5 Chapter 5

I stared down at her collapsed form in deliberation;in my head swirled the pros and cons of saving her life.

I had literally sent her on a death mission and she also lost an arm completing it so she must hate me even more than before now, but keeping her alive means I still have a test subject and her strong desire to live would make sure she didn't break even if I put her through quite literally hell.

But the question was if I could push more out of her than I already have, my nanites had exhausted her body and even taken a considerable strain on her body, judging by her now grey hair she was definitely approaching her limit during the fight. Who knows though, maybe I would find new ways to use my nanites later down the line.

She hadn't really used the full abilities of the hyperdrive nanites, her sword for instance, while at first glance it was a normal blade it could actually absorb chakra and use it to sustain the hyperdrive mode longer, she only compressed the raw chakra fired an arc of energy to kill that guy over there.Maybe keeping her for now will prove useful in the near future

Having come to my decision, I injected some nanites into her system and started healing any remaining injuries, the rest would be up to her and her will to live.

Approaching the carriages, I peaked inside and found wooden chests inside the first two, the remaing four carriages contained an assortment of slaves, from burly men who could work to women who could make a hefty profit as prostitutes and kids who might be sold to some weird pervert.

I removed their restraints and guided them outside, all of them were eerily quiet even though I just saved them, no sobs of joy or even pleas to help them,they didn't even question a strange man wearing an unknown armor and helmet. They just complied as if they were trained to do this. They didn't ask questions but simply followed orders, looking into their eyes which were devoid of any life I sighed an decided to move to the last carriage.

Inside there was only one person, judging by my scans she had chakra levels of a jounin, she was laying down on the floor taking strained breaths and bearly able to move, I injected nanites into her as a safety precaution.

'They most probably drugged her.' I concluded and picked her up before heading to where the rest of the slaves were.

I placed the woman down next to Ichigo and stared at the other slaves. Dead eyed and malnutritioned were the only words to come to mind.

They didn't seem to be happy at the chance of resue, they only stared back in apathy, no light of resistence shone in their eyes. Useless, all of them were utterly useless, they couldn't be used to test the true limits of my hyperdrive nanobots since they lacked the will to survive and there was no appreciation for saving them which means they wouldn't serve me wholeheartedly. Maybe I could reawaken their spirits since they could still be useful in other experiments.

"All of you here, you have a chance." I paused and looked at them one by one, all 24 of them.

"You have a new chance at life, a life that falls in your hands a life of prosperity under me, but as you are now all of you are in a sense perfect slaves, ready to follow any order your master gives you." I said in slight boredom and looked down on their kneeling forms.

"Stand." I ordered and like well trained dogs they all stood.

"I ask you, will you take that chance at life? or will you die here and now because you were a weak dog trained to obey orders of cowards who bully the weak?" I asked and pointed my gun at a man in his early 20's.

"Speak!" I bellowed angrily, these people were nothing like me or the people I trained with at the camp back on earth, they were utter dissapointments.

"P-please let me live."The man said with some hesitation.

"Why should I? Are you useful? Can you kill if I told you to? Are you willing to see me as your savior and give me your life? If I give you power will you question it or will you use it to cement your place into this world?" I asked.

"Please use me as you wish, grant me my revenge is all I ask of you and my life is yours." The man said with resolve in his voice, the small insignificant spec of light lingering in his eyes grew a little brighter.

"Good, I shall grant you revenge, and in exchange you follow me.." I spoke and left the man who was now a shivering and sobing mess.

Approaching the second one, he was a boy in his mid teens with short blue hair and dull emotionless green eyes, it reminded me that I was also only 19 right now.

"What is your answer boy." I asked and pointed the gun at his forehead.

"What does it matter, you just want to enslave me too." The boy replied, his eyes shone with a deep hate and he seemed ready to jump and kill me at a moments notice. I shot my gun three times into the sky, the loud bangs caused all of the people around to flinch and step back in fear. I lowered my gun and pressed the hot muzzle against the boy's forehead.

"I am merely giving you a choice, a new chance at life, as my sword a blade that will remain unsurpassed if used by my hands." I stated plainly.

"Kill those who killed my clan, I shall follow you without question." The boy spoke softly but in his voice was a conviction as hard as steel.

I smiled and stepped back to look at everyone who was present.

"Do you all want revenge? Is it what drives you? Then right here right now voice out you desire and I shall grant it, all of it will come at the cost of your life." I spoke and waited for the hesitant crowd to speak.

