At this moment, only a few short seconds had passed in reality.
In Konan's eyes, Hanzo's soul had already been mostly extracted, his body on the verge of becoming an empty shell.
Victory seemed to already rest within Pain's grasp.
But just then, the Deva Path, Asura Path, and Human Path suddenly froze.
The Human Path's soul extraction process abruptly stopped, and the hand pressed against Hanzo's head began trembling violently.
Bang! Bang bang!
Before Konan could react, the three figures suddenly fell to the ground like birds with broken wings.
"Pain!"
Konan, who had remained silent all this time, immediately shrank her pupils upon seeing this.
Without hesitation, she spread the paper wings behind her. Countless sheets of paper flew out and wrapped around the Deva Path, Asura Path, and Human Path.
Taking advantage of Hanzo's soul still being dazed while returning to his body, she swept up the three bodies and flew away from Amegakure without looking back.
At this moment, Konan understood more clearly than anyone else that if Pain had suddenly become like this, something must have happened to Nagato's true body!
'Was it Zetsu? Or Madara?'
'As expected, those two malicious bastards were completely untrustworthy!'
Hanzo, Amegakure, everything else had already been cast aside in Konan's mind. She simply did not believe Hanzo could have reduced Pain to this state.
Her only thought now was to get to Nagato's side immediately!
"Hah… damn it!"
Hanzo had been forcefully dragged back from the brink of having his soul completely extracted from his body. He gasped heavily, terror and disbelief lingering in his eyes from surviving death.
Staggering to his feet, he pressed a hand against his head, shook it slightly, then looked into the distance with fury.
"You think you can still escape?!"
But just as he was about to give chase, a voice entered his ears.
"Don't rush."
Hanzo raised his head toward the voice and saw Arata standing atop Ibuse's head.
Watching Konan's retreating figure in the distance, Arata lowered his gaze toward Hanzo and smiled.
"Let me first tell you what they experienced."
"And after that, it'll be your turn to make a choice."
......
Meanwhile, over ten kilometers away from Amegakure, inside a cave sealed off by rocks.
If someone attempted to touch those rocks, they would discover the texture felt strangely unnatural.
Konan's Divine Paper Technique.
Paper sheets transformed and disguised into objects so perfectly that even the Sharingan could not detect them.
At this moment, deep within the dark and damp cave, Nagato's emaciated body had grown so thin he was little more than a skeleton, standing within a crude wooden apparatus.
Countless black rods were deeply embedded into his back.
On the other side, the White Zetsu "Tobi," whose entire body bore spiral patterns, sat cross-legged on the ground.
"Ahh, honestly, Madara-sama sure loves ordering people around. What danger could Nagato possibly be in?"
Like someone with severe hyperactivity, it swayed back and forth while muttering to itself in boredom.
"Come to think of it, are White Zetsu plants or people? If they're plants, then why can't they decompose poop? If they're people, then why can't they poop? Hmm…"
Just as Tobi's thoughts wandered off into ridiculous questions about excrement,
Bzz!!
Nagato, standing within the cold apparatus, suddenly opened his eyes wide.
A violent mental shock unlike anything he had ever experienced surged through the chakra black rods connected to the Human Path.
Like a collapsed dam, it poured directly into his soul without warning!
"UGHHHHHH!!"
A miserable scream echoed throughout the entire cave, causing even Tobi to shiver instinctively and leap to its feet as it looked toward Nagato.
That gaunt face twisted to the extreme from unbearable agony.
His withered body trembled uncontrollably as he screamed, his head thrown back as though his eyeballs were about to burst from their sockets.
Pain!
Soul-rending pain!
The sudden agony was so intense it defied imagination!
Nagato felt as though countless red-hot iron rods were being stirred through his brain!
Under his violent struggling, even the apparatus restraining his body was torn apart, blood instantly gushing from his wounds.
"Ahhh?! What's happening?! What's happening?!"
Though Tobi's featureless face showed no expression, the way it frantically darted around Nagato revealed just how panicked it truly was.
"Pffft!"
Nagato coughed up a large mouthful of scorching blood, staining his skeletal body and the cold apparatus beneath him red.
Tobi ran in and out of the cave like a headless fly or an ant on a hot pan, unable to find any enemy at all.
"Damn it! Didn't Zetsu tell me to guard against enemies?! Where's the enemy?!"
Seeing Nagato's pale complexion grow deathly white, it jumped in place anxiously and shouted:
"If something happens to Nagato, Madara-sama will feed me to wild dogs and turn me into poop!"
At that thought, it stopped caring about anything else.
It immediately leapt onto Nagato's apparatus, its spiral-patterned body unfurling like a blooming epiphyllum flower before wrapping directly around the continuously bleeding Nagato.
At that very moment, Konan's figure appeared inside the cave.
She instantly smelled blood and saw Nagato wrapped by White Zetsu.
"Damn it! What are you doing?!"
Konan immediately confirmed the suspicion in her heart. Yet fearing she might injure Nagato, she did not dare attack with ninjutsu.
Instead, she let out an enraged roar and rushed forward.
But just as she attempted to rip Tobi off Nagato, the wrist of her outstretched hand was suddenly grabbed.
Then she heard Nagato's pain-filled voice.
"Calm down, Konan. This White Zetsu is helping me!"
"What?"
Konan froze for a moment.
Suppressing the fury and shock within her, she looked more carefully and realized that Nagato's painful gasps and trembling body really were gradually calming down.
At this moment, Nagato could clearly feel a powerful life force suppressing his injuries while also easing the pain within his soul.
Not only that, his body felt like parched land finally receiving rainfall. Long-lost vitality gradually filled his withered frame, and even the Rinnegan seemed to become much gentler.
"White Zetsu actually has this kind of effect?"
Far from feeling joy, Nagato instead felt an icy chill rise from the depths of his heart.
As if sensing the shift in his emotions, Tobi loosened itself from around him, once again revealing Nagato's skeletal frame.
"Ahaha, finally it's over!"
Tobi hopped away after folding its body back together, scratching its head innocently.
"Nagato-sama, it's good that you're okay! Otherwise Madara-sama would feed me to wild dogs and turn me into poop!"
Nagato said nothing and made no move to stop it.
He merely shot it a cold glance.
Because he still could not determine whether this White Zetsu could interfere with him in reverse.
And his battle against Hanzo and Amegakure was not yet truly over.
Tap… tap…
Steady, completely undisguised footsteps entered their ears.
The dazed Konan instantly shrank her pupils and stepped protectively in front of Nagato, warily staring toward the dark entrance tunnel of the cave.
Hanzo and Arata emerged from the shadows.
The moment they appeared, both of their gazes locked onto the gaunt figure standing within the strange apparatus at the center of the cave.