Red Riot - Chapter 21 - Red ambush (Patreon)

Character list:

Matsu:- The MC, a Kiri Chunin, with Uzumaki traits.

Himeko:- Kaguya clanswoman with their Kekkei Genkai, Genin, and violence enthusiast

Sharkbait:- real name ???, Genin that trained with Matsu, skilled combatant, expert bait for sharks

Hideo Munashi:- One of the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist, Wilder of Shibuki - the exploding blade

Jonin Akiko - Matsu’s Sensei and exasperated mentor of other children, Matsu returned her beauty to her.

Yumi:- Geisha of the Land of Vegetables, Matsu has plans for her

Hana:- Handmaiden and younger girl who acts as Yumi’s helper

Madam Yubaba:- Port Potato Okiya (Geisha den) matron, person who hired Kiri nin to secure Yumi’s procession.

Lord Edo:- The Lord that Madam Yubaba is claiming has sired Yumi. Unpopular man who has lots of enemies. Yubbaba hopes to cash in on this enmity. She just needs Yumi to survive Edo’s backlash.

Hotaru Uzumaki - Uzumaki clan leader who was captured and turned into Gengetu’s toy. He’s very, very dead now.

Hiroshi Uzumaki - Old shinobi of Uzushio, father to Mara, Grandfather to Momotaro. Blacksmith. Hideo’s target. 

Momotaro Uzumaki - Kid with a chip on his shoulder. 

Mara Uzumaki - sickly daughter to Hiroshi. Former Kunoichi of Uzushio.

Fuza - Heir to the Land of Vegetables, besotted with Mara Uzumaki

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“—and this sequence of dashes when following the arrow creates a…” Hiroshi said in a leading tone.

I rubbed at my temples trying and failing to make the headache abate. It annoyed me no end that I could have such good control of my muscles, blood vessels, bones, and chakra network, but a damned headache could still occur.

It perhaps spoke volumes about the difficulty of learning seals.

“It causes an inversion in the chakra pathway which for an explosive seal can result in a clash? But only for water-aligned chakra,” I said tentatively.

Hiroshi stared at me. “How?” he said.

I swallowed and eyed the lines leading out and then back in. “If you feed it a constant trickle it will react faster but if you pulse a single burst of chakra into it it will break it down the pathways and then when they return they will come together creating the explosion,” I said. 

“Are you sure?” Hiroshi prompted.

“Yes! I’m sure!” I said firmly. 

Hiroshi held my glare before nodding amicably. “Good, now if we added a breaking line with a twirl to only one of the lines what would happen? Also, you need to consider what happens if this was lightning, fire, earth and air aligned chakra instead.”

I groaned as I tried to dredge through my memories of the lessons I’d had so far. 

I’d been at this for a few days now. In between healing Mara and working with Yumi to secure her an invitation to the palace, I’d been trying to grind any and all lessons I could. 

“Yo boss!” called Sharkbait. “We got an incoming noble party!”

I held in the need to sag with relief, it wouldn't do anything for my headache after all and I didn’t want to show how much trying to cram as much fuinjutsu knowledge I could get my hands on was affecting me.

Hiroshi sniffed. “About time that young fop get back to me,” he muttered.  

I eyed Hiroshi. “This guy is your backer for this manor?” I asked waving a hand at the room, indicating the manor at large. 

“Feh! This is barely a hovel for the home I used to have on Uzushio! I was respected and revered for my craft! This young fop has had pearls thrown before him and he barely knows what to do with them! If it wasn’t for…” Hiroshi clenched his jaw, not wanting to say what had almost slipped out. 

Not that I needed him to. I knew that Mara, being so weakened would have resulted In Hirochi and Momotaro not being able to move around as much as they might like. 

That should be a thing of the past given a few more days treatment. I couldn’t say that I would have ‘cured’ Mara, as all I was really doing was searing her chakra nodes. It should hold up but this was a rather unprecedented treatment method. 

I usually just stopped people from bleeding out or from having broken bodies. I hadn’t touched on influencing other people’s chakra networks beyond stopping genjutsu from taking hold. 

Man, on reflection what I’d done was ballsy as anything.

I’d have to consider myself lucky it worked.

Hiroshi kipped up to his feet, not even showing a hint of being cramped up from kneeling in front of a small writing desk for the last few hours with me. Just another perk of chakra I supposed. 

I copied him, enjoying being on my feet if merely to have a change of position. I wasn’t cramping or getting uncomfortable. With any degree of chakra control, you could literally wipe away minor aches and pains. 

Truly, having chakra was a superpower, if for no other reason than the sheer convenience of being able to do things like kneel for hours on end without having aching joints or muscles to complain about. 

“So, who’s your benefactor,” I asked in the three days that we’d claimed a room within the manor, Hiroshi hadn’t volunteered the name of the Lord and casual inspections hadn’t revealed anything. Not even the staff that cleaned the house and prepared the meals gossiped about their employer. 

Which was telling.

What they did gossip about was how much Mara was more lively.

Hiroshi sniffed. “You’ve worked it out. Stop ferreting around for information,” he said.

“I’ll stop ferreting when I’m dead, until then it is best to verify information when I can. You never know when you might have missed something,” I said easily. 

