Takigakure (Part 2)

The reason Ye Wuji still remembered this Forehead Protector symbol was that it was rather strange. An arrow was one thing, but it was missing the front part, too. It was one of the few symbols Ye Wuji could still recall.

Thinking of this, Ye Wuji immediately recalled what he knew about the movie. This ninja village seemed pretty... Well, the Takigakure in the movie—let's just call it Takigakure. He remembered it being called the Waterfall Ninja Village. At the time, he'd thought it got its name because it was behind a waterfall. He hadn't expected the name to be different now. Though perhaps the movie had called it Takigakure, too. Ye Wuji had forgotten that detail, after all. It was a village in a small country.

In the movie, the entire village had only two or three jonin, including the leader of Takigakure, who could also be called the Takikage. As for the other ranks of ninja, there seemed to be fewer than five of them altogether.

In the movie, the village was behind a waterfall. It was weak, so it could only put effort into guarding the entrance. From what was shown, the village was peaceful because it was good at hiding, not because it was particularly powerful. But judging by the situation now, Takigakure was strong. It was nothing like the weak village shown in the movie.

"Whether Takigakure is strong or weak, it seems to have something good." After recalling what he knew about the village, Ye Wuji thought that although some details didn't match, it did have something quite valuable.

"The Hero Water. This village has it." Ye Wuji immediately remembered the item. It could increase a person's chakra tenfold. His eyes gleamed at the thought. He had to get his hands on the Hero Water. It was far too important to him. He'd been worried about his chakra for a long time, and now he could solve part of the problem.

"Judging by the situation, this village is so strong, and the Hero Water is its treasure. They must protect it very well. Though the Hero Water seems to have some side effects. But in the Naruto World, if you want a huge amount of chakra, apart from being born with it, the only other option is to become a Jinchuriki. As far as I know, there's nothing else in the entire Naruto World that can enhance a Jinchuriki.

Ye Wuji didn't want to become a Jinchuriki, so the Hero Water was his only option. Still, it was strange. The Hero Water was so powerful, yet none of the Five Great Nations had tried to seize it. The village was strong, but it couldn't possibly stand up to the Five Great Nations. Even if they weren't interested, what about Orochimaru? Someone so devoted to increasing his power couldn't possibly be uninterested.

"If those possibilities are ruled out, then the only explanation is that they don't know about it. Takigakure must be very good at keeping secrets. Even the Takigakure missing-nin in the movie only gathered some other missing-nin to steal the Hero Water. Given his personality, he might have killed them all to silence them after succeeding."

Looking at the people outside chatting, Ye Wuji decided to stay in Takigakure for a while. From what the samurai Ukyo had said, he would be staying here for two years. Ye Wuji had originally planned to study under him for a while and then leave, but it looked like he'd have to stay the whole time.

Once they finished chatting, the carriage set off again. It seemed they were getting close to the largest waterfall.

Sure enough, the next day, Ye Wuji and the others arrived beneath the waterfall. He hadn't expected the mountains around it to be so tall. You couldn't see the waterfall at all until you got close.

Standing beneath it, Ye Wuji listened to the roar in his ears. It was the sound of the water plunging down. He looked up but still couldn't see where the waterfall began. He estimated that it came from several thousand meters up, though he had no way of knowing exactly how high.

Looking at the waterfall, Ye Wuji thought, This must be what they mean by water plunging three thousand feet. But although the water was loud, the sound seemed a little too quiet for a drop of several thousand meters.

"Forget it. Some things can be explained by science, and some can't. Or maybe it's not that science can't explain them, but that it hasn't advanced far enough yet," Ye Wuji thought.

Since they were almost at Takigakure, Ye Wuji stopped sitting inside the carriage and moved to the front. He watched the surroundings as they went, taking in the landscape around the village. To everyone else, though, he was just a ghost looking around.

"Good thing we're not going through a cave or swimming in through the water. Come to think of it, I wonder if it's possible to swim in through the water beneath the waterfall." Ye Wuji considered it, but when he saw the several-kilometer stretch ahead, he abandoned the idea. Unless someone could turn into water, even a Mist Ninja probably couldn't swim several kilometers through it.

"Once we pass through that gate up ahead, we'll be in Takigakure, right? It looks a lot like Konoha. They've got a big gate, too, with a few ninja guarding it."

"But this gorge must be natural, right?" Looking at the peaks that seemed to reach the sky and the road running between them, he saw that the road was quite wide—about a dozen meters, plenty of room for people to walk.

The gorge stretched for several kilometers and was dozens of meters wide. Ninja techniques could have been used to carve it out, but with mountains several thousand meters high, that would be no easy feat. Even an Earth Release expert from the Land of Earth could only make a few dozen meters of progress at a time.

"Looks like the Land of Waterfalls got lucky. They found such a natural wonder." Only after entering the Land of Waterfalls did Ye Wuji learn that Takigakure was inside the great waterfall. Waterfalls surrounded it on three sides, and the only side without one faced the sea and the border.

