Chapter 45: Chapter 45: Catching up, Test and Separate Missions

_________ POV Narration _________

Unlike before, Ken didn't bother announcing his departure this time.

He dashed from the window in his office straight into the forest, becoming a blur as the wind bent around him.

Saburo's clones still noticed his departure, as Ken realised it was important for them to at least know when he was away and act accordingly.

Ken's speed was great, but his real best asset was his stamina.

The nature energy constantly revolving inside his body made it hard for him to ever run out of stamina as long as he was just travelling.

The Masked Assassin didn't need more than 10 minutes to catch up to the Third Blade, who was also jumping from tree to tree at a rather impressive pace.

Ken felt a bit bored, so he decided to prank him.

Using his superior speed and stealth, he quickly passed by his subordinate and went further in front of him, far enough to start setting some traps.

He immediately hooked some barely visible wires to some trees and prepared traps similar to the ones he had used to catch Akira initially, only slightly modified to fit an enemy fleeing from tree to tree instead of on the ground.

'Let's see how much he's progressed...'

A good leader needed to be aware of the state of his recruits after all... And Akira was considered the weakest of the blades, so Ken needed to make sure he was at the very least growing as much as his potential allowed him to.

The Blind Swordsman was quick in setting up the traps, leaving himself enough time to sneak up behind his subordinate once more, managing to reach an appropriate position right before Akira ran into any traps.

Ken then took out a regular katana from the seal on his wrist, transformed himself into a grass shinobi, and threw said katana right at Akira's back.

By some stroke of luck, Akira seemed to notice the sound of wind being cut as the katana barreled towards him.

With almost inhuman reflexes, Akira spun in the air and kicked the katana upwards using his momentum, immediately landing on a sturdy tree branch.

Akira then quickly took out his weapon of choice, a small tanto, only as long as his forearm.

'Assassins? Are people already targeting us?' The Third Blade immediately panicked.

A flurry of shuriken and kunai then started flying his way, forcing him to backflip onto another tree and bat away some of them with his blade.

'He's pretty skilled... But I can sense where he is...' Akira then quickly made a few hand signs.

Immediately, more and more throwables seemed to be headed his way, further giving away the position of his assailant.

But Akira's hands moved fast, turning into blurs as he finished his jutsu almost immediately. He quickly moved his mask slightly to the side, revealing his mouth.

'Wind Release: Great Breakthrough'

Akira's chest immediately inflated, and he spit out a great torrent of wind, which immediately shotgunned the projectiles right back towards his assassin, the trees even up to 10 meters in front of him seemed to break almost instantly.

Ken smiled a bit under his mask and transformation as he turned and used a tree as cover against the strong gust of wind and projectiles.

The tree stood tall for a few seconds before Ken felt it snap completely, and he felt himself falling backwards.

Without any panic, he rolled off to the side, using the tree as a stepping stone and started running towards Akira, who had already run out of air.

Akira's eyes widened underneath his mask as he looked at his assassin approaching him, jumping from tree to tree. He also immediately recognized the figure...

'A Grass Anbu?!' Akira's face morphed a bit underneath his mask, becoming rather angry at the mere sight of a shinobi belonging to the village that had almost killed him.

But he didn't act rashly, instead, he took a deep breath and calmed down in that same second.

The Grass Shinobi moved fast, almost as fast as Akira, and the Third Blade immediately made the split-second decision of turning around and fleeing.

'I need to get rid of him and return to base, warn the others...'

Akira proceeded to cut some of the trees and branches around him using a wind chakra blade that extended from his tanto, aiming to slow down his pursuer as he jumped from tree to tree.

Just as he was about to advance further and further into the forest, something glinted in his eye... A metallic string.

But Akira's speed was already too fast to stop quickly, instead, he jumped a bit higher, flipping right above the wire and landing on a branch.

Unfortunately for him... That was about the end of his journey, as the sturdy branch he landed on immediately broke, Ken having loosened it beforehand.

The Third Blade was left freefalling right into a concealed metallic wire net, which immediately enclosed him as soon as he touched it.

'Shit! I can't believe I got caught!' Akira tried to struggle for a second, but the shinobi that had been pursuing him had already reached the metallic wire, touching it with his palm.

