"I've been waiting a long time for you."
Jigen's lips curved in the moonlight, but that smile no longer belonged to him. White markings spread from his eye sockets to his forehead and cheeks, as though another skeleton beneath his skin were pushing its way out.
"A long time?" The voice squeezed out of Jigen's throat sounded as ancient as stone grinding against stone. "How many years have you existed? Seventeen? To speak of a long time in my presence is rather arrogant."
"Not a long time chronologically." Shengu Xuan pulled his hands from his pockets, interlaced his fingers, and flexed his joints with faint clicks. "A long time emotionally. You know, like finally getting a package you've been waiting three months for."
Jigen's body twitched again. The white markings continued to spread, his black hair began fading to grayish white, and a bony ridge rose in the center of his forehead.
"You're comparing me to a package."
"What else?" Shengu Xuan tilted his head as he watched the body being taken over before him. Golden ripples turned slowly in his chaos-colored eyes, as though he were admiring a gift being unwrapped. "Momoshiki was the appetizer. You're the main course. Of course I'm impatient."
Jigen's golden vertical pupils were completely covered in white. His pupils changed from vertical slits into concentric rings, and the contours of his entire face blurred for an instant beneath the moonlight before solidifying again. But the proportions of his features had changed subtly: higher cheekbones, deeper eye sockets, and lips whose curve had vanished entirely.
Ōtsutsuki Isshiki gazed at Shengu Xuan through Jigen's body. There was no trace of emotion in his white Rinnegan, like two lifeless beads set into a mask.
"The main course." Isshiki's voice had completely replaced Jigen's, every syllable carrying a