Thirty miles outside Konoha, the predawn wind carried a bone-piercing chill.
Yet the enormous sunken crater before them still radiated an astonishing heat wave. Their soles crackled against the glassy dark-red scorched earth. The air was thick with the pungent smell of gunpowder, mixed with the strange stench of evaporated formalin, stinging their eyes until they could barely keep them open.
Shimura Danzō stood at the edge of the crater, leaning on his cane.
His single eye stared fixedly at the smoking ruins below. The skin on the right half of his face twitched violently with extreme rage. Beneath the bandages wrapped around his right arm, the transplanted First-Generation Cells seemed to sense their host's agitation, sending waves of scorching pain through him.
"Lord Danzo..."
A Root ninja wearing a raccoon-dog mask knelt on one knee atop the searing ground, his voice trembling uncontrollably.
"Speak." Danzo's voice scraped like coarse sandpaper against iron, thick with killing intent.
"It's all gone." The Root ninja swallowed, lowering his head even further. "There are no signs that the thirty thousand Explosive Tag Formations around the perimeter were triggered. The load-bearing structures of the underground fortress were instantly vaporized by some incomprehensible force. The Special Soldier Provision Pills, Explosive Tags, and Chakra Metal stored here have all vanished."
Danzo drove his cane heavily into the scorched earth, smashing out a dent.
"What about the people?"
"The thirty elite Root ninja stationed here... we can't even find their bodies. They were likely directly vaporized by the explosion's heat. As for Homura Hyuga..." The Root ninja paused. "We found some scraps of flesh at the edge of the crater. Judging from the remaining clothing fibers, they belonged to him. The batch of 'materials' he was escorting has also disappeared."
Danzo said nothing.
He stepped forward, ignoring