Uchiha Senmon followed closely behind his great-uncle's soul, climbing the stone steps. He stopped just before passing through the torii gate.
In the standard layout of a Japanese shrine, a torii gate always stood directly in front of the shrine, marking the boundary between humans and gods. Passing through it meant entering the divine domain.
Looking inward through the simple, old-fashioned shinmei torii, he could take in the shrine's entire layout.
Naka Shrine was small enough to be called crude. Its approach was only a dozen or so meters long, without the stone lanterns commonly seen along the approaches of modern Japanese shrines.
Stone lanterns originated in Buddhist temples after Buddhism reached Japan in the sixth century AD. Shrines only began putting up lanterns after the Heian Period.
Uchiha Senmon's eyes flickered as he pondered in silence. And there's that ancient shinmei torii. That means Naka Shrine's history must stretch back much further than the Heian Period, when the Age of Gods ended.
After all, this was the ancestral ground of the Uchiha Clan, whose fame extended even throughout the Heavenly Realm. It would hardly be surprising if its history dated back to before the common era.
Without following Great-Uncle's soul, I could never have reached Naka Shrine, even if I dug up every inch of the ground. But why would Great-Uncle know where Naka Shrine is? Could he really have been the keeper of our family's secrets?
Uchiha Senmon's imagination ran wild, but he immediately dismissed his own fanciful thoughts.
Over the past few years, Uchiha Senmon had returned to his hometown several times and sounded out his great-uncle, all without success. Unwilling to give up, he had even secretly examined him with the Sharingan.
Although Uchiha Senmon had only possessed the Two-Tomoe Sharingan then, he had already figured