The shrill alarms, like metal grinding against bone, tore straight through Iwagakure's deathly still morning mist.
The electrically charged smell of scorching drifted through the warship's vents and poured into everyone's nostrils, making their heads ache.
Ōnoki, that old man, was currently slapping the conical hat carved with the character for "Stone" onto his head. His stubbled face was covered in mud and ash, smeared on during the rush in the underground command center earlier.
His cloudy old eyes held the ferocity of someone ready to punch a hole through the sky. His hands hammered the console keyboard with a rapid clatter, carrying the sour stench of someone who had just picked his feet.
"Yoru! Throw those White Zetsu scraps, along with the fragments from that alien ship, into the defense circuit!"
Ōnoki shouted until his voice went hoarse. His peeling lips still bore dark brown tea stains from the tea he had splashed on himself earlier.
"This is the fate of the entire Shinobi World! If those Ōtsutsuki bastards really plant that damned seed in the planet's core, we won't even be qualified to serve as their fertilizer!"
He grabbed a handful of greasy conducting wires from a storage crate beside him and shoved them directly into the mainframe's slots, producing a teeth-gritting sizzle.
Yoru leaned against the warship's hatch. The hem of his black coat patterned with red clouds had already been blasted into strips of rags during the earlier brawl.
The clump of unwashed black grime on his collar trembled with every heavy breath he took.
He was idly turning over an energy core, still warm from being pried out of Momoshiki's warship.
The thing looked like a bloody lump of rotten meat and gave off a nauseatingly fishy-sweet stench.
He casually tossed it onto the console.