was liquid, impervious to ordinary attacks.
But the moment the blade entered it, the struck area began to undergo "purification."
The black slime melted and evaporated like ice meeting flames, exposing the dark red core within.
"When did you..." The black humanoid turned its head with difficulty.
Behind it stood a man with long silver-gray hair and a white haori. No one knew when he had arrived.
Expressionless, Kuchiki Byakuya withdrew his sword. The silver light along its blade purified every trace of black slime clinging to it.
"You were so focused on your prey that you overlooked the hunter." Byakuya's voice was calm and level. "And you know nothing of the Pure Soul Court's power."
With that, he flicked his wrist.
"Scatter, Senbonzakura."
The blade dissolved into countless silver petals that engulfed the black humanoid like a surging river