Am I the Sage of Six Paths?!

"It's time to see how things are in the human world. I wonder if Hagoromo has founded the Ninja Sect yet, and how my Manji Temple is doing..."

Manji spoke calmly.

To be honest, he wasn't particularly concerned about his temple.

He had never expected to become the founder of the world's largest religion through a twist of fate.

But it didn't matter. He wasn't concerned.

Manji walked through the mist and out of Mount Myōboku's barrier. Beneath his feet, the ground gradually changed into a hard dirt road of the mortal world.

The air was filled with the mingled scents of cooking smoke and earth.

At that moment, Manji stood on a cliffside in the mountains, the Six Paths Sword leaning against his side.

"A hundred years..."

Looking out over the mountains and rivers, Manji sighed.

A hundred years was enough time for several generations to come and go in the eyes of mortals.

But to him, it was no more than the snap of a finger.

Manji arrived at a small village.

"Child, where's the nearest Manji Temple?"

Manji's voice was as gentle as a spring breeze.

The child he called out to was about seven or eight years old. His face was smudged with dirt, and he turned to look at Manji when he heard the question.

The instant the child saw Manji's face, his eyes widened. The lump of mud in his hand dropped to the ground with a plop!

"Whoa! You look just like the Sage of Six Paths! Exactly like him! You look just like the statue in the Six Paths Temple in our village!"

The child exclaimed.

Six Paths Temple? Sage of Six Paths?

Manji furrowed his brows slightly, his fingers pausing as they rubbed the hilt of his sword.

Had that kid Hagoromo already started using the title "Sage of Six Paths"?

But that couldn't be right...

He remembered what Hagoromo looked like—horns on his forehead and the cool, aloof features of the Ōtsutsuki Clan.

He looked nothing like Manji. This child's eyes must be terrible if he could mistake them.

"Hey! Huzi! Don't talk nonsense!"

A flurry of footsteps approached as an old man carrying a hoe hurried over!

"The Sage of Six Paths is the founding master who saved the world. How dare you joke about him so casually? Disrespecting the gods will bring misfortune!"

The old man scolded the child, his face full of anger.

"Never mind, sir. Children say the darnedest things."

Manji spoke softly.

"Grandpa, grandpa, I'm telling the truth! I really think he looks like him!" the child insisted.

"Don't talk back! Behave yourself!"

"Heh heh, young man, don't be angry. The child doesn't know any better. You... Ah?!"

As he spoke, the old man turned to apologize to Manji, but the moment his gaze fell on Manji's face, the words caught in his throat.

"You?! You, you, you!"

The old man's pupils contracted. The anger on his face gave way to utter shock, and the hoe in his hands clattered to the ground with a dull thud.

"T-The Sage of Six Paths?!"

The old man cried out, his voice trembling. He swayed, then dropped to his knees before Manji, his forehead nearly touching the ground. His voice was full of reverence.

"This commoner... This commoner pays respects to the Sage of Six Paths! I didn't know you had descended into the mortal world, and failed to welcome you. Please forgive me!"

With that, he dragged his grandson down to his knees as well.

Now it was Manji's turn to be completely stunned.

He looked down at the old man kneeling before him, then at the child beside him, who was just as dumbfounded and had followed suit. His confusion deepened.

Hagoromo looked nothing like him. Why had the old man also mistaken him for the Sage of Six Paths?

Had Hagoromo's appearance changed over the past hundred years?

Or had something gone wrong somewhere?

The sound drew the people nearby over!

Everyone who saw Manji's face paled, then followed the old man's example, kneeling and bowing.

They all cried out, "Sage of Six Paths!"

"Oh my god! A god!"

"The Sage of Six Paths!!"

"Welcome, Sage!"

The voices grew louder, and soon the crowd had packed the street.

Manji didn't want to be gawked at like this. With a slight movement of his fingers, a thin white mist surged around him, shrouding his figure.

Sage Art: Mist Body Flicker!

When the mist cleared, he was gone. Only the townspeople remained, kneeling in the street and bowing devoutly.

The next moment,

Manji appeared in the woods outside the town.

"What's going on...?"

Manji closed his eyes and sensed his surroundings.

His senses had long since covered a thousand miles, but as he swept over the entire region, he couldn't detect even a trace of a Manji Temple. Instead, there were dozens of "Six Paths Temples" that reeked of incense.

"This doesn't make sense..."

"When I sent the Tailed Beasts out all those years ago, temples dedicated to me weren't common everywhere, but plenty of people had built them. How could they have vanished in a hundred years, all replaced by Six Paths Temples?"

Manji muttered to himself.

By all rights, as people gradually became more enlightened, places like temples and ancestral shrines should have slowly fallen out of use.

But surely they wouldn't have been swept into the dustbin of history so quickly...

Manji's doubts multiplied. He didn't hesitate any longer, transforming into a streak of blue as he sped toward the nearest Six Paths Temple.

The temple stood halfway up a mountain, its red walls and dark tiled roofs surrounded by curling incense smoke.

Manji walked slowly through the temple gate. Inside the hall, monks were wiping down the offering table while worshippers knelt in prayer.

Hearing someone enter, everyone instinctively looked up. But the instant they saw Manji's face, they froze.

"Ah?!"

Their voices died away!

Everyone stared at Manji in shock and disbelief.

The next moment, the monks and worshippers alike turned deathly pale and fell to their knees. They didn't even dare breathe loudly as they respectfully chanted:

"We pay our respects to the Sage of Six Paths!"

"We pay our respects to the Sage of Six Paths!"

Their overlapping cries of worship made the beams of the hall tremble!

Manji said nothing. Expressionless, he walked through the crowd.

Invisibility!

His figure vanished in an instant.

Manji walked straight toward the center of the hall. When the portrait enshrined in the altar came into view...

Manji shuddered.

All his doubts vanished in an instant.

"So that's it..."

The portrait showed a young man in black and red robes, standing with a sword on his back. His features were serene, his appearance peerless, and the clouds of Mount Myōboku filled the space behind him. It was unmistakably Manji as he had looked a hundred years ago!

On the plaque beneath the portrait,

the four gilded characters "Sage of Six Paths" gleamed brilliantly. The incense burner before the shrine was packed with sticks of incense, and the offering table was piled with fresh fruit and sacrificial offerings.

So that's it...

Manji looked at the portrait and laughed in disbelief, though he still couldn't quite understand.

Wasn't he the Sage Manji?

How had he become the Sage of Six Paths?

"I need to find Hagoromo and ask him. He's the only one with the power to do this..."

Manji immediately spread his senses to find the Ninja Sect's headquarters.

Manji had read the original story, so he knew the Ninja Sect's headquarters had been built at Kaguya's ruins.

Ninja Sect headquarters.

At the Ninja Sect's main base,

Hagoromo sat on the tatami, calmly sorting through scrolls.

Just then, a voice rang out.

"You've been doing quite well all these years, Hagoromo..."

A voice both familiar and unfamiliar came from behind him.

Hagoromo was startled, then turned around and saw the person he had long wanted to meet.

It was Manji!