Rewind the clock by ten minutes.
After Rashōmon feigned defeat, was scattered by Yagura's strike, and slowly disappeared from the battlefield—
"Lord Yagura..."
"Ah. I can feel it."
Yagura, who had been examining the traces left by the previous battle, trying to glean something of Rashōmon's essence, stood up and turned to respond to the jōnin's call.
The curse shrouding Kirigakure seemed to have receded.
The cold, heavy pressure melted away like butter. Even his movements felt much lighter.
The thick fog had been cleared away by the Mechanical Bird's beams. The afternoon sun fell upon these ruins, even evoking a somewhat lazy feeling.
"Leave three men here on alert. The rest of you, go patrol the other parts of the village. Anzu, go call the research division to come examine this area. That black thing was far too suspicious."
"Yes!" "Understood!"
Waving them off, Yagura returned the coral club to his back and issued his orders in sequence.
Back when he had first been promoted to jōnin, to give his baby face more intimidation, Yagura had developed the habit of keeping a straight face.
Now, with his infamous reputation as support, he no longer needed to maintain that expression constantly, but he couldn't break the habit either.
Still, this also avoided many troubles. Yagura had relied on his reputation to smoothly cover many reformists in their departure from Kirigakure.
Not waiting for the jōnin to respond, he turned and headed toward the shrine's location.
The others merely assumed he was going to assess the extent of the village's damage and paid it no mind. After all, this "temperament" was just how the Mizukage's assistant always was.
"Medical Squad Three! There are still seriously injured patients over here!" "Where are the recon squad?!" "Stop yelling, stop yelling! We're too busy, damn it!"
"Never mind me, go check on my child—" "Hemostatic medicine!" "..."
The shouts of ninjas and civilians mixed with the wind in Yagura's ears, indistinct.
But just from the glimpses caught in his peripheral vision, he could already imagine how tragic the scene must be.
Yagura took a deep breath of the air, laced with the stench of blood and scorched remains, and forced himself not to think about it.
Of course, he was worried about his wife and son. But before that, there were more important matters to confirm.
Hii Kōri had said he would resolve Kirigakure's curse problem. Yagura had indeed witnessed his ability to wield cursed energy. But whether he would actually follow through on his promise Yagura had little confidence.
Perhaps Hii Kōri had merely gathered the curses together, creating this temporary illusion?
If it were him, Yagura thought, he might have chosen to use it as leverage against Kirigakure.
Thinking thus, Yagura swiftly moved through Kirigakure's streets, using the pretext of surveying the damage in various locations to openly expand his range of perception, searching for any clues related to Hii Kōri.
There was no need to re-examine the place where he had fought. The only survivors there were himself and a few jōnin.
Yet he found nothing.
That damned red-haired bastard had disappeared as if he had never been there at all.
As a ninja capable of weaving such a meticulous technique as the Water Mirror Technique, Yagura's sensory abilities were naturally quite good.
But Hii Kōri's concealment had even evaded the perception of Uzumaki Mito—let alone now, when he was inside a small otherworld like an Innate Domain.
Even if Yagura's every nerve were pulled out and spread across the ground, he still wouldn't find him.
"Lord Yagura."
Just as he was helping a search-and-rescue team dig out a survivor, a Kirigakure Anbu suddenly appeared beside him, presenting a scroll with both hands.
Yagura took it. It was a half-written list of the deceased. The last characters had been rolled up in haste before the ink was even dry, leaving a large smeared blotch.
Yagura understood. There must be something that couldn't be said openly being conveyed to him—something that couldn't even let others realize that "something important" was happening.
His expression unchanged, he pretended to study the scroll carefully. The Anbu leaned in and murmured in his ear: "The Mizukage's whereabouts are unknown."
"?"
Yagura's movements paused. A flicker of surprise passed through his eyes.
The Third Mizukage going mad and advancing the Bloody Mist policy was one thing, but he wasn't incapable in other areas. If he were, he wouldn't have held his position steadily for over a decade.
The deployment of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen, the operations of the Anbu—all had been directed by the Mizukage.
When such a major incident occurred in the village, after assigning tasks to his subordinates, wouldn't it be normal for the Mizukage to take some further action?
The Anbu's duties technically included "protecting the Kage," but who actually took that seriously?
"Also... we found this on the Mizukage's office desk."
Sensing Yagura's sharp gaze, which seemed to regard him as an idiot, the Anbu's tone stiffened slightly. He pulled out another piece of freshly written paper and handed it over.
The moment Yagura's eyes landed on it, his pupils slightly contracted.
He scanned the slightly sloppy but still recognizable familiar handwriting, his eyebrows lifting almost imperceptibly, the corner of his mouth twitching involuntarily. His fingers gripping the edge of the paper were so tight they nearly crushed it.
This was the "suicide note" of the Third Mizukage that Rashōmon had just recently forged.
In the letter, the "Third Mizukage," in very hurried language, described his long-term descent into madness under the influence of the curse, confessed his paranoid and insane actions under that influence, made some conjectures about the village's unrest, and explained that he had now, through some opportunity, gained a moment of clarity.
He stated that he was going to deal with the curses and was prepared to not return.
If he didn't come back, he asked Elder Genji to come forward and take charge of Kirigakure's affairs.
The final few lines were apologies to the village and to his fallen colleagues.
The "Third Mizukage's" handwriting grew increasingly messy toward the end, giving a sense of "writing whatever came to mind." In the lower-left corner were the Third Mizukage's personal seal and chakra mark.
That was the most common method of authentication.
Yagura looked at it silently for a long time—so long that the subordinate who had delivered the note grew somewhat uneasy, shifting his feet.
"Who else has seen this letter?"
Yagura raised his gaze slightly, staring at the Anbu's mask as if trying to see through it to the face beneath.
