Detachment of the Primitive World and the Gentle Fist's Precision

Baishi leaned back in his leather chair and raised his right index finger slightly. The fine silver Chakra Thread wound around his fingertip snapped taut.

The thread vibrated at high frequency, slicing through the skin of his fingertip. A bright red bead of blood welled up.

He felt no pain. If anything, the tiny sting sharpened the interest in his eyes.

On the solid-wood desk before him, the Chakra Water Mirror had been swallowed by blinding white light. It was so bright that it washed the dim Hokage's Office in a deathly pallor. Standing behind him to one side, Mikoto Uchiha squeezed her eyes shut and instinctively raised a sleeve to shield her face. Her breathing quickened.

"Dust Release..." Mikoto's voice trembled, the scent of cherry blossoms mingling with her overwhelming fear. "The Hyuga Clan can't withstand a jutsu of that level..."

"Withstand it?" Baishi chuckled and lifted the cup of lukewarm Gyokuro Tea at his left hand to his lips. "Why would they need to?"

He stared into the mirror, his gaze seeming to pierce the distance and fall directly upon the battlefield in the Forest of Death.

Orochimaru was a clever madman. He knew his cover was blown and that further attempts at assassination would be a joke. So he had seized direct control of the Second Tsuchikage Mū's body and poured every last bit of Chakra into this Dust Release attack.

Overwhelming force. Simple, brutal, and deadly.

In the Forest of Death, the air had been sucked away.

Hyuga Hiashi knelt on one knee in the mud, gasping for breath, but all he drew in was a heavy stench of ozone and earth. The wind pressure scraped his cheeks raw like countless invisible files.

Thirty meters ahead of him, the Second Tsuchikage Mū, his outline traced by