Realization and Search

Ken had spent the last few days gathering information covertly within that village.

He had managed to get some information in the village from listening to rumours while hidden on rooftops.

Now, Shinobi weren't exactly a subject matter for villagers of the Land of Iron. But this particular village happened to also be at the border with the Land of Lightning.

So, the matters of Shinobi did seem to concern them quite a bit.

That was how Ken managed to find out more about the war that was happening outside of the Land of Iron, concerning all of the other elemental nations.

It was titled the 'Second' Great Ninja War, apparently, Shinobi were quite prone to starting wars with each other.

The Land of Iron was a neutral land, so it was usually left out of the conflict. It was also a powerful nation, so no one tried to take advantage of it or start any war with it.

But the villagers that lived at the borders of the Land of Iron were still in danger sometimes, as injured shinobi could sometimes flee to that neutral land out of desperation and bring trouble and conflict to the otherwise peaceful life of the villagers.

Ken was very interested in hearing about the war. War caused chaos, and chaos was something he could easily use to his advantage.

So he collected as much information as he could in the following days, scouting in the evenings and at night.

Then he retreated to a random tree in the forest during the day to rest for a bit and think more about the information he gathered.

Now was the time to reflect on the information he had gathered.

From the start, Ken already knew that learning the techniques of the Shinobi he heard so much about was going to be hard.

But he only realized that it was going to be actually impossible as he sat there and thought more about the situation.

The techniques of shinobi were mostly guarded by clans and hidden villages. They had a monopoly on them and only a few basic ones were out publically.

The ones that were out were the ones that Koji had bought him on his birthday. They weren't all that special, and all academy students ranging from 6-12 could perform them with varying levels of mastery.

Ken heard more and more information about conflicts happening near the border, which made him hopeful about finding a few 'soon-to-be-corpses' and searching them for any scrolls with techniques.

It wasn't uncommon for training shinobi to sometimes carry their training materials with them, so Ken was rather confident in finding something.

That was where his biggest hurdle came in though... How exactly would he go about reading and learning them?!

The first thought that Ken had was to simply 'borrow' a shinobi form the battlefield and 'lightly coerce' him into reading out the scrolls for him.

But the problem was that most Shinobi were taught about interrogation techniques and how to act in such situations from the age of 6.

So Ken knew that it would be hard to tell if they were lying to him, unlike the usual gate guards that he had interrogated before, he now had to deal with trained child soldiers, so things were a bit more difficult...

Ken also thought about paying one of the villagers to read the techniques out for him. But none of the villagers likely wanted to be implicated in anything related to shinobi, so it would be hard to find one willing to help.

Rumours would also arise if he got refused too often, and his suspicious activity would get him reported to authorities and on the radar of the samurai and also the Shinobi that infiltrated the Land of Iron...

'... How do I find someone willing to help me?... No, I'll think more about it after actually getting the scrolls that I need.'

Ken smiled underneath his mask as he started resting for the day. He would start travelling after resting for a bit.

Ken didn't rest for long though, his sleep was also not deep, merely dozing off and resting his tensed-up muscles and tired bones.

He started travelling as soon as the sun started setting, collecting his main weapon from its hiding place and starting to jump towards the Land of Lightning.

Ken instantly noticed the change in vegetation and weather in between the lands.

The Land of Lightning seemed to always be cloudy, the temperatures there were a bit less arctic, although not exactly hot by any stretch of the imagination.

Ken could hear the thunder in the distance as he travelled covertly.

The clouds cast shadows in his surroundings, as his speed turned him into nothing more than a black blur that moved across the leaves.

Eventually, after an entire week of travelling and scouting out the Lands of the Shinobi, he was able to find out more about the Land of Lightning.

The nights were especially stormy, but the days were rather warm, so he had a nice warm blanket of the sun while sleeping in a tree.

After travelling further into the land, Ken eventually found the tracks of a group of shinobi. He tracked group after group, looking for his intended target for days on end.

He didn't bother to even try and attack groups with only adults, as they weren't exactly guaranteed to have anything related to training on their person.

Three sets of lower-sized sandals and one with bigger sandals. 3 child soldiers and 1 adult, likely the team leader.

Ken proceeded to follow the tracks around for a while, Shinobi weren't the easiest to track, all of them being adept at hiding their tracks and moving covertly.

Hell, without his enhanced senses Ken wouldn't have been able to track them at all.

Eventually, Ken found the group, camping in a small cave. Three young boys and one masked adult.

Ken stalked them for a few hours while trying to decide on a course of action.

From their direction, he could tell that they were headed even further inland, most likely going back to the Hidden Village.

At that point, they were unlikely to run into any enemies, unless they were ambushed in the middle of their own territory.

That wasn't exactly a matter with high probability, so Ken decided to take them first and take everything he could find.

When attacking such a well-structured group, one would always strike the strongest enemy first, deal as much damage while taking them by surprise.

Ken was confident in his stealth and assassination skills, confident enough to kill just about anyone with enough preparation. But the current situation made his stealth skills quite useless...

The group were holding out in a small cave, on the side of a cliff. It was a strategic position and one that allowed the group to hold out easily...

'Assassins are always annoying to deal with...' Ken knew that from his past life, the adult was likely also a skilled assassin, at least as skilled as the 7 swordsmen of the mist.

Against an experienced assassin, one couldn't exactly just rock up to their front door and hope to be able to take them by surprise...

No, the Jonin, leading the team of what were most likely Genin, was already expecting an attack.

He was in a state of high awareness even while on allied territory.

Ken could respect that, the mark of a truly skilled individual was exactly that, not having your guard down at any time, in any situation, not even in your own home.

That was also the reason Ken had managed to kill all of the assassins after his life when he was ambushed by his 'partners'. He wasn't expecting them to do it, but he was prepared for it.

Alas, he had only been strong enough to kill them, unable to escape afterwards. He was limited by the strength that humans could achieve in that world...

Now he was strong, but he wasn't about to fight head-on against people that had such strange techniques. It didn't seem like a smart option at all.

After thinking for a bit more, Ken started analyzing his enemy a bit more.

The cave was a great position. One that allowed one to perfectly defend against attackers... But was that really it? Sure, it was decent for a night, but it was a bit strange, not exactly what Ken would've chosen.

'No skilled assassin would ever leave himself this open... If an assault truly happened then they'd just be stuck in that cave, defending... This wouldn't be a good option.'

So, Ken started stalking around the small cave, climbing the cliff and circling around the forest for a bit.

Eventually, he found it... A small hole underneath the trunk of a great tree, hard to notice with the open eye, but Ken was able to sense it, as the tree had already died because of it.

'This was definitely dug up in preparation... The Land of Lightning should have plenty of such camps around their territory.'

Ken quickly took a mental note of that, before slipping into the hole and landing in a small tunnel.

He was forced to take his long blade into his hand, he contemplated bringing it with him, but it was far too long to use comfortably in a closed environment, so he decided he'd rather keep his smaller katana for now.

Ken walked silently further in, by now he could smell his targets.

He didn't have anything against them, he didn't hate them, but they were unlucky enough to be the first such group that he had found.

'It's kill or be killed... All of them are the same.' Ken had no choice in the matter. He could either get strong or die trying.

The people he was attacking wouldn't hesitate if they were in his shoes, so he wasn't exactly wracked with guilt.

After all, everyone he was facing was the same as he once was...

And so, Ken unsheathed his blade silently and continued walking down the dark tunnel, prepared to do what he knew best.

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Hope you liked the chapter! Figured I'd write a bit more on this one today too ;)

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