Hiroshi snorted. “Well if you guessed it is the heir to the Land of Vegetables, you’d be right.” 

I nodded, showing I had assumed that. Hiroshi grunted. “He happened to share a roof with us when we stopped at a travellers' inn a few weeks ago.”

Which tracked with what Hideo probably knew with how he was searching the lands around the capital. He didn’t know his quarry was already here but he was still trying to get us to act as bait. Still, that didn’t account for some points such as the lack of a blacksmith shop, or how pointedly the servants observed Mara more than anyone else. 

“And he fell in love with Mara, didn’t he?” I said forming an idea of a young man encountering the trio. Hiroshi would have appeared like an elderly samurai or uncle rather than her father, and Momotaro? He could be passed off as an apprentice.

Mara, despite her frailty, was still a beautiful woman. Some people might even find her vulnerability more attractive. 

Hiroshi eyed me. “You’re too clever by half, do you ever get told that?” he said.

I shrugged. “He is retaining you, but not using your skills. He is aware of them but that isn’t the priority,” I said rationally as we moved to the entryway.  

From there I could watch as a small patrol worth of swordsmen rode into the compound. They did a good enough job searching aorund but I knew they weren’t out-and-out samurai when they looked at me and dismissed me as a threat, instead focussing on Hiroshi or Momotaro who were wearing swords. 

The chief guard offered Hiroshi a nod before turning back to watch the heir of the Land of Vegetables ride in on a white horse.

He cast a pretty picture, I’d give him that. 

His robes were bright blue and tucked away with golden thread rope that acted to keep his rather poofy attire actually holding to his body. At his waist, an ornate-looking katana rested and I could tell with but a glance at his hands that he barely qualified as a wielder, let alone a swordsman. 

He rode a white horse that pranced more than cantered in and I had to hold in a scoff. 

A fop indeed. 

I shared a look with Hiroshi and he rolled his eyes as the young Lord dismounted and tossed the reins of his horse to a rather nonplussed Sharkbait. He then flicked Sharkbait a coin which made Sharkbait shrug and tug the horse off to a railing for that very purpose. 

I noted that none of the guardsmen reacted to their lord suddenly having a kid that close to him. I shared another look with Hiroshi and he shook his head. “I know,” he said firmly.

I nodded. Right, best not to count on getting any reinforcements worth a damn from this man. 

I mentally marked everyone down as ‘liabilities’ in my mind. 

The Lord swanned in and grinned at Hiroshi. “Ah old timer! I got in some of the stock you wanted and I have made good progress on getting a renowned doctor from the Land of Wolf! Another week or two and they should be here!” 

“Don’t bother,” said Hiroshi.

The lord stiffened. “You don’t want… no!” the man’s face whitened. “Say it isn’t so!” 

I held in a chuckle as Hiroshi snorted. “She’s not dead. If anything she’s made a miraculous recovery.”

The man instantly perked up and flounced off, leaving me to stare after him. 

I pursed my lips. “I think the Land of Vegetables is doomed,” I said quietly. 

Hiroshi snorted. “They’re not, they have a very able Seneschal that runs a tight ship and has a good head for politics. He is also quite loyal to the current Lord from what I’ve been able to pry from Fuza,” said Hiroshi, indicating the retreating Heir’s back as he knocked on what I knew to be Mara’s door. 

I hummed, watching idly as Mara opened the door and the man began to smile like he’d just seen the sun for the first time in months.

Mara giggled at his antics and gestured for him to sit with her on the deck. I watched while mentally gnashing my teeth. Damn, there goes my best chance at getting Yumi the best husband she could.

No way ‘Fuza’ was going to entertain other women as options when Mara was the apple of his eye. 

I’d need to do some more work on that front.  

But before any of that could happen I’d need to get Yumi in front of people. I sighed, glancing at the open room where Mara was laughing at something Fuza was saying. I glanced back to the slab of notes I’d made up regarding Fuinjutsu, or more specifically a handful of symbols of Fuinjutsu all of which had to have six notes about them with the various interactions of neutral chakra, lightning, water, earth, fire, and wind.

When I’d raised the question about other chakra alignments such as medical or more heavily yang and yin aligned chakra, Hiroshi had stared blankly at me. It was then that I learned I very much was scrapping the bottom of the barrel for a tutor regarding seals. 

He knew the basics and could ape his teachings but asking for more was just too much. 

For more, I’d need an actual dedicated sealing master. Which, considering the state of Uzushio… were in extremely short supply. 

Despite this being fuinjutsu for kindergarteners I was still only barely able to make the most basic of explosive seals.

Things were just soooo complicated right now.

I walked outside to where Himeko was in the back, well away from the guardsmen. The fact they hadn’t done a full survey of the compound before letting Fuza in stood out to me as another mark against them. 

I only had to raise my fists and she stood, a violent gleeful glint in her eyes.

Fighting Himeko was perhaps the most straightforward task I could have. 

She came on like a beast, stabbing, punching and lashing at me.

Against her, I could settle, calm my racing thoughts and focus on what was before me. A fight where I could test myself, hone my skills and let some of the tension out of my body.

Himeko, as always, made me work for it.