Akira immediately reacted, trying to throw his tanto at the Shinobi's head with a flick of his wrist.

The wire then immediately electrified, paralyzing Akira slightly, as he finally felt that the situation was a bit familiar...

The shock wasn't strong actually, and it stopped instantly, leaving the Third Blade a bit flabbergasted, as he then felt the wire holding the net get cut.

Akira turned around a few times before landing on the ground in a crouched position.

*Clap Clap*

Turning his head up, Akira noticed the figure of the Grass Shinobi that had been hunting him down morph completely, turning into a much more familiar short figure of his leader.

"Impressive progress! You actually fought back splendidly. Though you fell for a rather similar trap as before..." Ken then jumped down, and Akria just sighed in relief at the voice of his leader.

'So it was just a test?... Well, it's better than getting killed I guess...'

"I hope you were able to learn something from this, Akira." Ken then unentangled Akira and helped him up.

Akira was still speechless as he stood up, only nodding his head after a few seconds.

"Thank you for the lesson Leader! I'll take it to heart..."

However, the Leader's presence rose quite a few other questions for the Third Blade.

'Is he also joining me on this scouting mission? Does he not trust me enough...?'

"I'm sure you're wondering why I'm here, and no, I am not joining you. But we are headed in the same direction." Ken nodded as he started collecting his wires from the net.

"I-I see! Thank you for entrusting me with this!" Akira immediately straightened his back, his tone gaining back quite a bit of confidence as his worries were answered instantly by his perceptive leader.

"No need for thanks, you are carrying out your duty as the Third Blade. If I am unable to trust you, then I am unable to trust anyone..." Ken shook his head as he jumped back up and collected the last few wires from his other traps.

"Right! But what other mission are you going on? Is it related to the cult?" Akira jumped after him, collecting his tanto as Ken had embedded it into a tree right near the trap he was collecting.

"In some ways it is. We will need allies to take down an organization of this size, they are also bound to have powerful shinobi." Ken nodded as he finally finished collecting the last trap.

Ken then turned around and started continuing their journey, adjusting his pace so that Akira could keep up, at least for now.

"Are we allying ourselves with some other bounty hunters from the Land of Lightning?" Akira asked as he followed after his leader.

"... I had thought about that. But no amount of nameless bounty hunters will cut it for this one. We need something reliable...

Something that would also be interested in getting rid of a pest that resides within their territory..." Ken shook his head slightly as he continued jumping from tree to tree.

"W-wait, so we are allying ourselves with the Village Hidden in the Clouds?!" Akira's eyes widened underneath his mask as he quickly came to that conclusion.

There really weren't any other powers in that region that could be interested in the destruction of the cult.

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'But would the Village Hidden in the Clouds even want to ally themselves with us? Well, they might be up for it since the cult is a problem for their territory as well...'

Akira wasn't exactly the most adept when it came to politics, but even he realised that the Cult of Jashin was something akin to a parasite in the Land of Lightning.

Still...

'Allying ourselves with a Hidden Village might break the image of neutrality that we have... Wouldn't that also affect our relations with the Land of Iron?!'

Even if he wasn't a diplomatic genius, he had still listened to all the reports and he knew the internal situation of their organisation very well.

"Well... I had thought of that before as well..." Ken smiled a bit under his mask, as he could somewhat guess the thoughts running through Akira's head.

"But we aren't exactly allying ourselves with the Cloud Village, nor are we asking them for help..."

Ken's confident words seemed to confuse Akira, who could barely pay attention to his steps at that point, almost slipping and falling from the trees.

Thankfully, Ken grabbed him by the collar and stabilized him.

"You may be confused, but it's rather straightforward... I am simply going to the Cloud Village to assist them with some information regarding the Cult, and to provide them with our services...

For the right price, of course." Ken's smile turned a bit devious underneath his mask as he brought Akira up to speed on his plans.

The Third Blade immediately gained quite a bit of clarity, he immediately turned his head and looked at his leader with quite a bit of reverence.

That reverence managed to once again blind him to the branch that he managed to run into directly.

Ken just sighed as he stopped and turned his head back to his subordinate.

'He's still got a long way to go...'

The two of them continued travelling together for the following week, Akria continuing his training directly under Ken despite it being a mission.