"T-they raped me and my younger sister and killed our parents before out eyes, I am willing to make a deal!" A young orange girl spoke through her grit teeth as she held a younger girl about 13 year old redhead in her arms.

"It shall be done! What are the rest of you waiting for? Do you simply want me to kill you myself?" I spoke impatiently, a torrent of pleas for revenge was thrown at me one after another.

After 16 people voiced their desires the remaining 8 kept silent. I looked at them waiting for for reply.

"I-I just want to go back home sir, I d-don't want anymore of this pain."An old man said fearfully.

" Is that how the rest of you feel like?" I asked them with a light smile to which they nodded frantically.

"I see, then this is where we part ways, you can find your way home or die trying." I spoke and picked up the jounin ninja and ordered one of the burly men following me to pick up Ichigo, while the rest take all the money and carriages filled with drugs.

As soon as we left the carven area, the remaining 8 people were also about to leave too, they were suddenly sniped one by one by a drone that I left behind. I couldn't have anyone knowing what happened tonight and they were liabilities.

The rest would hole up in an abandoned compound a ways away from the cave I'm using as my base. Since serpent is expecting the shipment that I stole to arrive in the next two to three days we have a headstart.

"Hey you, take this." I called out one of the slaves and handed him an empty gun.

"That's called a gun and it launches tiny metal fragments at people and rips new holes into them." I explained as he carefully took the gun and started inspecting it.

"I'm going to give you all a supply of guns and ammo, I'll also teach you and the group how to use them so you don't kill yourselves. I expect you to listen since I only have a day to teach you this." I started explaining the basics on using a gun and how to reload it.

After double checking to make sure he understood what I taught him, I also went to the remaining people and gave them all different types of guns, I gave others automatic rifles while others had shotguns, pistols, semi automatic handguns or rifles.

I would carefully explain how to use the gun and it's strengths and weaknesses before moving on to another person.

.....

Ichigo's POV

I don't know how long it's been like this, but I stood before a screen. On it the events that took place during my fight kept replaying themselves over and over again, every mistake I made was visible before my eyes.

I watched as the scene kept on repeating over and over again, as if trying to teach me something, I stood up on the watery surface I was seated on and started mirroring the moves I made during the fight, I envisioned my enemies before me and I once again started swinging my sword.

Sometimes a delay in my steps ended with me dying sometimes I lost an arm but as the fight continued the more I discovered about myself. I could harden any part of my skin as I willed, my sword could absorb and feed me chakra as per my command, and finally I finally realized my fatal mistake.

All this time I was resisting and now he wanted to get rid of me .Ryū had given me power but I was too blinded by my dream to realize how steep the price was. I couldn't bare one more day to live as a slave for such a horrid man!

'I don't wake up again.' I said weakly as I fell on my knees and tears streamed down my cheeks.

As if to mock me, light once again entered my eyes, and there he was, standing above me and piercing me with his blood red ruby eyes was the man I so desperately wanted to shred to pieces with my sword, I struggled onto my knee and bowed deeply before him, I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of seeing me at my weakest,the stub where my arm once was throbbed painfully but I grit my teeth and kept my head down.

"Greetings lord Ryū." I said through gritted teeth.A sudden warmth embraced me as the man I wanted to kill so badly suddenly knelt down and held me in a tight hug.

"It's good to see you're still alive Ichigo. Albeit you seem to have failed to come back to me in one piece, you should have just retreated. Never put yourself in such a risk again! You're the last remaining suboordinate I have."He said softly to me, there was a foriegn kindness to his usually commanding and overbearing voice . I shuddered stopping tears from escaping.

"Why are you acting like this!? You've never been so kind to me why start now."I asked in a cracking voice, my heart ached painfully and my throat felt dry as a sudden relief hit me.

Nero rose and I along with him, he smiled kindly and caressed my hai gently, and wiped away the tears staining my face.

"Hmm...I guess you never realized, but I care for me own. I see you my family and nothing matters more than family. You may feel otherwise since I have subjected you to painful processes and my oversight led to you neardeath experience, but I truly do care." His words soothed my pained heart as his calm voice caressed my ears.

"Y-you lying." I said with sobs in between my words as I tried to pull away from the embrace.

"You don't have to believe me, but this is truly how I feel. I saw something in you that reminds me of myself and I want to use the power I have to help us both achieve our dream. It doesn't matter that I have to spend billions of ryo. I will surely make you the strongest swordswoman. That's your dream is it not?" I nodded rapidly to his words and melted into his embrace as sobs left my mouth.