That being said, the more I fought with her these days the faster I advanced, especially as I focussed on my Iron Body jutsu. I had it to the point that Himeko could ram a bone into my body and I’d hold.

I might skid back due to the ground giving out underneath me, but I wasn’t the failure point. My body no longer gave. 

Himeko didn’t get annoyed at this. She just got more enthusiastic in trying to break through my jutsu with her strikes growing stronger, faster and more erratic. 

Sadly, while my body was like Iron, there were still vulnerabilities to my body. Parts that were soft and provided leverage or targets to the well-trained. 

By which I meant, Himeko tried to stab me in the nuts.

I dodged and she grinned. 

“I’m not testing my jewels for science!” I said firmly even as my mind raced on how to create a cup-like chakra construct around them that would stop future attempts. 

Himeko just laughed and tried to stab me in the ear, the eyes, mouth and nose. Each blow came one after the other, highlighting points I would have to account for in future. 

The body was an incredible thing, but it had a lot of weak points. 

Himeko then tried to tackle me to the ground only for me to counter-grapple her, twisting to slam her into the ground only for bones to twist out of her arms to try and lock me down. 

I withdraw my hands, pulling my hands out of the cage before they could snap shut. 

I huffed and shot her an annoyed glance. She was finding a lot of ways to inconvenience me, but she was also giving me a lot of valuable data. 

I snapped a kick into her face in thanks and we kept fighting for another hour with her probing and testing herself. While I knew I was outpacing her in a lot of ways, she still had ways to trip me it turned out.

It didn’t stop me from claiming the win when I slapped both hands together with her head in the middle. I then shook her like a dog would a kitten. On a weaker body I might have snapped her neck, but Himeko, as a Kaguya clanswoman, had a very strong neck. 

I set her down on the ground gently and then set about healing all the soft tissue damage we’d caused on each other.

For me, that meant sprains and strains.

For Himeko that meant ruptures, fractures, bruises and internal bleeding. 

When I was done I sat next to her. I didn’t really have any pressing needs to see to, and my mind really needed a break from fuinjutsu.

I lay back and decided to pretend to be Shikamaru. 

“What a drag,” I said slowly. 

I let myself smile and enjoy the calm.

A chakra signature I’d grown familiar with approached and I held back on tensing to show I knew Momotaro had appeared. He stood off to the side, out of sight. Apparently, he wanted to lurk a bit. 

I decided to let him, keeping my focus on the clouds.

Sadly it only lasted a few more minutes as Himeko awoke with a loud snort. “Huh?” she said glancing around. She stopped when she spotted me and her peaceful features shifted into her signature scowl. 

“Ah, damn I lost,” she said. 

I nodded. “Yeah,” I replied. “Thanks for that, I needed to blow off some steam.”

“Doodling on papers finally get to you?” she snarked. She and Sharkbait knew what I was trying to learn, even if she didn’t know who specifically I was learning it from, but it was perhaps better for plausible deniability in case things went belly up with my plan. 

“A little,” I said. 

“You’re not going to achieve anything,” said Momotaro. 

I shot him a look. “Yeah?” I made a show of looking at the clouds some more. “I think that’s kind of the point of cloud gazing. You’re just supposed to relax and let go,” I said with a smirk. 

Himeko frowned and glanced up like she’d… who am I kidding she’d probably never lain down and just watched some clouds. She squinted at them.

“That’s not what I mean!” snapped Momotaro.

I nodded, not looking at him. “Ah, alright then,” I said pointedly not asking for him to clarify. 

Momotaro twitched and Himeko glanced at him with a predatory look. She must have been looking for another fight, and she knew me well enough that I wouldn’t oblige her after our recent spar.

Momotaro, sadly seemed to be focusing on me to his detriment once again. “You’re Fuinjutsu! You’re not going to become a master in it! You need to dedicate years to it and it is soemthing that you either have or don’t have!”

“I have it,” I said firmly, my gaze fixed upon the clouds above. 

“That’s not how this works! True masters don’t struggle with it like I’ve seen you do! They wouldn’t have had to write notes of all things!” he snapped. 

I shrugged. “They also had a structured learning environment that was probably crafted to assist them. I just have an old man who is self-confessed as a dabbler. I need to write down what I can to later continue it and build on it. It’s not perfect, but I want it enough.”

“That’s!” Momotaro shifted in agitation, his mouth flapping open and shut uselessly. “You are a fool!” he said. 

I let a smile show. Man, he was acting like that dumb kid in the first major mission Naruto went on. What was his name? Tazuna was the drunk grandfather…sooooo Bepo? 

Nah, that wasn’t right. 

Still, it was amusing to have my own… Bepo, I guess. 

“Did you know that you can learn almost anything you want if you put your mind to it? Some people will learn things easily while others struggle but the difference comes in those that give up, and those who don’t,” I said. 

I suspected I knew which camp Momotaro fell in. 

He bristled at this and kicked sand at me. 

I felt the urge to hit a child rise within me. This little shit. I tempered it for all of a moment before considering what I could say that would damage his little ego better than any beating I could deliver. 

Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will forever hurt, was a saying after all.  

