Tengen Uzui's chest heaved violently.
After he spat out that mouthful of black blood, his body seemed to have been hooked back up to a power supply. Every muscle trembled. Hinatsuru knelt beside him, her fingers still resting against his neck. She looked as though someone had dumped a bucket of cold water over her, then followed it with a bucket of hot water. Her brain had stopped working entirely.
His pulse was beating.
Not the last few feeble beats of a dying man. It was strong, powerful, striking against her fingertips again and again, as steady as a drum.
Suma crawled over. She pressed her hands against Tengen Uzui's chest, spreading all ten fingers as she felt from his collarbones down beneath his ribs. Blood and tears still streaked her face, but her fingers were already trembling-with a different kind of tremor.
His bones were intact.
His seventh and eighth ribs, shattered by the Blood Demon Art-the bone fragments she had felt during the rescue, displaced and stabbing into his lungs-were now smooth and whole beneath her touch. Not one was broken.
Makizuru laid her hand against Uzui's abdomen, over the skin that had turned black and purple as the poison spread.
Clear. Completely clear. Not even a trace of dark veins remained.
All three women raised their heads at once and looked at Yaha.
Only one thought circled through their minds.
That hand.
That hand we thought was "mutilating" our husband. That hand he pulled out of his chest, covered in black blood.
What did that hand do?
Tengen Uzui's eyes snapped open.
His chest arched as he gasped for breath, like a drowning man freshly dragged from the riverbed. Bracing himself against the ground, he pushed his upper body halfway upright and looked down at his chest.