Superman's knees slowly buckled. The burns on his forearms still gave off black smoke, and dark red blood seeped through tears in his suit, dripping onto the scorched earth with a faint hiss.
Shock and anger churned in his blue eyes, along with the emptiness left by a belief utterly shattered. His lips parted as if he wanted to speak, but only a broken, indistinct breath escaped his throat.
The Batwing hovered overhead, its blue-white thruster flames flickering in the morning light. In the cockpit, Batman stared motionlessly toward the place where Minato Namikaze had vanished, his mouth pressed into a tight line beneath his mask.
He said nothing. He gave no order to pursue.
Because he knew they could not catch him.
Wonder Woman struggled out of the ruined shop. Broken glass had slashed several tears in the skirt of her golden armor, and most of her silver bracers had shattered, exposing forearms mottled with bruises.
She steadied herself against a broken wall, her pale blue eyes fixed on the ruins where Minato Namikaze had disappeared. Her jaw clenched so hard it stood out in a sharp ridge, and a series of tiny cracks came from her fists.
She slammed a fist into the broken wall beside her. Chips of brick and stone burst free and clattered onto the rubble at her feet.
"Minato! Namikaze!"
She forced the name through her teeth, syllable by syllable, each one burning with fury from deep in her chest.
On Sendai City's western horizon, the dark green arc had vanished completely. Only the crushed towns and blackened earth along its path remained, silent proof of where Doomsday had gone.
At the edge of the battlefield, on the roof of an office building that had yet to collapse, a white-clad figure still knelt in