Shinobi World No. 1, autumn of Konoha Year 43.
At the edge of the battlefield lay a clearing half surrounded by a Wood Release forest.
Nagato stood on the metal giant's shoulder, his Mangekyō Sharingan slowly rotating as he watched the direction Jiraiya and Tsunade had left in. He did not pursue them. Jiraiya had once been his teacher, and Tsunade was Jiraiya's companion-he did not want to kill them, at least not now.
The metal giant began to disintegrate. The pieces of metal forcibly fused together-iron pots, kunai, shuriken, and iron ore-clattered to the ground like building blocks that had lost their support. Nagato leaped from the giant's shoulder and landed on a relatively flat patch of ground. He still held those two pitch-black rods in his hands.
"That took quite a toll."
Muttering to himself, he took a dark purple Soul Yin Stone from inside his clothes and held it in his palm. Pure spiritual energy flowed from the stone, slowly replenishing his depleted eye power.
Just then, he sensed it-an extremely faint fluctuation of chakra that nevertheless sent a chill down his spine. No, not chakra. Evil power. Evil power deeper, colder, and more... despairing than the Apostle of Pain's.
Nagato's pupils contracted slightly, and he whipped his head around.
On the other side of the battlefield, mere dozens of meters from Tsunade and Jiraiya, a dark purple figure emerged soundlessly from underground.
It was a man wearing dark purple priestly robes, his face covered by a white mask without features. There were no cracks anywhere on the mask-it was smooth as a mirror, like a blank gravestone that had yet to be inscribed. His frame was thin, his movements light, and every step soundless, as though he were gliding rather than walking.
The Apostle of Despair.