I brushed the mud off my coat and shook my head at the ANBU girl.
"I've written my resignation letter. It's sitting on Auntie's desk."
Tsunade strode through the muddy water and grabbed my sleeve.
"What resignation? Hear what the envoy brought back first!"
"Sunagakure was attacked and Gaara was captured. We need to hurry over and help!"
I sighed and casually rubbed my aching neck.
"Auntie, the Old Man survived. Let him lead a team out there to eat sand."
"I just finished a load of manual labor. My stomach's growling."
Before Tsunade could raise her fist to hit me, something stirred in the mud behind us.
Crack. Crack.
The grinding of bones sounded especially harsh in the quiet morning.
I frowned and tilted my head toward the big puddle behind me.
The Deva Path I had hammered into the mud was struggling to crawl out.
His right arm had long since broken and dragged limply through the muddy water.
A large patch of flesh had fallen off his face, exposing rusty springs underneath.
He stared at me with his sole remaining purple Rinnegan.
More precisely, he was staring at the towering Giant Buddha behind me.
Morning light bathed its face, turning the ten-thousand-meter wooden Giant Buddha a brilliant gold.
The Giant Buddha's head pierced the heavens, splitting the clouds in two.
By comparison, the Deva Path lay in the mud like an insignificant little bug.
"Hey, no-brows. That look in your eye's pretty creepy."
With my hands in my pockets, I slowly took a couple of steps toward the mud pit.
Pain didn't try to stand. He couldn't have stood anyway.
He merely gasped for breath, sounding like an old, leaky bellows.
Huff. Huff.
With every breath, black water trickled from the stud holes at the corners of