"What a perfect place to defend. Even if they're attacked, they can escape through the sea. Even if the enemy can blockade the waters, a coastline more than ten kilometers long won't be easy to seal off. But what if someone used Earth Release to bury the gorge leading in?" Ye Wuji wondered.

In fact, Ye Wuji didn't know that many barrier techniques had long since been set up above the gorge to stop others from destroying it with ninja techniques, much like the Kage Rock in Konoha.

A few days later, Ye Wuji spent his time wandering around Takigakure. "What an interesting country. In other countries, it's rare for the Daimyo to live in a ninja village, but here both the Daimyo and the ninja village are in the same place. You can still see the difference between them, though. The Daimyo and the village each occupy about half the area. But this village really doesn't have many ninja. From what Ye Wuji observed, including the ones in hiding, there were at most a little over a hundred. There were about as many samurai.

Ye Wuji estimated the numbers by counting the samurai. Ninja were good at hiding, while samurai weren't. The samurai here seemed to have quite a few skilled fighters, though. That much was clear from how many people spoke with Uncle Ken. They seemed to be on about the same level. I wonder if any of them are as strong as Ukyo. Even if there are, there probably aren't many—one or two at most. Ukyo had killed an elite jonin, after all. There couldn't be that many monsters around.

Standing beside the lake, Ye Wuji looked at the enormous tree on the opposite shore. That must be where they kept the Hero Water. In the movie, anyone could go up to it. It was just a tree, after all, so no one paid it much attention.

But the tree here in reality was enormous, covering an area several kilometers wide. Ye Wuji looked at its trunk. It was almost two kilometers thick, and more than a hundred meters tall. It was absurdly huge. Even the Ten-Tails' God Tree might not be this big. Luckily, it was only a tree. If it had a will of its own, it might be no weaker than a Tailed Beast.

The tree's size was nothing compared with the lake, which took up a third of Takigakure's area. If the village were divided up, the ninja would have one portion, the Daimyo another, and the lake the third.

The lake covered more than ten kilometers. Since it was close to the village, many people swam there, mostly children playing in the water. The country was celebrating the accession of its new Daimyo, so the festive atmosphere was especially strong. From that, it seemed the Daimyo was well loved.

Ye Wuji pretended to be interested and went to the island where the enormous tree stood. No one stopped him, so he could visit the island with the tree on it. But anyone who tried to get closer to the tree was turned away.

He heard the locals call it the "Sacred Tree." Thanks to this tree—or perhaps the lake—the whole village could more or less live off what it produced. People were only allowed to approach the tree during the Sacred Tree Festival, which fell around the same time as the New Year. The next opportunity would be during the Daimyo's accession, when he would pray to the Sacred Tree. But the guards would be everywhere then.

A week later, the ceremony for the new Daimyo of the Land of Waterfalls began. Ye Wuji hadn't seen Ukyo and his family of three for the past few days. Uncle Ken was teaching Yuta basic samurai skills, while Tomomi was looking after Ye Wuji and the others like a housekeeper.

When the Daimyo's ceremony began, Ye Wuji grew curious about what might be unusual about a Daimyo's accession in this world. So he joined the people along the road and walked with them.

At first, Ye Wuji thought they were heading to the Daimyo Mansion. But when they got closer, he realized the new Daimyo would deliver his accession speech beneath the Sacred Tree. A tall platform had already been built beneath it. Ye Wuji looked at the platform on the other side, then at where he was standing, and felt speechless. They won't let me over there?

"But having ninja is convenient. They've built a platform in no time, and even put up a bridge so people can cross over to the island with the Sacred Tree." Ye Wuji saw many commoners crowded on this side, but hardly any crossing the bridge.

Below the platform on the other side, hundreds of people had gathered. Judging by their clothes, most were officials, while the rest were probably what they called representatives of the common people.

Ye Wuji had hoped to use this chance to get a good look at the Sacred Tree, but it seemed he still couldn't get over there.

"What are you doing, Ye?" A woman's voice came from behind him. Ye Wuji turned and saw Rei, Ukyo's daughter. But today Rei wasn't wearing her usual simple samurai outfit. She wore a white dress and a beautiful headdress. Beside her stood a boy about her age, around fifteen or sixteen. He wore a formal kimono and a headdress, too, and had a rather delicate appearance.

"Rei, I haven't seen you these past few days. What have you been doing? And why are you dressed so beautifully?" The moment Ye Wuji saw Rei, he felt that his chance had come. He felt a little guilty about using her, but then he thought, Maybe I'll save the world someday. If Madara and the others succeed with the Eye of the Moon Plan, won't everyone here end up under their control? With that thought, his slight guilt disappeared.

"Nothing much. I was practicing etiquette. It was so boring, but at least it's finally over. What are you doing here?" Rei asked in return.

"Nothing. It looked lively, so I came to take a look. By the way, Rei, could I go over there?" Ye Wuji pointed at the platform by the Sacred Tree.

