A One-Man Battle

In the jungle, Hanyu's performance was far more seasoned. The techniques he displayed while scouting, pathfinding, and moving were comparable even to those of an experienced ninja—if one were to ignore his varied application of chakra.

Very quickly, he found the tracks he had left behind earlier, then "followed the vine to find the melon," returning to the spot where he had cremated the Second Hokage.

"No signs of anyone else having been here." The moment he saw the scene, Hanyu made this judgment... He had never imagined he would return to this place.

That massive hollow tree had been reduced to ash along with the remains of the Second Hokage. Mixed with the autumn rain that had fallen days prior, it had turned into a gray, pasty sludge spread across the ground. Had anyone approached this area earlier, they certainly would have left footprints behind.

However, his assessment did not garner any attention from the others; to be precise, it received no feedback at all. Sanshao, Mitokado Homura, and Kagami Uchiha simply stood there in a daze, silent and taciturn.

This nameless, primitive forest was the last place the Second Hokage had stayed, and it was his burial ground. The Second Hokage's burnt remains were mixed into the wood ash on the ground, so for Sanshao and the others, even accidentally stepping on it felt like an act of disrespect and desecration... No one wanted to disturb the Second Hokage's eternal rest.

Thinking of Senju Tobirama, whose name had echoed throughout the ninja world since the era of chaotic wars, only to die peacefully in such an insignificant place—unable to even have his remains recovered, accompanied only by a stranger of a boy in his final moments—was heartbreaking. While for the Hokage himself, this death might not have been without regrets, it was at least a case of seeking benevolence and obtaining it. Yet for his kin and disciples, it was a sorrow too deep to bear.

Hanyu quickly sensed their state of mind from their expressions, so he turned his head and said to Hatake Sakumo, "Hatake, come with me. We are going to search for the corpses of Ginkaku and Kinkaku."

"But..." Hatake hesitated. Was it okay to act so unilaterally? Hanyu was not the one in this ninja squad authorized to issue orders.

"Let's go." Hanyu ignored Hatake's hesitation and somewhat forcefully pulled him away from the spot.

At a time like this, it was better to let those three stay as they were for a while.

Previously, Hanyu had been unconscious when the Second Hokage carried him into that tree hollow. Using the hollow as a coordinate, he did not know the exact location of Ginkaku and Kinkaku's bodies, but they had to be nearby. After all, given the Second Hokage's condition at the time, he could not have carried an unconscious Hanyu over a long distance.

Therefore, with the Second Hokage's place of sacrifice as the center, Hanyu and Hatake Sakumo searched outward in a fan shape. Before long, they found the two corpses.

"Judging by the state of decay, they don't look like people who have been dead for nearly a week." Having quickly arrived at the bodies and inspected them individually, Hatake Sakumo remarked... though it was now impossible to tell which was Ginkaku and which was Kinkaku. The odor emitted by the corpses was not severe, and the scene he had imagined—of them being gnawed down to the bone by forest insects and ants—had not occurred at all.

After a moment of thought, Hanyu said, "Perhaps it's because they ate some preservatives while they were alive."

He remembered that these two fellows seemed to have swallowed the Nine-Tails' chakra, and he figured that stuff likely had strong antiseptic properties.

"Would a ninja perform preservative treatments on their own body while alive?" Hatake expressed serious doubt about Hanyu's speculation, though he knew the fact that their remains had lasted until now must be related to their constitution; he just didn't know the specific reason.

Hatake continued, "You guard this place. I'll go call the captain and the others."

The nominal captain of this squad was Mitokado Homura, though in reality, any decision was reached through the consultation of the three. Now that they had finished paying their respects to the Second Hokage, it should be fine for Hatake to go fetch them.

Hanyu remained where he was, searching for any items he could find... The reason Ginkaku and Kinkaku possessed such formidable combat power during their lives was partly because they had absorbed a portion of the Nine-Tails' chakra, and partly because they possessed multiple powerful ninja tools.

The sword and gourd that had been shattered by the Second Hokage were two of them. Hanyu was the first to collect the fragments of these items, but since they had been thoroughly destroyed, they had long since lost their original functions and were reduced to a pile of scrap metal.

He just wondered if the Cloud Village still accepted such souvenirs...

Hatake Sakumo came and went in a hurry, and soon he brought the other three over. By this time, Sanshao and the others had regained their composure; at the very least, nothing unusual could be seen in their expressions.

"Are these Ginkaku and Kinkaku? Can their identities be confirmed?" Upon arriving and looking at the two unrecognizable corpses, Sanshao asked with a frown.

In this state, it was truly difficult to confirm their identities based solely on appearance and physical characteristics.

"It is indeed them." Mitokado Homura first inspected the ninja tool fragments Hanyu had collected, then said with certainty, "These are the ninja tools used by Ginkaku and Kinkaku, known as the Seven Star Sword and the Crimson Gourd, respectively."

He then walked over to one of the corpses, lifted an arm, and displayed a pale golden rope wrapped around it. "The Golden Canopy Rope. That means this corpse is Kinkaku... I didn't expect that they truly hadn't been found by the Cloud Village or ninjas from other villages first."

Their pace had not been particularly fast, and before seeing the bodies, they had been worried about being beaten to the punch by ninjas from other villages. Specifically, six days had passed since the attack at the alliance ceremony, and at least three days had passed since the deaths of Ginkaku, Kinkaku, and the Second Hokage. Therefore, it was indeed a stroke of luck that these two remains had not been discovered by anyone else yet.

It must be said that this had a great deal to do with the Second Hokage's delaying tactics. The alliance ceremony was held within the Land of Lightning. When Ginkaku and Kinkaku led a group of elite ninjas to launch the attack, the Raikage was killed on the spot. The Second Hokage fled with his disciples, and after taking the initiative to act as bait, he moved in the opposite direction from his disciples. The place where he ultimately died was in the Land of Fields. One could see that he had fought while retreating, and after fighting alone for three days, he finally achieved a desperate one-for-two trade here.

"The rainy weather from before must have helped a lot. Not only did it cover the Second Hokage's route, but with the low visibility of the rain, even the massive fire used to cremate the Second Hokage went unnoticed... However, if one hadn't seen it with their own eyes, who would have imagined they would die so far away?" Sanshao explained.

Traces of the rain from several days ago could be seen everywhere in the forest. The battle between the Second Hokage and the Gold and Silver brothers had been largely obscured by the rain, but that was only one aspect. As Sanshao had said, who could have anticipated that in such an extremely disadvantageous situation, the Second Hokage could have dragged the battle all the way to the Land of Fields?

It was truly a battle fought in total isolation—without reinforcements, long, filled with despair, yet carrying both solace and hope.