The pitch-black chaos behind Tenshiki seemed to come alive, churning and spinning violently.
Illusory projections of stars emerged one after another within that chaos, only to burst like bubbles and vanish.
With every shattered star, an indescribable aura of sorrow and destruction seeped into Tenshiki's body.
His golden Rinnegan had turned completely black, like the abyss of the cosmos. Only a speck of gold remained at their centers, giving off its final light and heat like a dying star.
"Can you feel it? This is the Cosmic Sigh, the lament of all things before they return to 'nothingness.'"
Tenshiki's voice no longer held its earlier calm, tinged with curiosity. Instead, it was filled with a godlike indifference and... pity.
It was as though he were the executor of the universe's will, carrying out an inevitable, grand funeral.
"All flash. Pretty impressive special effects, though."
Shinichi curled his lip and slipped his hands back into the pockets of his lounge clothes, but the faint purple-gold radiance around him quietly grew more solid.
He could feel that the power Tenshiki now radiated had surpassed mere chakra. It was more like... an invocation of the underlying laws.
"Then savor this 'sigh.'"
Tenshiki slowly raised one hand and pointed lightly at Shinichi.
There was no earth-shattering eruption of energy, no space-rending devastation.
Yet Shinichi felt as though an invisible hand had seized his soul and was about to wrench it straight out of his body!
It wasn't just his soul. His chakra, his vitality, even his perception of time and space grew sluggish and hazy at that instant, as though some higher-order power were about to assimilate and dissolve them.
"An attack based on laws? Interesting."
The corners of Shinichi's mouth lifted slightly. Within his half-lidded, dead-fish eyes, the patterns of reincarnation and rebirth