Inside the Kamui dimension, dark-red stone pillars stood in ranks. Obito sat atop a towering pillar, the single exposed Sharingan flickering with uncertain light. Zetsu had just brought back the intelligence that Yuan had instantly killed a clone with that bizarre ocular jutsu, and beneath Obito's mask, his expression was graver than it had ever been.
"Even White Zetsu's spores can be erased in an instant?" Obito clenched his fist. "That useless Nagato couldn't even slow him down."
Meanwhile, in another corner of the ninja world.
Northwest of Konoha, in a top-secret underground air-raid shelter a full thousand meters below the surface. This had once been an abandoned fortress left over from the Second War, and now it had become Shimura Danzō's final kennel.
Dim wall lamps painted the walls a sickly green. The air was thick with the foul smell of medicine and the stench of rotting flesh.
"Ah—! What the hell did that bastard Orochimaru give me?!"
Danzō roared in the cramped room like a wounded beast. He slumped to the floor, gasping for breath. His appearance was a horrific sight. The bandages on his right arm had long since come loose, and of the dozen-odd Sharingan originally embedded in his arm, only three remained, lonely and isolated. The rest of the sockets were all sealed dead flesh.
This was the price he had paid for forcibly activating Izanagi under Yuan's hand to prolong his life.
But the deadliest thing was not the loss of the Sharingan. After losing Orochimaru's suppressive drugs, the Hashirama Cells transplanted into his right arm had begun to run completely wild. The right half of his body, from the shoulder down, had fully lignified. Rough bark pierced through blood vessels, and twisted branches burrowed out of his muscles one after another, spreading toward