After a brief rest, Yangyong, Akaseki, and Ranwu, the three Konoha ninja, joined Feng Qi, Yomi, and Miroku, the three people sent by the Daimyo of the Land of Wind, at the entrance to the ruin's next level.
Yangyong volunteered again, creating a shadow clone and sending it inside with its Sharingan active.
The moment Yangyong's shadow clone stepped through the doorway on the other side of the gourd-shaped passage, it vanished.
A moment later...
"Hm?" Yangyong frowned.
Clearly, the shadow clone's memories had returned to him.
"It's different from when White Fang and the others went in. Inside is a space full of thunderstorms and lightning. Not long after my shadow clone entered, while it was fending off the lightning, a 'puppet' ambushed it, broke through its defenses, and destroyed it," Yangyong explained.
"Lightning?" Akaseki frowned as well. According to White Fang's scroll, the first space they entered should have been a sea of flames.
There had been a Thunder Space, too...
But that should have been the second level farther in.
Although White Fang was now thoroughly "slacking off," Akaseki didn't believe he would make such a basic mistake in his mission notes!
"Perhaps it has something to do with time," Miroku said.
"Time?" Akaseki turned an inquisitive gaze toward her.
"Time and space are inseparable to begin with. Since the effect here is spatial transportation, and it operates automatically, it may well use time as a marker," Miroku pointed out.
"I see..." Akaseki smiled approvingly and nodded.
Miroku: ...
"The local time is six fifty-five in the morning, almost seven. That corresponds to the Zhen Trigram of the Eight Trigrams, which does indeed represent thunder." As Miroku spoke, she held Bell suspended from a fine thread in one hand. Watching it slowly rotate beneath the thread, she