Kana had stayed home working on the Sage Preaching Painting. To her, it was the key to deciding whether she should follow this path in the future. Although her mother and uncle had praised it highly, what mattered most was the reaction of the Princess in the capital and the other nobles.
Kazemori Masaki had painted a beautiful vision for her. Even though there was not yet a trace of it in reality, she was willing to be the one who set that new wind blowing. After all, she was the best person in the village for the task. Her mother might have held a higher status, but the aging Mito no longer had the energy for it.
The members of the Uzumaki Clan were long-lived, not eternally youthful. Streaks of silver had already appeared in Mito's vivid red hair. Although her body had not aged the way an ordinary person's would, Kana still felt she should not burden her mother with this.
Perhaps some of it was Kana's own youthful pride. Since neither her mother nor her uncle would agree to let her become a ninja, she was determined to accomplish something else!
So Kana poured all her energy into painting. She had never felt so inspired. Everything she had read about ninshu flashed through her mind, and she combined it with what she had seen and heard at the Fire Temple, putting it all into this painting.
Kana's painting skills were not yet those of a master, and the Sage Preaching Painting was hardly an unsurpassable work without precedent. Still, with the ideas and emotions it embodied, it would become a deeply significant painting in the new movement that was about to rise.
Its value would grow higher and higher as that new wind began to blow. Kana