I had just turned around when my boot squelched in a muddy pit.
Before Shikamaru could answer, his eyes suddenly went wide, staring straight past me.
His lips trembled like leaves in the wind.
"Sen... Sen! He's back from the dead!"
I irritably picked at my ear, thinking the kid was getting more cowardly by the day.
"Back from the dead, my ass. I just smashed even his bones to bits."
A sinister gust suddenly swept up behind me, carrying a pungent reek of blood.
There was also the stench of scorched hide, enough to make anyone wrinkle their nose.
I whipped around.
In that huge crater in Kage Rock, Deva Path Pain, who had been reduced to a puddle of mush, had actually stood bolt upright.
His collapsed chest bulged outward like an inflating balloon, cracking and popping.
The black iron rods embedded in his back lit up with a blinding purple glow.
That light was unnaturally bright, enough to make my skin crawl.
"Well, damn. A cockroach that just won't die, huh?"
I spat, my coat hem flapping loudly in the wind.
Pain's ash-gray, ringed eyes started moving again.
Two trails of black blood ran from the corners of his eyes and dripped into the mud.
His chin had long since shattered, leaving his lower jaw crooked.
His voice forced its way through his throat, airy, hoarse, and grating.
"Pain... has only just begun."
I sneered and rubbed my dust-covered face.
"Nagato, are you throwing your life away now?"
"Forcing chakra through from that far away-can that bag of bones you call a body take it?"
Pain didn't answer. His two broken arms rose eerily.
The air around him suddenly grew thick, as though someone were stirring paste.
Even the light around him bent.
It looked like heat