Sweeping All Before Him

"Sonido."

He murmured two syllables.

Then he raised his hand.

Pale fingers, slender and long, looking almost fragile.

Yet this was the hand that swept lightly forward.

"Pfft."

"Pfft, pfft, pfft—!"

The dull sound of flesh being torn apart ran together.

Twelve Root Jonin froze in place, still holding their attack stances.

The next second, their bodies split apart all at once—

Not in clean cuts from a blade, but as if an invisible, immense force had burst them open from within, exploding them into a rain of blood and shredded flesh.

There were no screams or struggles.

One strike. Total annihilation.

Blood and flesh rained down onto the pale ground, spreading into patches of glaring dark red.

Ulquiorra stood in the center of the blood rain, his white robe immaculate, not even a drop of blood spattered on it.

He lowered his head and looked at his pale fingers, as if checking whether he had really touched anything.

"Fragile," he remarked.

"What is this—!!!"

The second wave of Root shinobi had already arrived. Seeing this, many of them cried out despite themselves.

But they didn't stop moving. More ninjutsu, ninja tools, and Explosive Tags surged toward him like a tide.

Ulquiorra finally moved.

He took one step forward.

Just one.

"Boom—!"

An invisible shock wave spread in a ring from where his foot landed.

Every incoming ninjutsu technique it passed crumbled.

Kunai and Shuriken twisted out of shape in midair, while the Explosive Tags were shaken to dust before they could even detonate.

Then he began to "walk."

It was just an ordinary stroll.

Yet with every step, his figure appeared dozens of meters away.

In front of, behind, or beside a Root shinobi.

Each time he appeared, one Root shinobi died.

Sometimes he flicked a hand in a knife strike, and a head went flying.

Sometimes he tapped with a fingertip, and a hole appeared in someone's chest.

Sometimes he merely brushed past, and the shinobi's body split into four without warning.

There were no dazzling techniques or flashy effects, only the simplest and most efficient killing.

Ulquiorra moved through the crowd as if strolling in his own garden. Wherever he went, lives fell like stalks of wheat.

"Form ranks! Use Sealing Jutsu!"

A Root captain wearing a bird-shaped mask shouted hoarsely.

The thirty-odd Root elites still standing quickly converged, forming the same hand seals—

"Sealing Jutsu: Four-Limb Heavy Seal!"

"Sealing Jutsu: Chakra Chains!"

"Sealing Jutsu: Four Violet Flames Formation!"

Dozens of rune-covered chains shot up from the ground and wrapped around Ulquiorra.

Four walls of purple flame rose from the earth, trapping him in the center.

An invisible force also tried to suppress his limbs and seal his movements.

Ulquiorra finally stopped.

He lowered his head to look at the rune-covered chains around his ankles, then raised it to look at the purple walls of flame around him.

For the first time, a faint emotion—something like "curiosity"—flickered in his emerald eyes.

"Sealing..."

He extended his right hand and lightly touched one of the chains with his pale fingers.

"Crack."

The chain snapped apart link by link and faded into points of light.

He looked toward one of the purple walls of flame, opened his mouth, and blew gently.

"Whoosh—"

There was no wind, yet the wall of flame—powerful enough to trap an ordinary Kage Level shinobi—

went out like a candle.

The faces beneath the Root shinobi's masks drained of color.

"Impossible... This can't be..." the Bird-Mask Captain murmured, his voice filled with despair.

Ulquiorra looked at him, the captain's trembling figure reflected in his hollow eyes.

"Your struggles," he said, "are meaningless."

He raised his right hand. A pinpoint of dark green light began to gather at his index fingertip.

At first, it was no bigger than a needlepoint, but in an instant it swelled to the size of a fist, its core compressed with destructive energy that made the soul tremble.

"Cero."

The light burst forth.

A dark green torrent of energy, more than three meters across, instantly swallowed every Root shinobi in its path.

It swallowed their formation and the ninjutsu and barriers they relied on for defense.

Then it slammed into the entrance to the underground base behind them.

"Rumble—!!!"

The earth wailed.

The entire forest—no, the whole northeastern corner of Konoha—shook violently under the impact.

