The little thing crawled remarkably fast. When it emerged from the ashes, it was only the size of a fingernail, its round, pale golden eyes like two grains of millet set into its transparent body.
Its body was translucent, revealing the ink-black liquid churning inside, frighteningly thick.
Pausing for only an instant, it looked up in the direction Isshiki had gone and murmured in a frail voice, "Core..."
Then it lowered its head to look at its own body. The ink-black substance poured into it wildly, and it grew at an outrageous speed-from fingernail-sized to thumb-thick in the blink of an eye, then swelling to the size of a fist moments later. In less than a minute, it had grown as large as a stray dog.
Its appearance remained bizarre, its entire body transparent, with only its pale golden eyes standing out sharply. The ink-black substance inside was impossibly dense. Four thin legs supported its body, and a bare tail hung behind it. It had no hair and no facial features, only eyes that radiated a sinister chill.
It stared fixedly toward Konoha and forced a sentence out of its throat. "Found you."
As soon as it finished speaking, it turned and broke into a wild sprint-not toward Konoha, but in the opposite direction from where Isshiki had disappeared. As fast as a black lightning bolt slicing through the air, it vanished in an instant.
Amid Konoha's ruins, Shuo lay on the old wooden board, gazing at the sky. The Fragments quietly surrounded him, keeping a tight guard.
Hand Princess Big curled up beside his feet, the eye in her palm half-open; Hand Princess Small rested on his other side, her soft body pressed against the ground.
Hand Princess Three crouched three meters away, not daring to hop over for