"Might Duy, I'll take five. You take two."
Yako stared at the Seven Ninja Swordsmen and said, "Judging by your condition, if you want to take three, that's fine too."
Hearing Fox's words, both Might Duy himself and people like Ebisu felt there was something wrong with their ears.
Lord Fox was actually discussing how many enemies Might Duy should fight.
Was this really a question of how many he could fight?
The opponents were the Seven Ninja Swordsmen.
In the past, if Might Duy could defeat even a subordinate of one of their subordinates, it would have counted as an extraordinary performance.
But from Lord Fox's tone, Might Duy apparently had the confidence to defeat two of them?
It almost seemed as though Lord Fox and Might Duy had surrounded the Seven Ninja Swordsmen.
Fuguki Suikazan was the first to form hand seals.
Yako recognized the seals at a glance.
Body Flicker Technique.
He was actually trying to flee without fighting.
As if Yako would allow that.
Just as Fuguki Suikazan tried to escape, he saw Fox disappear. Instinctively, he swung backward, smashing Samehada behind him.
Clang!
Samehada collided with a broad sword.
A pained cry came from within Samehada. The sword had been struck hard enough to hurt.
Fuguki Suikazan looked over and saw Fox holding a broadsword.
This was the legendary weapon of the God of Shinobi. A weapon that had dominated the shinobi world at the end of the Warring States period and the beginning of the ninja village era.
He tried stalling with words.
"The indestructible Senju Greatsword. Like the Sarutobi Clan's supposedly unbreakable Adamantine Staff, it is one of the shinobi world's finest weapons.
Compared to the Senju Greatsword, our Seven Ninja Blades are far inferior…"
Yako said, "As a ninja, how can you belittle yourself like that? Don't be so insecure. Come. Let's see whether your Seven Ninja Blades are sharper, or my Senju Greatsword is harder."
He secretly exerted more force.
He covered the Senju Broadsword with refined Earth Release chakra, increasing its durability by another level.
Not only that, he secretly applied Added-Weight Rock Jutsu to the Senju Greatsword, making it even heavier.
Juzo Biwa, wielding the broken blade Executioner's Blade, appeared behind Yako with Body Flicker Technique and swung horizontally toward Yako's waist.
Yako swung the Senju Greatsword, colliding with the Executioner's Blade.
The Executioner's Blade snapped apart in an instant.
Yako felt somewhat disappointed.
What was the point of breaking the Broken Blade on the first strike?
The Executioner's Blade was already famous for breaking easily.
Juzo knew the Executioner's Blade was easy to break, but he had not expected it to crumble as though it were made of sand, shattering into countless fragments until only one-tenth of its length remained.
The Senju Greatsword swung again.
Juzo hurriedly raised his blade to block.
The first cut had broken it sideways.
This time, it split lengthwise.
Even the handle of the Executioner's Blade was cleaved apart, breaking into left and right halves.
The Senju Greatsword also cut off half of Juzo's palm and tore open his stomach.
Yako kicked Juzo flying, then planted the Senju Broadsword into the ground and carefully ground the fragments of the Executioner's Blade into iron powder.
Fuguki Suikazan stared at the iron powder, thinking to himself:
What level of strength was this?
Next came a Hōzuki ninja wielding the twin blades Hiramekarei.
It was unclear what had happened among the Seven Swordsmen. Hōzuki Mangetsu was dead, and now Hiramekarei had been given to an ordinary-looking Hōzuki ninja.
In front of Hiramekarei was solidified chakra, gathered into a glowing chakra sphere.
The Senju Greatsword struck toward Hiramekarei, shattering both the chakra sphere and blade light before colliding with the twin blades themselves.
Clang!
Hiramekarei broke.
Fuguki Suikazan stared at the broken blade flying away and suddenly understood what Fox was trying to do.
Fox wasn't trying to kill all seven of them.
He was using swordsmanship to defeat the Seven Ninja Blades head-on.
An assault on the heart.
Fox wanted to break their spirits and completely dismantle the Mist's will to resist.
The Seven Ninja Blades were weapons forged by the Second Mizukage, Hōzuki Gengetsu. They were Kirigakure's pride, a stable inheritance that produced elite jōnin and even Kage-level strength.
Wielding Samehada or Hiramekarei made one a Kage-level ninja.
Wielding any of the other five blades made one an elite jōnin.
The distance was too great, stretching across the entire shinobi world, so Fuguki Suikazan still did not know what had happened in the Land of Earth.
If he knew the Land of Earth's fate, he would understand that what Fox and Konoha wanted was not victory in a single Shinobi World War.
They wanted to transform the shinobi world completely.
Death, or obedience to the order Fox established.
There were only these two choices.
Unlike the Executioner's Blade, Hiramekarei did not have the ability to repair itself.
If it broke, it was broken.
With the village's suppression of the Hōzuki Clan, the method of forging Hiramekarei had long since been lost.
Yako cut down the dazed Hōzuki ninja with one strike and sent him flying, then turned and encountered Kurosuki Raiga, wielder of the Lightning Blades.
Kurosuki Raiga shouted, "My Lightning Release counters every ninja blade! I'll take over!"
The Lightning Blades' Lightning Release was extremely powerful, even stronger than the Cloud ninja's Lightning Release. Normally speaking, all metal weapons truly did fear the Lightning Blades.
Whether Kurosuki Raiga saw through something or simply stumbled into it by chance, Lightning Release could indeed counter refined Earth Release chakra.
However, elemental advantage in ninjutsu still depended on quantity.
Talking about counters without considering output was nonsense.
The refined Earth Release chakra wrapped around the Senju Greatsword was not something the dancing lightning of the Lightning Blades could counter.
Clang! Clang!
After two consecutive impacts, both Lightning Blades snapped in half.
The broken tips flew wildly and pierced Kurosuki Raiga's head.
He collapsed in disbelief.
Yako raised the Senju Greatsword and blew off a tiny bit of dust from its surface.
"The Lightning Blades do have something to them. They actually left a small mark on my Senju Greatsword."
After breaking three ninja blades in succession, Yako turned toward Fuguki Suikazan.
"Samehada is a living creature, a cunning and cruel fish. Let's see whether this fish can be turned into sashimi…"
Fuguki Suikazan did not dare clash with Fox head-on using Samehada. After forming hand seals, he caused his hair to grow wildly.
"Hair Needle Senbon!"
His entire body became like an exploding sea urchin, with red hair stabbing in every direction.
The hair was so dense that Fuguki himself was swallowed within it.
Yako immediately turned his head, looking toward the direction Fuguki Suikazan had fled.
"Not a bad technique. You actually hid within your hair and disappeared. But it's only not bad."
Yako vanished with Body Flicker Technique, chasing after Fuguki Suikazan.
When Nara Shikaku arrived at the scene with the Seven Ninja Swordsmen hunting unit, he saw three corpses lying behind Lord Fox, while Fox himself had already gone after Fuguki Suikazan.
With Lord Fox appearing here, Nara Shikaku could only assume that things in the Land of Waves capital had gone very smoothly, and Lord Fox had already achieved his objective.
But Might Duy's performance left Nara Shikaku unable to understand.
Might Duy was actually holding off three members of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen.
Kushimaru Kuriarare, wielder of Nuibari.
Jinin Akebino, wielder of Kabutowari.
And Munashi Jinpachi, wielder of Shibuki.
Blue chakra steam poured from Might Duy's entire body, and his strength was terrifying.
Nara Shikaku immediately ordered:
"According to the plan! Move!"
He had long since prepared tactics against every single ninja blade.
This was the perfect opportunity to eliminate the Seven Ninja Swordsmen.