"...Kukuku, destroying our laboratory to this extent certainly deserves praise." Mayuri Kurotsuchi rubbed his hands together, his eyes gleaming with excitement behind his goggles. "But did you think this was over?"
Orochimaru narrowed his golden snake eyes slightly. "Lord Ōtsutsuki Isshiki, you are indeed powerful. But you have overlooked one thing..."
He paused, the smile on his lips growing stranger.
"You have been fighting here for so long. Do you think... Lord Sōkyū Hatake would simply keep watching?"
Ōtsutsuki Isshiki's heart sank.
He instinctively looked up! His gaze turned toward the laboratory ceiling.
In the shadows high above, a mass of intensely blazing energy, like the sun itself, was silently watching this place.
He could not see the man's figure, but he could sense him.
Sōkyū Hatake.
He had been there all along.
From the moment Ōtsutsuki Isshiki stepped into the laboratory, he had been there.
Watching.
Waiting.
"Ōtsutsuki Isshiki." A calm voice, devoid of emotion, came from the shadows above. "Your performance... was splendid."
"I have seen enough."
"Now, it is time to end this."
The laboratory's blood-red alarm lights spun wildly, shrill buzzing echoing through the space. The Electromagnetic Barrier continued to weaken, and the air reeked of scorching and ionization from the energy overload.
Ōtsutsuki Isshiki stood before the ruined transformer area, his body charred, his clothes torn, a trace of blood at the corner of his mouth. Yet his eyes shone with terrifying intensity! Within those black eyes, violet light pulsed as though tangible, carrying an exhilaration suppressed for a thousand years and finally unleashed.
He raised his head.
In the shadows of the ceiling, a figure slowly emerged.
Sōkyū Hatake.
At some unknown point, he had taken his place there, as though he had been there from the beginning. He wore no combat uniform, only