'I've never felt so, so noticed before. Was I wrong about him? Maybe I shouldn't ha judged his cold exterior.' Something within me shook happily.

Something within me changed, I knew he had given me a very special power, my physical strength was beyond any ninja I've ever seen and my comprehension speed was four times faster than ever. Although I lost am arm; my sword skills had grown to new heights. I'd just have to adapt myself to using one hand to the best of my abilities.

"I- i don't have anything to repay such a gift with." That was all that left my mouth.

"Oh Ichigo as I said before my love is unconditional, so I don't need you to pay me back, what I need is your unquestionable loyalty can you give me that?"I nodded frantically at his question and watched in amazement as a rare loving smile bloomed on his face.

"We don't have time to rest, a war is brewing and we are going to reap all worthwhile benefits." Hearing his words, I reluctantly left his embrace and let him continue with whatever he was doing.

...

Nero's POV

I looked at Ichigo who sleeping soundly on my bed, a smile found it's way on my face, my plan was working wonderfully.

Soon Ichigo would become a puppet at my disposal, it seems implanting suggestions in her brain and taking advantage of her weakened resistance worked better than I thought. People with chakra were really weak against other methods of brainwashing, or maybe my abilities were just broken?

Although to be safe, I'll keep the nanobots within her and if she ever tries to turn coat she will die a painful death.

What I need in her is a loyal soldier who will kill with efficiency and actually be of use, and maybe getting her a bionic arm will increase her power. I'll want to experiment with some runes so it will take a while to create her arm the way I want.

'Now, let's see how the slaves I rescued are doing.' I used cybermind to connect to a spy drones I had left with the slaves before coming to my base.

I had them holed up in an abandoned compound that was run over by plants and had not seen any human activity for atleast 3 or so years.

My senses shifted and soon I started seeing a different scenery than the one before me. Cracked walls overrun by huge vines.

My plan was to basically use this people as bait to draw one of serpent's lieutenants, from there I'd make a statement and hopefully piss off serpent enough that he makes a mistake and leads me right to him.

Although I had covered mine and Ichigo's tracks, that wasn't the same with the rest of the slaves, a few torn articles of cloths reminiscent of the rags they wore when I found them. I also created fake tracks that led into the forest and pointed the the compound's direction.

A decent tracker back on earth would find these people easily, now we were dealing with a led by someone who was most likely a jounin and had four chunin ninja under them. Yep it wouldn't take long for serpent's men to bite my bait.

Right now I was watching as some stupid idiot becqme drunk with the feeling of power and was trying to convince the others to follow him and use my own weapons against me. This was expected of course, someone was bound to try and take over this rag tag group of escaped slaves.

A good chunk of them were actually agreeing with this charismatic dead man. Yeah anyone who tries to betray me would naturally be killed off.

Only about 6 people were logical though, they knew I wouldn't give them something if it could kill me, I was glad to see that the blue haired boy was using his brain, the other two were the sisters.

The remaining three didn't stand out at first glance, but after observation they seemed to be colder and detached from the rest of the group.

We'll just have to wait and see what happened, people were full of surprises. As for the ninja, I had of course taken her with me.

Right now my nanites were removing the toxins from her blood, I also installed a batch of overdrive in her. Since she was a ninja I needed to do something extreme, which was trying to totally wipe her mind and re-educating her into my loyal pawn when she woke up. I would see if the memory wipe worked when she woke up so for now she was still heavily restrained.

.....A day and half later

Signs of a well organized hunting group finally showed up, leading them was a man in his early 30's he had black hair and grey eyes. He had a stocky build and scars adorned his bearded face. His real name was Tatsuki but he proffered being called by his moniker which was 'Ryōshi'.

What makes him stand out from the rest of the group you might ask? It definitely wasn't his scars or ugly looking face; a big no to all that. He had much uglier men in tow and they had even more eyecatching scars.

What made him stand out was the obvious fact that he was leading this group I had been observing him far the past five hours and his skill tracking was quite something, he boasted the title of best tracker and was highly demanded by gangs but remained loyal to his current leader.

Nobody noteworthy was present besides him, but he had more than 50 men with him so his small army was also quite annoying. Serpent was either a very careful person or I took something that he desperately wants back. Which one was it?

....

chapter five is out, that also means I'm past the 15thousand word count requirement so drop those powerstones and if my novel makes it in the rankings I might be more motivated to decrease the time I take to release chapters.😊