That rift hung there, high above Konoha.
It made no sound, gave off no light, and exerted no pull.
It was like a badly drawn hole of absolute black, appearing with brazen disregard on a canvas of blue.
At first, the rag slipped from the hand of an attendant wiping tables at a roadside ramen shop.
Then, on the Ninja Academy playground, the children chasing and roughhousing with one another stopped in unison and tilted their faces upward.
Next came the entire village.
Women buying groceries, ninja on patrol, smiths at their forges, old men dozing in the sun... everyone seemed to have been paused, frozen in the posture of the previous second, staring blankly at that "scar in the sky" that overturned everything they had ever known.
Fear did not descend immediately.
The sight had already passed beyond anything "fear" could comprehend.
It was more like... an "error."
A world-scale, unfixable software bug had appeared before everyone's eyes.
Then the first "ship" slid out of that black hole.
It was a pure-white starship, shaped like some creation of bone.
Silently, it entered like a drop of ink falling into clear water.
Right behind it came the second, then the third...
It was not a fleet, nor was it a torrent.
It was more like a silent, grand funeral descending from the heavens.
One after another, the white starships emerged from the rift in grim ranks, blocking the sunlight and shrouding all of Konoha in a cold, deathly still shadow.
There were too many.
So many that the very concept of "numbers" seemed pale and powerless.
They simply lined up silently in the sky, like an inverted white forest made of death.
That indescribable, pure "malice" pressed down on the earth as though it had physical weight.
The air filled