Chương 9: Kusanagi Sword

Upon actually exploring the village, Jieluo discovered that Takigakure was quite large. After nearly a week, Jieluo had roughly figured out most of the important locations in the village.

Among them, there are three places with important defensive forces.

The first is the main building in the very center of the village, where the village leader and a group of old Sengoku guys hold their daily offices and secret meetings. It is the most magnificent building in the village. In the past, Yura was not qualified to approach it, but this time he secretly listened in for a day. Most of the time they talked about trivial matters of the village and old grievances from the Sengoku period.

A group of old men who were no longer very good at fighting argued until their faces were red. Occasionally they would talk about important matters, such as their ambition to become the sixth great country.

However, the recent discussions have been quite unpleasant due to the failed assassination attempt on the God of Shinobi. Amidst mutual accusations and blame-shifting, most of the old men are worried and fearful of retaliation from Konoha, and are discussing countermeasures.

Konoha's retaliation is unlikely; given Hashirama Senju's personality, he probably wouldn't take it seriously.

If you offend Tobirama, then you should worry about revenge.

When the village holds a general meeting, the security is at its most stringent. More than half of the village's Jonin gather, represented by the four clans of Hero, Senki, Uji, and Kusanagi, each bringing one Jonin as a guard. Essentially, it's like a gang negotiation, with extremely low levels of trust between the members.

As a result, only three of the village's seven remaining Jonin were left. Among them, Mochizuki Gen was neutral and usually stayed alone in the clinic in a remote corner of the village, a complete drunkard. The other two Jonin were not in the village, but guarded a secluded place outside the village.

Based on the information and deductions gathered by Yura, that underground cave should be guarded by the Seven-Tails Jinchuriki.

Both Jonin were likely on long-term assignments. Due to the village's manpower shortage, Yura did not see any signs of a rotation. Moreover, as an outsider who was not a trusted member of the four clans, it was only natural that he would be assigned long-term, arduous tasks in the village.

Therefore, if two people die silently, the village might not notice anything unusual even after a day or two.

Jieluo doesn't plan to attack them for the time being, but she will make contact with the Seven-Tails Jinchuriki before the operation begins. Among the five great villages, the tailed beast capture plan has just started. Hashirama Senju has not yet delivered the beasts. Apart from Sunagakure, which has immature tailed beast sealing technology, Takigakure is currently the fastest progressing village.

In just over a year, various signs have indicated that the village has already sealed the tailed beasts within the Jinchuriki.

However, at present, this immature human jinchūriki technique often means extreme danger.

It's quite normal to place them in remote areas far from the village; the human jinchūriki themselves may have even more problems.

Recently, Jieluo has been thinking about how Kakuzu managed to wipe out all the high-ranking members of Takigakure. With Kakuzu's current fighting strength, he can probably only handle three or four Jonin. But if something unexpected happens, such as a Jinchuriki going berserk, Kakuzu could actually manage to do it by taking advantage of the chaos.

Conversely, if the village were to utilize the power of the Jinchūriki, the outcome would not be favorable for Yura.

As for the last place, although it is guarded by twenty chuunibyou, there are no jonin assigned to it. It is a ninjutsu warehouse jointly built by the four clans to show their sincerity. This place is not a secret and is well known in the village.

Throughout the week, Jieluo would secretly sneak in late at night to observe.

The Earthly Grudge was not stored there; clearly, all four clans had kept some. It was indeed going to be revealed from Old Deng.

Some of the techniques in the arsenal that could be considered secret arts were quite ordinary in Jieluo's eyes. Most of them were B-rank and C-rank regular ninjutsu from the ninja world, with a small number of A-rank ninjutsu mixed in. Don't be fooled by the powerful effect of Earth Release: Earth Spear; it was only a B-rank ninjutsu.

These ninjutsu are considered powerful even by Jonin standards, such as Wind Release: Pressure Damage, Lightning Release: False Darkness, Fire Release: Head Carving, and other common elemental ninjutsu.

The Uji clan's distinctive Water Release ninjutsu caught Jieluo's eye. For example, the Water Dragon Bullet Technique, which only requires six hand seals, is only two more than the simplified Water Release hand seals of the Second Hokage, Tobirama Senju. Compared to the original Water Dragon Bullet Technique with 44 hand seals, it is undoubtedly superior. There are quite a few Water Release ninjutsu like this.

As for the other special water jutsu of the Uji school, it is the Water Release without hand seals. Similar to the swordsmanship of the Uchiha school, it belongs to the ninjutsu and taijutsu. It can control water flow and transform water into various weapons. The technique is not complicated, but it requires strong chakra control ability, and its destructive power is not very good.

However, the Kusanagi-style swordsmanship is something that Yura desperately needs right now.

As an ancient, secret sword technique, the Kusanagi clan could not possibly teach Yura everything without reservation. The technique they taught Yura was called the Crescent Moon Short Sword.

