Beneath the eaves of the main hall at Kogaku Temple.
Anjō Oniyuzu stood on the corridor with a group of Kiri ninja, watching the battle raging outside the temple grounds. Besides them, the monks of Kogaku Temple had also gathered here. No one looked particularly well. The clash of colossal beings outside had far exceeded anything within their understanding.
Not just the monks—
Even Anjō Oniyuzu himself, a highly experienced and well-traveled advisory elder of Kirigakure, had only seen such awe-inspiring battles between titanic entities a handful of times in his life. Watching giants, wooden colossi, and stone behemoths take turns entering the fray, he found himself utterly speechless.
"Elder Anjō, are we really just going to stand here and watch?"
Zabuza Momochi asked in a low voice.
"Do you think you can intervene in that battle out there?"
Anjō Oniyuzu answered with a question of his own.
"..."
Zabuza fell silent.
Though he hated to admit it, he had to acknowledge that even if he rushed outside, he would likely be of little use. Facing monsters of that scale… perhaps only a handful of A-rank Water Release techniques could even scratch them.
Yet his chakra reserves were nowhere near enough to support repeated use of such techniques.
Once his chakra was depleted,
he would only become a burden.
Momochi Zabuza stood guard nearby, silently staring at the back of the stone behemoth. In his mind, the scene of that monster hurling the wooden colossus away replayed again and again. Once more, he keenly felt the vast gap between himself and Koeda Kyoichi, and with it, his own weakness and inadequacy.
At the same time, he grew ever more ashamed of his earlier impatience and rashness.
"Just watch for now," Anjō said, glancing back as he spoke. "What we can do is observe from a distance and protect the shadow clones Kyoichi left behind, not rush out on a surge of hot-blooded bravado and cause trouble."
Inside the main hall enshrining the great ascetic En no Ozunu, five of Kyoichi's shadow clones sat cross-legged in a neat row before the statue.
Originally, Kyoichi had left behind six shadow clones.
One of them had already vanished.
When he left these clones behind, Kyoichi had emphasized that they were extremely important trump cards and must be protected at all costs. Though Anjō did not know what purpose they served, he had no intention of prying further.
The stronger a ninja was, the more secrets they carried.
That was an immutable truth of the shinobi world.
And probing too deeply into another's secrets simply because one was a companion…
That was hardly a likable thing to do.
It was enough to know that Kyoichi was someone to whom he could entrust his back without hesitation. As for the rest… there was no need to dig to the bottom of it.
"Donor Oniyuzu, may I ask about what's happening outside—"
The abbot of Kogaku Temple finally forced himself to speak.
But before he could finish, Anjō Oniyuzu replied, "The trouble outside has nothing to do with you. They're either here for the Kirigakure ninja or to deal with the Konoha ninja. You don't need to worry about being dragged into danger. Of course, if you're concerned that we or the Konoha side might lose and implicate you… you're free to leave now. That attacker probably won't lay a hand on you."
"..."
The abbot, with his long white eyebrows, darkened his expression and said nothing.
To claim there was no resentment in his heart would be a lie.
Yet no matter how bitter he felt, he dared not voice it. Kogaku Temple might boast a history of several hundred years—longer even than Konoha Village or the Land of Fire—but this was an era ruled by the Five Great Nations and the Five Great Ninja Villages.
Whether it was Konoha or Kirigakure,
neither was something a mere Kogaku Temple could afford to offend.
"This temple is where we take refuge," the abbot finally said after a fierce internal struggle. "It is not something we can abandon lightly."
In any case, no one truly cared whether the monks stayed or left.
All of Anjō Oniyuzu's attention, and that of the others, was focused on the increasingly fierce battle outside.
At this moment, the giant had already withdrawn.
The wooden colossus had also fallen.
In their place, a violet-black Susanoo and a stone behemoth were locked in a brutal contest. Calling it a test of strength was not quite accurate—the Susanoo wielded a long naginata, while the stone behemoth summoned by Kyoichi fought barehanded.
As the saying went, reach was strength.
Naturally, the Susanoo held the advantage over the stone behemoth.
However,
Kyoichi was not fighting alone.
The Ino–Shika–Chō trio had been left half-crippled, but Kyoichi still had Ringo Ameyuri and Hōzuki Mangetsu as allies. Bold to the extreme, Ringo climbed straight onto the stone behemoth's head, standing shoulder to shoulder with Kyoichi. She transformed herself into a humanoid artillery platform, unleashing wave after wave of high-powered Lightning Release techniques at the Susanoo.
Meanwhile, Mangetsu—genius of the Hōzuki clan—displayed the clan's hereditary secret art. With a single technique, Water Release: Shield Black Cap, he transformed into a massive water monster. Relying on its immunity to physical attacks, he charged the Susanoo again and again without fear of death.
Because of this, the battle was barely held in balance.
"Hōzuki Mangetsu…"
Within the Susanoo, Uchiha Hatoha glanced at the massive water monster charging in once more. The chill in his eyes deepened as he murmured, "Since you're in such a hurry to die, I'll see you off myself."
Revenge,
was not merely an excuse he tossed around.
But this revenge was not for his younger brother, Uchiha Tsuruha—it was for himself.
Back then, it was Hōzuki Mangetsu who had driven him into a dead end, forcing him to self-destruct to avoid having his eyes taken. If not for a chance rescue, he would have already gone to the underworld to reunite with his parents.
And it was precisely because he could no longer return to Konoha Village
that Tsuruha had been left alone, without anyone at his side to protect him—making him an easy target for the ambitious Kumo ninja.
In Hatoha's eyes,
if one traced it all back to the source, the true cause of every one of these tragedies was Hōzuki Mangetsu.
So whether for himself or for Tsuruha…
Today, he had come to Kogaku Temple to kill Mangetsu. As for everyone else—if he could kill them along the way, so be it. If not, there would always be another opportunity.
After all, his Mangekyō Sharingan ability was utterly unique. What kind of power Amenoyagōmimi no Mikoto could unleash depended entirely on what kind of soul he managed to hunt.
"Lightning Release: Lightning Blade!"
Lightning suddenly wrapped around the naginata in Susanoo's hands. In the next instant, the lightning-cloaked blade stabbed viciously downward, once again piercing through the charging water monster's body. But unlike before—
This time, the lightning spread through it, causing the water monster to freeze stiff on the spot.
Immediately after,
Uchiha Hatoha formed seals.
"Fire Release: Great Fire Annihilation!"
Once again, he unleashed this high-level Fire Release technique learned from Uchiha Madara. A vast sea of flames poured forth, forcibly negating Water Release's elemental advantage over fire. The raging inferno nearly evaporated all the water composing the monster.
In the end, all that remained was a withered, desiccated corpse that slammed heavily onto the hardened ground, shattering into pieces the moment it landed.