After the discussion with Mifune, and continuing to tell him that I wasn't there to cause trouble, and playing on his honour—that surely he wouldn't deny two civilians, including a child, the chance to stay within the Land of Iron simply because there were people who wanted to harm them—I was able to pretty much guilt him into allowing us to stay, and not just that, but stay around as guests of the state, giving us further protection and the complete freedom to move around within the Land of Iron.
Again, I hadn't intended to stay here; I really wanted to get back on the road and continue my investigation into where Ishiki might be hiding.
I had used the hospitality of the Fire Daimyō and some of the connections I had made while living in his palace to investigate the black market.
Having people sift through all manner of records and use countless proxies to place bounties on information.
Yet all of it had come to nothing.
Well, in truth, I had learned plenty about how the current black-market system worked, and I was rather wrong about a few assumptions I once had, and learned many interesting little things.
Such as the fact that the Bingo Book was written by a single company that had once been founded by the Hyūga clan.
I was shocked to learn that. Even though I grew up in the clan, I had never heard of it. They loved to teach me every bit of their glorious history, as well as all the grudges they held.
Yet the fact that they founded the Bingo Book was completely purged from their history.
When one thinks about it, it almost made sense. After all, the people who made it had to have access to plenty of information about other shinobi, and given that the Hyūga clan was the biggest group of sensors in the world, it wasn't a far leap.
And it also made sense that they didn't control it any longer. After all, since they joined Konoha, they weren't neutral, so to prevent others from targeting the company and the Bingo Book—or claiming that it hid certain information about Konoha shinobi—it was separated.
Placed under the control of a company that was further a joint venture of the five big Daimyō.
Only something supported by those five could operate that freely while exposing and spreading information about both village shinobi and rogue ones without suffering for it.
Just one interesting little tidbit of information I learned.
Another was that the black market also had roots with the Daimyō's court, which was one of the reasons it wasn't hunted down by the villages.
It made sense, but it also ruined my hope of finding Ishiki hiding in the underworld, acting like some kind of big bad boss.
I had initially assumed that due to what little I knew about his actions in the future—where he was the head of some criminal group—and considering he needed resources for that, I assumed he would have started long ago.
Building up his forces, preparing to make his comeback.
But now, it seemed like he hadn't started that yet, and likely wouldn't start until he received the confirmation of my second defeat.
Likely worried that if he started to act, someone would stop him. Perhaps he knew that Hagoromo, that cruel child, was waiting to deal with me in the future.
My faint memories of Ishiki were those of an arrogant man, one who cared for none but himself and thought himself invincible. Someone who wouldn't hide from danger but arrogantly crush it.
Yet perhaps his defeat at my hands—the fact that I, someone whom he saw as merely a tool, was able to bring him that low—had made him far more cautious.
Though I am sure he only fears Hagoromo because he accepts him as an Ōtsutsuki.
That man wouldn't show respect, much less fear, for someone who wasn't Ōtsutsuki.
The line between mortal and god was vast in ways that were hard to describe.
Yet his newfound caution only caused me problems. I needed to find him, and I had only ten years to do it.
How do you find someone who didn't want to be found and who had been able to hide for a thousand years?
Sure, he likely didn't expect anyone to look for him, but that didn't mean he wasn't hidden well.
So I was truly struggling to figure out how to find him. If I had more time, I could try to build up a real network of informants and slowly spread them to every corner of the world.
But the time needed for that wasn't something that could be counted in mere decades, but at least a few centuries.
After all, acting too fast in something like that would alert the shinobi villages, and they would tear my work apart, fearing it was something built up by an enemy village.
It wasn't easy to plant spies everywhere in a world controlled in part by large groups of superpowered spies.
Danzō had spent decades and the resources of Konoha to set up his Root network, and Jiraiya had to move around all the time to check in on his network and to personally follow up on leads.
That meant the best way to bypass it was to use an existing network, but there were risks.
For one, it would need to involve the great villages, which meant the information I got would depend entirely on what the village chose to give me.
I could totally foresee them hiding any relevant information from me to buy time to bind me and the other two to their village.
And there was also the risk of Isshiki learning someone was looking for him, since it might be genin or chūnin who handled parts of the investigation.
There was still one option: the Akatsuki.
It seemed I would have to consider joining them sooner rather than later.
And I already knew when it would be a good time to start getting in touch with their members.
