"Time to head down and put in some overtime."
Sen brushed some nonexistent dust off his pant legs.
He stood up.
He didn't rush to jump down. Instead, he lowered his sunglasses, exposing his two dead-fish eyes.
He leaned over the edge of the statue's head.
Like an idle loafer watching crickets fight, he watched the scene below with keen interest.
On Sasuke's gray-black form, those two fleshy wings looked like dead ducks.
They flapped twice with a fluttering rustle.
They stirred up a musty smell of stagnant water.
He felt his blood boiling, every vein brimming with the evil, savage power Orochimaru had bestowed on him.
This power.
It was so intoxicating.
Sasuke tilted his head back and looked at the gloomy sky.
He let out a piercing, almost hysterical burst of wild laughter.
"Hahahaha!"
"Naruto!"
He snapped his head down, his Sharingan filled with scarlet madness.
"Do you see this? This is the power Lord Orochimaru gave me!"
"As I am now..."
Sasuke clenched his left hand hard.
The mass of purple-black Chidori erupted into a shriek ten times more piercing than before.
"I'm invincible!"
"Whether it's that man or that bastard Sen Senju..."
"Before my power now..."
"They're all trash!"
Naruto lay sprawled on the water, coughing up mouthful after mouthful of water mixed with bloody foam.
The red demon fox cloak around him flickered like flames.
"Sasuke... you've lost your mind..."
Naruto gritted his teeth and forced himself to stand.
The water sank deep beneath his feet.
"I'm bringing you back, no matter what!"
"Rasengan!"
Red chakra spun wildly in Naruto's hand, forming a purplish-red sphere of light larger than his head.
The two stood dozens of meters apart across the water.
They stared each other down.
"Die, Naruto!"
"Snap out of it, Sasuke!"
Before their