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GSiN: Ch. 70
🕑 Added 2025-04-20 21:41:09 +0000 UTC---Third POV---
Since Satoru had died, the area of water created by his technique was beginning to slowly disappear, revealing patches of muddy forest floor beneath. At this rate, it would likely take a few more minutes to vanish completely.
In other words, the Flying Thunder God kunai left behind by Ryouma was about to become usable again.
However, this didn't matter much to him. After all, only a few minutes had passed since the battle began, and of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist, only two were left alive.
Jūzō and Raiga exchanged a glance across the diminishing water field.
So it ends like this, Jūzō thought grimly.
Without any wasted words, he lifted his greatsword, now only a third of its original length, and launched a lone charge toward Ryouma.
His gaze briefly fell on his fallen comrades, his grip tightening on his weapon. He could've used the bodies of his teammates to help restore his blade, but he chose not to.
Although he was born in the Bloody Mist and trained under a brutal ninja philosophy that promoted using any means necessary, but deep down, he was someone who still cared for his comrades.
Raiga also gave up on using Lightning Release techniques and instead coordinated with Jūzō, attacking Ryouma from another direction.
From the very start, all of his techniques had been completely countered by Ryouma, making him feel like he was just an observer on the sidelines throughout the battle.
However, in earlier moments of the fight, besides using wide-range lightning techniques to counter enemy control jutsu, he had also been secretly releasing low-voltage electric currents underwater.
He was trying to see if he could paralyze the enemy from below through their feet. He didn't need long, just one second of control would've been enough.
But those weak currents couldn't even get close to Ryouma. With his Rikugan granting him near-omniscient vision of the entire battlefield, Raiga's supposedly sneaky attacks were as obvious as charging straight in.
Their coordination was impressive. A pincer attack from opposite directions, perfectly timed. In another timeline, against another opponent, this might have worked.
The two warriors charging at Ryouma now were like lone heroes, filled with a tragic sense of resolve.
But unfortunately for them, in his eyes, the combined threat of these two was still less than that of Fuguki. At least with that one, he had to avoid Samehada to prevent his chakra from being absorbed.
Raiga struck first, electricity crackling around his twin blades as he lunged forward. Ryouma pivoted, his body barely shifting as the electrified blade passed within millimeters of his chest. The movement was so precise it appeared almost lazy.
His hands blurred through signs, Snake → Ram → Monkey → Boar → Horse → Tiger, and he exhaled a focused stream of fire directly at the puddle beneath Raiga's feet. The water didn't just evaporate; it exploded into superheated steam that engulfed the swordsman in an instant.
"Fuck..." Raiga screamed, his flesh blistering on contact as the scalding vapor rushed up his body. His final word dissolved into a gurgle as the steam forced its way into his lungs.
Simultaneously, Jūzō attacked from behind, the broken Kubikiribōchō whistling through the air toward Ryouma's neck. Without looking, Ryouma dropped to one knee, the massive blade passing harmlessly overhead. Golden sand erupted from the ground, wrapping around Jūzō's ankles and rapidly climbing his body.
Jūzō strained against his bonds, muscles bulging and veins prominent on his neck. The sand cracked slightly but immediately reformed, tightening its grip.
"Is this... the end of the Seven Swordsmen?" he rasped, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth as the sand constricted his ribs.
Ryouma walked calmly toward him, stepping over Raiga's twitching body. "Legends end."
"Kiri will create new Swordsmen," Jūzō spat, a mixture of blood and saliva landing at Ryouma's feet.
"Maybe." His palm glowed blue with condensed chakra as he pressed it against Jūzō's chest. There was no external wound, but his eyes widened, then dulled as the chakra pulse stopped his heart instantly.
The sand retreated as his body slumped forward. Ryouma caught him with one hand, then lowered him to the ground with surprising gentleness.
Thus, the Seven Ninja Swordsmen were now confirmed dead to the last man.
At this point, the water had completely vanished.
Ryouma stood in place, staring blankly up at the sky, lost in thought.
