Amegakure.
The sky was the same as ever, perpetually shrouded in layers of dark clouds, with rain pattering down from above.
Puddle after puddle dotted the muddy roads. Passersby stepped through them from time to time, splashing up sprays of blackened water.
The villagers walking here wore raincoats and handwoven bamboo hats of their own making, and most wore rain boots.
"Take a look! Freshly steamed buns! Come have a look!"
The owner of a steamed bun shop kept calling out to passing pedestrians from his doorway. Now and then, a few were drawn by his cries and came over to buy some buns.
Not far from this bun shop was an enormous pit.
The pit's shape was exceedingly strange, as though two enormous monsters had once fought there.
Rainwater had gradually filled the pit. Under the scouring rain, the already fractured ground had collapsed, forming slopes.
"Ah, how could our lord god have died just like that?"
After selling buns for a while, the owner had far fewer customers coming by and finally had some time to spare. He gazed at the distant God-Weeping Pit and sighed with a hint of sorrow.
Although the village's ninja all said that their lord god had merely returned to the Divine Realm, and that Lady Angel would remain here with them.
But as one of the few spectators closest to the battlefield, the shopkeeper had witnessed the battle between the god and the Thousand-Armed Buddha that day.
That day, it had seemed as though the world itself was being ground out of existence. Dazzling lightning and golden light had blazed in all directions, leaving scars on his mind that were difficult to erase.
He had seen Pain, the god of Amegakure, summon an enormous monster. Perhaps that had been the god's contracted