The moment the dark shape crashed down, all of Sunagakure shook.
Boom-
It wasn't an explosion. It was a landslide.
The ground trembled, houses swayed, and even the sand bounced from the shock.
Everyone instinctively looked up, then froze.
What had fallen from the sky wasn't a meteorite.
It was a person.
As massive as a small mountain, with horns on its head and a scroll clenched in its mouth, its entire body radiated deathly still chakra.
Boom-
A second thunderous crash.
It landed three li outside the village, gouging an enormous crater into the ground. The shock wave toppled half a street's worth of houses.
Shuo stood at the window of the Kazekage Tower, looking in that direction.
Lightspeed Thinking ran at full capacity.
That thing's chakra shared Pain's origin, but it wasn't the same person-as though he had been split into several parts.
"What is that?" Gaara rushed to the window, his face pale.
"Pain," Shuo said mildly. "One of them."
One of them?
Before Gaara could process that, the sky darkened again.
A second colossal beast fell, crashing down to the east of the village.
A third, to the west.
A fourth, to the south.
Four enormous creatures hemmed Sunagakure in, each dozens of meters tall, their chakra pressing down so heavily that people could barely breathe.
The sand around Gaara automatically drew taut, shielding him.
"How... how do we fight this?"
Shuo said nothing.
On a distant dune, that orange-haired figure approached step by step, treading through the sand at an unhurried pace, as though taking a stroll.
"Stay here." Shuo turned and headed downstairs.
Gaara was about to follow when Shuo spoke without looking back.
"Don't move. If you do, you'll make things more troublesome."
The streets had descended into complete chaos.
Civilians ran crying,