“I wonder if the others are doing fine. Did I make a mistake by sending everyone out separately? Was it okay to bring them with me in the first place? Oh no, what am I doing right now? I am the Team Leader…I should be focusing on the mission a lot more…”

Ever since Kento had spread out from the team to look for the star, his mind has had second thoughts about the decisions he made so far. It’s only been adding to the exhaustion has been dealing with them from travelling while on the reach for Kinkaku-Ji, putting stress on his overall mental state. The map that Izanagi's consciousness had sourced had pinpointed the location to be the place where they would find the Sapphire of Avatars, which sounded quite awkward to Kento. He attempted to theorise about the possible reasons as to why his enemies chose these locations as places to hold out the pieces of the jewel. Were they just picking locations at random? Or do they have a plan behind them to already pick two of the most prominent religious sites located near Kyoto as places to camp out? These were just a few of the things that occupied Kento’s mind until his inner instincts started to rattle by things that signalled bad omens.

When The Temple of Golden pavilion had just emerged on the horizon, images of people, hanging from the iconic golden temple came into view. Kento squinted his eyes, spotting what turned out to be the dead bodies of a few monks. Four to be exact.

Witnessing this first-hand only induced unease inside Kento, motivating him to hurry towards the temple to disclose the mystery behind it.

Just when he was about to rush to the temple site, his eyes got locked on a middle-aged man, who seemed to be running away from the Kinkaku-Ji temple while holding his head in his hands and crying for his dear life. And like a normal person, Kento tried to stop him, to gather any information about this strange incident.

"Hey Hey, Sir please wait."

The man didn't seem to listen to his words.

"Hey, hey stop!" Kento insisted while going for a forceful grab, only then which he finally come to a halt.

“Young man, why did you stop me? Please let me go! Come with me. We should get out of here!"

"Why? Why are you running away? Tell me! What happened?"

"I...I came to pay a visit as a part of my routine. But, when I went into the temple, all I could see were…bodies. So. Many. Dead. Bodies. All the monks in the temple of Golden Pavilion had been mercilessly slaughtered by someone. I couldn’t properly see him as I was making my escape but when I went into the temple, I got to see a figure of his. It dared to kill me if I were to meddle with his business."

Kento patiently listened to the frightened man's words and carefully tried to analyse every detail. But when he was stuck, he chose to ask the man for more details about the image.

"Is there anything else you have to add about that strange figure?"

"Well…" the man tried to recall the memories inside his mind. But subtly, he replied with the information Kento was not expecting from him.

"Okay…I know this might sound unhelpful but listen to me. I don’t know whether I was feeling like this because I was horror-stricken by mortal fear or not, but I can tell you that I felt I was not alone with that figure in that temple. I could feel the disturbance of some ghastly being haunting my instincts till I ran away from that bloody sanctuary.”

Kento's doubts were only intensified.

“What exactly did he mean by that?”

Kento bowed to the man and turned around to reach the temple. But before turning around, he took a moment to warn the man about the current circumstances.

"Mister, I will go and deal with the enemy. Please do me a favour. You get out of here and notify any officials about this incident. Be careful!"

The man replied while being prepared to slingshot back to the city.

"I will try, son. Tell me, are you one of those ‘Teen Ninjas’?"

"I am."

"Please be careful, son. And finish that sinner off!"

Kento smiled, and tapped the man's back while saying,

"I will. Don't worry. You should get out of here now."

In a blink, the man fled away, which left Kento as the only remaining witness of the Kinkaku-Ji temple incident.

Realising that he was running out of time, Kento hastily reached the temple. It was situated just beside the Kyoko-Chi pond, which escalated the scenic beauty of the Temple of Golden Pavilion, well at least it used to until the walls were coated with a fresh coat of red essence.

“Wha…what? What am I seeing? My god!!!”