I marshalled my adult mind and considered what to say only for Himeko to sit up with a scowl. “You know you’re Mum is probably getting fucked right now yeah?” 

I coughed. Ah, yes, the ‘your mum’ comment. That worked. 

“You take that back!” Momtaro shouted. 

“Like your Mum takes things on hers?” Himeko said. 

I used chakra to slide myself out from between them just in time to escape the clash of bone on metal. I dusted myself off and headed inside. 

I felt oddly proud of Himeko. It turns out that while I’d been working on my talk-no-jutus, she’d been mastering her shit-talk-no-jutsu.  

I wanted to march back and get stuck in with Fuza, but sadly I’d felt his chakra signature vanish with Fuza and the guardsmen while I’d been lazing about the back. 

With little else to do, I wandered into Mara’s room. I knocked and she glanced up from a rather ornate-looking scroll. “A gift from an admirer?” I said with a knowing smirk.

“Fuza is a rather kind man,” Mara replied. 

She shook her head. “Simple, but kind.” She then set the scroll to the side. “So, another round of healing or would you like to learn the Mind’s Eye of Kagura?” she said.

I perked up at this. “Please and thank you,” I said as I settled in for another training session. 

No way was I going to ignore a method of improving my sensory abilities. I very much still ran the risk of  Akiko sneaking up on me and potentially ruining the good thing I had set up here. Hideo, thankfully wasn’t as gifted at stealth or simply didn’t care enough to be a threat for the moment. Or it was arrogance. 

Better sensory skills were very high up my desired jutsu.

“Alright, lay it on me,” I said dropping into a sitting position with my legs crossed.

Mara giggled. “So earnest in your emotions, unlike other times,” she said. 

I raised an eyebrow at her. “Is that something you’ve picked up with your sensory abilities? Supposedly that was something the Nine Tails Jinchuriki was supposed to be able to do. 

Mara made a ‘so-so’ gesture. “It’s something that I have some experience with. It takes a while to get familiar with people’s chakra but it is something that I’ve been using quite a lot.”

“So you’re just that good,” I said with a whistle. Damn, but I had lucked out. 

Mara made the same gesture again. “I believe after thinking on it for the past few days that my unique condition led to my increase in skill, both in that I wasn’t able to be too physical but also that I was constantly bleeding chakra into the environment.”

She straightened up. “No doubt you’ve noticed that you can diffuse your chakra into the environment around you and it then becomes possible to retrace it to get a sense. You can achieve this by a passive slow release while feeling for the beacons and signals that indicate other people or even animals but then you became limited with the propagation of chakra that you can emit in an orb around you,” she said. 

She made a show of contracting her chakra and expanding it, the chakra becoming defuse. “People that are sensitive enough can still detect this however, so you need to use not chakra, but instead find a way to sense the ripples that permeate through the world in chakra. Interpreting this can take a while and usually starts with having to close your other senses off and focusing solely on chakra sensing.”

“I’ve tried that before it’s how I got so good in the past,” I said. “I did sensory deprivation as much as I could, limiting sight, sound, and smell.”

“Good, that’s excellent. Now the next trick is to remain still and start by focusing your chakra inward, specifically on the node within your mind that is known as the Gate of Opening.”

I stared. “You’re using the Gates? That kind of makes sense, although I can’t say I’ve ever spent much time pondering them when I’ve activated them in the past.”

This time it was Mara’s turn to stare. “You can open the gates? At such a young age?”

“Ah,” I said scratching at the back of my head. “Was that not what you were alluding to as th next step?” I asked realising how much I’d let the cat out of the bag with that admission. 

Mara slowly shook her head. “No, very much no. What you will instead be doing is building up the chakra within your nodes and holding them there, this technique is known as saturisation and the chakra will cause excitation within the mind. At first, there will be a lot of strain on your mind as your range increases.”

“Huh,” I said. 

Mara raised two fingers and mimed closing her eyes. “Give it a go, don’t push, simply slowly fill the chakra and feel the world expand around you.”

I did so, slowly filling up the various nodes of chakra that formed junction points throughout my body. 

Huh, it made sense that Mara would still be able to perform the Mind Eye of the Kaguya as her brain’s tenketsu points were some of the only ones that weren’t overly impacted by the healing bites. 

No one was going to bite her skull after all. 

I slowly felt the nodes fill and as I did so I felt more and more of the world around me through my peripheral senses. I felt the shifting wind on my skin, the smells, the taste, and the pulse and flow of chakra from Mara across from me. 

As I finished filling up the nodes I started picking up more and more from around me such as my teammates, the servants, Yumi and Hana. Hiroshi, and of course Momotaro. 

Huh, Himeko seems to have left him sprawled out in the back training area. The slowness of his chakra made me think he was knocked out or sleeping. 

“Sorry about Himeko,” I said feeling I had to say something. 

Instead of responding with anger Mara merely shook her head. The ‘fell’ of her body shifted with the subtle movement as I refined what I knew. “Momotaro needs to learn not to get into so many fights. Perhaps having access to such an easy healing source has made him… overly aggressive. Learning that the healing bites have been the cause of my condition has had him rather out of sorts. I believe he blames himself,” she said. 

I hummed. I could mount an argument that he potentially could have depending on how reckless he’d been and how often she’d had to patch him up. 

