Chapter 43: Ninja Village

Salem's pov

I was following Yugen as we hopped from tree to tree towards Kitsunehara village like we were some Naruto characters. Though I wondered how far the village was and I knew he was a ninja and all but why couldn't.

"Hey Yugen I was wondering if your hidden village leader has the title of kage and if it has a ninja clan in which the members have the ability to turn their eyes red and do all sorts of broken stuff with them?" I asked.

'No Shupiwe-san, the village head is called Nanushi and no, we have no such clan in our village.'

"Damn well that dream is gone." I sighed in disappointment. "By the way how far is your village anyway and it's cool you can call me Salem dude?" We have been Naruto trees hoping for an hour now and wondering if it would have been better if I just flew there and gave me directions.

"Alright Salem-san and don't worry, we're almost there." He informed me and I just accepted his answer.

After travelling for a little while longer I felt something different in the ethernano ahead. It felt denser and more concentrated but also pure like completely clean and pure air. As we got closer it subconsciously wrapped around my body and I felt my headache get a tad bit better.

"Damn~." I accidently let out a small moan that covered my mouth but Yugen turned my direction. "Ignore all that." I said a little embarrassed good thing he didn't seem to care that much and continued on.

After a bit we stopped by a tree by a hill and I looked down and saw his village.

(Looks like this)

"Wow nice place y'all got here my guy." I was complimented. I narrowed my eyes and I better thanks to my better sight.

"Thank you I'm always proud of it every time I see it from these angles as well." He nodded.

"So, any special rules I should know before I enter the village. What I should do or not do. Where and shouldn't go and touch or not?" I asked him. If this was a ninja, I don't know it was high on tradition but knowing what those are like back in Malawi and Zambia I didn't want to risk it too much.

"Well, I won't ask much from you since but I noticed that you already call me by my last name so that's alright. So please be respectful to the people, don't touch anyone without consent, don't enter sacred ground without permission, follow the law and be respectful of our traditions." He advised.

"Okay." I nodded. Calling people by their last name was something I already did sometimes due to the world of Earthland having a lot of people and places influenced by Japan or Tayio so I called people or at least most older people by their last name. But I again read the reason there was such cultural merges was due to the great movement.

We entered the village and I was just following Yugen as we walked through the village. I noticed how culturally rich it was. The last town was a little more western while Raiden was a little mix of eastern towns and Japanese or Taiyo in this case.

As I continued to follow Yugen I kept absorbing the Ethernano into my body and released a satisfied loud purr similar to a cat as we walked but I quickly covered my mouth and throat. But it was too late as I got some small attention.

"'COUGH' Excuse me" I faked coughing and put my bandana which was tied to my neck and pulled it to my mouth in a little embarrassment.

"You have nothing to be embarrassed about. I think some women found it adorable." He said in a bit of amusement.

"Man, whatever, let's just go a little faster please." I said in a little embarrassment but then suddenly three people jumped in front of us and while my hands were still in my pockets, I got my cat claws out ready for action.

The one in the front was a pretty woman with chestnut brown hair, brown eyes and wearing that kimono/kunoichi outfit which compliments her body.

"Well Kazuki-kun this little trip was faster than your usual one and who is this boy beside you?" The woman named Iroha asked.

"Well, this is Shupiwe Salem." He introduced me.

"Sup." I greeted her while throwing them a peace sign and I noticed she looked at me weirdly and I remembered my arms were still in cat mode. "Oh, sorry about that." I transformed my arms back to normal.

"Going on Salem-san is going to help us with the monsters which have been giving us trouble in the past year."

"Oh, interesting and what does the boy possess that many of our most skilled mages and fighters do not?" She asked while curiously looking at me up and down.

"A secret magic technique~." I cheekily replied and she raised her eyebrow in amusement.

"Anyway, is my father in the office right now?" He asked.

"Of course he is. I mean Nanushi-sama hasn't really left it for months now." She joked a little and Yugen chuckled a bit.

