Kirigakure.
The Three-Tails' enormous body had been sliced clean in half, like a matcha pudding.
The Kirigakure shinobi hiding nearby and spies from other villages all darted out of the way. Their eyes were already filled with shock.
Dead!
The Fourth Mizukage of the Land of Water. The Perfect Jinchuriki. The creator of the Village of the Bloody Mist...
Karatachi Yagura was dead!
It hadn't been a sneak attack or a surprise assassination. And as for being outnumbered... Yagura, Pain, and the Masked Man had been the ones ganging up on Lin Qing.
Not only had they failed, but Yagura had been cut in two and killed in a single stroke. Wasn't that exactly... exactly...
No different from a softshell turtle getting chopped in half with one blow in a kitchen?!
And when they thought of the Tailed Beast Bomb, Fire Style, and ninjutsu missiles that had vanished into thin air earlier...
The spectators quietly swallowed.
The mist over Kirigakure had clearly been scattered by Lin Qing's slash, so why... could they see less and understand even less than before?
Rumble—
The body formed from Isobu's chakra gradually dissipated. Dust still filled the air, but not a single wisp could reach Lin Qing. The qi, formed by the fusion of Natural Energy and the Ripple, connected Lin Qing to the world.
At that moment, Lin Qing could sense the world breathing.
Qi was like a record player that recorded all things. As Lin Qing listened to its tones, he heard the bloodshed and wails that seeped from the deepest roots of this land, endless and unceasing.
They were the spirits of the wrongfully dead.
The spirits weren't in hell.
They clung to banknotes, lay on the tatami mats of Kabukicho, and slumped over the desks of the Ninja Academy. And