Faking Death with Precision to Avoid the Spotlight; Kisame's Carelessness Leaves a Chance at Survival

The pain of a blade piercing his chest nearly tore Mizuki Han's consciousness apart.

The water blade, formed from highly concentrated chakra and imbued with unparalleled piercing power, had entered through his back and emerged from his chest. Blood gushed out like a breached dam, making his pale, youthful face all the more horrifying.

A flicker of surprise crossed Kisame's shark-like face.

"What? ...So it's just a kid."

He looked at the face twisted with pain, still retaining a trace of childish innocence. His voice held a hint of disappointment, as though he'd lost interest. He had expected to drag a grown ninja out of the pipe, someone who would fight to the bitter end. Instead, it was just a child playing clever little tricks.

Mizuki Han's body crashed into the cold standing water, splashing up a spray of filth. His pupils rapidly dilated, and the light in his eyes faded at a visible pace. It was as if the lethal blow had drained every last trace of life from him.

It was over.

At least, that was how it looked to Kisame Hoshigaki.

But unseen by Kisame, a breathtakingly precise maneuver inside Mizuki Han's body had only just reached its conclusion.

At the very last hundredth of a second before Kisame's water blade emerged from the shadows and reached him, Mizuki Han had acted without hesitation, using the final—and most crucial—portion of his Three-Part Chakra Principle: his trump card for escaping certain death.

The last trace of chakra he'd squeezed from the corpse had not been used to defend himself, much less to counterattack. With astonishing control, Mizuki Han had instantly formed it into a paper-thin yet incredibly tough curved ice shield inside his chest, directly in front of his heart!

This wasn't ordinary ice. It was a crystalline substance formed by pushing Ice Release's nature transformation to its absolute limit, its density far surpassing steel.

"Splurt!"

The water blade pierced through flesh without resistance, but just before it could pierce the heart, it struck the inconspicuous ice shield.

The lethal force wasn't fully stopped. Instead, the shield's perfect curve nudged the blade ever so slightly off course.

Those few millimeters made the difference between life and death!

The water blade whistled past the edge of his heart and pierced his left lung. Agony and suffocation struck at once, but his most vital organ had been spared.

The instant it fulfilled its purpose, the ice shield shattered under the tremendous impact and the heat inside his body. It melted into ordinary water, mingling with the spurting blood without leaving a trace.

It was a desperate gamble with death. His entire mind, his mastery of Ice Release, and the death-obsessed instinct for anticipating danger ingrained in his bones had all been at stake.

He had won.

But the act wasn't over yet.

Mizuki Han forcibly suppressed every reflex in his body and let his life force "drain away." He emptied his mind, stopped breathing, and even used his mental energy to force his heartbeat down to an almost nonexistent rate.

It was a Turtle Breathing Technique drawn from memories of his past life. Combined with a ninja's powerful control over his body, it became the ultimate deception: faking death.

Kisame ambled over, Samehada, the bandage-wrapped greatsword on his back, dragging across the ground with a teeth-grating rasp. He looked down at Mizuki Han, lying in a pool of blood, his small eyes full of scrutiny.

He raised a foot and casually nudged Mizuki Han's body with the tip of his boot.

The "corpse" rolled over in the water, showing no reaction.

Still seeming unconvinced, Kisame crouched down and placed his rough fingers against the pulse in Mizuki Han's neck.

Cold. Still.

Not a single beat.

He held his hand beneath Mizuki Han's nose.

Not a breath.

At last, his gaze fell on the bloody hole through Mizuki Han's chest. It wasn't exactly centered, but for a child, it was certainly a fatal wound. Blood was still welling from it, staining a broad patch of the surrounding water red.

"Tch. Boring."

Kisame clicked his tongue and stood up.

A game of cat and mouse had ended with the mouse crushed in an instant. It left him utterly bored. What he enjoyed more was watching his prey struggle in despair, fight back, and finally get torn to pieces by his overwhelming strength.

The kid had shown a little cunning, but he was simply too weak—too weak even to make Kisame draw Samehada.

Kisame turned his attention to the little girl curled in the corner, trembling like a leaf from sheer terror. Her name was Haku.

Haku bit her lip hard, refusing to make a sound, but tears slipped silently down her cheeks like beads from a broken string. She had watched "Brother Han" get pierced by the water blade. She had watched him fall into the pool of blood and lie there, motionless.

Kisame gave Haku a couple of cursory looks, then lost interest entirely.

A survivor with no chakra signature, scared out of her wits, wasn't even worth having as a snack. His mission was to eliminate the remnants of the Kaguya Clan and the Mizunotsuki Clan. Some other people would take care of a little fish that had slipped through the net.

"Bloodline ability freaks really can't do anything but play tricks beneath notice."

After one last contemptuous remark, Kisame turned and left. He had other areas to reinforce and no time to waste here.

His heavy footsteps gradually faded down the dark passage until they vanished completely.

The mortal danger seemed to have passed.

The underground space returned to deathly silence. Only the dripping water from cracks in the pipes echoed through the empty surroundings, one drop after another, like a funeral bell tolling for the dead.

Haku finally couldn't hold back a muffled sob. She scrambled over to Mizuki Han's "corpse," her little hand trembling as she reached out, but she didn't dare touch the horrible wound.

"Han ...Brother ..."

The girl's sobs were filled with despair.

But she didn't notice.

On Mizuki Han's colorless face, a barely perceptible eyelash trembled.

His feigned death had deceived Kisame, but it had also plunged him into a genuine crisis.

His lung had been pierced, he had lost too much blood, his chakra was completely exhausted, and his bodily functions had dropped to freezing point ... Any one of these conditions could be fatal. Now they had all piled up together.

His consciousness flickered like a candle in the wind, adrift in an endless abyss of darkness, liable to go out for good at any moment.

Kisame was gone, but death had not left.

Badly wounded and on the brink of death, Han was trapped inside a body that was growing ever colder. How could he awaken from this boundless realm of death and seize a sliver of hope for survival?