Inside the water sphere, a suffocating sensation closed in. Qian forced himself not to breathe, glanced back from the corner of his eye, and saw Kisame Hoshigaki's expressionless face.
At the same time, Kisame Hoshigaki saw his expression too.
Logically speaking, when one man held the knife and the other was fish on the chopping block, Qian should have been showing regret or unwillingness right now—especially after he had just fallen from heaven into hell.
Yet now, Kisame Hoshigaki saw no such negative emotions on Qian's face. Instead, deep in his eyes, he caught a hint of smug satisfaction, as if a scheme had succeeded.
In truth, that was exactly the case.
Although when Kisame Hoshigaki's water clone had appeared just now, Qian's vision had been blocked by the downpour and he had not been able to see clearly, the nearly one minute of fighting afterward had been enough for him to see through the other party's truth.
Leaving aside the way it instinctively protected itself from any harm, which differed from Kisame Hoshigaki's habits when he had fought him with his real body earlier, the mere "scarcity" of Chakra inside it had been enough to put Qian on alert.
Even so, he had still pretended not to know, with only one goal: to draw out the other party's real body.
And now, he could confirm that the person behind him was the other party's true body.
In other words, his plan had succeeded.
Next, all he had to do was take him down.
Qian discreetly swept his gaze over the Kirigakure ninja and the Leaf ninja in the distance. After confirming that they could not see the details on this side, he prepared to use Ame no Minaka's ability to break free while instantly restraining Kisame Hoshigaki.
However, just