Jieluo often felt that this technique itself was strange and awkward, especially its lack of offensive power. The sword style was mainly for blocking, parrying and defense. This forced Jieluo to develop the Swallow Return in order to kill. Swallow Return, to put it bluntly, is just to increase the attack range of the kodachi. The solution is simple: tie a steel wire to it, which brutally increases the range and turns it into a soft whip sword.

This avoids the terrible predicament of being in close combat with strong adults with small arms and legs. A sudden sneak attack can usually kill with one blow.

On the battlefield, enemies usually cannot expect Yura to launch his only ninja sword like a kunai. It is quite sudden, roughly equivalent to a simplified version of Kratos's Exile Blade, with an attack range of about three or four meters.

Otherwise, the combined attack range of his small arm and katana wouldn't even be as long as the other person's sword, and he would be killed with a single blow before he could even get close.

However, the Kusanagi clan was right to teach the Half-Moon Short Sword. This defensive sword technique was the most suitable for the young Yura at the time. As long as he could hold off an enemy on the battlefield for long enough, he was a qualified genin cannon fodder. Whether he killed the enemy or not didn't matter. The longer he could hold out, the better. This often caused Yura to struggle desperately and end up covered in wounds.

Now, having once again obtained the fragments of the Kusanagi clan's secret swordsmanship manual, the technique of the Eternal Moon Greatsword recorded on it made Yura suddenly realize something.

This kind of nodachi, which is over two meters long and seven feet long, was not a weapon that Yura could wield at the time. It was a swordsmanship style that was paired with the crescent-shaped kodachi, namely the dual-sword style, one for offense and one for defense. It required a considerable amount of superhuman strength to execute smoothly, and it was not easy even for adult ninjas. It was even more difficult to master the use of dual swords in combat.

And difficulty implies extreme strength.

Although he has now abandoned the use of swords, the techniques of dual-sword style are of great reference value for Yura's Swallow Return Multi-Sword Style.

As always, they were a stingy family. The fragmented scroll contained only a few fragments of katana techniques: one each of kodachi, nodachi, naginata, spear, taijutsu, shuriken, and draw sword techniques. Not a single secret technique was included. I'll have to pay a visit to the head of the family.

The shurikenjutsu is a stick-shaped shurikenjutsu, mostly used by samurai, and it's something Yura has already learned.

But what interested Jieluo the most was the information and rumors about the various ninja clans during the Warring States period, compiled from the records of the four clans.

It can also be viewed as a legend or story.

For example, during the ancient Warring States period, a monster weapon of the Uchiha clan called Uchiha Mumei was sealed by the Senju clan in conjunction with the Sarutobi clan. A senior member of the Uji clan said that it could be dug up and used for their own purposes, and provided a clue that it must be recorded in the Senju clan's secret history of the Warring States period.

For example, a senior member of the Thousand Demon Clan wrote in his journal that the Kusanagi Clan may have sealed away an extremely dangerous Kusanagi sword.

In the ninja world, the Kusanagi sword is not a single weapon, but a general term for a type of sword, each with its own unique abilities in addition to its sharpness.

Orochimaru's Kusanagi sword can freely shrink and transform, and is also known as the Heavenly Cloud Sword. Itachi Uchiha's Totsuka Blade is a spirit sword without a physical form and can perform sealing techniques. Sasuke's Kusanagi sword does not seem to have an alias, but its ability is an extremely excellent chakra conduction ability, making it the most suitable ninja sword for taijutsu.

This type of sword shares a common characteristic: it is indestructible.

This characteristic makes it very suitable to become the host of Yura.

In this way, the only fatal weakness can be temporarily eliminated.

It was a pleasant surprise.

Sitting atop the Black Nest in the dense forest outside the village, Jie Luo swung his legs and looked up at the moon, his mood somewhat complicated. After a week, he still hadn't found the hiding place of the Hero's Water, so he had no choice but to activate Plan B.

Meanwhile, in Konoha.

The eldest brother, who was the Hokage, had already gone home and was fast asleep, while the poor younger brother, Tobirama, could only stay in the Hokage Building, suffering through the night working overtime. The endless work was almost overwhelming him.

Without telling his elder brother, he helped him handle the preliminary matters of asking the Uzumaki clan for the Uzumaki princess's hand in marriage.

This can be considered a political marriage.

At this moment, looking at the intelligence report in his hand, Tobirama's expression turned solemn, and his brows furrowed in thought.

In this peaceful era, no one dares to provoke Konoha. The fact that the Ino-Shika-Cho trio disappeared after leaving the village and did not return for a long time is an anomaly that warrants vigilance and investigation.

"The evil Uchiha Madara...?"

With a slight raise of his hand, a masked Senju ninja instantly knelt on one knee in front of Tobirama, awaiting orders.