Orochimaru had no time to marvel over Sasuke's new dōjutsu, because Minato's soul urgently needed his attention...
Recovering from his shock, Obito dove from the sky and swung the ringed tin staff in his hand at the crown of Minato's head!
Minato found the sensation of having his soul split in two strange. He felt no pain and no sign of impending death... he simply could not manipulate chakra as freely as he could when whole.
As a soul, he was also unbound by "gravity"... so there was truly nothing he could do about the tin staff descending on his head!
Orochimaru formed hand seals, his long black hair rising behind him.
A deity manifested at his back.
This deity was very strange.
One half was the former Shinigami, and the other was Ikukishin, born of its reversal. Its expression, too, was half savage and half merciful.
"Sasuke-kun!"
Sasuke understood immediately. The Rinnegan in his right eye narrowed slightly, and space opened into a square, pitch-black "door" to the Shinigami's left. The Shinigami raised its left arm, hung with prayer beads and covered in curse inscriptions, and reached inside...
Then... an identical door opened before Minato's soul. That ghastly claw reached out, lunging straight for Obito's face!
"That's... the Shinigami?!" Instinctive apprehension made Obito hesitate for an instant... but when he thought of the consequences of Sasuke obtaining the Ten-Tails' power, he steeled himself and swung his Truth-Seeking Orb staff at it!
"Oh?" Orochimaru's eyes flickered. "Now that is unexpected..."
Splurch! The moment the Truth-Seeking Orb staff touched the Shinigami's arm...
In theory, only Six Paths power and senjutsu power could withstand an attack from a Truth-Seeking Orb...
Unfortunately, strong as Orochimaru was, he had never managed to synchronize senjutsu power with the Shinigami.
Yet the Shinigami's arm, hovering somewhere