Watching Miki Yūya and Konohamaru flee, Sasuke and Suigetsu exchanged looks, then could only turn their eyes to Karin.
"Why are you all looking at me?"
"Disgusting woman!"
"What an idiot!"
Sasuke and Suigetsu gritted their teeth. Sasuke at least had some history with Miki Yūya. Not much, but enough that they could have worked together. Then that idiot Karin had ruined everything.
The three could only look over the battlefield. It was worse than they had imagined, with destruction spread over far too wide an area.
The ground had collapsed, rocks had been overturned, and the trees were reduced to charred stumps. The air reeked of acrid smoke and dust.
Thin wisps of smoke still rose from the edges of several enormous craters, as though an invisible behemoth had just stomped through and casually crushed everything in its path.
This was combat power on the level of a tailed beast.
Sasuke stood before the ruins, scanning his surroundings with his Sharingan as his brow gradually furrowed.
Suigetsu whistled, his voice lacking its usual flippancy for once.
"This place... did that guy really do all this with nothing but taijutsu?"
No one answered him.
The answer was too obvious.
These were not the traces of an ordinary battle.
Sasuke crouched and brushed his fingertips over a rock face that had been punched through.
There were no scorch marks from ninjutsu on its surface, nor any lingering fluctuations of chakra. Instead, it looked as though some purer, heavier force had smashed it apart.
"It was pure taijutsu. Yūya has always measured his taijutsu against tailed beasts.
He aims for attacks that cover a wider area. They might not hit quite as hard, but this kind of range is normal for him."
Suigetsu surveyed the devastation, feeling nothing but dread, then finally