"Guess not. Let's go."

At the village head's office

(This is what it looks like)

Yugen, Iroha and I were in the village head's building. After Yugen spoke to the receptionist we walked over to the office. And after we were currently in the office and I was currently looking at the man behind the desk filled with a lot of paperwork.

He had short black hair, a beard, grey animalist eyes behind glasses and had bags under them clearly indicating he hadn't slept for a while, and whisker marks on his face. He wore a blue white kimono with a blue flame design on it.

"Father." Yugen bowed respect so did Iroha.

"Son, I'm glad you've returned. Please tell me you've brought some good news?" Nanushi asked hopefully while rubbing his tired eyes.

"Don't worry, the father I have is Shupiwe Salem." Yugen introduced me and I gave a small bow to him.

"Hello Nanushi sir, it's nice to meet you."

"It's nice to meet you too Shupiwe-san." He nodded at me. "So, my son, how is he going to help us?"

"Father, I got word of him from Harumi-san who was also dealing with a similar situation to us. She said he has the most experience with dealing with these kinds of abnormal creatures so I ran into him when I heard of one of them being in the swamp."

"Raiden-dono you say." He stroked his beard a little then turned to me. "Tell me, child , who can permanently deal with these creatures?" He asked me.

"Well let's just say I have a secret technique which allows me to keep them dead." I gave a vague answer. I don't know if it was the experience with the ninjas from the swamp or all the ninja movies I've watched but I was a little more paranoid about giving too much information. It didn't make any better that I sensed four more people in the room hiding. 'Must be his guards.'

Nanushi narrowed his eyes on me and I felt like he was trying to pick out my soul or something. His markings thicken and his eyes become red and more animalistic.

"Keeping secrets, I see well I can understand but if you act in any way against my village I hesitate to put you down to understand." He said sternly releasing his magic concentrating solely on putting pressure on me but I wasn't that bothered by it.

"That's fine but in exchange for my services Yugen and I agreed to some payments and since you're the boss around here I guess you have the final say on it."

"Oh, really what did you and my son agree to ?"

"Well for one it was obviously a cash reward because I'm broke as hell right now." I rubbed the back of my head and rubbed my fingers in the money with a small smile on my face. "Plus, I've been having soul troubles and I heard you guys have a pretty good spiritual temple which can help me with my soul problem which is also messing up magic a bit and I can't properly get rid of the creatures if it's not taken." I lied on the last part.

"You want access to our sacred temple?" Nanushi raised his eyebrow while looking at me up and down and I nodded. "I can sense the distortion in your soul but I have a few conditions of my own. First, we have to see you actually truly get rid of one of these creatures as my son probably informed you, we already have captured. After that we will help you with your problem, then after you help us with the rest, we will reward you with the money." He finished explaining.

"Sounds good to me." I nodded and stretched out my hand. "So do we have a deal?" Nanushi smiled and stood up and I noticed how tall he was.

"We have a deal." We then shook hands. "Excellent, now Iroha-san, go alert the force to get the creature ready."

"Hai Nanushi-sama." She nodded and left the room.

"Shipwe-san, can you give me and Kazuki-kun some privacy."

"Yeah sure." I got out of the room and just stood by the waiting hall.

I sighed in relief and was glad that the top dogs here were at least reasonable but I thought this was all a little too easy or I was just being too paranoid. I then felt my chest thump and sight got a little blurry and I saw my teeth got sharper arms turning scaly green.

'HHIISSS!' I heard the Quetzalcoatl hiss loudly in my head and I hissed in pain and my magic began to release. As I was suppressing the strong soul, I sensed multiple people around me and when I opened my eyes, I saw seven ninjas surrounding me with swords pointing at me. "Sorry about that." I chuckled dryly and raised my hands.

I turned and saw that Nanushi and Yugen had already come out of the office giving me a calculating look.

