Uchiha Makoto shrugged at the corpse on the ground.
"After all, my goal is to surpass the Ōtsutsuki, the pinnacle of power in this world, and become a true... 'god.' Your research skills might still be useful, Sensei."
The battle was over. It was time to wrap things up.
As A Mu released her ninjutsu, the vast White Bone Forest seemed to lose its support. It rapidly turned ashen and brittle before crumbling into drifting bone dust. The night wind swept it away without a trace, leaving only devastation behind.
Uchiha Makoto boarded Moyu again with his three masterpieces.
"Back to Konoha. Be careful. Don't let anyone spot us," he instructed.
Moyu beat his wings, carrying the four of them into the depths of the night sky and flying toward Konoha.
Silence returned to the valley. Only the scorched ground and the faint traces of chakra and blood lingering in the air testified to the harrowing fight to the death that had just taken place there between several Kage-level combatants.
About half a day later.
A man in a black robe appeared silently in the ruined valley.
His expression calm and his movements practiced, he took out several specially made Sealing Containers and carefully collected the scattered scraps of Orochimaru's clothing, along with some almost imperceptible fragments of charred snake tissue.
Once he had finished collecting them, he raised his head and gazed toward Konoha with a complicated look in his eyes.
Then he formed a seal with one hand.
Poof!
A cloud of white smoke flashed past, and the black-robed man vanished as though he had never been there.
The valley fell completely silent again. Only the night wind moaned, as though playing an unheard dirge for one of the once-mighty Sannin.
The wounds of war needed time to