Fear struck his heart crudely when he saw the beheaded monks at the entrance of the temple. The headless corpses were actually implanted into a few wooden spikes, while their heads had been scorching inside a bonfire, just beside the wooden spikes. Never in his seventeen-year life period Kento had witnessed such a sickening fate done to any human being, let alone to practices of Zen Buddhism. The once calm, serene temple complex surrounded by the fragrance of blooming wildflowers has been brutally overpowered by the smell of rusty iron and the release of combustion gases.

Despite the apocalyptic look of the surroundings, Kento slowly infiltrated the Kinkaku-Ji temple, without having any means to get official permission. Right after he entered the site, all he could see was a devastated inside. The walls of the lower floor were damaged, and the mats were wet with blood. Even the statues had a few drops of blood splattered onto them. There weren't any doubts about the commotion that had happened there. Kento tried to step without making even the slightest noise while examining the dead bodies that were embracing the red floor.

Kento's sharp eyes didn't sense anything particular in the first few carcasses he examined. But his eyes were stunned when he ventured to investigate the body of a little monk. Kento struggled to scan him to find any signs of injuries. But when he started failing, he instead decided to check the pulse of the little monk. And he was astonished as there was a faint throb.

"Oh my god! He is still alive!"

Kento tried to shake and wiggle the monk, hoping that his attempt would help the monk to recover. Kento tried all he could to resuscitate the monk, only until he managed to detect something peculiar on the young monk's body.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

It was a needle. A considerably long, thick and hazardous-looking needle.

Kento tried to pull out the needle, and ultimately it came out. His eyes hadn’t speculated what he was seeing, because the needle was covered in a yellow, greenish liquid. The colour alone was enough to give away all the information he needed to figure out what it was an organic poison used by both Iga and Kōga shinobi. The poison was actually a tranquilliser, which induces a person to enter an unconscious state in a short time of ten seconds. Yes, it was quite significant in its power, but it couldn't harm the life of the little monk, for he was breathing faintly even after entering the unconscious state. Kento postulated that though this toxin is considered fatal for infants and toddlers, it seems that the poison's concentration wasn't powerful enough.

“Seems the enemy didn’t inject that much poison into the monk. Maybe that’s the reason he’s still breathing even though he’s unconscious…”

The analysis he had been making had to be brought to a sudden halt. Kento heard the sound of a few shurikens, slicing through the air in his direction. He was already too late to roll away from the incoming bullets. As a quick method of repelling, he instantly pressed one of the floor mats on its side, causing it to be lifted in a timely way so that it would absorb the damage of the shurikens. Kento's attempts to locate the enemy were of no use at first, but after scanning the entire ground floor of the temple, Kento came to a step when he unexpectedly heard a crackling noise of wood. His head then turned to the roof and Kento almost froze in place when he saw a scary figure hanging off from the ceiling of the ground floor.

"Surprise! Hattori Kento!"

The yelling of Kento’s name startled him from within. And within a blink of an eye, the dark figure unlatched from the roof and kick-started his legs to reach the floor. Earning enough momentum to smash through the wall, the unknown Kōga ninja tried to bash Kento with a heavy weapon. Foreseeing the incoming attack, Kento grabbed and held the monk in his arms and tried to run towards the entrance. But he barely missed the door. The charging ninja thudded him in his back, opening up a hole in one of the walls, throwing him out of the temple and almost ending him up in the water of the Kyoko-Chi pond. Kento acted fast. He managed to safely land on the small aisle in the centre. After touching down, Kento slowly laid the little monk beside the small tree that was growing in on the isle.

“Aaaah! My back! That guy's blow hit me hard!!

“Well well well…how impolite of you to break into my slaughterhouse without any permission?”

Just when Kento was trying to check his condition, his ears rang with the same voice that caused him a startle. The ninja appeared from the sky and landed on a small, pointed rock that had popped out of the pond. The figure was pretty tall, with a very fit body that had developed muscles that gave away the power and strength that the individual possessed. He had a mask covering his facial features, just like a shinobi assassin equipped with a nodachi, almost like to the one that his comrade was using. But Kento wasn’t astonished by his appearance at all. Instead, his eyes were locked on to one thing…and one thing only.