But for now—
"Karin, I think your sword is ready," I said as I noticed someone approaching the courtyard, and given that I had been able to see their entire journey, I knew what their purpose was.
The Byakugan really was broken.
The show and the manga never gave it the respect it deserved, but being able to watch an entire city at once, tracking every person, seeing every secret… it's pretty fucking overpowered.
Sadly, Isshiki wasn't and never had entered into my range, which clearly meant he was either somewhere I hadn't been yet, or just lived really remotely, somewhere no one would ever need to go.
"Really?" Karin had no idea my mind had wandered off; all she could think about was her sword.
"I wish you hadn't reminded her, she had forgotten all about it," Kanna said, teasing little Karin.
"I didn't forget, not one bit!" Karin protested loudly.
Yet, despite her protests, it was true that she had mostly forgotten about it over the past few weeks.
After all, a chakra blade was an expensive thing, and they didn't make them for children her age.
So it was a custom job, and those take a bit of time.
Not to mention it cost a lot of money. I had never considered just how hard it would be to have a chakra-metal blade forged. It wasn't just a matter of money; it was a matter of finding someone able and willing to make such a blade.
While the Land of Iron had plenty of skilled bladesmiths, they had a certain pride in their work, and few wanted to make something as rare as a chakra blade for a child.
They saw it as a waste of their skills, as disrespectful toward their craft. They wanted to make swords that would go to skilled warriors, not toys for children.
They weren't wrong.
To a samurai smith, a blade was not an object. It was a promise. A lifetime of discipline, purpose, and blood bound into steel. To make one for a child—especially one who didn't even know how to use the blade—felt almost sacrilegious.
It was only thanks to Mifune's help that we got someone willing to do it. Even if that meant I had to do him a favor, it was a fair enough trade.
While we were busy teasing Karin for forgetting about the sword in favor of other, more edible and sugary distractions, the man with the sword reached the doors and knocked, firmly yet politely.
"My sword!" Karin squealed as she ran to the door.
The door slid open just in time to keep Karin from colliding with it face-first.
She skidded to a halt, boots scraping against the stone floor, eyes wide and shining as she took in the man standing on the other side.
I knew his face, but he was just another of the servants who worked for Mifune.
A younger man, a samurai like the rest, with a sword at his side. I hadn't bothered to even attempt to remember his name.
Though clearly none cared much for the person himself; all eyes were on the box he was carrying.
Not even half the length of a normal sword, but still narrow, made of fine, dark lacquered wood.
The box was not ornate.
No gilding. No clan crests. No attempt to dress it up as something special.
That alone told me everything I needed to know.
This was not meant to impress. It was meant to show respect—respect for what was inside. The box could not be better than the content; the content had to be what truly got the attention.
The samurai bowed once, stiff and formal, then stepped aside without a word, leaving the box resting between Karin and the threshold.
For a moment, no one moved.
Karin stared at it as if it might disappear if she blinked.
Then, very slowly, she knelt.
She placed both hands on the lid and looked back at me, eyes bright but careful now—no bouncing, no shouting.
"…Can I?" she asked.
I nodded.
She lifted the lid.
Inside rested a sword.
Not a short sword.
Not a training blade.
A proper sword—simply made smaller.
The proportions were perfect. The blade long enough to be unmistakably a katana, but scaled down so it would not pull her forward. The curve was gentle, elegant. The steel carried a faint, silvery sheen that caught the light without reflecting it harshly, chakra-metal worked so carefully it almost seemed soft to the eye.
The hilt was shorter, thinner, wrapped tightly so her small hands could grip it properly without straining. Even the guard was scaled down.
Forged with the same care one would give to a blade meant for war—only adjusted for the body that would wield it.
Karin stopped breathing.
"It's… it's not big," she whispered.
It wasn't, as one would expect from a sword made for a child, but I almost wanted to say that the price wasn't small.
Twenty million—that was the price of a small chakra sword like that.
Honestly, it wasn't worth the price, but Karin wanted it, and if she wanted a sword, she would have the best there was.
"You can get a bigger one once you have mastered it, if you want to stick with using a sword," I said, knowing well enough that my training wouldn't lead her down the path of using a sword.
Despite the strong vitality Uzumaki had, it was wasted on taijutsu; it would be far better to teach her ninjutsu, with the vast amount of chakra she had. Anything else would be a waste of her talents.
(End of chapter)
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