Orochimaru's fingers trembled.
His face, caked in thick white powder, was now paler than a corpse.
Monster... what kind of monster was this brat?!
He screamed inwardly.
He watched helplessly as half the Second Hokage's body crumbled like rotten mud left baking under the blazing sun for ten days.
Ash and debris flaked off in showers.
That was one of his strongest trump cards, something he had poured countless hours and painstaking effort into creating!
"First!"
Orochimaru bit through his lower lip, and blood with a rusty tang flooded his mouth.
All ten fingers on his hands frantically cycled through hand seals as though he were having a seizure.
"Stop him! Now!"
Hashirama Senju had been standing beside him like a puppet.
A red gleam suddenly flashed through his hollow, lifeless eyes.
Crack.
Hashirama slammed his hands together, locking his ten thick fingers tightly.
A terrifying, muffled rumble, as though rising from the deepest depths of the earth, erupted over the wreckage of the Hokage Building.
The air instantly grew thick, like a huge vat of overcooked paste.
Even breathing felt as though their lungs had been stuffed with wet mud.
"Secret Wood Release technique..."
Hashirama's voice was hollow, utterly devoid of emotion.
Yet its authority struck everyone's heart like a heavy hammer.
"Deep Forest Emergence!"
As those words left his mouth.
Rumble!
The already devastated roof of the Hokage Building instantly collapsed completely!
Green tiles, blackened timber, and musty soundproofing insulation.
An immense, unstoppable force from below hurled them straight into the air!
Hundreds upon thousands of brown tree trunks, each as thick as a small house, roared skyward from the ruins.
This was nothing like Sen's earlier small-scale antics.
Every grain in these trunks carried an ancient, desolate air.
Their bark was as rough as crocodile scales, covered