Borrowing a Shell to Go Public

Five days later, Yuzhen reached the outskirts of Kikyo Castle. They chose a place where they could see the city from afar and temporarily settled there.

The overall structure of Kikyo Castle fit some of Yuzhen's stereotypes quite well... The outermost perimeter consisted of low walls. Inside the walls was a somewhat disorderly castle town, while the Tenshukaku, where the noble ruler lived, stood at the city's center.

The city had been built at the foot of a mountain, so its overall shape was a semicircle backed by the highlands. It could barely be considered a fairly well-designed defensive layout that made use of the terrain.

Yuzhen settled the others in place and prepared to enter Kikyo Castle alone first to gather some information.

Whether a city was open to outsiders or not, sneaking in posed no difficulty for Yuzhen.

After wandering around for only an hour or two, he confirmed from the discussions of several commoners that the city lord was recruiting ninjas.

Yuzhen breathed a sigh of relief. At least he hadn't come all this way for nothing.

Since the other side had posted a job opening, Yuzhen decided to submit a "job application."

He wrote a letter briefly introducing their background, deliberately exaggerating their numbers by claiming they had fifty ninjas. He added a few polite words about how they were "eagerly recruiting" and he was "offering himself for consideration," then put the letter into an envelope.

Although he had learned the application process, he had no intention of taking the usual route. Otherwise, how could he prove his strength?

After night fell, Yuzhen quietly infiltrated the Tenshukaku.

This was not yet the era of "one country, one Ninja Village," and the fortress where the daimyo lived had no barrier array installed.

Though ordinary barrier arrays could not do anything to the Mayfly Technique either, having no barrier was still better than having one. Without a protective barrier, there was no chance of anything going wrong.

The room where the daimyo lived was easy to find. It was the highest room in the Tenshukaku.

Yuzhen had originally planned to stuff the job application directly into the daimyo's room, but then he reconsidered. That would be too rude... It wouldn't be displaying his strength at all, but rather intimidation.

Thus, he settled for placing the job application soundlessly in an exquisitely decorated room near the center of the second-highest level.

A "big shot" lived here as well, and Yuzhen's letter ought to come as a pleasant surprise.

At dawn, a young man awoke in this overly ornate room.

With the maids' assistance, he arranged his hair, donned a peculiar headdress, and put on layer after layer of clothing. Only after stepping into a pair of wooden clogs did he finally begin his day in an unhurried manner.

For this nobleman, it should have been an utterly ordinary day. Yet with an inadvertent glance, he noticed an envelope conspicuously lying on the writing desk.

"Who entered my room last night?" he asked, somewhat alarmed and uncertain.

When something unfamiliar suddenly appeared in a place one knew extremely well, anyone would become suspicious... Clearly, this nobleman had a good memory and was highly vigilant.

However, the only answer he could get from the maids was a denial.

The maids understood the boundaries between high and low very well. Regardless of whether they were clever, they would never do anything that crossed the line.

The young man temporarily suppressed his shock and anger. With a trace of unease, he walked step by step to the desk. After staring at the envelope for a while, he still reached out and picked it up.

After another moment of hesitation, he chose to tear open the envelope and unfold the paper inside.

After seeing what was written in the letter, he understood what had happened... It was merely an ordinary matter presented in a rather unusual way, and he secretly breathed a sigh of relief.

Immediately afterward, his emotions surged, and he became furious.

Those barbaric ninjas had actually infiltrated his room without making a sound.

He understood that the other side was displaying its power—a self-introduction, as well as a faint threat.

They were simply audacious and utterly disrespectful of rank.

"Savage monkeys!"

He ground his teeth and cursed under his breath.

Yet his voice unconsciously carried a hint of bravado masking fear. The young nobleman felt that he had been insulted, but after calming down slightly, he could not help feeling a lingering sense of dread.

For the daimyo's forces, ninjas appeared to be under control, but in reality they were not. If one was careless, they could become a double-edged sword that wounded both others and themselves.

At the camp, Yuzhen only needed to patiently await the other side's response after submitting his "job application."

He was in no hurry. Given his current profession, his professional skills, and the proper way he had submitted the "job application," he was confident he would not encounter a "read but no reply" situation.

Whether the employer's attitude was positive or negative, they would certainly respond quickly.

