The crater the impact created was deep and total, a violent bowl gouged from the earth of Minato's street, the shockwave radiating outward in a ring that flattened everything still standing within thirty meters and sent dust and debris boiling skyward in a column visible from the far end of the town.
Then silence.
The curses faded slowly, the hollow faces dissolving back into the dark from which they had come, one by one, until there was nothing left of them but the faint impression they left on the air, the way a nightmare leaves its residue on waking. The red glow at Morosuke's chest flickered once more and went out entirely. The necklace lay still against the ruin of what had been his body.
Nathan was there, Kyomei at his side, his hair hanging loose and dark around his face, blood on his jaw and his arms and his chest. The gold had begun to recede from his eyes, the vertical slits softening back toward the disguised cold black that lived there ordinarily.
