At the border of the Land of Fire, the wind whipped up yellow sand, making it impossible to open one's eyes.
At the far end of a rocky bank stood a wooden mountain stronghold built against the mountainside.
Sharpened logs had been made into barricades across the mountain path. A few ragged strips of cloth hung from them.
Five Anbu Ninja wearing cat masks led the way through the wind and sand.
Hatake Sakumo walked in the middle of the group.
He had replaced his gray tactical vest with a new one. A square black iron box now hung at his lower back.
Coarse canvas straps dug into his shoulders. The iron box held a high-density Chakra battery that weighed at least twenty kilograms.
It was too heavy. Sakumo's footprints sank a little deeper than usual.
He carried the black straight sword in his right hand. An insulated black wire ran from the end of its hilt to the iron box at his lower back.
There was no sheath. The dark blade hung at his side.
The group stopped before the stronghold's gate.
The gate stood wide open.
A shrill whistle sounded from a wooden building.
Immediately afterward, a dense patter of footsteps came pouring out of the stronghold.
More than a hundred wandering samurai.
They wore an assortment of battered bamboo armor and iron breastplates, and carried samurai swords polished to a shine.
They reeked of sweat and cheap sake.
They blocked the road completely.
Their leader was a hulking bald man with a scar across the bridge of his nose.
He carried a nodachi with a blood groove over his shoulder and spat a gob of phlegm onto the ground.
"Konoha Anbu?"
The bald man counted their numbers and broke into a grin, baring two large yellow teeth.
"They only sent six of you? You ought to pick a better day to come die."
The samurai burst into laughter.
"The daimyo in the capital has given his word and supplied us with plenty of provisions." A skinny, monkey-like samurai pointed his sword at Sakumo. "Hurry back to your mother's milk!"
Sakumo's face remained expressionless.
He didn't answer. He tugged at a canvas strap with his left hand, adjusting the position of the heavy iron box.
His right thumb found the red plastic button on the inside of the black sword's hilt.
He pressed it.
"Click."
The button went all the way down.
"Bzzzz!"
A piercing buzz erupted without warning across the empty valley.
The sound was shrill and high-pitched, like thousands of hornets crashing around inside their heads.
The bald man's laughter caught in his throat. He instinctively raised a hand to cover his right ear.
The black sword in Sakumo's hand changed.
The air along the edge of the still blade warped violently.
Transparent ripples spread outward in circles, stirring up a strange, scorching wind.
The recoil from the high-frequency vibrations made Sakumo's wrist jerk. He quickly tightened his grip.
The weight distribution was terrible.
Sakumo cursed inwardly and pushed off hard with both legs.
The stones beneath his feet shattered.
He became a bolt of gray lightning, charging straight into the crowd of more than a hundred samurai.
"Cut him down!" the bald man roared.
He gripped his nodachi with both hands and brought it down fiercely at Sakumo's face.
The blow was heavy and powerful, howling as it tore through the air.
Sakumo didn't dodge.
He raised the black sword and slashed diagonally upward.
The two blades collided in midair.
There were no sparks from clashing metal, nor any ringing impact as the blades met.
The instant the bald man's fine-steel nodachi, his pride and joy, touched the distorted air around the black sword,
it was like a brittle noodle.
"Snikt."
A brief, grating cutting sound rang out.
The nodachi's blade snapped cleanly in two, the break as smooth as a mirror.
The upper half of the blade spun into the air.
The bald man froze, still gripping the broken half of his sword in both hands, his arms held in the downward-striking position.
Sakumo's black sword continued without slowing.
Following its diagonal upward path, it cut through the bald man's iron breastplate.
The armor split open as though it were made of paper.
Then came flesh, ribs, and internal organs.
There was no resistance at all. The cut was so smooth it made the scalp tingle.
The terrifying heat generated by the blade's high-frequency vibrations seared the wound shut the instant it sliced through the blood vessels.
The bald man's body hung in midair for half a second.
Then his upper body slowly slid down along the diagonal cut.
"Thud."
The two halves of the corpse fell onto the sand. The smell of innards mixed with the burnt stench of roasted meat and spread instantly.
The wandering samurai around them were all stunned.
That was their leader, the strongest fighter among them. He hadn't even lasted a single exchange. Both he and his sword had been cut in two.
Sakumo gave them no time to react.
The battery pack was too heavy, so he abandoned complicated footwork.
Instead, he charged straight ahead in the most primitive, brutal way possible.
He held the black sword level and swept it across.
"Bzzzz."
The buzz became death's summons.
Three samurai raised their swords to block.
All three swords shattered at once. The three men were cut in half at the waist.
Blood and intestines spilled across the ground.
"Monster!"
A samurai screamed and backed away. His heel caught on a rock, and he landed on his backside.
Sakumo struck with a backhand slash.
The tip of the blade passed across the man's neck. His head went rolling into the distant grass.
The battle's outcome was no longer in doubt.
Traditional cold weapons were a joke before this high-frequency vibrating blade.
Iron shields were cut open. Breastplates were cut open. Even a tree trunk half a meter thick, behind which samurai were hiding, was severed in one stroke.
