The entire forest clearing was so deathly silent that they could hear their own hearts beating.
The half-eaten apple in Naruto's hand fell to the ground, rolled twice, and became covered in dirt.
His mouth hung open, his dumbfounded expression making him look as though someone had clubbed him over the head.
Sasuke was no better off.
Both his legs were trembling. Even the tomoe in his newly awakened two-tomoe Sharingan seemed to have forgotten how to spin.
One slap.
That terrifying "woman," who had left him unable to summon even the will to resist, had been smashed into a tree like a baseball?
What the fuck...
Sasuke felt his entire worldview, along with the pride of the Uchiha Clan, shatter into pieces at that moment.
Inside the pavilion.
Sen shook out his slightly numb right hand and curled his lip in disgust.
"Tch. Talk about a thick skin. Made my hand hurt."
He turned to Sasuke, who was still frozen in place, and raised an eyebrow.
"Hey, Uchiha kid. Legs gone weak?"
Sasuke shuddered and abruptly snapped out of his daze.
He stared at Sen, his lips moving and his Adam's apple bobbing, but he couldn't get a single word out.
"All right, stop standing there like a wooden post."
Sen waved impatiently.
"Get the hell out of the way. Don't interfere while I take out the trash."
With that, he ignored Sasuke's expression, which looked as though he had seen a ghost, and walked straight toward the tree with the human-shaped hole smashed into it.
He knew an unkillable cockroach like Orochimaru couldn't possibly be slapped to death so easily.
The real show had only just begun.
Just then.
"Crack... crack..."
A spine-chilling sound of twisting bones came from the pitch-black hole in the tree.
"Heh heh... heh