Ken didn't train him in anything physical, as the two of them only ever stopped whenever Akira was already tired from running.

Instead, the Blind Swordsman showed him a few more techniques and usages of chakra that relied on coating.

Akira was already decent at it, but he was far from sending a flying slash, despite the fact that his chakra nature was Wind. Akira in fact had two Chakra natures, one being wind and the other fire.

Ken made sure to teach him how to constantly adjust the size of his Chakra Blade, in order to catch an enemy off guard.

It was difficult and required a lot of concentration, but the Blind Swordsman believed that Akira was talented enough to get it eventually.

The two of them eventually reached the Land of Lightning, where it was time for them to finally part ways.

Ken had to go straight for the Cloud Village, while Akira still had quite a bit left to Mt. Shimatama.

The Blind Leader left the Third Blade with a few parting words.

'If I find myself having to collect your body... I will find some way to revive you just to kill you myself, are we clear?'

Akira gulped a bit and simply nodded, before continuing on his way.

The second they parted ways, Ken picked up the pace, turning into a blur once more as he started making his way to the Cloud Village, doing his best to judge his direction using a small compass and a few villages as landmarks.

It only took him a few days in total, he managed to avoid all Shinobi as he travelled, making sure to stay undetected in general.

But he wasn't going to attempt to sneak into the village. In the first place, sneaking into the village was simply impossible.

All of the 5 Great Hidden Villages had seals placed around them to prevent people from sneaking in.

And the seals were not some cheap variants like the one that the Grass Village had.

Some still managed to overcome the detection using specific ways of hiding their presence from said seals... But that required some specific knowledge in Fuinjutsu, knowledge that Ken lacked.

So, Ken only bothered to stay hidden before he started approaching the hidden village, after which he simply started walking towards the village gates.

At some point, he passed through the formations, and he could tell that he had created a ripple as he passed through.

He didn't bother walking faster though, he just continued on his way normally.

Before he even reached the gates, Anbu had already surrounded him, all of them having their blades drawn and looking at him warily.

Ken wasn't able to tell much about their appearances, but he knew they were Anbu just from their masks.

All special operatives in villages seemed to wear masks in order to hide their identities, the Cloud Village was no different.

The Anbu also seemed to immediately recognize the famous bounty hunter.

"State your business 'Red Dot'!" The Anbu leading the squad said as he carefully approached the reportedly violent bounty hunter that was already close to their gates.

"I've come here with some interesting information for the Raikage. I don't wish to make enemies with your village, so you can put your blades down..."

Ken simply raised his arms as a criminal would when encountering the police, appearing as harmless as he possibly could, his fingers far apart from one another to not alert them into thinking he was trying any jutsu.

The Anbu didn't seem to want to put their weapons away though. It seemed that Ken's reputation had well and truly changed after the incident with the Grass Village. 

"... Information? What information could you have that interests us?" The Squad Leader asked as he tilted his head slightly.

The Squad Leader then signalled to the rest of his team to put their weapons away.

He was already aware that the Raikage had tried to contact the Red Dot in the past, so he wasn't outright hostile regardless of the man's reputation.

The Anbu around him listened reluctantly, and Ken finally sighed and put his hands down.

"It's regarding some strange cult that has made its headquarters on your territory." Ken nodded as he told the Squad Captain the gist of the situation without any hesitation.

After all, all of the Anbu would likely be made aware of the situation, and they were likely going to partake in the operation as well.

The Shinobi were immediately alerted by that, all of them looking at each other in confusion.

Ken could hear some murmurs from some of the members. He managed to catch something about the situation being related to some disappearances that had been reported.

The Shinobi took a few seconds to talk amongst themselves before the Squad Captain nodded and looked at Ken once more.

"... Lord Raikage will want to speak to you personally..."

The Squad Captain then gestured for Ken to follow him.

Ken simply nodded and followed, the other Anbu tagging by all sides, as if to make sure he wouldn't try anything while in their village.

But that was never Ken's intention in the first place, so he just quietly followed the Anbu.

'That's the easy part done... Now, let's hope the Raikage takes the bait...'

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Hope you liked the chapter! Just a bit of banter eh?

Little bit of action before negotiations begin ;)

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