After leaving Yomi City, Yayoi, Kichō, and Kakuzu raced at full speed toward the border where the Land of Night met the Land of Grass.
As they moved, Yayoi explained the basics of their mission.
“According to the intelligence gathered by the Aburame clan, the ones causing trouble on the border this time are the Kusanagi clan from the Land of Grass.”
“Kusanagi?” Kakuzu’s brow twitched slightly when he heard the name, surprise entering his voice. “You mean the ninja clan said to possess the legendary Kusanagi Sword? I didn’t expect the enemy this time to be that family.”
Since she had already been told the purpose of this mission in advance, Kichō showed no surprise when Yayoi mentioned the Kusanagi clan.
Her hand merely tightened, almost imperceptibly, around the blue hilt of the spirit blade Spider-Cutter at her waist.
Compared with the Kusanagi clan itself, Kichō cared far more about the Kusanagi Sword they possessed.
The Kusanagi Sword was no ordinary ninja tool in the shinobi world.
There were countless legends about it.
These weapons were the crystallized skill of the greatest craftsmen of the ancient era, forged around the same period as the Spider-Cutter in her hand.
However, unlike Spider-Cutter, the Kusanagi Sword was not a single weapon. It was a collective name for a class of sword-type weapons.
Even with the Hyūga clan’s intelligence network, there was no way to accurately determine exactly how many Kusanagi Swords existed in the shinobi world.
And aside from being sharp and durable, each Kusanagi Sword, like Spider-Cutter, possessed its own unique special ability.
Once those special abilities were combined with a ninja’s power, they could unleash terrifying strength.
“Speaking of Kusanagi Swords, I remember the Uchiha clan once found one somewhere in the ninja world.”
Kichō seemed to recall something and began telling them what she knew.
Yayoi’s expression did not change at all, but his gaze flicked toward Kichō for the briefest instant.
“What happened?”
“Supposedly, it was a spirit-type Kusanagi Sword with no physical form. An ancestor of the Uchiha sealed it into the Uchiha bloodline through a forbidden jutsu. If it encountered a suitable host, that Kusanagi Sword would reveal its true form through the Uchiha’s Sharingan.
“In the past, one of our Hyūga ancestors once encountered an Uchiha ninja who used that spiritual Kusanagi Sword, so we know about it. The sword’s ability should be connected to sealing jutsu.”
As Kichō explained, Yayoi instinctively thought of the Totsuka Blade that Uchiha Itachi used in the original story.
The legendary divine weapon Orochimaru had searched for bitterly for years but never found.
If that was the case, then the fact that Itachi possessed the Totsuka Blade suddenly made sense.
As far as Yayoi knew, aside from Itachi’s Totsuka Blade, the only Kusanagi Swords he remembered were the several collected by Orochimaru in the original work.
One of them could trouble even the adamantine-hard Enma, which meant its trait was likely an even further reinforcement of hardness.
Another Kusanagi Sword appeared when Orochimaru fought the Four-Tails state Uzumaki Naruto. It could freely extend and retract, changing its length at will.
As for the one handed to Uchiha Sasuke, that sword was probably the type focused on chakra conductivity, lightness, and sharpness.
Although the abilities of those three Kusanagi Swords were all decent, with the Totsuka Blade as a masterpiece, the Kusanagi Swords Orochimaru collected seemed rather ordinary by comparison.
“Since that Kusanagi Sword is in the Uchiha clan’s hands, we can rule it out first. The Kusanagi clan doesn’t have the ability to take anything from the Uchiha.”
Yayoi gave his judgment. From his tone, he did not seem to take the Kusanagi clan, despite their possession of a Kusanagi Sword, too seriously.
The Kusanagi clan, who had lived in the Land of Grass for generations, used “Kusanagi Sword” as their surname, but in truth, the only reason their clan had any connection to the “Kusanagi Sword” was because their ancestor, more than two hundred years ago, once obtained one.
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After that, the ancestor of the Kusanagi clan took the name “Kusanagi Sword” as the family name and founded the Kusanagi clan of the Land of Grass.
Setting aside a legendary weapon like the Kusanagi Sword, the Kusanagi clan’s overall strength, even at its peak, was only that of a second or third-rate ninja clan.
The family had no systematic secret jutsus passed down through the generations either. They had slowly developed by stealing and imitating the jutsus of other clans.
“Yayoi-sama, are you personally taking action this time because of the Kusanagi Sword?”
Kakuzu turned his head and asked.
His thoughts matched Yayoi’s. The ninja of the Kusanagi clan were not worth paying attention to. Only the Kusanagi Sword was the true core of the matter.
Without something like the Kusanagi Sword involved, he did not think Yayoi would suddenly feel like dealing with the Kusanagi clan in person.
“According to the intelligence, the Kusanagi Sword held by the Kusanagi clan has a very interesting ability. And the ninja and samurai forces stationed on the southwestern border were routed in an extremely short time. There were quite a few casualties as well.”
At that point, Yayoi’s eyes gradually turned cold.
