Ōnoki slowly descended before the Iwagakure ninja. The two godlike giants were now their enemies.
Was this... the end of Iwagakure?
Faced with such giants in this desperate situation, even Ōnoki could barely summon the will to resist.
Their predicament was like a ravenous beast, tearing at the resolve of everyone in Iwagakure.
Ōnoki was on the verge of giving up.
Just then, Kitsuchi stepped forward and lifted his father onto his shoulder.
"Dad, are we still going to fight?"
Yes, were they still going to fight?
The question gnawed at Ōnoki's heart like a swarm of ants.
As Tsuchikage, he refused to bow to the enemy.
But as Tsuchikage, he also had to consider the young people around him.
In a daze, Ōnoki saw his grandfather, Ishikawa, the First Tsuchikage.
Back then, he had only been in his early teens, about the same age as the boy and girl before him now.
The young Ōnoki had been polishing the stone enshrined in Iwagakure.
"The left side is still a little dirty. Wipe it carefully, and remember to put some strength into every stroke."
Ishikawa slowly floated over to Ōnoki.
Rather than wipe the sweat from his face, Ōnoki kept polishing the stone and asked his grandfather a question that had long weighed on his mind.
"Whether this thing is the village's symbol or something else, isn't it just a lousy rock, no matter how you look at it? Carving faces into a cliff like Konoha does would be so much more impressive!"
He looked at his grandfather and grumbled, "Our Lord Tsuchikage sure knows how to save money."
But Ishikawa neither answered his grandson's question directly nor grew angry at his complaint.
As the village's founding Kage, he was already old, and age had taken a heavy toll on