"Crack!"
Just as Muzan approached their hiding place, a slash suddenly fell before him.
"Clang!"
The two collided, the sound echoing through the silent forest. Muzan's ninja sword had actually been cut in two by his father.
"How could it be you?"
Sakumo Hatake had thought the enemy was pursuing them, so he had struck to kill the instant the other person approached. He had never expected it to be Muzan. Fortunately, Muzan had blocked the attack at the crucial moment, or there would have been another wounded member in the group.
"Father... remember to compensate me for my weapon. That was a new blade I'd only forged recently."
Seeing that Sakumo Hatake had returned safely, Muzan's worries finally eased. But when he looked past them and saw the ninja lying on the ground coughing, especially the clearly visible poison needle marks on his arm, his expression darkened.
"Even antidote pills aren't working. What kind of enemy did you encounter?"
Although the Hidden Cloud Village was strong, their specialty was Ninja Body Technique. Poison was not their area of expertise.
"We encountered a puppeteer. He was very strong. We suspect he was a ninja from the Hidden Sand Village."
Muzan did not question them further, as he already had a vague suspicion. The urgent matter was treating Ishitaro first. His condition did not look good; the poisoned blood had seeped into his internal organs.
A simple healing technique could not possibly remove the poison.
"Bear with it."
He first used a Chakra Scalpel to cut open the wound on Ishitaro's shoulder, draining the accumulated poisoned blood and clearing away the damaged surface flesh.
Muzan took out a pill from his robes and had him swallow it, temporarily preserving his life. Next, they needed to return to Konoha as quickly as