I instead chose to stay quiet as more and more of my nodes filled up with only the two major nodes, the Gate of Opening, and the Gate of Healing specifically began to fill. I felt my senses continue to grow outward, wider and wider with every drop I allowed to flow into my gates.

Right as I filled myself up as much as I could go I reached just slightly over my typical range when I focused. 

I frowned. Was this the extent of what I could reach? Or perhaps a sign of how much I’d pushed my sensory abilities already. 

Perhaps there might be something in opening the gates but finding a way to control it? The third gate should have an impact on my ability to sense with how it impacted the Medulla Oblongata which controlled the upper sensory tracts, something that was going to be quite important in what I was doing. 

I began filling that gateway up while filling up the chakra node on either side of it. 

Mara sat across from me and her head shifted back and forth. “Matsu, why are you filling up your neck nodes as well?” she asked pointedly. “I did not tell you to do that,” she said firmly.

“Ah,” I said realising that she’d be able to tell how my chakra was moving with how close she was and how she was literally tapped into her senses right now. 

“Well, it just seemed a mistake to me to not include the spinal cord as well seeing as it has a lot of functions related to what we’re going to do,” I said. 

“This is the method that we have always used, it is important to fill the brain, not the spine,” she said.

“This part of the spine may as well be the brain,” I said willing to argue the point. “It has direct control of the regulatory functions of the heart, lungs, and even the diameter of our blood vessels but it is also where most of the out sensory information passes through.” 

The more I said the more correct I felt about what I was suggesting. In fact, as I filled up these points I could feel my chakra sensor ability shift. It wasn’t that I got further than I typically pushed for, it was that I got greater clarity. 

Suddenly the image of Mara sitting before me in my mind's eye was much sharper. I could see the edges of her body and even the smile she had on her face whereas before she had been a mass of chakra which merely glistened before me.

I could also feel the way the room itself was formed. Around us I could feel the points of chakra and the points where there wasn’t anything… or rather there wasn’t anything but natural chakra. Interesting. I could now definitively feel those.

Once again, I wasn’t going to touch those without a method of extracting them.

At the edge of my range, I could just make out Hideo in the inn slowly sitting in front of a bar. There was a large expanse of wood and only he and the bartender were in the room. Hmmm, it seems the man was day drinking. Good to know. 

“Matsu, I wasn’t going to say this as I wanted you to experience it first with just the two major nodes but there are other steps to actually performing the jutsu. I’m worried that if I leave you to it you will kill yourself by taking in too much information. That is why we don’t use a third major node, or Gateway as you mainlanders call them,” she said. 

“Oh, there are other steps?”

“Of course, there are other steps. Please retract your chakra I don’t want to kill you,” she said. 

I did as asked and felt my clarity drop away. 

I hummed in consideration. So, it was sort of like opening up a larger internet cable. I could take in more information allowing for faster results while also improving the processing unit. Now I just needed to extend my range. If I could work the third Gateway in, or major node, I’d be doing much better off myself. 

It was interesting how Mara used Major node instead of Gateway as her terminology. I wonder why that was? 

“Alright, what’s next?” I said. 

“Next we’re going to vibrate our chakra nodes in and out creating a frequency that will see our ranges expand. I would suggest going as fast as you can to start off,” she said.

I blinked. Faster? Wouldn’t it make more sense for slower to be… I paused as I realised that I was using the wrong analogy. It wasn’t the Internet, but radio. 

Faster radio waves didn’t go further, it was actually slower waves as there was less energy loss. 

I did as she asked, vibrating my chakra rapidly.  This created an odd resonance that radiated out from me.

I still felt my range improve but only by half. Which… was still roughly one and a half kilometres. I could suddenly sense a lot more people and was on the outskirts of a few parts of the city. 

“Now, slowly does it, decrease the frequency and attempt to make it slower and slower with your breathing out. Stead on the breath in, slow and relax on the breath out,” she said, coaching me through the process of slowing myself down. 

I felt it come in waves that oscillated. My range expanded and contracted like a heartbeat with each frequency. After a few seconds, I cut off the chakra to my brain and turned to the side. I threw up in my mouth only to keep it closed. 

With force of will I swallowed it back down. “I see,” I said after taking long, slow deep breaths. 

“How far do you think you—”

“Ten kilometres,” I said firmly trying to ignore the headache that the jutsu had built up in my mind. 

Mara raised an eyebrow. “Hmmm what makes you think that distance?” she asked. 

“There was a family of owls that we passed on the road on the way to the City,” I replied. “I felt them again just now.”

Mara stared. “You must be a very good sensor to get that far,” she said. “I’m only capable of three kilometres. 

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “I wouldn’t call what I just did, capable.”

Mara reached over and squeezed my shoulder. “There’s one more step to this jutsu that you’re not going to like.”

I felt my body shudder. Another step. I was already experiencing intense vertigo. What was with some of the best jutsu inflicting harm on the shinobi? Was this a kinjutsu?

I met Mara’s gaze. “Tell me,” I said preparing myself for some complicated alignment.

Mara just smiled. “Do that again, every day,” she said.

“That’s it?” I said. 

