The Rebellion

"What's even the point of all these costumes… and sending the dog away?" Yukie Fujikaze groaned as we sat in her cabin on the ship crossing the channel to the Land of Snow, "Anyone here could just tell someone you are all from Konoha."

I sat on a stool covered in my straw cloak and purple oni mask while channeling my chakra constantly through a katana of rather exemplary construction despite the mundane origin of its source materials. Over time and exposure to my chakra this basic tool could turn into a hyper lethal instrument, and the raw amount of chakra I possess would cut the time factor down from decades to years.

It was a basic practice of the Samurai Ninshu, the school of Chakra Theory that focuses on the power of connection, rather than the power of manipulation. The man connects to his sword and to his comrades to make the Samurai a viable alternative to the multifarious powers of the Shinobi. Swords that survive for generations in active Samurai families bear the power of their ancestors forward and the big five Daimyo families all possess treasured blades of incredible power in the hands of the blood. Because of this even if the Daimyo himself is a complete fop he will often have a relative who maintains strict Bushido to wield the family sword in defense of the country.

Unfortunately this process also makes the blades semi sentient, incredibly proud, and unwilling to be wielded by shameful hands leaving the vast majority of Shinobi unwilling to take up the practice. After all, who wants to waste years of their life channeling chakra into a sword that rejects the wielder or worse the sword flips the bend and becomes a cursed blade. Far better to just make a powerful sword outright and not have to deal with any of the problems that stem from connection.

Problems like the connection I currently suffer from as the bodyguard of Yukie Fujikaze. As the fastest and most powerful member of the team I now stayed with the woman around the clock waiting to extract her as soon as proximity to Sandayu and his rebels became an immediate danger to the woman. This allows the rest of the team to focus on getting themselves to safety, a much simpler task.

"It's not about convincing anyone we aren't from Konoha." I explained to the depressing woman, "It's about how much influence we must expend to deny the mission. Even if people were to declare that we are Konoha Shinobi, that is just words. We could even run this mission draped in Konoha flags and we could deny it, the only difference is how much it costs to do so. By getting rid of the symbols, easily identifiable characteristics, and limiting any specific techniques we drop the cost to our reputation to do so."

"It sounds like a bunch of hassle over nothing." Fujikaze dismissed the effort outright while pouring herself a drink, "Why are you even still here? You obviously know something isn't right here."

"Reputation is everything." I countered, "How many women in the world are more skilled actresses than you, but lack the notoriety that has you hailed as one of the greatest in the world? You are booked well in advance for the highest paying roles, while they audition constantly to make a living. It is the same for Shinobi. It doesn't matter if you can do the job if clients believe that someone else will do it better."

"Is that an attempt to seduce me?" she sighed, "Trying to draw parallels? Don't waste your time."

"Of course not." I denied softly, "After all, if I get caught with my pants around my ankles, how will I run us away from the coming danger?"

"How brave." she deadpanned.

"Bravery charges more than the studio shelled out." I chuckled, "After all there is very little that I fear, and hiring me to face them is beyond the means of even a big movie company."

"Doesn't that make you a coward?" the actress smirked as she imbibed more of her hot beverage, "If no one can entice you to face your fears."

"It makes me a man." I answered, "I face them for myself, not for anyone else."

"Have you ever actually faced your fears, then? For yourself?" Yukie turned her head to look at me so slowly, deliberately.

Must have been a pain in the ass to move like that.

"Most of them, yeah. Stole a sword from one guy that scares me. Used it to cut another guy that scares me in half. Would of turned this other guy that scares me into a fine ash if my dad didn't stop me. Three of the most deadly and feared Shinobi in the world… turns out they should have been scared of me." I grinned at the remembrance of Kisame's shocked face when I got up from his partner's one shot knockout jutsu and cleaved him.

"I'm not afraid of anything." the pale woman sighed, "I can't seem to feel much of anything anymore. Not since I was a little girl. There aren't any actresses in the world better than me, because for me everything is an act."

"Neat." I greeted her announcement with apathy, causing her to chuckle darkly.

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Our ship hung anchor off the icy coast and ferried the cast, crew, and 'props' ashore throughout the night rather than dock in one of the minor harbor towns. Officially this was to cut down on overland travel to the shooting locations. Unofficially we bypassed any port inspections and covertly dropped hundreds of armed rebels into a sovereign country and as the days passed the film visited several rural villages where scores of more local 'extras' were picked up after shooting scenes of them preparing for war.

I almost laughed when the camera man commented on how authentic it all felt.

