Early Morning
On this morning, which seemed no different from any other, the Daimyo's Mansion welcomed a peculiar "guest."
A girl with tan skin and light green hair appeared at the entrance of the mansion.
"No unauthorized entry."
"Leave."
The two samurai guarding the gates of the Daimyo's Mansion frowned as they looked at the girl before them. Her expression was vacant, and her posture was as stiff as a board.
Could she be here to run some kind of scam?
What kind of low-born trash dares to come here and act wild?
Do they have any idea where they are?
The samurai were merely sentries for the gate, yet even when faced with a girl who looked clearly abnormal, they simply told her to leave with cold expressions. Though their hearts were filled with displeasure, their words remained professional, lacking any overt insult.
However, the girl did not seem to hear them.
Step by step, she began to ascend the stone stairs—stairs that commoners wouldn't even dare to look at.
Seeing this, the samurai's expressions instantly turned icy.
Something was wrong...
The katanas at their waists already glinted with a piercing, murderous light.
"Halt!" the samurai barked.
As if she were deaf, the girl did not slow down. Her movements were neither fast nor slow, operating with the mechanical precision of a puppet controlled by a master.
Unable to suppress the growing unease in his heart any longer, one samurai swung his long blade downward!
In an instant, it looked as though this petite, seemingly frail girl was about to have her blood spilled on the spot.
Suddenly, the girl's movements accelerated with eerie speed!
Like a phantom, she evaded the strike. She reached out and clamped her hand onto the man's wrist with monstrous strength.
Crying out in pain, the samurai's grip faltered, and his katana tumbled toward the ground—only for the girl to catch it mid-air.
A backhand slash!
A large head soared into the sky!
The entire sequence happened in the blink of an eye. The second samurai only reacted after the fact, letting out a roar of rage as he charged with his blade raised.
The sharp ring of clashing steel erupted!
The girl instantly parried the heavy blade. Then, moving like a specter once more, she vanished behind him. The razor-sharp katana in her hand efficiently severed the man's neck in a single motion.
Blood sprayed across her clothes!
Drenched in crimson, the girl resumed her mechanical pace, walking toward the noble, lofty, and revered Daimyo's Mansion.
In a street corner in the distance, a commoner wearing a simple straw hat, who had been silently chewing on dry rations, stood up. Beneath the shadow of the hat, a flash of scarlet seemed to flicker.
"Who are you!"
"Who sent you!"
"You're a ninja!"
"Damn it!"
"Do you have any idea what the penalty is for a ninja to storm the Daimyo's Mansion?!"
"Surrender now!"
Countless samurai surrounded the blood-stained girl, sealing off every exit as they shouted their denunciations.
Yet, no one dared to strike.
The gap between a ninja and an ordinary person was no mere distance—it was a chasm. Even to a samurai, a ninja was a different breed of existence altogether, save for perhaps those warriors from the Land of Iron.
For every step the girl took, the samurai retreated a step.
On the vast plaza of this incredibly prestigious mansion, nearly a thousand samurai held their cold, sharp blades leveled at her. Faced with such a small, seemingly weak girl, not a single man dared to make a move.
A hundred samurai... a thousand samurai...
None of them dared to lay a finger on a ninja.
A ninja is not a god. If these thousand samurai swarmed her, risking their lives to kill her, they would eventually win. But the casualties would be catastrophic.
Every ninja academy mandates the teaching of the three basic techniques: Transformation Jutsu, Clone Jutsu, and Substitution Jutsu.
These weren't originally designed to fight other ninjas—they were designed to deal with ordinary people.
Normal humans cannot perceive the chakra fluctuations of a Transformation or a Clone, and the Substitution Jutsu is an enigma that ordinary people simply cannot comprehend. As for the offensive Ninjutsu, those were the tools reserved for fighting their own kind.
The girl moved forward, and the samurai fell back.
The might of a single ninja forced a thousand men to cower in hesitation.
Finally, they had nowhere left to retreat.
Just as the samurai were beginning to feel the sting of humiliation and prepared to launch a suicidal charge, three figures appeared in the center of the plaza.
