In the hidden village, left almost without peaceful inhabitants — under the rule of a demon, three thousand people were reduced to a couple of dozen old men — even the Onin ninja who had not betrayed them did not stay, led by two surviving jonin, right on the recent battlefield, who swore allegiance to the high priestess.
A very sensible decision, in my opinion — the remnants of the Oni no Kuni's who managed to survive the demon's turmoil by switching to the right side would not be able to recover in the next few years anyway, and the attitude of the country's inhabitants towards them would be very suspicious, to say the least.
Serving the very wealthy priesthood would not only provide them with permanent work, but also in the future, it will give them the opportunity to rebuild their hidden village, if their patron does not object.
And in the coming years, Miroku will significantly increase the number of defenders who will be able to deal with threats of a non-demonic nature, against which the spiritual powers of the priests are ineffective.
After quickly treating the wounded, including with my help, the reduced army set off on its return journey, only now we were moving along the most convenient and shortest route, without fear of ambushes from demon worshippers, which greatly affected our speed.
The allies followed directly to Numa no Kuni, dropping off the priests at the turn from the main road to the main temple, not wasting time organizing a camp, but even so, this did not greatly affect our speed — my kage bunshin easily dealt with the dozen or so priests who had lost their "means of transportation" and we managed to return in three days.
In general, I wasn't planning on staying long, and even more so, by my standards, slowly trailing behind the others — I still had a long way to go before I got home — but Miroku persuaded me not to rush, as I hadn't yet received my due reward.
It would be fine if it were about money, which is never enough, but I didn't want to waste so much time for it, except that she promised to give me access to her library of fuinjutsu, collected by generations of priestesses, which I couldn't resist, especially since my perfect marionette is currently training at the Great Water Temple, with the aim of gaining truly valuable knowledge of spiritual practices in a few years.
Which can quite successfully counter the abilities of ninja, and not just demons, by the way, otherwise the great hidden villages would certainly not leave all the temples alone, which have considerable influence in society and finances.
For some reason, this fact is not mentioned at all during training at the academy or even in the clan. If it weren't for the ninja sent by the kanpeki, I would never have known that some monks at the temple can compete in taijutsu even with recognized Konoha contact ninja, using spiritual power to strengthen themselves and inflict damage, rather than chakra.
Thanks to his sensory perception, it was not difficult for the clone to notice the difference, and the yin component of chakra had nothing to do with it, as I had previously thought.
There were persistent rumors at home that the temples of the Land of Fire were training chakra users, but this is complete nonsense — Hiroshi had visited almost all the major temples with his employer in recent years, but he had never sensed anything like this, although he had observed the monks training.
If I can combine different knowledge about spiritual power and channel it into seals to damage ordinary living beings while remaining invisible, it will be a huge advantage that will definitely come in handy in the future.
Okay, enemies that can be simply chopped up with a sword or fried with ninjutsu are fine, but the presence of some incomprehensible black unkillable crap with a wide range of abilities, which is trying to resurrect Kaguya and bring the shinobi into the world, really bothers me, and it's quite possible that spiritual power will be the key to this problem, so Miroku's gift was very timely.
And I wasn't a complete idiot, so I recognized the glances the beauty was throwing at me, and after sitting on a starvation diet for so long, I wasn't averse to receiving an additional "reward" personally from the high priestess.
Moreover, upon arrival, the temple servants immediately began to prepare a feast to celebrate the victory, giving me another reason to stay a little longer.
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