The commanders stationed on the southwestern border of the Land of Night were two Land of Night ninja whom he had recently granted the rank of jōnin.
Like Kakuzu and Kurobei, those two border jōnin were also among the earliest veterans who had followed him through campaigns in every direction. They could be considered trusted retainers among trusted retainers.
Although the two jōnin had only been wounded and had not been killed, the forces under them had suffered heavy losses.
So when Yayoi first received word that the southwestern border had been attacked by unknown enemies, he immediately reassured the two border jōnin and ordered them to lead the remaining troops away from the enemy’s strike zone as quickly as possible, withdraw, and reorganize.
After that, he quickly dispatched an Aburame jōnin to gather intelligence on the unidentified enemies in the southwest.
Very soon, through their insect-manipulation secret jutsu, the Aburame jōnin uncovered the truth behind the attack on the Land of Night’s southwestern border forces.
The attackers were wandering ninja from the Kusanagi clan of the Land of Grass.
Because they had been jointly driven out by other ninja clans in the Land of Grass, the Kusanagi clan could no longer maintain a foothold there, so they had turned their attention to the Land of Night.
From the looks of it, they intended to seize a piece of territory as a place where their clan could rest and recover.
The reason they had chosen to attack the Land of Night without declaring war, striking the southwestern military base, was probably to test the Land of Night’s military strength.
“So we don’t need to leave any survivors this time, right?”
Kakuzu’s voice was also filled with a chilling killing intent.
Yayoi did not speak, but the cold look on his face already said everything.
After that, the three of them stopped talking and increased their speed.
At three in the afternoon, the three officially arrived at a forest on the southwestern border of the Land of Night.
“Shogun-sama.”
A black shadow flashed in front of Yayoi and the others.
He was about the same age as Yayoi. A black coat and sunglasses marked him as a member of the Aburame clan.
He was the Aburame jōnin who had been responsible for investigating the Kusanagi clan.
“Thank you for your work, Haruto. The Kusanagi clan wanderers haven’t left yet, have they?”
Yayoi called the Aburame ninja by name.
Including Orochi, the Aburame clan had sixteen jōnin in total.
Yayoi had memorized the appearance and name of every single one of them, and he had personally met them all.
Among the Aburame clan’s many jōnin, Aburame Haruto’s strength was average, but his intelligence-gathering ability was among the very best in the clan.
That was precisely why Yayoi had specially sent him to investigate the attack on the southwestern border.
Haruto had not disappointed him. After arriving here for only a few days, he had nearly completed his investigation of the attack.
That was also why Yayoi had been able to react so quickly and personally lead a team here.
“They haven’t left. Judging by the Kusanagi clan ninja’s recent movements, they seem to be planning to live in this forest long term.”
Aburame Haruto shook his head and gave the conclusion he had reached after observing them for the past few days.
“So they plan to turn this place into their main camp, then slowly expand outward? I can’t tell if that’s confidence or sheer stupidity.”
Kakuzu’s voice was cold. In his heart, he silently sentenced every Kusanagi clan ninja to death.
“Then we’ll end this quickly. Kichō, use your Byakugan to confirm their situation. Haruto, point us in the right direction.”
Yayoi quickly issued orders, directly having Kichō confirm the current state of the Kusanagi clan in the forest.
Haruto’s insects could only give them a rough understanding of the Kusanagi clan’s situation. To obtain more accurate intelligence, they needed Kichō’s Byakugan.
Haruto pointed in a direction. Kichō immediately gathered chakra around her eyes. The veins around them bulged sharply, and her pure white pupils released a dense white glow as she looked toward the direction Haruto indicated.
“How is it?”
Yayoi turned his head and asked.
“About ten kilometers away, there’s a group gathered together. That should be the Kusanagi clan’s encampment. Aside from some ordinary people, there are forty-seven ninja in total. Two of them have chakra far stronger than the rest. They should be jōnin-level.”
In only a moment, Kichō used her Byakugan to fully map out the enemy’s situation.
Some details were even clearer to her than they were to the enemy themselves.
That included the traps set up around the camp. She found several routes that would allow them to infiltrate silently.
This was the terror of the Hyūga clan’s Byakugan.
Traps, ambushes, enemy numbers, all of it could be understood with a single look, allowing the user to immediately counter the enemy.
Only the Hyūga clan could ambush others. No one else should even dream of ambushing the Hyūga.
That almost unfair fighting style was also one of the reasons the Hyūga clan had stood strong in the shinobi world for so many years.
Kakuzu had no particular reaction after hearing this, but Haruto glanced at Kichō in surprise.
He had not expected Kichō’s Byakugan to be able to see ten kilometers away. Even if she was focusing in a single direction to extend the range, this was not something an ordinary Hyūga ninja could do.
As far as he knew, many adult Hyūga ninja had a Byakugan limit of only six or seven kilometers.
And from how relaxed Kichō looked, ten kilometers was clearly far from her limit.
“Move out.”
The four quickly set off toward their target.
Ten kilometers was not exactly instant for ninja, but it certainly was not far.
Especially when none of the four were below jōnin level.