Mara nodded. “It’s hard when you start off and it will be for a long time, but you can condition the body and the mind to take in the information. That’s the tough part however, making sure you do it every day.”

I looked down at my arm, the one that always ached after I performed some Rasengan training. 

“That’s the trick,” I said aloud. 

Mara nodded. “You’re a quicker study than most, good luck with it and don’t reach for more than you can handle. The nausea is a sign of what your limits are at the moment. Push past that? And you will rupture something and,” she warned with a frightfully calm smile 

 I stared at her. I’d forgotten that she could be just as dangerous as her father, but it seemed like she was also a bit more cavalier with my life. 

Still, I could see what she meant. It was interesting the linkage between frequency and distance and how that would lead to my mind basically melting if I went too slow. 

Yeah, this jutsu was definitely a kinjutsu. 

“How many people usually go too slow?” I asked. 

Mara hummed. “No idea, we stopped counting and limited it to only people that we knew could actually handle it,” she said casually. 

I nodded slowly. That was slightly terrifying. Old Uzumaki really did not give a shit, did they?

“I’ll work it into my regular routine,” I said earnestly. 

“The more you do it, the faster you will improve,” Mara said. “But remember the worse the initial reactions will be.”

“I’ll have a bucket ready,” I replied standing and moving off. “I need to go lay down, I’ll leave the treatment to later.”

Mara merely bid me farewell and I marched into my room where I promptly collapsed face-first into my bed. Damn, but that jutsu had thrown me for a loop. 

I lay there feeling my mind ache in a way I knew was good for it. I’d experienced something new and from it, I was having to adjust. 

I smiled and let myself sleep while thinking about what the future would bring. 

It felt good to lock in another brick for my foundation. 

                                         __________________________________

I awoke to Sharkbait kneeling next to me. 

“Is it time?” I asked. 

He twitched in surprise before coughing. “Y-yeah, Mara said she’s been monitoring him after we arrived. He apparently just started moving around in a searching pattern starting outside the city,” Sharkbait said. 

I sat up feeling refreshed. “Alright time to get ourselves a patsy or two,” I said. 

Sharkbait swallowed. And I eyed him. “You ready for what’s coming?” I asked. 

He nodded and then I rose clapping him on the shoulder. 

We departed the compound and made our way out towards the slums where Sharkbait broke off. Himeko we had holding down the fort at home, unaware of what was going on. 

I suspected that would mean Momotaro would need his nose fixed again but that was chump change for what we were setting out to do. 

I ambled about the slums and when Hideo found me I didn’t let on that I knew he was there. I had to give him props for being able to track me down. Being a Swordsman of the Mist and ostensibly a Jonin must mean he had a few other skills up his sleeve beyond wielding the Shibuki blade.

He circled me like a jackal and for a moment I wondered if he might just attack me to get his own jollies off. 

Instead, he waited, proving that he wasn’t all about sadistic pleasures. 

I could almost feel his gaze though as he observed me and when Hiroshi appeared, making a poor show of observing me as I spoke with a variety of different people about the gossip of the city. 

I could almost feel his intent shift with how aware of Hideo I was. I took a moment to fill up my chakra nodes like Mara had taught me, only this time I made sure to fill in the third gate as well. I kept the frequency of my chakra insanely high and I gained a very sharp image of exactly where Hideo was. 

Even better, I couldn’t pick up my Jonin sensei anywhere nearby. 

I folded a lock of hair behind my air absently and Hiroshi moved in to talk with me. “Young Uzumaki!” he called quietly, glancing aorund furtively. We need to talk,” he said. 

I tilted my head. “Ho? I think you’ve got the wrong person,” I said casually, eying him and making a show of it for Hideo. 

This was the most risky part of our plan as Hideo could potentially attack us here. Sadly this was also the most reasonable position for us to ‘meet’ with how Hideo had seeded rumours about me leading to the capital. 

Hiroshi and I went back and forth before he ‘proved’ he was also an Uzumaki. I made a show of hesitating and Hiroshi leaned in. “I can give you a better life lad, with family!” he said reaching out to me. 

For a moment I had to wonder if some of that might not be acting as I looked into his eyes and they made me think, that just maybe he meant what he said. 

I swallowed and accepted his hand. From there it was a quick run for him to lead me to his camp where ‘our’ family’ awaited. 

I rated this a solid six out of ten for soap dramas but to sell it a little more I had Sharkbait appear and question me just before I could get out of the city. I intercepted him and made a show of knocking him out. 

“Sorry bud, guess you weren’t that big a deal after all,” I said as though I regretted what I was about to do. 

Hiroshi and I continued to run for a while only for Hiroshi to pause and make a show of sniffing the air. He held a hand out to me. “You can come out now!” said Hiroshi firmly. 

Hideo chuckled, and like a two-bit villain, he emerged from the shadows of the trees with his sword unlimbered. “I knew you’d bit if I laid the right sort of bait you old fool!” snapped Hideo. 

Hiroshi merely bared his fangs. “And you’ll find you bit off more than you could chew,” he said drawing his own blade. 

Right as the tension was mounting Sharkbait appeared slightly hunched over and with a pained expression. “Matsu you traitor!” he roared hurling a brace of kunai at me which I rolled out of the way. 

