Then the red-haired figure charged straight into that purple demon god.
Gripping his sword in both hands, he slashed down!
The ice-blue patterns on the blade blazed to full brightness, dazzling to behold.
The next instant, the blade collided violently with that churning sea of purple blood.
A belated roar tore through the ravine's long, deathly silence!
Ice-blue light exploded outward from where the two blades met, as though someone had overturned an entire bucket of ink overhead, drenching the whole ravine in radiance!
The stream surged backward into the sky, exposing great stretches of riverbed, the wet mud turning black as it churned.
Withered yellow grass on both banks was ripped out by the roots and pulverized before it could fall. Cracked old trees shook off their dead skin, flakes of bark clattering to the ground.
At the edge of the battlefield, Naruto and the others were driven back by the shock wave, arms raised before their eyes, nothing but blinding white light visible between their fingers.
Through his perception, the world slowed until it seemed almost frozen.
Hayashi saw everything clearly.
The purple demon god enveloped the Kubikiribōchō, every slash burning through life itself, moving so fast it left afterimages-yet in his eyes, it was all a sequence of pictures laid out frame by frame.
He met those flashing blades without giving an inch, pressing forward all the way!
One final clash.
The ice-blue blade struck the flat of the Kubikiribōchō dead-on!
Cracks burst from the point of impact, spreading densely across the entire blade, a string of sharp snaps ringing out as its edge chipped!
The bulging veins in Zabuza's arms ruptured one after another. The purplish-black demon god chakra surrounding him collapsed like flames in a stove suddenly stripped of firewood!
"Break-apart!!"
Hayashi lowered his