His Forehead.

It was emitting rays of blue light as Kento was gazing at it. A few seconds later, the brilliance slowly faded and exposed the wobbly, uneven-looking cubical-shaped stone embedded onto a forehead belt.

"What do you want, monster?" Kento yelled while dragging his sword out.

The Kōga ninja chuckled noisily. He then pointed his blade towards Kento and replied.

"Your head, Hattori Kento."

"You thought it was a solid idea to shake the blood of monks…you demon?" While directing his sword towards his enemy, Kento tried to question the Kōga.

“Shouldn’t we the Kōgas be the ones answering that same question when you guys chose to fight us when we were trying to maintain order and avenge our ancestors?” The Masked Ninja replied. “You truly believe that your ways of maintaining peace without the use of violence always work out. But I firmly disagree…”

“Then you should have dealt that with us! The Iga Ninjas! The Hattoris! The family you believe to have set this fire lasting for years! Why take it up on these innocent human beings who had no hate in their hearts whatsoever?”

The enemy didn't reply. Instead, he launched another minor attack with another shuriken, which was very unusual. Kento dodged the shuriken like nothing, and let it thud into a nearby tree. After glancing at the ninja star once again, he quickly remembered to keep his eye on the enemy. But when he turned around, horror-struck him when he saw….

…the four other ninjas who were standing on the water with the use of Mizugumo, or more specifically, water slippers.

Kento was startled as he hadn’t sensed the presence of any more ninjas other than the masked Kōga ninja. His bewilderment only kept on increasing, until the opponent spoke up with a chuckle

"Haha! Kento! Have you prepared yourself to face my avatars?"

Only then did Kento realise one thing. He took a closer look at each ninja that was standing on the water. He concluded that the four ninjas that had made an appearance so abruptly were identical to the one on the rock. More specifically, all of them were solid clones of the original ninja. Kento tried to solve the mystery behind the appearance of these multiple identical bodies. He solved the riddle when his eyes caught sight of the Sapphire of Avatars tied around the ninjas' foreheads.

“Ahh…Now it starts to make a lot more sense. I suppose this is what that man I met on the way meant by ‘Sensing the presence of something sinister’. This jewel grants a power similar to the splitting illusion Technique. That Grandmaster-level technique could only be mastered by a few shinobi Jounins. How pathetic do you have to be to use it against innocent bystanders and let them get caught up in the crossfire? “

He thought.

"I suppose ‘This’ is what you people in Kōga believe; The Exploitation of supernatural powers."

The Kōganinja chuckled once more, slowly speaking after keeping silent for a while.

"Yeah! With this, I can summon my own images made of flesh and blood by proportioning my energy. I massacred all these monks with my clones. All their stupid gibberish about that big guy, Buddha, are all useless. They are better off sent to hell."

Kento was agitated after hearing these sentences. He was so mad that he almost rushed to attack one of the clones. He was bashed into his original position as he got close to one of the avatars. At that moment, he drew lines with the last time he was bashed, eventually realising that he felt the same pain when he was bashed through the walls of the Kinkaku-Ji temple.

"Maybe you could be a little polite and answer my question?"

"Very well...I should say that these dead monks could be called a sacrifice for something great that’s about to happen. Which is the inevitable duel between me and my army of clones against you, a bratty but somewhat respectable teenager with some sword skills. You overpower me…you’ll walk away with my property and your pathetic life. Die…and your body will be impaled onto a stick while your head turns into ash in the heart of our village!"

Kento nodded, but the Kōga ninja replied before he could stop his actions.

"Huh…what a brave kid indeed? I wonder how you'll be able to fight me and my clones! I have split up all my energy among my clones. Are you kidding me? You couldn’t even handle that bash that one of my avatars used when you were being thrown out of the temple? How are you supposed to fight me?"

Kento replied with bravery,

"I am ready to accept your challenge."

The Kōga ninja chuckled, and finally determined to disclose his name, to Kento.

"I challenge you to fight Nakabara, Hattori Kento!"