Naruto: The Blind Swordsman

Chapter 48: Diplomatic Ending, Report and Departure

_________ POV Narration_________

The Raikage had been observing his son sparring with Ken since the beginning.

To be exact, the Anbu he had trailing Ken had informed him of Killer B bothering him, and he decided to observe the situation personally ever since.

He knew Killer B to be a rather arrogant young man, cocky and confident in his own abilities thanks to his status as a Jinchūriki, he hoped that he wouldn't try and antagonize Ken in any way...

Thankfully, it seemed that B was in a very good mood, as he seemed quite friendly with Ken, not showcasing much of his usual arrogance.

Unfortunately, the Raikage's son, A, didn't seem to be in that same mood as he acted exactly as the Raikage had feared.

It was rather ironic since he had gone as far as to admonish Killer B while he himself was doing a rather large mistake.

The Raikage was thinking of stepping in and stopping the duel from happening before it even began, but a part of him hesitated.

He wanted to see just how strong Ken was... After all, taking on a weak village didn't mean much to someone like the Raikage, who had fought and suppressed the Eight-Tails numerous times.

It was only in that spar that the Raikage was able to appreciate Ken's speed in person.

He was able to keep up with A, who was enhanced by the Lighting Release Chakra Mode. To the Raikage's knowledge, there were no other Shinobi capable of doing so in the world...

Even if Ken was outmatched in speed, he seemed to somehow dwarf A when it came to skill, fighting experience and talent.

Within a few short moves, he was able to understand, dissect and counter A's fighting style, which turned the fight into a complete stalemate, as he locked A in place with well-placed attacks.

That was how the Raikage had figured the fight would end. As a stalemate. After all, Ken seemed to not have any way of damaging A...

At least until the last strike was about to happen...

Just from looking at Ken's blade, the Raikage had gotten a foreboding feeling, instantly entering his Chakra Mode and preparing for the worst.

Only when seeing the lighting radiate off of the blade and scorch the earth around Ken and A did the Raikage realise that the Regular Lighting Release Chakra Mode wouldn't be able to block something like that.

After all, the Lighting Release Chakra Mode consisted of coating your body in Lighting Chakra as one would a weapon...

And the technique granted almost absolute defence... Unless one used a similar technique, or one strong enough to pierce the defences...

Immediately, a fatherly instinct overtook the Raikage, and he rushed in to save his son and pupil.

The Raikage immediately used his trump card, the blue lightning around him turning completely black as he passed his son in a split second, who seemingly had no idea of his impending doom.

He deflected both attacks using his superior speed. Thankfully Ken had also sensed him and stopped himself properly.

A immediately turned off his Chakra Mode and looked at the scorched ground around them with fear in his eyes.

'I didn't even notice how much power there was behind that blade... I was so engrossed and frustrated with our exchange that I tunnel-visioned on the Red Dot...'

He was immediately admonishing himself inwardly. Killer B came to his side, concerned, meanwhile the Raikage faced Ken, who had already put his weapon away.

"Lord Raikage..." Ken took a slight bow as the Raikage also turned off his Chakra Mode, looking at his previously nice garden with a frustrated gaze.

"Ken... I understand that this matter wasn't your fault... But please refrain from such spars in the future..."

On one hand, the Raikage wanted to try and punish Ken in some way, but on the other, he knew that it was completely the fault of his son.

After all, A had also used 'Hell Stab', which, at least in the Raikage's opinion, was no doubt going to kill Ken had it landed...

"I shall do so for as long as I remain in this Cloud Village... I apologize for using a lethal technique in what was supposed to be a friendly spar..." Ken nodded as he slowly took out his mask and put it back on.

"No need to apologize... We can just agree that the fault lies on both sides.

After all, some of it certainly lies with my son and me... He somewhat forced you into this duel, and I hadn't stopped it in time, allowing it to escalate to this point."

The Raikage decided to end the matter diplomatically in the end. After all, he still wanted to eventually recruit Ken into their Cloud Village, keeping a grudge on what could have happened wasn't something he could afford as the Raikage.

"I understand, in that case, I believe we can just bury the hatchet regarding this matter..." Ken nodded as raised his hand and felt some of the cracks on his mask, before sighing and realising that he'd have to repair it once again.

Meanwhile, the Raikage had already resolved himself...

'I need to ensure that this man joins us in the future... He could prove essential in paving a path of greatness for my son and the Cloud Village.

Even if he wishes to remain neutral, at the very least we can forge some sort of amicable relationship through business...'

The Raikage's mind had already done the calculations, and seeing some of Ken's powers and abilities only made him realise that recruiting Ken was both a lot more important than he had thought, and a lot harder...

A person capable of defeating the Future Raikage was not someone that would easily submit to others. Alas, the strong had all the right to have their pride in the Raikage's eyes.

"I'll go back to meditating... Calm my mind before the mission. My men should report by the end of the week." Ken nodded as he turned around and walked back to one of the trees in the garden, before sitting down at its roots and leaning on it.

Just like that, the situation was over, and A was off to the Raikage's office, where he was to receive a private scolding from his father alongside B.

B was less at fault for what had happened, only being scorned a bit for also not trying to stop the battle from happening, which was a bit of hypocrisy on the Raikage's part...

But A was in heaps of trouble, from disrespecting his father's orders to not antagonise Ken to even going as far as to fight him and create an awkward situation by almost dying as a result of that spar...

In the end, after a verbal lashing, A was grounded, in the most basic way possible.

Not allowed to leave his room for the rest of the week, only allowed to come out when they were to head out and take down the Cult of Jashin...

As promised, Saburo delivered the reports in a timely manner through their turtle summoning.