Shinobi.
The ninjas assigned to protect the Daimyo.
The so-called Twelve Guardian Shinobi.
An organization officially comprised of twelve elite Jonin.
Of course, that was the public announcement. In reality, at least half of the Twelve Guardian Shinobi were merely at the Chunin level. It was an organization where fame and actual strength were severely mismatched.
Back when Asuma Sarutobi came from Konohagakure to serve as one of the Twelve, the Daimyo had been overjoyed. After all, the Daimyo knew exactly what kind of mediocre talent he usually had under his command. Asuma hadn't even needed an evaluation; he was accepted instantly.
"Halt."
The man in the lead spoke in a cold voice, staring at the girl.
The blood-stained katana in the girl's hand hit the ground with a crisp metallic clang. This caused the man's lips to curl into a slight smirk.
At least she's sensible, he thought.
However, in the next second, an ominous chakra instantly saturated the entire Daimyo's Mansion!
And the source was the girl herself!
"ROAR!!!"
A bizarre, ear-piercing, and massive howl erupted from the girl's throat!
The man's eyes widened in horror.
This feeling...
Even if he had never seen a Tailed Beast, this gargantuan, evil chakra made his skin crawl and his blood run cold!
In an instant, six transparent, insect-like wings sprouted from the girl's back, and a massive, powerful tail extended from behind her waist!
With a casual swing of the tail, the pristine, white jade-like stone tiles of the plaza were pulverized into dust.
Six wings, one tail.
This was... the Seven-Tails!
The Seven-Tails!!!
The three Guardian Shinobi trembled as they watched the girl, who was now enveloped in a chakra so dense it was suffocating. Their feet felt as though they had been cast in concrete; they couldn't move a muscle.
The girl, however, did not wait for them to regain their composure.
As she unleashed the Tailed Beast within her, she slowly began to hover into the air. Simultaneously, her body began to lose its human shape, piece by piece.
"The Se... Seven-Tails..."
"It's the Seven-Tails!"
Finally, one of the Guardian Shinobi screamed at the top of his lungs.
But then, a massive shadow loomed over them, blotting out the sun.
The gargantuan Tailed Beast floated calmly high in the sky, silhouetted against the light. The entire Daimyo's Mansion was cast into its shadow.
The world seemed to fall silent, save for a continuous, droning "buzzing" sound. It was the sound of the massive creature's wings vibrating in the air.
The noble residence fell into utter chaos.
No ninja had ever dared to attack the Daimyo's Mansion, let alone a Tailed Beast.
Then, the beast in the sky moved.
Countless scales and powder cascaded down with the vibration of its wings, blanketing the entire estate.
The Daimyo's Mansion was large, yet it was also small. By a stroke of fate, it was just the right size for the Seven-Tails' scale powder to cover every inch of it.
Everyone caught in the cloud was instantly blinded. The residents and guards of the mansion began to stumble about like headless chickens.
The Guardian Shinobi scrambled to respond, but even those who managed to squint through the powder felt only despair as they looked up at the Seven-Tails.
It was helpless. There was absolutely nothing they could do.
In this world filled with shimmering scales, the Seven-Tails—hovering against the light, doing nothing but vibrating its wings—looked like a god.
They no longer had the luxury to wonder why the Seven-Tails would appear at the Daimyo's Mansion. The only priority now was to get the Daimyo out of this disaster zone.
"I see. So that's how it is?"
Deep within the mansion, a man standing under the eaves of a roof gently tapped a folding fan against his palm, gazing at the Tailed Beast in the sky from afar.
The man wore heavy white powder on his face and was dressed in extravagant robes. Clearly, this was the current Daimyo. Because he was under the roof, he had not been affected by the scale powder.
But compared to his usual affected, effeminate tone, his voice was now a steady, masculine baritone.
Furthermore... there wasn't a hint of panic.
It was as if he had expected all of this.
"You don't seem surprised at all."
An unfamiliar voice rang out from behind the Daimyo, causing the man to turn his head.
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