Chapter 9: Ships

“Hey, are you still alive?”

In an abandoned house, Hiei looked at the tied-up Konoha’s ninja and patted him on his shoulder lightly.

“Get off me! you go and find that guy Shisui and ask him!”

Tachibana Raizo’s originally weak expression suddenly turned to anger after this.

He’s really didn’t expect his best friend to betray him at a time when life and death were at stake when it was clear that all of his group could have returned to Konoha if he helped…

“Take it easy…You see, you’re spiting blood again .” Ace came in front of the door, carrying the corpses of several ninjas in his hands. He put the corpses on the ground after seeing Hiei already had the sealing scrolls.

“We didn’t save you from the Cloud’s ninjas for something superficial as getting revenge from Uchiha Shisui.”

“Superficial !?” Tachibana Raizo raised his eyebrows and was about to speak, but then he remain silent after remembering his current situation.

“Actually, I don’t understand your ninja’s logic. Obviously, A killed B, and then B was abandoned by C, but why does B always want to seek revenge from C and forget the real enemy B?”

“That’s because…”

“Forget it, I’m not interested.” Ace sat next to Tachibana Raizo, staring at him.

“What…What are you going to do?!” Tachibana yelled with anger.

“Sorry, sorry, I just wanted to understand how the person who was named by the boss himself is different from any ordinary people.” After he finished speaking, he turned to Hiei and said with a relaxed face, “he doesn’t look any different”.

“There’s nothing special about him!”
Tachibana Raizo’s voice gradually calmed down: ” And you say, boss? why does a really strong man like you have a boss anyway?

“To get information? look it doesn’t matter, anyway, you can’t go back to Konoha, so I think it’s okay to tell you. Although we are still a small organization, the seven main members of us are theoretically equal in our status, but there is a guy who is too strong to be the boss and he runs the stage behind the curtain.

Looking at Ace as he was going to continue, Hiei interrupted the conversation: “Enough with the small talk, we’ve both been out for a long time now, it’s time to go back.”

“You’re right.” Ace take a step back for a moment, then nodded and turned to Raizo: “Kid, I”ll ask you something”.

“You let me go first.”

“you will be released, but not now.”

Ace held a finger and his tone became deeper: “Do you want to gain power?”.

Tachibana Reso’s eyes instantly turned into beans, become confused, but quickly returned to his senses “I want to become stronger, but I will definitely not become your lapdog!”

“My dog? that’s a harsh word, for some reason one of our organizations quiet, so the boss sees your potential and wants you to become one of our Shichibukai, although you’re a little weak now that’s okay, someone will train you to become a qualified Shichibukai.”

“…Wall, even if I refuse you won’t let me go apparently, so I am in, where are you going to take me?”

“Back to the base, of course.”

After that, all Rezo felt was his head sink, the sky and earth began to spin, followed by dull darkness.

Ace left with Hiei and Raizo, who fell into a coma again. They are still on the Land of Lightning, , and Uesugi Koshi had already left for the eastern side of the Land of Water to look for the uninhabited island, so by the time they reached the Land of Water, it was almost time to look for it.

So after walking for a day, they almost reached the middle of the Land of Iron.

It’s a neutral country, and the shinobis had agreed a long time ago to not fight against this country, so the three ninja wars were avoided here so far.

So there were a lot of civilians who had chosen to flee to the Land of Iron for refuge.

So when they arrived in the country, they were shocked to find that the hotels were already full.

” Forget it, let’s stay this night in the wilderness.” Hiei turned to Ace, who was carrying Tachibana Rezo on his back and said:

“It doesn’t matter to me. But should we take care of the little bug behind us?” Ace shrugged as he pointed behind him with his thumb.

In a bush there, a middle-aged man pushed aside the bush to reveal his figure.

The middle-aged man had a long beard over his mouth and chin, and his head was wrapped in bandages. Dressed in green laminated armor and a samurai sword.

This middle-aged man was Mifune, he gave a samurai salute, when holding the hilt of his sword in one hand, and said cautiously:

“Your Excellency must be a ninja, being a ninja but in the Land of Iron and ……,” his eyes rested on the Konoha forehead protector on Tachibana Raizo’s head “What are you trying to do by capturing Konoha’s men here? “

Hiei was silent for a moment, then pointed to Mifune’s right hand holding his sword “There is no need for you to be so nervous, we don’t want to hurt anyone. The reason why we came to the Land of Iron was simply to use the passage, we will leave as soon as possible.”

Hiei had already seen the identity of this middle-aged man, Mifune, the great general of the Land of Iron, who had done well in the future Fourth Shinobi War, so he didn’t want to confront Mifune here if he could help it.

“The Land of Iron is the country of samurai. After all, it is against the rules for ninjas to enter. I hope you can leave soon.” Mifune said coldly.

Ace raised his brows and said, “It is true that it is against the rules for ninjas to enter the Land of Iron but for one thing we are not ninjas and for another, we are here because we have been asked by a friend for giving a hand to find an heir in the place we going for.”

“Friend and… heir?” Mifune asked suspiciously. As for Ace’s claim that he was not a ninja, he didn’t care and didn’t really believe them.

He had been secretly following the movements of these two men since they had entered the Iron land for a while. The first thing he was sure about was that the two are not samurai, and they did not wear swords, which left only ninjas option.

He was interested in what the two said about their friend. The Land of Fire was quite closed in this Shinobi world, and the only one that doesn’t have ninjas, but was protected by a fighting group called “samurai”. It has a separate culture, a separate authority, and a separate fighting force, which makes it an oddity among all nations.

With different cultures, different systems, and different powers, communication between the Iron Nations and the outside world was very difficult.

He was answered by Hiei “His name is Hiko Seijūrō, a very skilled swordsman, haven’t you heard of him?”

“Hiko Seijūrō ?”

“Was there such a man having this name in the Land of Iron who is a very powerful samurai”

Although he did not know the strength of the two men in front of him, Mifune could vaguely feel the powerful energy of both of them, and he was afraid that they were both experts of the same level as him. And the samurai who can be compared as powerful by both of them is probably one of the few existences in the Land of Iron.

“Did you say it casually to prevaricate?”

But Mifune retracted from continuing to doubt. There was no point in doing this, and from the tone of their voices, it did not sound like they were lying, well, at least it’s true that there is a samurai in the world named Hiko Seijūrō.

“No… I’ve never heard of such a samurai…”

He answered honestly.

“Reputation Points from Mifune +229.”