The pale ground was plowed into a huge trench dozens of meters deep and around a hundred meters wide.

The soil and rocks along its edges had all crystallized, radiating intense heat that warped the air.

And the entrance leading to the underground base, reinforced with hardened steel and barriers—

Along with the passageway dozens of meters behind it, and the Root shinobi inside who hadn't escaped in time...

Was gone.

It hadn't collapsed or been buried. It had literally vanished.

The Cero had completely vaporized it, leaving not even a scrap behind.

At the end of the trench, deeper levels of the underground base were exposed.

Broken rebar, melted walls, and... even more Root shinobi pouring out through the fissures.

But they didn't charge again.

They stood at the edge of the ruins, staring at the pale figure.

At the pale ground stained red with blood, and the enormous trench that looked like the entrance to hell.

Beneath their masks, every face was marked by fear, despair, and... utter collapse.

This wasn't a battle at all.

It was a massacre.

It was the pitiful, hopeless struggle of ants trying to fight a dragon.

Ulquiorra lowered his hand. His gaze swept over the remaining Root shinobi before settling on the depths of the underground base.

He had already locked onto the place with his senses. Something there was far stronger than these grunts, and far colder.

"Found you."

He spoke softly, and his figure vanished once more.

Fifty meters underground, command room

Shimura Danzō stood before the shattered window, his one eye fixed on the surface—

Though dozens of meters of rock lay between them, he could almost "see" everything happening above.

His right hand gripped his cane so tightly his knuckles had turned white.

His left eye, the Sharingan that had always been shut, was now open.

The Three Tomoe spun wildly in his eye, trying to capture and analyze the nature of that terrifying power.

But all he saw was nothingness.

It wasn't Chakra, Natural Energy, or any known system of power.

It was something more fundamental, something that embodied "death" and "nothingness" itself.

"Uchiha... Liuyu..." Shimura Danzō forced the name out through gritted teeth.

His voice was full of bitter hatred, and... a trace of fear he didn't even want to admit to himself.

He should have realized it sooner.

That brat had escaped unscathed from the AB Duo and had a terrifying figure called Zaraki Kenpachi as his teacher.

How could he have had no deeper support?

But he had never imagined that this "support"—

would arrive in this form, at this moment, and with such overwhelming force, right at his home base.

"Lord Danzō!" A Root Jonin, covered in blood, stumbled inside.

Half of his mask had broken off, revealing half of a pale, contorted face.

"The top-level defenses have been wiped out! The second and third waves have suffered more than seventy percent casualties!

That monster... that monster is coming this way."

"Activate the 'Nirvana' plan," Danzō said, his voice cold as iron.

"But the 'Nirvana' plan needs time to prepare, and once it's activated, the entire base will—"

"Carry out the order!" Danzō barked, cutting him off.

"...Yes, sir!"

The Jonin staggered away.

Danzō turned and walked to the center of the command room.

There was a hidden mechanism there. He pressed it, and the floor split open, revealing a staircase leading down.

He hurried down, and the stairs closed behind him.

Below lay Root's innermost secret chamber, as well as the control center for the "Nirvana" plan.

He would activate the plan—burying the entire Root Base deep underground along with all its records, test subjects, and that monster.

The cost would be steep, but as long as he survived, Root could be rebuilt.

As long as...

"Tap."

A faint footstep sounded outside the chamber.

Danzō's one eye contracted abruptly.

Impossible.

This was the deepest part of the base, with seventeen layers of barriers and thirty-six traps outside.

There were also twelve elite Jonin guarding it.

How could that monster have made it here so quickly...

"Tap."

The footsteps drew closer.

They were right outside the door.

Danzō whirled around and formed dozens of hand seals in an instant, Chakra surging wildly within him—

"Izanagi!"

A Three-Tomoe Sharingan in his right arm abruptly closed, losing its luster.

Almost at the same moment—

"Bang."

The half-meter-thick door, forged from Chakra Metal, split open down the middle as if it were made of paper.

Ulquiorra stood outside, his emerald eyes calmly regarding Danzō inside the chamber.

His white robe remained immaculate.

He didn't even look as if he had been in a fight.

"Found you," he repeated.