My body had no strength...
I couldn't breathe...
It hurt. My whole body hurt... Was I... going to die?
The lake water swallowed Nagato's body. His body displaced the water as he sank, falling continuously downward.
His consciousness gradually blurred. His eyelids twitched upward twice, but he no longer seemed to have the strength to open them.
Uncontrollably, scenes from the past began replaying in his mind, one after another like a slideshow.
Time became so slow, so unbearably slow.
"Oh? It's canned food."
"What it is doesn't matter. We're about to starve to death, so why care? Eat it."
"Let's search elsewhere later. Maybe we can find more food."
Hurried voices from two shinobi in the living room outside reached him. He instinctively opened his eyes and saw two familiar faces.
Dad and Mom.
"Run while you can."
Nagato followed behind his father and mother, trembling as they headed for the back door. It felt as though his family's hope of escape lay right before them, only a few meters away.
Yet those few short meters now felt like opposite shores, forcing them apart.
"Bzz~"
His elbow seemed to have bumped into something...
A gray-blue ceramic jar trembled and fell from the table. Nagato, witnessing it all, went blank.
It's over. They'll find us. Will we die? We're going to die, aren't we...
Those thoughts swirled through Nagato's mind.
"Crash!"
The sound of the jar shattering instantly filled the parents walking ahead of Nagato and beside him with terror.
The two shinobi outside immediately stopped what they were doing, gripped their kunai, and rushed into the room.
"Who's there?!"
Without hesitation, his father stepped forward and grabbed one man's wrist, then turned back and shouted.
"Run, now!"
"Nagato, run!"
His mother shielded Nagato behind her, trying to buy