The enormous mountain of flesh shrank in an instant, and Obito appeared before Minato once more.
But Obito had undergone yet another transformation since the start.
His hair was still white, but two horns, one large and one small, had sprouted from his forehead.
His once-vacant Rinnegan now shone with life.
Of the five spikes that had stood along his back, only two protrusions remained. In contrast, two more had appeared at the front, jutting out beneath his collarbones.
Below his collarbones, a row of tomoe lay neatly arranged like a necklace.
Farther down, his skin had grown into something like a cloak that covered his body, even fluttering like a real one.
He held a jet-black scepter in his right hand, while a ring of black Truth-Seeking Orbs floated behind him, forming a halo like that of a Buddha.
Minato darted forward and thrust the kunai in his hand straight at Obito.
But Obito suddenly opened his eyes, Minato's figure reflected in his Rinnegan.
The next instant, an arm flew high into the air.
Minato had activated the Flying Thunder God Technique just in time to escape. Still shaken, he clutched the stump of his right arm.
"That was close! Any closer, and that blow would have taken my head!"
"Minato, are you all right?"
Hiruzen Sarutobi asked anxiously. Ever observant, he noticed that Minato's severed arm showed no sign of regenerating.
They had reanimated bodies, after all. Even when Madara Uchiha had blasted them to dust with Tengai Shinsei, they could pull themselves back together and recover if given enough time.
Yet now, Minato's severed arm showed no sign of regenerating.
"I'm all right, but everyone needs to be careful. The black orbs and the black scepter Obito is wielding are very strange-even stranger than those original black