Hiss!!
Reflected in Suikazan Fuguki's horrified pupils, Nagato's fatal, penetrating wounds began to heal as threadlike streams of blood wound around them, flesh squirming back together at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Within four or five seconds, his muscles twisted and knotted, leaving not a trace of injury.
Only the blood still lingering on his skin proved that the fatal wounds he had suffered moments ago were not Suikazan Fuguki's hallucination.
"..."
Suikazan Fuguki's expression froze, and even his sharp teeth trembled slightly.
A demon? An evil spirit?
What kind of terrifying recovery ability was this?
What sort of monster had he run into?!
"Run! I have to run!"
Suikazan Fuguki's pupils contracted as the urge to flee instantly surged up.
He had come to earn merit, not to die for the Mizukage.
He could not die here so inexplicably!
But the moment he shifted his feet—
"I said," Nagato said coldly, "where else do you think you can run?"
In an instant, Suikazan Fuguki heard a piercing whistling through the air.
Almost on instinct, he raised Samehada in front of himself.
In his trembling eyes, four crimson thorns shot toward him.
"Hiss!!"
With the chilling squelch of flesh being pierced, the first to cry out was not Suikazan Fuguki, but Samehada, which he had raised before him and which was pierced clean through.
Samehada, which had always injured others with the barbs covering its body, was actually torn apart by the twisted, hideous thorns.
Its metal-hard barbs were as fragile as melting ice beneath the blade-sharp serrations of the thorns.
"Hisssaaah!!"
Samehada opened its mouth wide and shrieked frantically as it struggled, like fish meat pinned to a chopping board.
"Samehada?"
Suikazan Fuguki stared at the scene in disbelief.
The next moment, he spat out a mouthful