The End of the Samurai Era

Uchiha Hezi rubbed her hands together eagerly.

"So, what next? Do we leave someone to guard the entrance, or go down together?"

0015 shook her head cautiously. "I'll contact the nearby units first and report the location of this secret warehouse to Lady Mikoto. Then I'll ask if we can get reinforcements before we enter. That way, if anything goes wrong, we can alert Lady Mikoto in time."

0015 knew that Fucheng was short on manpower, since they had occupied so many towns lately.

In this situation, they would most likely have to complete the mission on their own.

But the best course was to report in over the radio first, notifying Mikoto and the nearby Misaka Sisters in advance.

As a node in the Misaka Network, 0015 didn't even need to speak aloud.

She could use the electromagnetic-wave ability of her Electro Master LV3 power to send the information she wanted to convey by radio to the Misaka Network and Mikoto.

With the information logged in the Misaka Network, the four of them and a dog cautiously climbed down the well on a rope.

From the entrance, this hidden underground base looked rather unremarkable.

At the bottom of the well was a brick-lined opening just wide enough for two people to stand side by side.

The passage was initially narrow, only wide enough for one person. After another thirty or forty steps, the interior opened up.

From the cave walls, they could tell that this wasn't an underground base excavated by people at all. It had been built by making a few simple expansions to the vast underground space of a natural cave system.

Paru, the scout dog with a keen sense of smell, was even more useful in the underground caves.

The maze of intersecting tunnels made it difficult to find their way.

Fortunately, Paru picked up traces of drug shipments.

The four of them then crawled through a slightly smaller opening into a deeper level of the underground space.

The natural cave system seemed to have many levels.

After they had traveled more than twenty meters in, an underground cavern with a ceiling six or seven meters high came into view.

"It's huge!"

Uchiha Hezi had already activated her Sharingan, giving her excellent night vision.

What met her eyes was a series of metal shelves standing in the distance inside the cavern.

"We found the drug warehouse!" Hezi thought excitedly.

She and Nonō, who knew how to make medicine, walked at the front of the group. They approached the shelves to check the supplies.

Then, without warning, something went wrong!

A sudden feeling of weightlessness swept over them. Uchiha Hezi and Yakushi Nonō, who had approached the shelves, dropped through a cleverly concealed trapdoor.

The trapdoor snapped shut at once.

Hezi and Nonō lost their balance as the world spun around them, and they plunged to the level below.

"Watch out!" Hatake Jiangyi and Paru, who were in the middle of the group, immediately drew their swords.

0015, who had been bringing up the rear, let out a low groan.

Clearly, some other trap was attacking 0015.

Crackle!

The shriek of electricity rang out. Blue-white lightning flashed as 0015 lit up the entire cavern with an electric current.

Four or five sharp kunai were embedded in the somewhat thick arm of 0015, Moon Sister.

"Go help Hezi and the others!" 0015 shouted.

She used electromagnetic force to knock away the bloodied kunai.

"I'll handle these three freaks."

As she spoke, Moon of the Fifteenth leaped toward the three enemies, who had smeared their bodies with a special mud, like a giant bird spreading its wings.

"Glory to the samurai!" The three enemies, looking like mud-covered men, didn't use ninjutsu like the ninja. Instead, they drew their long swords.

In a triangular formation, they threw needles and kunai while retreating away from 0015.

Hatake Jiangyi knew they had fallen into an enemy ambush.

All he could do was rely on himself and go save Uchiha Hezi and Nonō.

The image of his former teammate Matsumoto being blown to pieces by an Explosion Release ninja surfaced in Jiangyi's mind once more.

But this time, Jiangyi wasn't afraid or trembling. He simply gripped his sword hilt more tightly.

He heard the enemies shout:

"Glory to the samurai!"

Could these people be the samurai guards serving Nagashima Ryosuke?

Hatake Jiangyi soon reached the right side of the trapdoor and cautiously tested the metal floor.

He could tell this was going to be tricky.

"This trap is made of very hard material. Am I going to have to..."

Before he could use ninjutsu to break through the floor, a samurai in armor sprang out from the shadows behind the shelves and ambushed him.

"Someone's there!"

Paru barked a warning.

The samurai had hidden behind the shelves of medicine, using the smell of the drugs to mask his own scent.

But the sound of the wind from his surprise attack still couldn't escape Paru's ears.

Clang!

Clang, clang!

Sparks burst in the air.

After three exchanges of attack and defense, Hatake Jiangyi narrowly managed to fend off his opponent's ambush.

Even so, the force of the blow drove Jiangyi back three steps.

"This guy's strong!"

Across from him, a masked samurai in armor was swinging at Paru, who had clamped his jaws around the samurai's lower leg.

Summoning Release: Dismiss!

Hatake Jiangyi quickly released the summoning, sparing Paru from injury.

Then he cautiously put some distance between himself and the samurai.

From his footwork and armor, it was obvious that the man wasn't a ninja.

He was probably a samurai whose tradition had been passed down from the Warring States era.

And after using his technique, the man had sheathed his long sword.

That was clearly the close-combat style of a samurai who practiced the art of the draw.

Jiangyi grew even more cautious.

His right hand tightened around his sword as he took the distinctive opening stance of the Hatake Style Heart-Mind Slash.

The armored samurai, Ogawa Uemon, said nothing.

He only stared coldly at Hatake Jiangyi, approaching with small, quick steps, his feet skimming the ground like he was wading through water.

The man was clearly the samurai leader, and he had lost patience.

He intended to use his killing move to end the fight quickly.

Ogawa Uemon shouted, "Ogawa Style: Cross-Blade Iai Slash!"

Hatake Jiangyi didn't back down. "Hatake Style: Hatake Heart-Mind Slash!"

The two figures clashed weapons and passed one another in the cavern.

A thin, straight line suddenly appeared across Hatake Jiangyi's body.

Behind him, Ogawa Uemon's eyes widened in shock as blood gushed from the base of his throat.

It turned out that the Cross-Blade Iai Slash, this deadly technique, involved splitting a long sword into two.

Once the first sword was blocked, the short sword hidden in the left hand would accelerate and strike a second time.

With a puff of smoke, the Hatake Jiangyi cut in half by the Cross-Blade Iai Slash turned into a cloud of white mist.

It had been a Shadow Clone of Jiangyi's, successfully taking his place as the target of the killing blow.

Hatake Jiangyi, having escaped the attack, gasped for breath.

He had used a Shadow Clone and the psychological pressure of the Hatake Style sword technique to make the powerful samurai lose through "a not-so-samurai-like trick."

"You—you fight dirty..."

The blood pouring from Ogawa Uemon's wound made it difficult for him to speak.

A giant ninja dog had bitten him by the neck from behind.

His left hand, still holding only the short sword, was also caught by the wrist in the jaws of a strange ninja dog wearing glasses.

From the moment Jiangyi had fallen into the ambush and watched Yakushi Nonō and Uchiha Hezi fall to the level below, he hadn't let his guard down for even a moment.

No matter how afraid he was this time, he didn't fall into the same state as during the last battle against the Sand Ninja, when he had trembled so badly he couldn't move.

After surviving life-and-death trials and enduring grueling training, Hatake Jiangyi was glad for the first time that he was a ninja, not a samurai.

To make sure he could land a hit, he had also summoned the enormous ninja dog Gurin and Akira, a ninja dog with natural night vision.

Against them, Ogawa Uemon, who could only use sword techniques, had lost in the most humiliating way.

Hatake Jiangyi leaned on his sword and caught his breath.

"Heh. Some samurai you are. Times have changed!"