The dust slowly dispersed.
Ash-gray smoke drifted down from the sky like snowflakes, settling on the sea split apart by golden light, on the surging spray, and on the rubble of the shattered island.
The Ten-Tails' body began to split open from the center.
At first, there was only a hair-thin crack. Then it slowly widened, as though invisible hands were tearing it apart from within.
Ash-gray fluid poured from the fissure, thick and cold, carrying a pungent stench as it slowly flowed down the Ten-Tails' rough hide and dripped into the sea, dyeing the surrounding waters a murky grayish white.
The crack grew wider and wider. The Ten-Tails' body slowly separated to either side from the middle, like a giant egg split open, exposing the hollow chamber within.
Uchiha Obito stood on a reef in the distance, his lone eye beneath the mask staring blankly at the scene before him.
That enormous body, bearing the hope of the Infinite Tsukuyomi, was now slowly splitting apart, collapsing, and toppling before his eyes.
His lips trembled slightly, and his dry, hollow voice sounded like a whisper forced from the depths of his throat:
"Why... why has even the Ten-Tails been defeated...?"
His body swayed faintly. One hand braced against the reef beside him, his fingertips digging into the cracks in the stone until his knuckles turned white.
Meanwhile, Uchiha Madara stood atop the crumbling head of the Ten-Tails, with no hint of dejection on his face.
His eyes narrowed slightly, and a faint curve touched his lips. In that brief instant, before its will collapsed, the Ten-Tails had conveyed one final message to him:
Absorb it.
Madara opened his mind.
The Ten-Tails' body began to contract. Its mountain-sized form collapsed inward from the edges, as though kneaded and compressed by an