"Oh, you want to go over there? That's no problem. I was about to head over, too. Come on, let's go together." Rei took Ye Wuji's hand and led him toward the bridge.

The boy beside Rei only smiled. He didn't try to stop her.

"By the way, this is the Daimyo's son. His name is Takanao. You can call him Takanao or Brother Takanao. Oh, right, he's the Daimyo's son," Rei introduced him on the way.

"Hello, Brother Takanao." Rei had told him he could be casual, but Ye Wuji decided to call him "Brother" to make a polite impression. As for how to address the Daimyo's son, Ye Wuji really had no idea. The Daimyo's daughter was apparently called a princess, but he didn't think the Daimyo's son was called a prince here.

"Miss Tachibana, Your Highness Takanao, your seats are over there." After they crossed the bridge, a guard approached them. He seemed to be leading Rei and Takanao to their assigned seats. The guard appeared to freeze when he noticed Ye Wuji, but then he said nothing and led the way.

"So the Daimyo's son is called 'Your Highness.' Now I know, so I won't address him incorrectly in the future." Ye Wuji followed them. He didn't think much of the guard's reaction. Maybe the guard had never seen a child like Ye Wuji walking alongside two important people before.

It was only when they reached the platform that Ye Wuji understood why the guard had frozen. All the seats had been assigned in advance, and there was no place for Ye Wuji.

"Can't you add another seat?" Rei asked unhappily. "There are plenty of empty seats."

"W-well..." The guard leading them stammered nervously, glancing around as if looking for someone to bail him out.

"Rei, these arrangements were all made in advance. We shouldn't change them. Important people from other countries will be arriving soon, so there probably isn't a good place to put him," Takanao said. Seeing the guard look at him, he seemed to realize that he was the only one who could talk Rei out of it.

"How can you say that? You want the person I brought with me to sit down there? Besides, what's there to worry about with him?" Rei was still unhappy.

"Rei, I'll go down below. Everyone up here looks so serious. It'll be more lively down there, and I came to watch the festivities anyway." Ye Wuji tugged at Rei's sleeve.

Hearing Ye Wuji say that, Rei stopped insisting. After hearing Takanao's explanation, she knew it really would be difficult to arrange. Everyone here represented someone who had come to offer congratulations. Rei only had a seat because of her father, and this was only the beginning. Still, she said, "You can watch from below, but don't go wandering off. If it gets late, go home by yourself, okay?"

Ye Wuji nodded, walked down from the platform, and found a quiet spot. Then he waved to Rei up on the platform and started looking around.

Before long, a procession arrived. It was the Daimyo of the Land of Waterfalls, who had brought his entourage. Ye Wuji saw Ukyo among them, standing fairly close to the front.

"I wonder what kind of position Ukyo has," Ye Wuji thought.

As the Daimyo arrived, some of the commoners on the other side of the lake came over, too. "So that's how it works. They had to wait for the Daimyo to arrive before they could cross. I shouldn't have let Rei bring me over earlier." Ye Wuji regretted it.

Now he had to keep waving to Rei on the platform. She had been watching him the whole time.

"This is making it hard for me to slip away," Ye Wuji thought.

Once the Daimyo and his party had taken their places, the accession speech began. It was a lot like an election speech back on Earth. First came the history of the Land of Waterfalls: how they had moved away from the turmoil of war and found this place. A lot of empty words. Then came the measures he would take for the people after ascending to the throne, such as improving their standard of living. Finally, he spoke about the Sacred Tree as the protector and symbol of the Land of Waterfalls.

In short, it was the usual leader's speech: looking back at the past and laying out plans for the future.

Ye Wuji tried to leave several times, but Rei foiled him every time. Fortunately, the Daimyo eventually finished speaking, and the celebrations began. The sky instantly filled with fireworks of all shapes and sizes. The commoners began celebrating together, and some people prayed in front of the Sacred Tree.

On the whole, most of the Daimyo in Naruto were pretty decent. At the very least, they thought about the people and worked to develop their countries. Only a few had reputations for cruelty, and they were all from small countries. Ye Wuji would only learn this later.

The power in this world was concentrated at the very top. If a Daimyo was too cruel, he could easily be forced from office. After all, a country had both a Daimyo and the leader of its ninja village. In the great nations, those leaders were called the Kage.

As for the relationship between the Daimyo and the Kage, it seemed complicated. Ye Wuji didn't really understand it.

"Here's my chance." Seeing everyone celebrating, Ye Wuji noticed that Rei seemed to be caught up talking to someone. Taking advantage of the moment, he prepared to investigate. There were so many people on the island now, and some curious visitors were looking at the Sacred Tree, too. Even if he were discovered, nothing would happen to him with Ukyo and the others around. As for stealing the Hero Water now, that hadn't even crossed his mind. He didn't know what sort of defenses were inside the Sacred Tree, and he couldn't use the Hero Water yet anyway. Carrying it around would be far too dangerous.