A group of masterless ninjas wandering into a territory was essentially equivalent to a plague god. The lord had to respond to their "application for employment" as quickly as possible.

Either hire them immediately, politely send them out of the territory as quickly as possible, or slaughter them without mercy.

Most ninjas were not good at production activities, but they were especially skilled at disrupting them.

Thus, Yuzhen could patiently wait while seriously conducting research into ninjutsu.

His project of imitating, improving, and making minor innovations to Fire Release techniques by referring to Water Release techniques had already made considerable progress.

While researching ninjutsu, Yuzhen discovered that although he could not compare with Tobirama Senju, who casually produced piles of forbidden techniques, he was still fairly capable of developing techniques compared with ordinary ninjas.

There was no helping it. Ordinary ninjas had hardly received any schooling. At least in his previous life, Yuzhen had received a higher education. Although knowledge from different worlds was extremely difficult to apply universally, the thinking, logic, and even creativity cultivated through education could not be stripped away by the barrier between worlds.

That said, Yuzhen's clever brain could only support him in conducting minor experiments. Once he touched upon advanced chakra theory or the fundamental workings of this world's power, he was in turn inferior to true "natives."

At this moment, Yuzhen looked somewhat obsessed. He sat atop a collapsed low wall, with a scroll covered in strange scribbles resting on his legs.

Yet his attention was not on the scroll.

Yuzhen's gaze was focused and solemn. One moment he raised his left arm to examine his left hand; the next, he looked at his right hand, which had been disguised as injured. Before long, he pressed his palms together and gently clasped them in front of himself.

It looked as though he was imitating the "Whatever You Want Comes to You" Technique.

Judging by his serious attitude, the technique he was about to use seemed as though it would have to be at least True Several Thousand Hands, if not Hundred-Type Guanyin.

Unfortunately, nothing happened.

Yuzhen released his hands and vigorously shook his arms, a slightly troubled expression appearing on his face.

It seemed he had made no progress.

As the saying went, sincerity toward others would surely be repaid. Having skipped the middlemen and submitted his application directly, Yuzhen soon received a positive response from Kikyo Castle, just as he had expected.

He had left an address in the letter, and that very afternoon, people from Kikyo Castle arrived.

The group that came out from the city was not large. Two guides led the way, followed by a small sedan carried by two short, sturdy bearers. The sedan was only slightly larger than a vegetable basket. Five or six attendants followed behind.

In addition, a person completely covered in a black hooded robe accompanied the sedan on one side.

Although the sedan was exceptionally tiny, it was exquisite and luxurious. Its four walls and roof were covered in beautiful lacquerwork, with intricate flowers and birds painted in gold against an elegant black background. Anyone who saw it would have to call it "high-class."

Yet no matter how Yuzhen looked at it, he felt it resembled one of those... coffin boxes.

The group stopped after arriving at the entrance to the camp. An attendant stepped forward several paces, came to the front side of the sedan, and called out loudly:

"Kikyo Castle's lord, the guardian of Kawagen Province, the daimyo's nephew, Date Toyosaka, Date Kamaya, has arrived at your esteemed residence. We request that the ninjas come forth to greet him."

In Yuzhen's eyes, the group from Kikyo Castle consisted of only a few people and looked rather shabby. However, he also understood that this already counted as a high-level reception... He glanced at the person in black and instinctively judged that this person was extremely powerful.

As for titles like province lord and government deputy, they were best taken with a grain of salt. The Kikyo Castle daimyo's sphere of influence extended only to the city and its surrounding area. At most, its highest ruler could be considered a county magistrate.

Even so, Yuzhen understood what the other side had said. The daimyo of Kikyo Castle was named "Date Toyosaka," while the person sitting in the sedan was the daimyo's nephew, named "Date Kamaya."

He sounded like someone who could make decisions. As they had agreed beforehand, Yuzhen signaled with his eyes for Fūma Kotarō to step forward.

Yuzhen had already decided that when dealing with outsiders, they would not use the name of the Ashes Organization. Instead, they would use the name of the Fuma Clan.

Compared with the obscure Ashes Organization, the Fuma Clan had a certain amount of fame in the ninja world.

This was more or less equivalent to borrowing a shell to go public.