The match between Saicho and Recca begins. The former tells Hanabishi that he can only fight for 10 minutes since he had a heart condition (which revealed to be an injury caused by stabbing by one of the rebellious Kuu students). Throughout the fight, it is revealed that Saicho's Madogu, Shikigami (animator) can produce paper made of a magical barrier that cannot be easily burned. Some of the artworks made by the Kuu fighter include a deflecting force field (Nuno Zarashin), a paper sword (Kami No Ken) and as well as a crane of a thousand paper birds. In this bout, Saiha, the second flame dragon shows his true power in a form of a flame sword. At the end of the match, Recca challenged Kukai despite Hokage's victory.