Chapter 12

The Land of Iron was a hard place to get in for many reasons.

The place seems to be in a constant snowing climate as well as many mountainous areas making it hard for trespassers.

Many Samurai are roaming the land to protect it from any harm or people getting in illegally like me, the military here is really strict.

I don't want to be recognized because I may need to steal a weapon I am interested in.

Therefore, I need to take the appearance of one of the Samurai.

Thankfully in this era, they do not have face masks with built-in radio and respirators to counter poison.

They can't communicate between them in a matter of seconds without the radio so I can kidnap one of them and take his appearance and clothing to get in the country with ease.

I did it swiftly and I transformed into a tall middle-aged man with long wavy black hair kept in a ponytail and brown eyes.

The armor was a traditional samurai one, with a breastplate, four plates protecting my legs, and two shoulder pads in a dark blue color.

I also had his white belt with the sword attached to it, and beneath the armor was a simple grey suit with gloves and sandals.

I used my Genjutsu: Sharingan to learn his demeanor as well as what was his program for the next couple of days to act like him until I'm near the main city.

I did not kill him but drugged him to stay unconscious, I also made a clone to watch him and drug him again if he wakes up before I come back.

For the next three days I was tasked to keep watch on the border of the Land of Iron for a duration of half a day each time, then come back to a camp where I had to sleep with other Samurai in the same tent and eat when we are called for dinner and shower at the same time each day.

This felt like an old military camp, something I found weird because the country wasn't in any conflict whatsoever right now.

Luckily for me, the one I impersonate had a small break starting from tomorrow and could go back to the main city.

I also had to guard along with someone for an entire day and the guy was...Annoying to say the least.

He never stopped talking during our job, he was an extremely cheerful boy seemingly in his early thirties.

At least because he talked about his early life in the main city I could learn a few things.

According to what he said, the Daimyō of the country had a vault where he kept all of his treasure but more importantly a lot of rumored rare and strong weapons that would be given to his most trusted men or a Samurai who had enough contribution to the country.

He told me this because his dream was to become a famous Samurai and get his hands on one of the weapons.

Now it would take years to have enough contribution so I will need to infiltrate the Daimyō's castle and hope to find a decent weapon, after all this country was the place where most of the best blacksmith ever existed.

I should be careful because the Daimyō is an old Samurai hailed as the strongest of his era and respected by everyone, if I ever encounter him it could be pretty bad.

He also told me I was lucky to not be on guard duty during this year's annual festival that was to celebrate the fifty-year of the Daimyō's reign.

And because of this during the festival, the Daimyō will parade in the city, which means that most of the guards should be around him instead of all inside the castle.

I was on my way to Meiyo town, the main city, still with my false identity, and thankfully I did not have single combat while being a Samurai, or else I would have been found out because they have a specific Kenjutsu that I did not learn yet.

When I arrived the guard at the entrance asked me my nameplate, which was Manji, before letting me inside the city.

The parade should happen in two days, and the decorations were already ready, with an abundance of paper lanterns and a lot of colored bands passing over the streets with different symbols on them.

I had the time to prepare and map the castle interior as well as locating the vault, I could use an extremely small clone of mine but I have another method I did not use in a long time.

My Tenseigan could be used to perfectly see the castle interior even though I stayed in an inn really far from it.

The castle was situated in the center of the town and extremely huge.

Its complex was made of five enceintes divided by an outer and inner moat and each of them protected by walls with turrets at each corner.

You could only pass from one part to another by guarded gates accessible by bridges.

The palace was at the center of the complex with a beautiful garden behind it, the main corridor ended at the throne chamber and I could sense a path behind the throne.

The place was heavily guarded and the Daimyō was there right now.

But what surprised me was that something could either block chakra or absorb it inside the corridor, meaning that I may not be able to teleport myself out of it, increasing the risk of getting caught in case an alarm existed inside.

I also needed some sort of key to activate the mechanism opening the secret corridor, I could also break it open but there goes my discretion...

The key seems to be a token or amulet with a dragon sculpted on it that needs to be placed below the throne.

I need to find the key which is not on the Daimyō but surely somewhere else in the palace.

So I continued to search for it by going to the Daimyō bedroom and the only thing looking close enough to the emblem I needed was an ornament on the head of the bed.

The ornament was made of wood meaning that I could steal it and make a fake to replace it with wood release.

After watching where the guards were located I memorized the route I will take and opened my eyes again.

Now I have to prepare some stuff and wait for the perfect time.

====================

The parade started at 6 pm today, most of the guards followed the Daimyō out of the castle so I started my infiltration.

I took the appearance of a relatively small and bald individual because my long hairs didn't help me that much in infiltration, and changed my clothing to a more stealth-friendly style.

With my speed, I could get there really rapidly and whenever I had to pass a guard on the move I used the 'Hiding in Surface Technique' to disappear into the surrounding.

