Hokage Building, top-floor office.
The heavy curtains filtered out most of the afternoon sunlight's strength, leaving only a few dim yellow shafts slanting across the polished floor, dividing the room into alternating patches of light and shadow.
The air carried the mingled scents of old case files, ink, and fine timber, along with a silent oppression that had almost become tangible.
Tobirama Senju sat behind the broad desk with his back to the window, his face hidden in shadow. Only his hawklike eyes glinted coldly in the gloom, like a beast lurking in the dark.
He was not handling documents as usual. His hands rested together on the desk, his fingertips tapping its glossy surface intermittently, producing faint tap, tap sounds with a rhythm regular enough to make the heart tighten.
The office door opened soundlessly.
Toyotomi Yinglang entered with steady steps and a calm expression, his dark gray clan robes immaculate. Half a step behind him followed Toyotomi Liuli.
In a rare departure, she wore a practical dark purple outfit that day, with a haori of the same color over it. A simple wooden hairpin held her long hair neatly up, exposing her smooth forehead and those eyes... which now shone with a faint scarlet light, eerie blade formations revolving slowly within their pupils.
Mangekyō Sharingan, activated!
There was not the slightest concealment, not a hint of preamble.
Just like that, calmly, even with a trace of indifference, she displayed those eyes-which represented the Uchiha's supreme power and symbolized endless ill omen and taboo-in the Hokage Office, before Tobirama Senju.
Even the air seemed to freeze for an instant at the appearance of those eyes.
The breathing of the Anbu stationed in the shadowed corners of the office faltered almost imperceptibly. Their bodies tensed instinctively, their hands already resting