Boom...!!
Kirin's lightning roared down, threatening to swallow everything!
Madara was wedged in the dent in the statue's forehead. By all rights, neither he nor the statue should have escaped!!
Crackle...!!
Yet... Susanoo's palm spread open above the statue's head, and before that skeletal palm stood the Preta Path's Sealing Barrier!!
"Sasuke... you thought this sort of Lightning Release could destroy my statue? You really don't take me seriously, do you?"
Sizzle...!!
Kirin's lightning... rapidly poured into the Sealing Barrier.
"So that was the end of your warm-up, was it?"
Black Curse Mist streamed out through the gaps between Madara's body and the dent in the statue, forming a dark cloud overhead!!
At the same time... the markings of Sage Mode actually appeared around his eyes!!
At the foot of Hashirama's Pillar statue... Sasuke frowned slightly as he watched the dark cloud of Curse Mist gather ominously.
But what surprised him even more was the way Madara... had entered Sage Mode.
He hadn't activated his Nine-Tails chakra, nor had he left any shadow clones in reserve... According to the intelligence, he seemed capable of rapidly absorbing senjutsu chakra through that Curse Mist, but only... when the mist surrounded his body. Now he had released all of it overhead to form that cloud, so how had he entered Sage Mode so quickly?
His gaze shifted slightly downward, settling on Madara Uchiha's motionless statue. An absurd possibility suddenly flashed through Sasuke's mind!!
"Surely... he couldn't?"
"Hahahahahahahahaha...!!"
Just then, Madara's wildly jubilant laughter echoed through the sky!!
He reached both hands out of the dent in the statue's forehead and formed hand Seals... Beneath the dark cloud of Curse Mist overhead, branches of purple lightning sprouted amid sharp crackling. Like wildly growing seaweed, they spread downward, avoiding Hashirama's and Madara's Pillar statues while