Chapter 27: Chapter 27: The Village Hidden in Grass

_________ POV Narration________

Finding shelter did not take long, there were plenty of places one could use to hide near the border of Kusagakure's territory.

Akira was the only one that needed rest, as Ken was neither injured nor tired from the previous fight. When it came to endurance, he was already unmatched.

The thief didn't seem to have any issues with waiting for Ken in that cave. But it was made rather clear that he wouldn't be waiting for more than one day there.

For one, it wasn't safe for him, a wanted criminal, to stay in one place for too long. Especially since they were still relatively close to Kusagakure.

Now, Ken did make a good point in the fact that the hidden village was highly unlikely to send any more shinobi after Akira after 10 Jonin squads were entirely wiped out in one go.

It was a relatively big blow to their overall forces. Moving that many people in the first place was likely some sort of power move.

In a sense, Ken figured they were simply trying to not underestimate him and sent numerous people trained to fight together.

Unfortunately, they had no way of knowing he was damn near impossible to kill as long as he had enough Nature Energy around him.

Simply put, Ken was constantly drawing in his energy from the surroundings subconsciously. His reserves were rather difficult to deplete.

'It was a bold move on their part, going after me...'

The more that the Blind Swordsman thought about the situation the more 'impressed' he got.

In the first place, Akira was likely nothing more than a tool they had used to draw him in.

The entire conspiracy with the death of a Kage was also weird, but Ken could always just chalk that up to village politics.

The clans in the village likely wanted to elect one of their own, and they saw Akira's visit as an opportunity to assassinate the Kage and blame it on someone else, subsequently also using Akira as bait to draw in the elusive 'Red Dot'.

Still, Ken was merely hypothesizing, he didn't have enough knowledge, nor did he know why Kusagakure wanted Akira alive...

'Time to check things out...'

And as he started making his way towards the hidden village, the elders had already received a report about the failed mission.

It was explicitly delivered by their most trusted shinobi, their village's Anbu Captain, the 'Strawman' Saburo.

He was standing on one knee, hand on his chest as he stared at the ground. His uncovered short black hair was silked backwards, the lower part of his face covered by a mask.

His black eyes were completely visible, his white sclera had a strange yellowish tint to it.

He was wearing dark Anbu garb, regular issue, his belt strapped with a few scrolls, giving everyone the details of the situation after scouting out the battlefield.

He had gone there a bit after Ken and Akira had left. He would've been able to track them, but decided against it when seeing the state of their men.

_________ POV Saburo ________

There I stood, kneeling in front of the council and explaining to them the pathetic state of the team that was sent in our latest mission...

"All of them died you say..." The one at the head of the table spoke with disdain. His tone is annoying, but he is one of the more influential people here...

The most influential elder actually, he is technically the village's new leader. The one to become KusaKage will most likely be his direct subordinate...

"Yes, Lord Yuu..."

Uehara Yuu, the one that spearheaded the assassination plot of our former village leader, and the one that decided it would be a good idea to try and hunt down the 'Red Dot'.

"And even one of your Straw clones was killed off... A Jonin one at that." One of the other elders decided to comment on my failure as well.

It was my mistake to underestimate the enemy this time around, I was charged with this task, and I was the one to plan everything out essentially.

I should have moved more of my clones to deal with the situation. It is shameful to have failed even after being given so many resources...

Who would've thought that the 'Red Dot' was that strong?

"I will recover it eventually..."

"Your Straw Clones are recoverable, yet our trained Shinobi are still just corpses scattered around the battlefield..." These old fucks are really starting to get on my nerves...

I get that I made a mistake, but most of these elders haven't done anything to help me either... It's their fault the most important scroll in our village got stolen in the first place...

No, more specifically, it's all the fault of Lord Yuu... Whatever he's planning, it's starting to look less and less like it will do any good for our village...

"Hah... Regretable indeed, however, we should still be able to train more, newer generations are born each year..." I can at least try to reassure the elders a bit, even if most of them don't seem too convinced.