I made a show of grimacing. “You should have left well enough alone,” I muttered, loud enough for everyone to hear easily.

Hideo chuckled at this, amused at the drama playing out. 

He swung his blade at Hiroshi causing an explosion to erupt against us. 

I hurled myself out of the way and Hiroshi did the same while unleashing a barrage of kunai with explosive tags on them. 

He set his feet and curled in on himself, chakra swelled around him and his blade shot forward.

Through my chakra sense, it felt like a ripple of chakra suddenly lashed out and cut through the world. 

In truth, it carved through the landscape with a huge slice, forcing both Hideo and Sharkbait to get out of the way. 

Sharkbait just happened to almost trip up Hideo and the man made to kick him as Sharkbait made to scramble out of the way. 

Hiroshi took a long shuddering breath and made to reposition in his initial stance despite that last attack taking a lot out of him. 

Not that we were going to let it go that long. 

With Sharkbait making Hideo kick out, he was off balance as Sharkbait turned and went from a bumbling fool to an actual threat as he drove a kunai into Hideo’s ribcage. 

Sharkbait tried to twist and slash it deeper into Hideo, only for Hideo to react by backhanding Sharkbait away.

I leapt out and caught him before he could slam into a tree. “Urgh, thanks Matsu,” said Sharkbait as I helped him to stand. 

I kept a hand on him and reduced the swelling around the broken ribs that Hideo had just given him.

Hideo glared at us, an actual growl emerging from his throat as he swept his gaze about.

“You fucking little fucks! You’re all in collusion!” he said glaring at us hatefully. 

Sharkbait smirked, eying the kunai lodged in Hideo’s lung. In another fight that might have been a killing blow but Hideo was annoyingly still standing despite the ambush we’d led him into.

Hideo put his hand to the kunai and growled as he touched it. He took the hand off the kunai before committing the sin of removing it, much to my annoyance. 

A bleeding-out fighter would have been easier to handle. 

Instead, he took the Shibuki sword in two hands and grinned ferally at us. 

“Fuck you all then,” he said raising the blade up. On what passed for the actual blade of the sword, the various sealing tags began to glow. 

Instead of slashing it down and only getting Hiroshi, he swept the blade causing an arcing explosion that tore towards everyone. 

I tackled Sharkbait to get him behind the minimal cover of a small tree. 

I put everything I had into my Iron body jutsu right as the explosion hit us. I kept the jutsu going strong as I dug my chakra into the ground to not end up being hurled about like a rag doll in the face of a wind storm.

A second after Hideo had swung the explosion was done, leaving only dust and falling debris. 

I heard a crack of a tree snapping under its own weight even as I struggled to stand, my inner ear thrown off by how the world seemed to be buckling underneath me. 

The world itself was still reeling from Hideo’s attack but I couldn’t wait. I couldn’t let him get his bearings.

I flexed my chakra and forced it to correct itself and was moving before I consciously recognised that I was charging at Hideo’s chakra signature. 

Behind me, Sharkbait groaned painfully and staggered to his knees. I could feel Hiroshi off to the side also rising up but his chakra felt sluggish and weak with how it flickered. Damn it, they’d both almost been wiped by that explosion.

Damn, Shibuki was such a hack weapon.

I emerged from the dust with the staff I used in my hands.

That was about the only thing that saved me from being decapitated as Hideo swung his sword at my head, having expected someone to emerge alive. 

Shibuki carved through the staff and I only had a moment to twist it slightly so that the blade was pointing up. 

It caused the sharp edge of the blade to skate over my head. 

The blade popped and sizzled as it passed over my head causing a burning sensation on my cheek. I got a close-up view of the blade as it passed over my face. 

It looked almost blank of sealing script.

Which was interesting as I’d seen him throw explosion after explosion on the ship and the script was always present.

I reached for for Hideo, hand questing to touch flesh and end the fight with a coma jutsu only for Hideo to kick my hand away.

He then tried to twist into another attack with his offhand now holding a kunai. 

I was too slow to react as the kunai stabbed into me.

The blade skittered over my iron body jutsu instead of stabbing me in the chest. 

I had the joy of watching Hideo’s eyes bulge. 

With my hands out of position and unsteady I couldn’t hit him with a kick or punch quickly enough so I instead peeled some of the chakra strings I used as training aides off my body. 

The trio of strings lashed Hideo and lines of blood were carved over his left hand before he launched himself away. 

He growled, hefting Shibuki back into the air. He tried to bring his left hand onto it only for it to fail to close around the handle. 

“You fucking little shit!” Hideo snarled as he noticed how much damage I’d done to his hand.

On the blade, I noticed a trio of what looked like explosion seals had formed up. Sadly, so had Hideo as he grinned and made to swipe at me.

I tensed, preparing to throw myself out of the way or with the blast as much as I could.

Hideo grinned evilly only to lurch suddenly. 

We both looked down to find a katana was embedded in his chest. 

Hideo stared down at the blade in disbelief before looking up. I glanced over and spotted Hiroshi with his arm extended just emerging from the dust. 

Had he thrown that blind? 

I blinked only to realise that he’d thrown his sword a moment after Hideo spoke. 

