"This Buddha statue has a strange design. I've never seen anything like it."
Uchiha Senmon took out the night-vision camera he carried with him and shot a few more photos of the Buddha statue on the rock face from another angle.
The statue was over ten meters tall, its face and body badly damaged, not by weathering but by battle. Only a faint trace of its benevolent features remained, yet three horns protruded from its forehead.
"And these pictographs belong to another ancient writing system, different from oracle bone script or Egyptian hieroglyphs."
Uchiha Senmon considered himself fairly knowledgeable, but he knew nothing of the origins of either the statue or the pictographs.
He could only take more photographs and hand them over to the Metropolitan Police Department for analysis later. Perhaps they could decipher some valuable information.
Though Uchiha Senmon himself did not hold out much hope.
"Mr. Kabuto Yakushi, with your knowledge of past and present and your remarkable memory, could you offer some insight?"
During their rest outside the ruined temple, Uchiha Senmon had been probing indirectly, trying to obtain information about the supernatural world and the Akatsuki from Kabuto Yakushi.
"The writing on the temple cannot be deciphered by outsiders. It requires the eyes of the Hyuga Clan."
Kabuto Yakushi looked up at the writing on the cliff a few times, then gave Uchiha Senmon a meaningful look as he spoke.
"Encrypting writing so that only a particular Dojutsu can decipher it is something the Sharingan often does as well."
Uchiha Senmon's heart jolted.
Kabuto Yakushi's words carried a hidden meaning. Perhaps he already knew his secret.
The sky gradually darkened. Dusk passed, the stars shifted, and the moon leaped into the night sky.
Just then, the strains of an ensemble of classical instruments drifted from