"Is this where the demon horse Entei is sealed?"
The voice that spoke was cold and feminine,yet it belonged to Kagetsu, speaking through the Six Paths puppet crafted from Midoriko's body.
She stood at the edge of a forested mountain slope.
Not far below, a small village clung to the mountainside. At its edge stood a modest temple,his destination.
Mangan-ji Temple,the place where the demon horse Entei had been sealed.
Midoriko's puppet body still wore the red-and-white robes of a shrine maiden, but now layered with black samurai skirt armor. The cold sheen of the plates gave her otherwise gentle figure a sharp, battle-ready edge.
After repeated practice, Kagetsu had fully mastered control over this Six Paths puppet,and had assigned it the power of the Deva Path.
In other words, this Midoriko puppet now functioned as his Deva Path.
Through experimentation, he had also uncovered a key principle behind the Six Paths puppets:
Which Path's ability a puppet possessed depended entirely on how the black rods were arranged within its body.
To switch abilities, the internal structure had to be reconfigured,like tuning a radio to a different frequency.
That was precisely why Nagato's Six Paths of Pain couldn't swap abilities mid-battle.
"Mangan-ji Temple… where the monk Shinsen resides…"
Through the puppet's Rinnegan, Kagetsu's vision pierced through the forest canopy, locking onto a cave hidden behind the temple. A sacred rope barrier sealed its entrance.
"The seal's still intact."
Without hesitation, chakra surged beneath her feet. She leapt down from the mountainside, landing lightly before heading straight toward the shrine at the rear of the temple.
Meanwhile, Kagetsu's original body remained at the shrine, learning to control spiritual power under Kikyo's guidance.
While training, he had also been using the Midoriko puppet to scour nearby mountains, searching for suitable demons to convert into summons for the Animal Path.
Only after awakening the Rinnegan had he realized,
The Animal Path's summons weren't granted automatically. They had to be obtained manually.
Fortunately, unlike ordinary summoning contracts, these didn't require living creatures.
Corpses would suffice.
All he had to do was feed them to the King of Hell summoned by the Naraka Path.
Simple. Efficient.
And during this hunt, he remembered Entei,the powerful demon horse from the past.
A perfect mount.
Midoriko made no effort to hide her presence as she entered the temple grounds, ignoring the monks entirely as she passed through.
Moments later, she arrived at the shrine on the mountain's rear.
At its center stood a massive sealing stone, bound tightly with sacred ropes. Spiritual power pulsed faintly across its surface.
Beneath it,Entei.
"This is it."
Kagetsu raised her hand. Chakra flowed into the summoning seal engraved on her arm.
"Poof!"
A burst of smoke erupted,
And a massive blade appeared in her grasp.
Savage Dragon Sword
The enormous weapon contrasted sharply with her slender frame.
She lifted it slowly, preparing to cleave the sealing stone in two.
"Stop! Who are you?!"
A sharp voice rang out.
Midoriko paused, turning her head.
An elderly monk stood at the shrine's entrance, his expression stern and wary.
"…So I was noticed," she said flatly.
This had to be Monk Shinsen,the one who had sealed Entei decades ago.
Though Kagetsu hadn't bothered concealing himself, the monk's awareness still impressed him.
He had already noticed a weakness in the Six Paths puppets: aside from their assigned abilities, they couldn't use his original techniques.
No ninjutsu. No teleportation. No sensory perception.
Even detecting an approaching enemy was difficult without direct line of sight.
A puppet was, ultimately, just a puppet.
"You… who are you?" the monk demanded, tightening his grip on his prayer beads.
His gaze lingered on her eyes,and his expression changed instantly.
Those ripple-patterned pupils…
Not human.
Yet, strangely, she bore no demonic aura,only an overwhelming, suffocating pressure.
"A demon?" he demanded. "Do you intend to break Entei's seal?"
"Don't meddle," Midoriko replied coldly. "Leave."
She turned away, raising the blade again.
"If you don't want to be sealed, withdraw at once!" the monk shouted, pulling a golden ritual weapon from his robes.
Midoriko ignored him.
Instead, she followed Kikyo's teachings,drawing upon the spiritual power within her body and channeling it into the blade.
Spiritual power and demonic energy merged seamlessly.
Unlike purification, this fusion depended entirely on intent.
Just as Kikyo's arrows had once combined with Inuyasha's blade to destroy demons, power could coexist without conflict.
"Enough!"
The monk acted.
He thrust forward his weapon, unleashing a burst of radiant spiritual force.
But just as the attack reached her,
An invisible barrier erupted outward.
The force shattered instantly, dissolving into particles of light.
"…Impossible…" the monk whispered, eyes wide.
Before he could react,
Midoriko turned fully, her gaze locking onto him.
Her left hand rose slowly, palm outstretched.
A quiet voice followed.
"Shinra Tensei."
The world seemed to pause,
Then a crushing force exploded outward.
The monk's barrier shattered instantly. His prayer beads broke apart, scattering across the ground.
His body was hurled backward, crashing out of the shrine and tumbling across the earth before finally coming to a stop.
He lay there, stunned, barely able to move.
But alive.
Kagetsu had held back.
After all, he was trespassing,and technically robbing the place.
Killing the guardian monk would have been… excessive.