Darkness had already swallowed his legs.
Then his waist and abdomen.
Then his chest.
Nagato tried to struggle.
But he could not move so much as a finger.
Just as his consciousness was about to sink completely into oblivion...
Memories suddenly surfaced from the depths of the darkness.
The war-torn Land of Rain.
The sight of his parents lying in pools of blood.
Yahiko standing in the rain, reaching out with a smile and saying he would build a world without war.
Konan standing quietly beside him, a paper flower slowly spinning in her palm.
Jiraiya's retreating figure when he left.
Hanzō's betrayal.
The Black Rods Yahiko had driven into his own body.
And Konan's bloodstained hands.
"Nagato..."
"We still have to change this country together."
Yahiko's voice echoed in his ears.
Nagato's body suddenly shuddered.
Defiance.
Rage.
Hatred.
And the ideal that had never truly died.
Every emotion ignited at once.
"I can't die."
The darkness had already risen past his neck.
Yet Nagato's Rinnegan slowly lit up.
"I haven't let Yahiko see peace yet."
"I haven't changed this world yet."
"I will not die here!"
Boom!
His shattered will suddenly blazed to life.
A brilliant golden flame erupted from the deepest reaches of Nagato's soul.
The flames broke through the darkness.
Through the fractures in his mind.
Through the sword intent that had nearly cleaved him apart.
Nagato's fortune surged wildly at that moment.
Like a blazing sun rising anew.
Golden flames tore the darkness open.
Nagato wrenched himself back from the brink of death.
Lie Yang's brow twitched.
"You can still get up?"
Nagato raised his head.
His body remained illusory.
But his mind was no longer bound by the rules of reality as it had been before.
He looked at the hundred-meter-tall white giant before him.