I was moving roof to roof and passed the guards at the entrance of the palace without issue.

I then proceeded toward the bedroom, put both guards under a small Genjutsu, and put my hand on the lock, produced wood from my palm, and molded the key inside to open the door.

I approached the bed and took the emblem from it before making a replica to remain on the bed's head.

I got out of the bedroom and released the guards from my Genjutsu.

I moved toward the throne chamber and had to open the door while guards were inside.

The effect of my Genjutsu is to disturb the target's perception by making them only see their surrounding in a loop of the last five minutes.

It's useful in case they are in a place with minimal movement like the throne room where nothing is supposed to move, but not so much if they are on a street with a lot of peoples.

A downside is that I need to have direct sight of the target meaning that I cannot use it for the guards at the other side.

As I sensed with my eyes the guards' position, I used a silencing tag then slipped another tag under the door to create an illusion of it so It can be opened without them hearing of seeing it.

Once inside I could put them all in my Genjutsu and destroy the tags to not let any evidence.

I moved toward the throne and put another silencing barrier tag all around the secret path before opening it so not a single sound would be made.

I even put an illusion tag in case someone enters the throne room...Just in case.

I inserted the emblem in the socket and it made stairs appear behind me, without a single sound thanks to the tags.

I walked in the corridor and I could now understand the effect this place had on chakra.

The vault door had to absorb chakra to be opened and it would be kept within...This meant that in the future they could track the chakra if they have something that can distinguish it between people, like a Dōjutsu.

I guess it's the perfect occasion to use the meteorite chakra, so I took it out of the sealing scroll and carefully let it be absorbed by the door.

It may bring a conflict between the Land of Iron and Hoshigakure but when they will be aware that they lost what gives them this chakra it shouldn't end with spilled blood.

The moment it opened I sealed the meteorite once again and stayed careful using my eyes to sense any trap.

In front of me was an incredible amount of gold and jewels of all kinds and colors as well as golden sculpture, and I could see different weapons sometimes poking out of the mess in front of me.

'Let's not waste time searching all weapons'

I used my Tenseigan to locate all of them and I could see different Japanese weapons, a pair of Sai, Nunchaku, a Kusarigama(chain-sickle), and a lot of different swords.

Then I found the one I was interested in, a straight, double-edged sword with a white blade, bandaged grip, and a green jewel socketed in the guard.

I moved toward it as the handle was barely visible, took it to see the whole sword.

It was the Sword of Kusanagi as depicted in the anime, a sword capable of extending or retracting itself as well as being almost unbreakable.

[here]

But I knew that this wasn't the sword's true name because it was not its true form.

But how come nobody found out about the sword's true shape except maybe its creator?

I had a guess and so I removed the green jewel, something nobody would do because it would bring shame to its wielder if you don't respect the blacksmith work...But I'm not a Samurai.

This made the sword produces a blinding light and revealed a curved single-edged blade with a circular navy blue long grip and a golden pommel and guard.

[here]

In the manga, the sword was a katana and the 'true' sword of Kusanagi was the one you could wield with the Susanoo, even though they named it differently, hinting to me about this sword's false identity.

[A/N: it's a FANFIC, mine so I can do this alright]

'If I can give it a name...Masamune would be perfect'

And as I mentally said this the sword once again produced a blinding light and two Kanji meaning 'Masamune' appeared on the hilt.

It seems that the sword like its new name.

'Let's not waste time and get out of this place fast'

I turned back, closed the vault door, then took back the emblem from the throne to close the hidden stairs, made all the tags I used vanish, and swiftly go back to the Daimyō bedroom to put the emblem back where it should be.

My Genjutsu will wear off by itself so I could get out of here.

It seems that someone entered the bedroom while I took the emblem away according to some clothing on the ground, maybe his wife...

I'm glad I made a fake one until I could set it back there.

I then rushed to the inn I stayed as the Samurai, transformed back into him outside to enter the room without suspicion, and moved to the city entrance, avoiding the place with all the festivities.

The guard asked me why I was leaving this late and I said that my work resumed soon at the border and I had to leave now to not be late.

I came back to the place I hid the guy I was impersonating as well as my clone.

Now I had to modify his memories of the last few days, so I woke him up and made eye contact to put him under a Genjutsu, and moved my hand on his left ear.

"I don't need to be as meticulous as I was for Danzō, it will be more direct." I said

So I made an extremely thin wood branch, entered inside his ear, and pierced my way to its brain, without damaging the ear-drum to implement a wood clone inside, in case he ever remembers something he would die from a stroke.

I established memories approximately following what I did when I took his place, it should be enough.

Now he will wake up in a camp he installed during his return to the border.

Happy with my findings, I could move out to my next objective now that I had my sword, it was time for me to have a summon and maybe one of the best I could get.

[A/N: Apparently Webnovel restrict my fanfiction because I wrote the Kanji for Masamune so I erased it]