"Tsk... If this keeps on, we will never enter the ranks of the 5 Great Hidden Villages..." Another clan leader spoke up, one of the minor clans in the area.

His clan has only recently attained some wealth, and now he has the gall to come here and run his mouth...

Someone like him has no clue just how much power the 5 Great Villages hold. Ignorant old fuck...

"Now now gentlemen..." Thankfully, Lord Yuu is still here to hold everything together... "It is true that we are facing a rather unexpected conundrum, but our village is not in any danger as of right now..."

"Indeed, Lord Yuu, while we have suffered some losses, we have also learnt more about our enemy...

I believe the Red Dot was still injured quite a bit during that altercation, so I at least have some understanding of his strength.

Though I was unable to see the rest of the fight after my Straw Clone was killed off."

I remember the 'Red Dot' was burnt quite severely during that fight while my clone was still there.

And by the way, things looked when I visited the battlefield, he probably received quite a few injuries even after my clone died...

" I guess he isn't quite up there with the five Kage as some rumours portrayed him then..." A great thing to point out Lord Yuu, not like our village could afford to face off or offend a Kage in its current state.

The only Jonin that are capable enough to survive an attack from an actual Kage are mostly indisposed at the moment. Not like we have more than 4 anyway...

The former KusaKage was decently powerful about as powerful as I am with all of my clones. But he was nowhere close to matching up to people like the Third Hokage, or the Third Raikage...

The 5 Great Villages are the places where the real monsters are born and thrive, they actually have several figures at the level of an actual Kage.

Konohagakure currently has the White Fang, for example. And the Kumogakure has the sons of the current Raikage, who I heard are quite formidable, all of them learning the Lightning Release Chakra Mode...

All of the large villages also have several Jinchuriki, which makes the power balance even more skewed...

It's basically impossible for a village like ours to match up to them, yet the elders here are still dreaming about useless stuff like that.

At least Lord Yuu is more realistic and is only trying to profit for himself in these situations...

After all, a small village like ours will get killed off if even one of these Kage-level figures was to be tasked with its destruction.

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And while I can fend off most attacks by myself with my clones, I am bound to lose a lot of them against an actual Kage... I'd likely just have to flee, the village would still be doomed.

It's no use for us to try and compete with the 5 villages, it's much better to just suck up to them.

This is why I can understand Lord Yuu's attempt at assassinating the Red Dot.

One of the 5 villages seemed to be rather keen to see him dead, if we were able to claim his bounty, things would've been looking up for us...

Well, I'll now have to look into killing the red dot myself after this meeting. I'm sure I can still track him, and with all of my clones, it should be rather simple to kill him as he is still injured.

All in all, this village is lucky that I am still on their side. Yet I still have to put up with the bullshit of these stupid elders.

Alas, they are also the ones to provide me with enough people to perform my rituals on... They are the most accommodating and ask the least questions, so I can't complain now can I?

"Well, I guess this gives our village some time to recuperate... Still, an assassin like him will certainly come after our heads once he does recover..." Another elder just felt the need to add that. Couldn't have had a more positive atmosphere after all...

I guess Lord Yuu will always have his detractors. It can't be helped. Though I'm guessing they won't be alive for very long if they're willing to voice out dissatisfactions like this.

"I doubt we need to worry... Our barrier will tell us whenever anyone gets too close to the village, no matter how well they can hide their presence.

We will be able to prepare ourselves accordingly. We still have the home-field advantage after all..."

That is also true... This being our territory means we know it better than any outsider. The Red Dot isn't as big of a threat here, especially since he'll be detected when he gets too close anyway.

The barrier surrounding our village is made with advanced Fuinjutus. The only reason such a thing is available to us is that we managed to befriend the Leaf Village during the reign of their Second Hokage.

No matter how good the Red Dot is, he won't be able to overcome something set up by Fuinjutsu masters back in the day... Right?

