"The Land of Demons? Shrine maiden? Moryo? Immortal army? What the hell are these things…?"
Looking at the distress letter the Akatsuki trio had transferred to him through his summoned white snake, Rei Kaguya, who had been inspecting the experimental data of the Heaven Cursed Seal in his laboratory, raised his brows in confusion.
After scraping through his memories for a long while, he finally found a possible recollection related to this incident from deep within his mind.
"Holy crap, why do Naruto movies have terracotta soldiers and An Lushan?"
"Huh? What? Are the movies that ridiculous?"
"Uh, I think they just stitched things together under borrowed names. At the core, they are still stories related to ninja… That An Lushan was from the movie with the Land of Roran, which had nothing to do with the name at all. And the terracotta soldier movie was even more ridiculous. They made a white-haired shrine maiden outfit version of Hinata as the heroine, and also made up some monster called Moryo that only a shrine maiden could seal to scare people, saying it could destroy the world or something…"
"Do not worry too much about movie plots. Look at One Piece movies next door. Do they not also pull out a bunch of absurdly strong people every time, have everyone do sit-ups for a while, then force them to become stepping stones for Monkey D. Luffy?"
In those distant memories that had already belonged to another lifetime, he seemed to have once casually chatted about this topic with a friend he was close to.
But so much time had passed.
Things he had not understood much in the first place had already become scraps of memory with nothing left to pick up.
If someone had not suddenly brought it up, how could he possibly have remembered such trivial details?
"Still, since in my memory, I connected this Moryo, whatever it is, with terms like terracotta soldier army, that means this Moryo should have the ability to make large numbers of terracotta soldiers move, right?"
"I wonder whether I can capture that Moryo and use him as backup hidden energy for those immortal armies. If that can be done, some of the Land of Water's infrastructure construction can be put on the agenda earlier…"
Thinking this far, Rei had already decided to send someone with his clone to check what exactly had happened in the Land of Demons.
And considering that Moryo's main body should not be so strong that it required Rei himself to take action, he quickly found suitable candidates for this mission.
Ten minutes later.
Kisame Hoshigaki and Shisui Uchiha stood before the door of the Mizukage's office, looking at each other.
"Um, Mr. Kisame Hoshigaki… right?"
Shisui Uchiha looked up at Kisame Hoshigaki, who was more than a head taller than him, and asked somewhat awkwardly, "Are you also here to see the Fourth Mizukage?"
"Indeed… But if you say it like that, then you did not stay by Lord Fourth's side all day today, Shisui Uchiha?"
Kisame Hoshigaki narrowed his eyes.
He looked Shisui up and down.
This Uchiha was always brought around by Rei, making many people in the village feel extremely jealous. Kisame wanted to see from Shisui's body some reason why Rei valued him so much.
Facing Kisame's assessing gaze, Shisui did not feel afraid or anything like that.
Instead, he met Kisame's eyes without dodging at all.
The silent atmosphere lasted for a while.
Then Kisame took the initiative to step back and broke the silence before them.
"Let us first enter and report to Lord Fourth. Since we were summoned over almost at the same time, perhaps Lord Fourth has a mission to entrust to us afterward. If we need to understand and examine each other, we can do it then, Shisui Uchiha."
"I do not think the Fourth Mizukage's heart is large enough to let me leave Kirigakure."
Shisui sighed and answered without much optimism.
"Hm. It is better not to use your own thoughts too much to speculate about Lord Fourth, Shisui Uchiha. That person's capacity is not something ordinary shinobi can imagine."
Kisame Hoshigaki shook his head.
He raised his hand and knocked on the door of the Mizukage's office, then silently entered the room together with Shisui Uchiha.
At the moment the two stepped inside, Rei turned around in his chair and looked at Shisui Uchiha with a faint smile.
"If I really gave you a chance to leave Kirigakure and go outside to carry out a mission, would you look for an opportunity to escape during the mission, Shisui?"
"…I would not."
Shisui Uchiha first revealed a somewhat surprised expression.
But very quickly, he shook his head and gave a negative answer.
"I will not do something that only looks like it has some chance of success on the surface. Besides, I do not believe that even if I return to Konoha now, I can reverse the future difference in position between Konoha and Kirigakure."
"Before making the decision to return to Konoha at any cost, I hope I can at least understand what you want to do to Kirigakure, and even to the entire shinobi world."
"If you want to realize that goal, you will probably have to stay in Kirigakure for several more years."
Rei smiled.
He casually tossed a completed mission scroll toward Kisame Hoshigaki.
While Kisame opened the scroll and browsed the mission details, Rei smiled lightly at Shisui Uchiha and said, "This mission will be carried out by the two of you together. The location is the Land of Demons. It is an emergency mission in the nature of a rescue request."
"Although the client did not treat us Kirigakure as the main target for help, considering that the shrine maiden of the Land of Demons even sent a distress message to Iwagakure, which is even farther away, I think she should not refuse the aid we provide."
"An immortal ghost army, a madman attempting to conquer the world, and the objective is to protect the shrine maiden of the Land of Demons…?"
Kisame Hoshigaki handed the mission scroll he had finished reading to Shisui Uchiha beside him.
Then he asked Rei, "Lord Fourth, a mission like this has insufficient information, unpredictable risks, and involves changes to a national situation. It already reaches the threshold of an S-rank mission. Can it really be left to me?"
"If you want to become one of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen, you need to have the ability to handle this kind of difficult situation alone."
Rei raised his hand and picked up another scroll on the table.
With a light shake, he spread it open.
The characters surrounded by seals—Explosion, Twin, Lightning, Blunt, Long—as well as the empty spaces where Great and Sever should have existed, were displayed toward Kisame Hoshigaki and Shisui Uchiha.
He spoke in a deep voice.
"Only two of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist remain now, and both are still held by older-generation shinobi from the Third's era. Although the combat power of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen no longer means much to me, to the people of Kirigakure, who grew up listening to their legends, they still hope to see new-generation shinobi inherit these ninja swords."
"I see. This mission can be considered one of my promotion tests, Lord Fourth?"
"More or less. Complete this mission together with this Uchiha beside you, and you will be qualified to consider which ninja sword you want to inherit."
"Of course, if you want to inherit the swords from the two current holders, that is not impossible either. However, in that case, you will need to show more performance and battle achievements to shut other people's mouths, Kisame."
"I will obtain one, Lord Fourth."
Kisame nodded.
Within his unusually shaped eyes, a light called ambition and motivation flashed.
After Shisui Uchiha finished reading the mission scroll, he raised his head with a somewhat pessimistic look and said to Rei, "I remember that in the Uchiha clan's records, the sealing techniques mastered by the shrine maidens of the Land of Demons are powerful enough to nearly rival those of the Uzumaki clan. If that Moryo can force someone like her into a situation where she has no choice but to ask outsiders for help, then his strength may be greater than we are guessing…"
"You do not need to worry about that, Shisui."
As Rei spoke, a slender little white snake with red eyes slid out from his sleeve and flicked its tongue at Shisui Uchiha and Kisame Hoshigaki.
Rei used his finger as a perch for it and said unhurriedly, "I have more or less finished analyzing and reconstructing the Heaven Cursed Seal technology that Orochimaru paid over as a deposit."
"Now is precisely when I need actual combat to test whether my design ideas are correct…"
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