Along with that was a bit of information, claiming they would meet up with Akira near the base, where he would relay the information he had gathered.

The part with Akira was delivered verbally by the turtle, while the written reports were a tad longer and more complex...

Ken didn't read them personally, not that he could. He instead walked up to the Raikage's office and placed them on his table directly.

The Raikage wasted no time in picking them up and starting to read through them with an interested look in his eyes.

He read the reports out loud so that Ken could also listen along and interject with any additional information or confirmation.

In the end, the reports turned out to be 'interesting'...

They were both concise and extremely informative. Providing both the notes and thoughts of the researcher...

All of the documents were signed with 'The Second Blade', which the Raikage assumed was a higher-ranking member of Ken's organization.

The Raikage was genuinely impressed to find out that such a great mind was already in Ken's employ.

From the Second Blade's reports, they were able to find out more about the actual method that the Cult of Jashin had used to gain their immortality...

By the researcher's description:

'From what I've studied, this seemed to be an odd amalgamation of curses and cursed techniques of all kinds mashed into a person.

The one that did this likely tested on the cultists for extensive periods of time in order to reach such a result, and it's unlikely to be compatible with all people, as some curses have different effects on different people...'

Ken nodded when reading that. Saburo was able to give a rather satisfying breakdown of the Cult of Jashin's immortality.

The Blind Swordsman also noticed that Saburo had called the 'immortality' a rather large disappointment in various paragraphs, showcasing his disdain at the barbaric and wishy-washy handiwork of who they assumed was the 'Supreme Leader' of the Cult of Jashin.

The Raikage himself was smirking when writing what was essentially a hit piece on said 'Supreme Leader', as the 'Second Blade' broke down all of the weaknesses of their 'immortality'.

One of them was the fact that the cursed ones weren't actually immortal, they just couldn't die from injuries.

The Second Blade was able to find out that said 'immortals' would still continue to grow older, and they still needed nutrition, namely food and water, in order to survive, even when their heads were separated from their bodies.

In dissecting the Branch Leader that they had captured, the Second Blade was also able to find out that the multitude of curses had already killed off a lot of the bodily functions of the 'immortals'.

It ended up making them unable to urinate or defecate, which actually led to them having to cut open their guts regularly in order to not implode after eating too much...

The Second Blade was also able to confirm the weakness to fire, but he also confirmed that they were relatively weak to seals in general, as a few seals could end up undoing some of the Jujutsu that was still keeping them alive...

Then came the things that could change differing from 'immortal' to 'immortal'.

Some would have a reluctant resistance to fire at the cost of their skin being eroded.

Some could have all of their reasoning wiped out completely, turning into mindless puppets.

And some could be completely missing parts of their bodies and organs. Either that or slowly rotting away inside due to some of the curses.

There were some other variables as well, but Saburo was unable to calculate all of them from one single test subject. Just the amount of information he was able to extract was already impressive.

It was clear that Saburo had worked tirelessly and without sleeping alongside several clones ever since Ken had left for the Cloud Village.

Overall, Saburo was able to conclude that the 'Immortality' was nothing more than a fluke that enabled them to use some of their more powerful 'Jujutsu Techniques' like the one that Ken had been struck with.

"This does help give us some assurance..." The Raikage put the papers down as he stroked his beard with a smile on his face.

"So it would seem... Let's just hope we're able to use all of this to our advantage." Ken tapped his chin with a smile underneath his mask, as he turned his head to the Raikage.

"From this report, we can safely assume that some of the other 'Immortals' we'll face won't be as strong as the one you faced. Most of them are likely to be crippled in some way or another." The Raikage narrowed his eyes as he turned his head to look out the window for a bit.

"The seals mentioned could be useful... But I'm assuming the Cloud Village doesn't have any techniques similar to the ones described, right?" Ken crossed his arms and slowly paced around the room as he started thinking of a few viable strategies.

Saburo had only mentioned that some seals could affect the curses present on the bodies of the 'immortals'.

He didn't give exact examples of said seals, but he described the effects that those seals would need to have in order to disrupt the curses.

"Unfortunately, our village is quite lacking when it comes to Fuinjutsu... But I believe we should be fine as we are.

The two of us, as well as A and B, should be more than enough to deal with anything that comes our way.

"Fair enough... I guess we'll just have to be careful. Jujutsu does appear to be particularly difficult to deal with..." Ken nodded as he continued slowly pacing around the room.

"Just don't bleed and we'll be fine... As long as we fight carefully, it should all go smoothly."

The Raikage then slowly stood up, dusting off his coat as he slowly walked over to the door.

"What, we're heading there now?" Ken tilted his head in confusion as he spoke.

"Yep! No reason to waste time here! I'll go grab A and B! Meet you at the gate in a few minutes!"

The Raikage said his piece and disappeared in a flash of lightning, earning an exasperated sigh from Ken, who ended up just shaking his head and disappearing, leaving only an afterimage for the Anbu to look at.

'I guess we'll have to go meet up with Akira now... I hope he was at least able to find out a few things about the Cult before we jump headfirst into their territory...'

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Hope you liked the chapter! Sry for the delay, had a pretty wild day honestly and was stuck with a car on a muddy road(middle of nowhere trying to avoid traffic).

Btw, I plan to make the designs of the Jinchuriki a bit more original here, including forms and chakra colour since it feels lame to have them all have the same red colour that the Kyubi has.

And, forgot to mention this. The Black Lightning Release Mode of the Third Raikage is something I made up :))

I just felt it makes sense since he's supposed to be the strongest Raikage ever, giving him a more original technique that his son/the future Raikage doesn't have just feels right.

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