The bamboo raft speeding away behind him...
Footprints on the ground concealed beneath shattered leaves...
Bloodstains on withered leaves...
A suddenly opening grassland...
A vast, boundless primeval forest...
Atop a giant tree, a kunai flying straight at him before he could react, and the hem of black clothing...
Scene after scene from high-speed movement flashed through Chiba's astonished mind, finally freezing on that sliver of black cloth and the kunai expanding endlessly before his eyes, before slowly fading away.
Those memories, like a revolving lantern, came to a halt.
"Haa..."
Then, Chiba, who had unknowingly been holding his breath, remained frozen in shock as he let out a breath after the memories stopped.
This was...
After that, his eyes gradually widened, and the astonishment on his face slowly transformed into realization along with the change in his expression.
Someone's trail!
Those footprints hidden beneath the broken leaves, and the bloodstains beside them, also concealed...
Could it really be such a coincidence? At the same time, this thought surfaced in his heart as he recalled what he had seen when he bent down and brushed aside those suspicious leaves in the sudden, revolving-lantern-like memories.
Could the traces found by my shadow clone, the shadow clone that returned along the original route, belong to the enemy who kidnapped Hirohiko and Yukina?
Footprints and bloodstains...
According to Rin's account, that enemy had also left behind bloodstains and footprints.
But according to the memories sent back when the shadow clone was dispelled, my shadow clone should have taken a route completely opposite to that enemy's.
How could that be...
As the situation surfaced in his mind, another layer of doubt clouded Chiba's heart.
But those traces were obviously fresh. When I searched all the way here earlier, there were clearly no such footprints in