_________ POV Narration________

There were plenty of people stationed inside the array room of the largest building in Kusagakure.

Jonin that were there to both protect the array/formation and to watch over it.

A large glowing map stood in the middle of the room, a large transparent circle surrounded it, the layer that made up their formation.

The core was in that very room, and the transparent circle would ripple every time someone with a certain level of chakra passed through.

One would only be able to not trigger the alarm by carrying a specific seal while passing through it. That seal was usually hidden in their headbands, so all of their Shinobi was safe to pass through.

Each rank of shinobi was given a different seal, as the formation reacted differently to the amount of charka a person could have.

Their defences were quite good, and their secrets were well-kept, so they had nothing to worry about.

They also didn't have to worry about not noticing something, as the ripples in the array were large even when an unrecognized Genin passed through it. There was no way for any such action to go unnoticed...

Ken stepped into their territory without making any noise, his legs touching the grass soundlessly and weightlessly.

He stopped just short of a small line in the tall grass in front of him. One centimetre of earth where there was no blade of grass, a line that likely surrounded the entire village.

It was impossible to notice with the naked eye, but someone like Ken could sense it regardless.

He felt the formation in front of him, he had already expected something like that from a Hidden Village, so he wasn't exactly shocked.

Ken's knowledge of seals and formations was not that great, but he was aware of what could be achieved using them thanks to some scrolls he found, including the weapon storage seals he was using.

To him, seals were an extremely complex and amazing art. It was something he absolutely wished to master if given the chance.

Thinking logically, he started theorizing about how the formation worked.

'If a Regular Shinobi's thought process is anything to go by, this formation is likely just an alarm system...

If it triggered every time a regular person passed through, it would be very messy. So this is likely only here to detect actual threats... People with a certain level of Chakra.

How it goes around not constantly detecting their own shinobi is something I can only guess right now...

This doesn't feel all that complex though... At least nowhere near as much as I expected.'

Ken simply tilted his head at that thought.

After all, if that was truly the case, then the formation was truly quite flawed. Not the type of work he'd expect from trained master assassins.

But he was not attacking any large village at the end of the day... This was just a small village, quite weak in the grand scheme of things.

'I guess I can try to go in undetected...' With a deep breath, Ken's form started shifting once more, his skin visibly turning to scales as he pushed out all of the Chakra in his body.

'I don't know if they can detect Nature Energy... I've yet to meet someone else using it, so I'll just hazard a guess that they can't detect it as easily.'

Ken used his tail to dig up a small hole, creating a small hill right near the barrier's edge.

And so, Ken walked up in front of the barrier and sat down on that small dirt mound, sitting on his side with his tail wrapped around his body.

'I didn't think I'd be doing something like this to get into a hidden village undetected...'

Ken pushed out the small remainder of his chakra next, turning into a statue that next instant, instantly becoming petrified and rolling off into the formation.

Inside the Array room, the Jonin in charge yawned as he kept his eyes fixed upon the translucent barrier around their large map.

Not one ripple appeared as Ken's statue rolled through their barrier and into their territory.

It was as if someone had just thrown a rock towards their village. Which didn't trigger any response from their barrier.

The Blind Swordsman stayed as a statue for a few minutes, cracks started appearing on the surface as soon as he started regaining some chakra.

Ken then proceeded to crawl further away from the array, his tail slithering behind him as he slowly stood up.

'I wonder if this formation helps them keep watch on who is inside it as well...

Well, I've done whatever I could to come in undetected at this point. If they have further countermeasures then I'll just have to deal with them as they come.'

Ken then turned back into his regular form, still controlling his body and suppressing his chakra to the maximum as he walked through the tall grass while not disturbing it in any meaningful way.

'Time to see what this village is truly made out of... I'll try to avoid harming any of the civilians here... I just hope the other Shinobi have similar thoughts.'

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Hope you liked the chapter! Took me a bit to write, I wasn't able to spend much time on it lately(holidays and I still have work)

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