Resting at the Shrine

When I read up on the shinobi history, their confluence with Samurai and their Bushido, and the resulting adopted Shinobi Code of Conduct, which was merely a leash the Daimyo and the Nobles put on the shinobi to feel empowered, despite their lack of Martial prowess, I wondered why the Hidden Villages didn't merely subjugate their Daimyo and the boisterous nobles and gain power and authority the powerful deserve.

It turned out, that Shinobi were a smart bunch, and letting the Daimyo and the Nobles keep their false seat of power allowed the shinobi to keep themselves free from dealing with chakra-less idiots like merchants, traders, and craftsmen who are essential in a functional society, but not critical in priority.

This meant, by putting Chakra-less civilians in a titular seat of power, the Shinobi were merely answerable for radical changes, and the administration and day-to-day running of other trivial sections of society like farmers, weavers, shepards, blacksmiths, merchants, traders, masons, and other working labour was handed off to civilians like Nobles, who could force these labour classes to work for the profit of the Nation, and indirectly the Shinobi.

It also helped, that since the Chakra-less Daimyo and their court were in Titular power, the civilians were not afraid of chakra-wielding shinobi, who seemed to be under the leash of Daimyo, if only in name.

This made the balance of power between a Kage and a Daimyo a balance on the edge of a knife. The Daimyo had the power and support of civilians and chakra-less dregs, while the Kage wielded the loyalty of the powerful shinobi.

This meant that the Kage had to manage the balancing act of dealing with the whims of the deluded Daimyo who think they matter, and to care for the administration of their own hidden village, which was a militaristic dictatorial nation of its own.

Why did this matter? Well, we were robbing the nobles and close relatives and confidantes of the Daimyo of Land of Rain, and the Land of Fire!

This meant, we had effectively shifted the power bloc back into the shinobi court for their respective lands. And neither the shinobi nor the Daimyo wanted that to happen for their own selfish reason.

Mom saw that very quickly, and understood that we must expect a large force of shinobi and mercenary to pursue us, since we were literally holding a nation's worth of wealth at ransom.

THAT is how it may appear to the dregs from whom I stole, but I was doing a lot more than that. I had a clone who was going through the files, documents, titles and deeds stolen from the nobles to look for any more source of money I could steal.

That gave me a wonderful idea to simply rob the Land of Fire, and make them duke it out with their neighbours for monetary reasons. This meant the war would be more severe and focused now, than in cannon.

I didn't mind this divergence at all, as I knew the fates would be aligned either by coincidence or by forced interaction by the higher powers.

I was therefore, resting reading a Basic Fuinjutsu scroll, which had the tutorial for individual strokes and characters written on it.

Each turn, twist and direction of the stroke was documented along with its interaction with each other, their purpose and effects on the resulting matrix, and the classical novice seals for absolute beginners.

As it happens, the simplest seals, one learns aren't the Explosive Seals. They come much later. The basics, are to absorb ink, change colour of the seals, change size of the seal character, change the seal type, from one form to another, and to work on seals beyond simply inscribing the seals on parchment and scrolls.

This was absolute basic, and within an hour or so, I saw the notification.

Skill Level Up!

Basic Fuinjutsu Lv. 5 (Exp 30/150)

Can identify the basic seals, understand their workings, and work out the interaction between basic seals compounded together.

This was good work, because my calligraphy skill was at max, after shadow clones grinded them through.

But what do I do now?I had set up a shadow clone to stay at the location, where I activated the trap first, and even after about 11 hours, there was no sign of a ambush force.

There were no tags or tracker seals hidden on our bodies, since there was no seals or foreign chakra on either me, mom or Konan. And by now, we have gotten used to flushing our chakra through our bodies, to prevent any residual foreign chakra present inside us.

I was waiting for something to happen, and while mom took Konan to get some sleep, I started using Observe on the loot collected from the shrine. The weapons were old in design, but their edge was sharp, and even the weapons' hilt and guard were oiled and waxed while wrapped in bandage to prevent degradation due to moisture and air.

There were quite a few old-age weapons, as Naginata and Kanabo weapons like Tetsubo and Ararebo were a raresight in these modern times. The Naginata was primarily used by the Samurai wives in the Land of Iron and Land of Lightning, while the studded mace Tetsubo and the Spiked Mace Ararebo were used either by Samurai on very rare ocassions.

This meant my weapons arsenal was growing quite asymmetrically. I saw the blade of the Naginata was made of Chakra metal alloy, while the Shaft was made with Chakra conducting wood, from which the Chakra Paper is made.

Putting some durability seals and few enhancements on the shaft can ensure, it survives a long drawn out fight. I wanted Mom to have this Naginata, as she mainly used Kiba swords from the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of Kiri. But I wanted mom to drop out of the Corps, and take me as her pupil, along with Konan, and whoever I get to tag along with me.

The Kusanagi no Tsurugi on the other hand, was a marvelous weapon. I saw from the Observe that it needed to be covered in blood and chakra of its user to sharpen the weapon and strengthen it. That explained why Orochimaru decided to deepthroat the sword like a Slut.

But I had neither the disposition nor the fetish to gobble and swallow, so I chose to draw a simple blood-draining and recirculating seal on a long thin slice of parchment, and made it channel my blood and chakra across the inside of the parchment.

When it is at the tip end of the parchment, it will simply push my blood and chakra back into my body completing the cycle. This parchment was then wrapped around the inside of a scabbard I made of Grass and wood and made the seal face the sword to cover it from hilt to tip. This was simply a temporary measure, till I refined the seal and the scabbard more.

I had singled out on the Naginata and the Kusanagi, but there were a few chakra metal swords of high quality in the loot we found. The Tanto pair and the Nodachi and Wakizashi would be mine, as I would hate to part with such brilliant specimen of weapons.

The others could be used as bargaining chips as and when needed.