"The emergency Five Kage meeting... has been moved up."
"Moved up? To when?"
"Tomorrow at noon, in the Land of Iron," Kakashi said. "Sunagakure and the Land of Iron have confirmed their attendance. Iwagakure and Kumogakure... are still refusing."
"But Lord Hokage said that even with only three parties, the meeting must go ahead. The Ōtsutsuki threat can't wait any longer."
Jiraiya nodded.
He glanced toward the crater. No more energy fluctuations came from it; the battle should have ended.
Ulquiorra had won, but the victory had been so effortless that it was unsettling.
"Kakashi, stay here and help with the aftermath. I'll head over to the crater and check things out."
"Yes, sir."
Jiraiya leaped into the depths of the forest. A few minutes later, he returned to the crater's edge.
The sight before him made him suck in a sharp breath.
The crater had at least doubled in size, its diameter now exceeding six hundred meters. Its walls had completely crystallized, as though melted by intense heat.
At the bottom, the enormous flower bud had turned into a puddle of sludge, slowly dissolving and seeping underground.
Most shocking of all was the center of the crater-a hemispherical pit ten meters across, as smooth as a mirror. Its walls formed a perfect curve, as though something invisible had "scooped" a chunk out of it.
"What... kind of power is this...?" Jiraiya murmured.
He jumped into the crater and landed beside the pit. Crouching, he reached out to touch its wall.
It felt cold and impossibly smooth, with no residual energy whatsoever-it hadn't been purified. It had utterly "vanished."
He remembered Shiro's disappearance and Ulquiorra's final strike.
"Existence erasure..." Jiraiya quietly repeated Ulquiorra's words. "The power to erase existence itself... what kind of monster does Las Noches have at its