"Pitter-patter-"
The ink-black flames of Amaterasu still burned fiercely in the relentless rain. Even the ruined walls on the surface had melted, leaving the ground riddled with holes that exposed the black-and-yellow soil beneath.
The black flames that burned everything they touched were terrifying. If they spread, even the remaining half of Sapporo City might not survive.
Orochimaru first looked at the unbroken expanse of black flames, like the fires of Hell, then at the imposing Susanoo. Finally, with the terrifying gaze of a venomous snake watching birds in their nest, he looked at Uchiha Itachi's Mangekyō Sharingan and involuntarily extended his tongue to lick his own left eye.
"So this is the power of the Mangekyō Sharingan! Wonderful!"
Uchiha Itachi paid no attention to Orochimaru's spine-chilling gaze.
He simply extended one hand and pointed ahead. Where Yamata no Orochi had been reduced to ashes, a fist-sized, blue-green jewel rose from the surging black flames, its precious light shimmering.
The jewel seemed able to ward off fire. The black flames could melt metal and stone, easily burning through even reinforced concrete, yet they could not harm it in the slightest.
"The Dragon's Neck Jewel. It's one of the five treasures mentioned in The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter."
The keywords and the scene triggered the Superintendent General's memory, and he frowned.
"But why would Yamata no Orochi have the Dragon's Neck Jewel?"
"The Dragon's Neck Jewel is a dragon pearl hidden in a dragon's mouth or beneath its chin. As the Zhuangzi says, 'A pearl worth a thousand pieces of gold must lie in the ninefold depths, beneath the chin of a black dragon.'"
Professor Nagayama, with his extensive knowledge and remarkable memory, pushed up his glasses and cited the classics.
"In East Asian culture, dragons and snakes have always