The rumbling underground grew louder and louder, shaking loose stones off the edges of the ruins.
Naruto pulled Asuma and the others back, staring wide-eyed at what lay ahead.
"What kind of spectacle is Sen going to pull off this time?"
"From the sound of it, this is going to be even bigger than when he smashed the temple!"
Sen Senju stood there without so much as bending at the waist.
The dirt in front of his feet heaved up into a great mound of dark earth, as though something had rammed it hard from below.
Crack! Crack!
Several pitch-black wooden stakes, covered in rings of strange patterns, forced their way out through cracks in the ground.
The moment the wood emerged, it rapidly twisted together.
In the blink of an eye, it became a wooden dummy roughly the same size and shape as Sen Senju.
The dummy had no features, only a smooth, blank face. A barbed short blade dangled from its hand, making it look rather unnerving.
"All right, I'll let this piece of wood give you some practice first."
Sen Senju yawned and casually pointed ahead.
"That bag of bones wanted my blood, didn't he?"
"Go ask this piece of wood where its veins are."
Hidan stamped his feet in fury, his eyes nearly bulging out of their sockets.
"You bastard! Don't try to fob me off with some lousy piece of wood!"
"Kakuzu! Cover me!"
Kakuzu's masks opened their mouths at the same time, and several potent streams of chakra instantly combined.
"Wind Release: Pressure Damage!" "Fire Release: Searing Migraine!"
The wind fed the flames, sending an enormous fireball laced with black smoke roaring straight at the wooden dummy with terrifying heat.
The temperature warped the surrounding air, and the dry grass left on the ground