Inside the Hokage Office.
After Jiancheng left, Danzo immediately said, "The Uchiha Clan may still have powerful fighters hidden away!"
Whatever Hiruzen Sarutobi was thinking, he said aloud, "Not necessarily. It might just be a clan elder who's already gone blind."
"If both eyes are completely blind, he can't use the ninjutsu he copied," Danzo reminded him.
Sarutobi said nothing, and Danzo did not press the matter. He had already played the helpful innocent earlier, deliberately proposing something that sounded perfectly sincere but could never be approved when Jiancheng questioned the old monkey's intentions. It would be awkward to say more now. Besides, the old monkey seemed to have taken it to heart already.
That evening, Jiancheng returned to the dungeon beneath Naka Shrine. This time, he brought food along—enough for two.
"Akaseki, I need you to go to Yugakure in a week... the place in the mountains south of the Land of Rain and north of the Land of Rivers."
As Jiancheng spoke, he told Akaseki the details of the message Clan Elder Lanyu had sent before his death.
Jiancheng had not told the other clansmen about it before because he wanted to avoid any misunderstandings arising from "Rashomon"...
Although Jiancheng was hardly a normal person himself, he had been clan head for ten years and knew his clansmen's mental states all too well.
"The Jashin Cult, an immortal body..."
Hearing this, Akaseki began pondering the meaning of the coded message.
"Rashomon?" Setsuna chimed in.
Jiancheng gave him a speechless look. You just have to butt in, don't you?
Setsuna, meanwhile, looked at Akaseki with an expression that said, "Just as I thought." You really are a lunatic!
Of course, Setsuna was not simply chiming in. He was astonished by the mention of "Rashomon."
Though he did not