Deep beneath Rōran lay a top-secret laboratory that even most of its senior officials knew nothing about.
This place was utterly unlike the gleaming, technological splendor of Rōran City. Its walls were cold special alloy with a metallic sheen, indicator lights flashed on instruments so complex they were dizzying, and unknown liquids flowed through pipes. The air carried the smells of disinfectant, ozone, and a faint, almost imperceptible trace of... energy decay.
At the very center of the laboratory, Momoshiki Otsutsuki was confined within an enormous cylindrical container formed from a transparent, high-strength energy barrier.
By now, he had long since lost the arrogance and grandeur he had displayed upon descending on Iwagakure. His tattered Japanese-style noble attire had been replaced with a featureless white restraint suit, while the dark purple thunder shackles still clasped his wrists and ankles.
Those were the seals Sōkyū Hatake had personally applied. Now connected to external instruments through several conduits flashing with runes, they monitored and suppressed every fluctuation of energy within his body in real time.
Momoshiki Otsutsuki was held suspended in the center of the container, several soft beams of energy restraining his limbs and torso. Outside the container, probes, scanning rays, and energy detectors were trained on him from every angle, collecting data without interruption.
"Release me! You vile, inferior creatures! How dare you treat a noble Otsutsuki like this!" Momoshiki Otsutsuki struggled futilely, though he knew it was pointless.
Momoshiki Otsutsuki's voice came through the container's sound transmission system, filled with irrepressible rage and humiliation, but even more with bluster masking weakness. "When the other members of my clan arrive, you will pay the most agonizing price! Your planet will be completely cleansed! You..."
His threats stopped short.
Outside the container, two figures were huddled over a console, turning deaf