As we pushed north deep into a frozen river valley, my sensory ability scouted out thousands of approaching signatures at both ends of the valley and filling in the mapped passes as they advanced. A brief warning to Sandayu is all the man got before I pulled my team and yanked up the lead actress mid shoot into my arms as we moved up and over the nearest mountain.

The ice covered rocks made for a true challenge to the team's tree walking technique, and several times during the ascent a member slipped and took a harsh fall, but never Sakura nor myself, and their trained bodies saw them bouncing back in short order.

The thinning air and harsh hike saw Sakura collapse before hitting the summit, but none of the other Chunin save Naruto looked much better than her. As such, we stopped and took the time to change the freezing Yukie into an emergency cold weather outfit. My own body heat and the protection of my straw cloak poorly made up for the lack of warmth her Princess Gale outfit offered.

Enhancing and telescoping my vision allowed me to closely monitor the situation in the valley below. Sandayu and his forces assembled between two mounted battalions of fur cloaked Samurai, a thousand each against his roughly five hundred.

More importantly though was the fact that Sandayu's forces had only three chakra signatures large enough to categorize as high tier combatants, and the Land of Snow forces possessed just over a hundred.

Sandayu and his forces linked their chakra, each man moving into position perfectly guided by their connection to each other almost like a hive mind, and the Land of Snow forces did the same. Their chakra pooling together gave each force incredible weight, and even cleared the snowy air around them across the valley. The northern battalion brought with them a portable shrine attended by three young priestesses in classic white and red. After a short ceremony they took a single ice blue sheathed sword off the altar and the three girls carried it to the leader of the battalion.

The man armored head to two with a golden crest on his helmet, dismounted and drew the sword. Without any problem he leapt atop his armored warhorse and held the sword aloft, pouring chakra into the blade that glowed a radiant white.

His battalion screamed in response and began their charge, their swords glowing blue and forming large chakra lances. Sandayu's army of rebels projected their chakra into lances of their own and the two sides drew closer by the second as the Land of Snow Samurai bore down on their enemy.

Suddenly the leader poured his full power into the sword and swung a horizontal strike that formed a brilliant beam of sword light. The rebels put their all into blocking the attack, but that one strike broke the defenses of the vanguard, flinging them into the men behind them and spelling doom for the defending rebels.

The Land of Snow Samurai rolled over the rebels like a tidal wave. Very few of the rebels still stood after the first battalion rode through their formation and the charge of the second battalion left none alive.

"Is it over already?" Naruto asked next to me, "And we just let them die like that?"

"We weren't hired to help them." I told him.

"But we knew those guys, and could have stopped that from happening!" Naruto complained loudly, his voice carrying down the mountain.

"The Daimyo's forces just put down a rebel army." I responded, "We had no place in that fight, and the village would have never taken a mission to do so. Sandayu and his forces dying has nothing to do with us. We were hired to protect Yukie Fujikaze, no one else."

"That sucks!" Naruto shouted and clenched his fists in rage.

"That's life." I spat, "You want to go down there and avenge them, you do it as a missing ninja."

"Don't allow me to disturb your touching moment." announced a voice from higher up the mountain, "I'll just take Princess Koyuki Kazahana and be on my way."

A huge white bearded man sat atop a boulder, looking quite like a grimy homeless person if not for the magnificence of his enormous braid down his back and fabulous feather vest. Only dirty bandages covered his filthy feet and a huge scar ran across his face.

As he stood, he released the flawless suppression of his chakra, cracking the boulder under him and clearing the air. It didn't take a sensor to feel the mountainous weight of his unrestrained presence.

He declared in a voice almost as old and gnarled as the rest of him "I am the Great Shinobi Owl, leader of Yukigakure, and if any of you wish to leave the Land of Snow alive... then you will surrender now."

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I got a new PC and spent the last few days conquering the Land Between in glorious HD. I'm going to try Cyberpunk now. I here they finally worked the game into the version that should have shipped at launch. Only took them two more years than they thought.

Got to get my gaming in now as I'm going to have a new baby in a month. It was hard enough becoming Elden Lord with a toddler on my lap. Dude kept switching my weapons mid fight.

Anyway, the Samurai got their big introduction taking advantage of the stated features of Ninshu that they never seemed to in canon, and we got a Sekiro cross over at the end of the chapter. I needed some cool ninjas for Yukigakure and the ones in the movie sucked. So I chose to do a minor crossover rather than make some OC's no one would have any reason to care about.

You can support me and my family at

ko - fi . com / jmanm