If Hideo hadn’t, he might have gotten another swing off.

The older Uzumaki looked like he’d fought a blender with how many scraps and tears he had about his body but that didn’t stop him  leaping ontop of Hideo and ripping his blade out of Hideo’s body. 

Hideo gaped, eyes turning towards Hiroshi in disbelief. “You threw your sword?” he said uncertainly. 

Hiroshi gave him a blood-filled smile. “I might be a swordsman but I’m a shinobi first,” he said. 

Hideo grunted and fell bonelessly to the side. 

Before he hit the ground Hiroshi lashed out again, cutting his head off. Hiroshi stared down at the now headless body. “And there was no way I was missing out on killing you,” he said.

I blinked in surprise and circled my chakra, just in case this was a genjutsu. 

It wasn’t. 

Hiroshi groaned and fell to the side, making me get my head back into the situation. 

I hurried over to him. “Don’t bother lad, I’m done for,” he said as more blood dribbled out of his mouth. 

I rolled my eyes. “You’re so dramatic, shut up and stick around for your grandkids or some shit old man. Anyway, I’m not done with you,” I said with a mock exasperation even as I worked at knitting his organs back together. 

I had to admit I was glad he’d come in as I wasn’t sure if Hideo was going to let me get away with opening the gates to overpower him. 

Sharkbait limped up to me and grinned when he saw Hideo’s head separated from his body. “Heh, outlived you shitty old man,” he said. 

He then peered at me and Hiroshi. “This guy gonna live?” he asked. 

“No,” said Hiroshi. 

“Yeah,” I said. 

Hiroshi blinked and sat up only to groan. I tsked and patched up the muscle he’d just torn again. “Give me another minute,” I said. 

Hiroshi bared his teeth and made to stand. “We won’t have a minute. The Samurai will be spilling out to investigate the explosions,” he said. 

I clicked my tongue in annoyance. He was right. 

I glanced over the body of Hideo and made a snap decision. “Take the head, leave the blade, it’s too hot for us to carry. Make it Kirigakure and Vegetables hot potato to deal with. Let’s get out of here,” I said. 

I was not going to have something so easy to use as evidence to pin us with the blame.

Best to keep things nice and obscure.

It was just a damn shame that this blade obviously had some links to fuinjutsu. I’d have loved to study the way it duplicated sealing script. Did it do that in a manner that was unique to each wielder, or did the blade convert chakra to make it match what it already produced? Which was more impressive?

Sadly, it was a giant trap for me. Taking it would see me hunted and there wasn’t a way to hide it.

Hideo could die and Kirigakure wouldn’t even break its stride. 

He really wasn’t that important after all.

Sharkbait swooped down and grabbed the head while also frisking Hideo for any bags or packs. Then we made off like thieves in the night before anyone else could get close enough to pin us as the fighters. 

Sharkbait ran along next to me for a few minutes. “Hey, Matsu, thanks for blocking that explosion,” he said. 

“Don’t mention it,” I said with an easy shrug. 

Hiroshi glanced from me to Sharkbait with a thoughtful look. I supported the old man as we ran. The cold wind made my face ache, reminding me that none of us had emerged from this fight unscathed. 

Damn, but Shibuki was a broken weapon if the user was willing to fling around explosions without care. 

When we made it far enough for us to stop I made Hiroshi sit so I could heal up any wounds he’d reopened. 

Hiroshi watched me work for a few moments before speaking up. “You glowed a little when you get hit, did you know?” 

I nodded, aware that the Iron Body jutsu did have that response with how I’d trained with it.

Sharkbait watched me work for a while before he broke in with, “Soooo what are we doing with this?” he asked, juggling Hideo’s head from hand to hand.

I hummed giving Hiroshi a look over. “Any idea how to cash in a bounty old man?” I asked. 

He nodded tersely. “I have some idea. Why?” 

“I think I’ll have to take the largest cut of the bounty,” said Hiroshi. 

I jabbed him in a short rib that I knew was fractured. “Yeeeeeeah think again. We’re doing a seventy-thirty split. I could have taken him if I had to, you just kill stole,” I said.

Hiroshi gaped at me. “Cheeky little shit!” he said. “What will you even do with money as a brat?” 

I gave him a flat look. “I’ll spend it all on candy, what do you think?” I said. Hiroshi grumbled but didn’t argue any more. 

“I’ll need to search around, for now, put the head in a sack. We’ll preserve it properly when we get to a safe house. No way I’m keeping his ugly mug in the compound where a servant could trip over it.” 

I grunted and finished up healing Hiroshi before turning my attention to Sharkbait and finally myself. 

When I was done I stood and stretched, man but it felt good to not have Hideo lurking about any more. 

I smiled freely for the first time in a while. We hadn’t gotten out unscathed, but damn, we’d done it. 

Scratch one of the Swordsman of the Mist. 

Made me kind of proud, before I remembered that as soon as Kiri got the sword back they’d be filling that slot within days. 

Damn Swordsmen of the Mist were like cockroaches in this Era. 

Still, it felt good to have offed Hideo. 

Now I just needed to work out what to tell Akiko when she sought us out. 

Eh, I’d come up with something. 

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