The chakra beam was blindingly fast. Almost the instant the cannon's muzzle lit up, it had already crossed the distance between them.
Kokushibo's combat instinct saved him.
Just before the beam struck, he poured all his strength into his legs and forcibly twisted his body in a nearly self-destructive maneuver, narrowly evading the fatal attack.
BOOOOM-!!!
The beam skimmed past his body and slammed into the warped building behind him, erupting into a massive fireball. The terrifying shock wave of energy blasted everything around it away.
The aftershock sent Kokushibo staggering backward. The edge of the beam had grazed his left shoulder, leaving a horrific, charred wound that resisted regeneration.
He looked down at his wound, then up at the cold-faced man whose arm had transformed into a cannon barrel. An unprecedented sense of helplessness surged through him, mingled with humiliation and rage.
He felt like a country samurai entering a city for the first time and seeing the Westerners' muskets.
The pinnacle of swordsmanship he took such pride in seemed so laughable, so powerless before this "sorcery" he had never heard of or seen before.
First came a Sealing Jutsu that could create a celestial body, then an eerie ability that could devour slashes, and now a weapon that fired beams from his body...
These abilities had completely exceeded his understanding of "combat."
They defied reason and logic, yet were so powerful that they inspired despair.
Under the gaze of Sasuke's calm Rinnegan, which seemed to look down upon all living beings, Kokushibo's thoughts drifted uncontrollably back to the Sengoku Period, more than four hundred years ago.
He seemed to see that person again.
That man who shone like the sun, whom he could never reach no matter how desperately he chased after him.
His younger brother-Yoriichi Tsugikuni.
Yoriichi