The tree crashed down, crushing two people who failed to dodge in time.
Screams echoed through the valley.
Severed limbs flew through the air. Blood stained the yellow sand before the stronghold gate dark red.
A sickening smell of blood filled the air.
Sakumo was like a merciless meat grinder.
Every swing of his sword claimed a life.
That piercing buzz became the most terrifying nightmare these wandering samurai had ever heard in their lives.
"Run! Run!"
The dozens of samurai who remained broke down completely.
Their mental defenses were crushed to pieces.
They threw down their swords. Some found their bamboo armor too heavy and frantically undid the fastenings as they ran.
Armor plates were strewn all over the ground.
"Chainsaw! He's a chainsaw murderer!"
A young samurai wailed, clutching his head in both hands as he raced like a madman toward the woods at the foot of the mountain.
Snot and tears covered his face.
Sakumo stopped.
His chest heaved as he gasped for breath.
The intense fighting, combined with the twenty-kilogram battery pack, had left his thigh muscles aching.
He watched them flee and didn't pursue.
He flicked up the red button on the hilt with his thumb.
"Click."
The buzzing vanished. The air stopped warping.
The black sword fell silent, becoming an inconspicuous iron bar once more.
Not a drop of blood clung to its edge. The heat generated by the high-frequency friction had long since evaporated every trace.
The five Anbu Ninja stepped forward.
Looking at the chunks of flesh littering the ground and the cleanly severed weapons, they all swallowed several times beneath their masks.
"Clean up the battlefield," Sakumo said in a low voice, resting the sword against his leg.
"Lord Hokage wants their heads. Leave no one alive."
The Anbu drew their straight swords and walked toward the severely wounded men still twitching on the ground.
Their blades rose and fell.
Before the stronghold gate, the blood gathered into a small red stream.
Evening. Konoha.
The third-floor office of the Hokage Building.
The last rays of the setting sun streamed through the window, bathing the wooden floor in orange-red light.
Shu Shiraishi sat behind a large mahogany desk.
He held a machine-tool production capacity report that had just arrived. After a cursory glance, he tossed it onto the corner of the desk.
Heavy footsteps sounded in the corridor outside.
"Bang."
The wooden door was pushed open.
Hatake Sakumo walked in.
His vest was covered in dark red clumps of dried blood. A powerful, bloody stench instantly filled the room.
He removed the heavy battery pack from his lower back and dropped it onto the floor with a clang.
He turned and gestured to the Anbu outside the door.
Five Anbu filed in.
Each carried two enormous black cloth sacks, blood seeping through their bottoms.
"Rustle."
The sacks were untied. The Anbu grabbed them by the bottom and gave them a vigorous shake.
Dozens of heads tumbled across the wooden floor.
Five people, ten sacks.
Hundreds of wandering samurai heads, their faces twisted and their eyes unclosed in death, instantly filled more than half the open space before the desk.
Blood ran everywhere through the cracks in the wooden floor, soaking the edge of the wool carpet.
Sakumo knelt on one knee, his knee pressed down beside the bald man's head.
"Lord Hokage, the bandit camp at the border has been cleared."
Sakumo kept his head lowered, his voice dry and hoarse.
"A total of 312 were beheaded. All the provisions the daimyo supplied in secret were burned."
Shu Shiraishi leaned back in his chair.
His gaze passed over the mahogany desk to the spoils covering the floor.
Mutilated faces. Terrified eyes.
The high-frequency vibrating blade's performance in actual combat could be seen clearly from those smoothly cut necks.
Shu Shiraishi nodded slightly.
"Well done."
He stood and walked to the side of the desk, his military boots avoiding the pools of blood on the floor.
"The Konoha Heavy Industries weapons brand has been established with these people's blood."
The cold weapons of the old era had finally begun to be rendered obsolete by industrialized violence.
If the four great ninja villages still dared to brandish Kunai and Shuriken,
their fate would be no better than that of these wandering samurai.
Shu Shiraishi pulled a cigarette pack from his pocket, took one out, and put it between his lips.
His hand had just reached for the matches when-
"Boom-!!!"
A muffled explosion erupted without warning outside the Hokage building.
It was as loud as if dozens of tons of Explosive Tags had been buried underground.
The entire building shook violently.
Dust rained down from the ceiling onto the pile of heads on the floor.
The tea mug at the corner of the desk jumped from the shock and crashed onto the floor, scattering shards of porcelain across the room.
Sakumo jerked his head up, his right hand reaching instantly for the black blade on the floor.
Shu Shiraishi clenched the unlit cigarette between his teeth, his brows knitting together.
He crossed to the window in a few strides and shoved it open.
A cold wind carrying the thick smell of dust rushed into his face.
The sound had come from the direction of the Taijutsu training ground outside the building.
A huge mushroom-shaped cloud of dust was rising there, obscuring half the setting sun.
Konoha's village defense barrier had raised no alarm. It wasn't an enemy invasion.
Shu Shiraishi spat out his cigarette.
His expression darkened.
"Let's go take a look."
He vaulted straight out of the third-floor window.
His military boots slammed down on the bluestone paving below.
He headed straight for the Taijutsu training ground.