Falling Beauty
Destruction often comes in an instant, faster than any reaction or endurance.
The carriage, lavishly luxurious yet essentially a delicate cage, was exposed to its fragility under the head-on impact of the violent water-based ninjutsu. The sturdy wooden frame groaned with a tooth-grinding creak, followed by a resounding, crisp snap. The ornate satin curtains, like fragile butterfly wings, were torn into countless fragments by an invisible force. A medley of sawdust, jeweled ornaments, and lining and padding exploded in the dim light of the canyon like a desolate and hopeless firework display! The roar of the crashing water and the clatter of the crumbling structure combined to create a brief but deafening symphony of destruction.
For Uchiha Aoi, trapped in the sedan, all this happened faster than her nerves could transmit pain. She felt an overwhelming force, like a mountain slamming sideways at high speed! In that instant, all her senses were momentarily blanked. The violent concussions made her internal organs seem dislocated and crushed together. Sharp pain and a suffocating sensation surged over her like a belated tide, drowning her consciousness. Everything in her field of vision began to spin and distort wildly, colors blending into a blur. A sharp buzzing sound filled her ears, drowning out all external sounds.
The feeling of weightlessness, like a cold ghostly hand, suddenly grasped her heart, dragging her into a void where she could not find her way. She felt light and floating, like a torn petal torn from a branch by a raging wind, or a bird pierced by a well-aimed arrow. All her struggles were in vain, and she could only yield to gravity, falling powerlessly towards the bottomless, dark abyss below.
The intricately layered white wedding gown no longer served as a symbol of glory, but rather as a heavy burden. It fluttered wildly in the swiftly descending wind, its wide sleeves and sweeping skirt rustling like flowers that bloomed in despair and then quickly withered. The heavy crown, a symbol of status and bondage, had long since flown away in the tumbling procession, perhaps plunging into deeper darkness or shattering against the rock face. Her cascading black hair, unrestrained, flew freely in the air currents, tangling her pale, blood-stained cheeks.
Absolute fear, like the coldest ice, instantly soaked through her bones, every cell screaming an alarm. She wanted to scream, to release all the fear and despair pent up in her chest, but her throat felt like an invisible hand was strangling her. She could only squeeze out a few faint, broken breaths, barely audible even to herself, before they were instantly shredded and swallowed by the whistling wind. Her pupils, dilated to the utmost with indescribable terror, reflected in their pitch-black eyes the rapidly receding, shrinking edge of the cliff above her—there, still, the flickering light of ninjutsu, the blurry movements of figures, and the relentless roar of battle, as if from another world. It all seemed so distant and unreal.
Her eyes swept across the chaotic light and shadow in despair, and she vaguely saw the astonishment and confusion that flashed across the face of the Thousand-armed ninja who performed water escape; she saw Uncle Uchiha Shingen's eyes bloodshot, trying to break through the obstruction but being entangled by someone, his figure full of endless despair and anger; she also saw... the silver-haired Senju Tobirama.
He still stood at the very edge of the cliff, maintaining that unfinished seal imbued with destructive energy, motionless like a sculpture that had suddenly lost its soul. Too far away, too fast to see the expression on his face. She could only catch a blurry, rigid outline, as if drained of all life, coldly imprinted on the rapidly shrinking horizon.
Did he...finally choose to take action? To put an end to everything once and for all in this way?
This thought, which was like the final judgment, was like an icy steel needle that penetrated her bones. It carried with it endless bitterness and a sense of resignation, and it accurately pierced through her remaining, shaky barrier of consciousness.
Then, boundless darkness surged up from below, the cold, steamy air cutting her skin like a knife. The dull, relentless roar of the river below grew clearer and closer, like a leviathan from the abyss, its maw gaping open to devour everything. The shadow of death, more tangible than ever before, enveloped her like a thick, clammy shroud, layer upon layer, dragging her toward eternal silence.
Atop the cliff, Uchiha Aoi's faint, sigh-like cry was completely drowned out by the roars erupting from the fierce battle above, the roar of ninjutsu clashing, and the screams of the dying. Aside from a few who happened to be facing the cliff face and caught a glimpse of the scene, the majority of the ninja still fighting for their lives were unaware that the original target of the raid had already fallen into the abyss of fate like a kite with a broken string.
However, for Senju Tobirama, the cry that was so faint that it was almost non-existent, and the figure that was falling rapidly in his field of vision, leaving a dazzling white trail against the gray background, were like a red-hot, infinitely magnified iron, which burned his retina fiercely and accurately with unimaginable impact force, and instantly penetrated his optic nerves, and with a brutal attitude, deeply branded into the deepest part of his soul!
At that moment, his brain seemed to be completely formatted by an absolute force.
All the meticulously executed strategic calculations, all the unquestionable family missions, all the weighing of interests concerning Qianshou's future, all the cold and resolute murderous intent that had just been rebuilt... even his pride in his rational thinking ability, which was as precise as a precision instrument... All of this, at this moment, was completely washed away by the white figure that fell resolutely into the endless darkness with a force that crushed everything in its path!
All that was left was an endless, buzzing, terrifying void of absolute emptiness.
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