"The other two members of my team."
The Anbu answered immediately, his tone was very quick, as if afraid that if he hesitated, the killing star before him might find some reason to take his head.
"...I see. Don't spread this around for now."
Yagura nodded, casually tucking the letter into his collar, and ordered the Anbu in a steady tone, neither pleased nor angry: "Go now and invite Elder Genji. Inform the elder that the Mizukage has left an important letter for him to see, and that we hope he will come forward to take charge."
"Understood."
With a quick response, the Anbu vanished with a whoosh to carry out the order.
Although the Anbu were technically a unit directly under the Mizukage, following only his commands, special circumstances required special measures.
With the Mizukage apparently missing, the one with the most say was naturally his assistant, Yagura.
At least, that was what this Anbu team believed.
If not him, then who? The ninja clans constantly scheming against each other openly and covertly?
As Kirigakure Anbu, they had seen far more ugly affairs than the average Kirigakure ninja. They dealt with five, six, seven, eight incidents of clans sabotaging each other every month. They had little confidence in them.
And indeed, other teams were still busy dealing with clans claiming they had been attacked.
Someone missing? It must have been another clan taking the opportunity to strike!
How did they know? Because they had done it themselves.
It was precisely because of this local culture that Rashōmon had been able to so blatantly take the opportunity to pillage women and children from some clans.
In any other major hidden village, he couldn't have done that.
"Tch..."
Watching the Anbu depart, Yagura stood where he was, clicking his tongue with displeasure. His gaze shifted toward the Mizukage's office building.
This suicide note surprised him greatly.
Knowing the Third Mizukage as he did, he found it hard to believe that the madman had written this. Even though the handwriting was almost identical, with no deviation.
Rather than believing that the Third Mizukage had suddenly awakened, he was more inclined to believe that Hii Kōri had done something.
After all, the conditions that bastard had proposed earlier had also mentioned "dealing with the maddened Third Mizukage."
Only, Yagura hadn't expected his insane former superior to disappear so quietly.
As the Third Mizukage's assistant, Yagura was well aware of his strength.
In a real fight, he and the Third were roughly evenly matched—his own odds of victory might even be slightly higher.
But for someone to make him disappear without a trace, then forge something like this, then leave silently...
"Tch... a threat to pressure me into acting quickly, huh..."
Taking the suicide note as Hii Kōri's "threat," Yagura's expression unchanged, he stamped his heel with displeasure and turned to the rescue efforts.
Outside Kirigakure, already on his way back, Hii Kōri could more or less guess Yagura's thoughts. But he had deliberately left without seeing him precisely to achieve this effect.
After all, everything that needed to be done was done. The die was cast. He could simply go directly to Kirigakure later to place commissions.
Compared to Yagura's reaction, what truly concerned him was Hyakki Kūbō, now transformed into a cursed object.
"What a remarkable thing... even as a cursed object, it's so restless."
Riding an Iron Sand cloud at an altitude imperceptible to the naked eye, Hii Kōri toyed with the chaotic sphere that Hyakki Kūbō had become, sighing with genuine feeling.
It was a pitch-black sphere about half a fist in size. Its material was indistinguishable, with a texture somewhere between leather and bone, yet it appeared to have a subtle transparency.
He held the sphere up to the sun. Even under direct sunlight, "Hyakki Kūbō" still exhibited abnormal characteristics. Its edges grew even blacker, while the center—which should have been thicker—was more transparent, revealing a deep purple churning within.
If one's gaze fell upon it, it even felt as if the blackness was expanding before one's eyes, until it swallowed the entire field of vision.
That was proof that Hyakki Kūbō's nature was still active.
Unlike cursed objects formed from the residual flesh of living beings after death, which preserved some of the original's consciousness and power, Hyakki Kūbō contained no consciousness whatsoever.
This was determined by its own nature.
When this sphere became established as a cursed object, the imaginary personality used to maintain its morphological stability became unnecessary and thus dissipated.
So if this black-purple sphere were fed to a human, it probably could not cause Hyakki Kūbō to be incarnated and revived in a quasi-cursed spirit form, like Ryōmen Sukuna, the Cursed Womb: Death Paintings, or those ancient sorcerers from the Culling Game.
"Should I just dispose of it...? From a threat assessment, it would be safer to eliminate it completely. After all, this is something capable of destroying the entire planet—even possibly swallowing the whole universe..."
"But that would be such a waste."
Rashōmon extended a small bean-sprout from Hii Kōri's shoulder, observing the cursed object in his hand.
"Besides, this should be a Special Grade cursed object. Based on your understanding, those are supposed to be indestructible, aren't they?"
"Heh heh... In my original world, that was probably the case."
Tossing Hyakki Kūbō up and down, Hii Kōri shrugged noncommittally. "But in this world, there might be other methods. After all, when it comes to offensive output, this world's systems are superior to those of my previous life."
"But you're right. This thing's 'cursed technique' or rather, its essence is the most destructive thing even in this world. Getting rid of it like this really would be a shame. Keeping it as a backup trump card against the Ōtsutsuki clan isn't a bad idea either."
"But you also have to consider the possibility that the The Ōtsutsuki clan might have countermeasures."
"Then we'll just have to deal with things as they come. Rather than worrying about how this technique might be countered, I think it's more cost-effective to think about what other methods to use if this one gets countered."
Hii Kōri tossed Hyakki Kūbō into the air, snapped his fingers, and layered dozens of various seals onto its outer layer. Rashōmon then extended its body and swallowed it within.
"And even if I were to use it, I'd have to prepare all sorts of things in advance—at the very least, maintain some basic control over the thing."
"Your offensive options are already seriously overflowing, Kōri."
"Mm-hmm. That's exactly right."