"Stand down." Nanushi told them and they listened. " So you're a Take-Over mage I see. Now I somewhat understand what your problem is." The Nanushi rubbed his beard giving me a cautious look.

"Salem-san, are you still able to get rid of the creature?" Yugen asked.

"I'll be fine a little but you please point me to the restroom to wash my face a bit." I asked and they pointed the way for me.

"Nanushi-sama Yugen, are you sure it's okay to work with that boy? The release of his magic shook the whole village and probably extended further." I heard someone lightly whisper thanks to my enhanced earning.

Hope this won't start roots which will grow to bigger problems in the village.

Sometime later

I was at a clearing in the village green away from the population along with the Yugens waiting for the anomaly to show up. Luckily the Ethernano around was helping to give me an extra kick to help control my magic. It didn't take long for Iroha to come with seven ninja dressed in black and two car sized car foxes each with three tails green in colour while behind him dragging a large cage which contained a Golshard from a world called wild hearts.

(This what it looks like)

Looking at it up closely I can understand why they had so much trouble with it. Especially those porcupine earth spikes and considering it was also an s-class threat I can see why many died in the first place. But as I analysed the anomaly my attention was shifted to the foxes.

"Holy shit kitsune!" I fanboy 'ed as I saw the majestic foxes both green in colour.

"Um Salem-san you have a white dog tail coming out of you." Yugen pointed out.

"Yeah, that happens sometimes." I said looking at my wolf wagging tail. "But enough about that you guys have kitsune." I then sped past the ninja and was automatically in front of one of them.

"Th hell, how are those kids so fast?" I heard one of the ninja mumbles and I heard the others also agree.

"Wait Salem-san!" I heard Iroha call out to me.

"Wow." I awed in amazement and got a little closer to the fox and then it affection ally licked my face and rubbed it's face on mine. "You both look so cool! It's great to meet you too." I began rubbing their heads making them tail wag happily.

"Wow they actually like him, that's a surprise." I heard Iroha chuckle.

"Salem-san the creature." Nanushi cleared his throat.

"Oh right sorry." I chucked and focused on the anomaly.

It was a form and it looked like it was extremely weakened as it was in that cage. It had multiple talismans places on it and there was also one on the cage. Its condition wasn't better as it looked to have fresh wounds on it.

"Okay." I requipped my gun in my hand and concentrated my magic in it and instead of making a usual blast of magic I made a focused and condensed bullet of magic firing it in the anomaly thus killing it. It began to turn purple and I used my phone which I stashed in my inside pocket of my jersey and so the particles floated in my chest area and my phone sent it back to Morpheus. "And done."

"What did you just do?" One of the ninjas asked me.

"I take that every time y'all killed this thing it turned into purple particles and it disappears in thin air, right?" I asked while rubbing one of the kitsune's head and they all nodded. "Well, all I can say is I just used a magic spell to completely destroy it so don't worry it won't bother you anymore." I resumed them while patting and rubbing the kitsune.

"Do you really think he did it?" Iroha wondered.

"I don't know but those particles did seem to enter his body so there is a chance he did or something else happened." Yugen also questioned.

"Like I say there seems to be much more to it than he's letting on." The Nanushi commented. "But at least with his help we got rid of one of those things once and for all."

"Hey where did your friend go?" I asked the Kitsune who was just enjoying the belly rubs I was giving it as I noticed the other one seemed to have disappeared.

'Probably back to the mistress.' I heard a male voice answer me and I looked down and saw it was coming from the kitsune.

'The hell?' I questioned myself in a bit of surprise.

Elsewhere.

In a majestically designed palace, a very beautiful woman laid peacefully on a red tatami reading a book. She had pale skin, golden slit eyes, long black hair, white fox ears and nine white fox tails. She wore a beautifully tailored red and white kimono.

As she continued reading on of the foxes which helped drag the anomaly appeared in front of her and gave the some information which transpired today.

"Ara Ara~. How interesting." A saucy smiled on her face