Coming back to himself, he formed a hand seal with one hand and released the formation using his shadow clone.
---
Poof.
Outside the barrier, Duy saw Ryouma's clone disappear and immediately rushed into the battlefield.
The fight between Ryouma and the Seven Ninja Swordsmen had been intense, at least visually. Especially Ryouma, who had unleashed one S-rank jutsu after another as if chakra cost him nothing.
After the Four Red Yang Formation had been lifted, Duy and Guy dashed into the forest.
The first thing that caught their eyes was the mangled state of the forest, devastated by the enormous torrents of water. Since most of the battle had taken place above the water, there weren't many other visible traces of combat.
Scattered around some still-wet puddles were a few corpses, those of the very same members of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen who had just arrogantly claimed they would sew up Guy and his team like trophies.
Guy looked around the area and immediately spotted Ryouma collecting the ninja swords. He bounded into the clearing with characteristic enthusiasm, seemingly oblivious to the devastation, or perhaps immune to being impressed by it after hearing about Ryouma's abilities so often.
"That's great!" Guy leapt into the air excitedly and shouted. "I couldn't see everything through the barrier, but those water dragons were ENORMOUS!"
Hearing Guy's excited voice, Ryouma turned his head and gave him a big thumbs-up with a confident smile.
"Hehe~"
Meanwhile, Duy ran over to the corpses and began gathering them along with the swords. His years of experience cleaning river trash were clearly paying off.
"Guy, less talking, more helping," he called out. "These are valuable resources for the village."
"Right! Sorry!" Guy quickly moved to help.
With someone helping out, Ryouma had time to examine Samehada in his hand, which looked more like a living creature than a blade.
After the battle, he had planned to go search for the disloyal blade that had seemingly abandoned its wielder and run off. But to his surprise, Samehada came hopping over on its own, rubbing itself against him repeatedly.
Sensing my chakra reserves, are you? Greedy thing.
Shukaku was immediately enraged. "What's this broken sword doing? How dare it cozy up to my vessel!"
Calm down. It's just responding to my chakra, Ryouma replied mentally.
"I don't share! Seal it away now!" the tailed beast fumed.
Jealous of a sword?
"It's a matter of respect! I am the great Shukaku!" he insisted as he formed hand seals and wrapped the sword in sand, allowing a sealing formula to crawl over it and temporarily lock it away.
"Of course you are," Ryouma placated his tailed beast companion.
He suspected that Samehada might be something akin to a malevolent spirit like Kakuzu's Earth Grudge Fear. Before the Ōtsutsuki began planting God Tree seeds across the world, the ninja realm had many native spirits and monsters. Most of the powerful ones had been sealed by the Sage of Six Paths, but some less dangerous ones were still allowed to linger.
Walking over to the gathered corpses of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen, he said, "Thanks for the help."
Then he pulled out a basic storage scroll from his ninja tool pouch and began sealing the bodies of the Seven into it.
These corpses were still highly valuable. As Kiri's top elite unit, especially the likes of Fuguki, their brains likely held some extremely useful intel.
There were also a few Yamanaka clan members stationed at the Kiri front lines. He planned to hand the bodies over to them and have them work overtime extracting the information.
Next, he pulled out a blank scroll and a calligraphy brush and began drawing sealing scripts on it. He laid out the blank scroll, nearly two meters long, its paper of exceptionally high quality, made specifically for sealing techniques that required precision and stability.
Seeing him writing and drawing, Guy didn't want to disturb him, but whispered curiously to Duy, "Do you know what that is?"
"This, um, this…" Duy had no idea, but it looked vaguely familiar. He just couldn't remember from where.
"It looks like the sealing scrolls they showed us at the Academy," Guy continued, "but way more complex."
Ryouma chuckled and answered on his behalf, "It's a ninja tool summoning seal. I'm replacing the summoning formulas on these swords that originally belonged to Kiri. Otherwise, once word of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen's deaths reaches the village, the swords might get summoned back by someone there."
"You can do that?" Guy asked, fascinated. "Override someone else's summoning jutsu?"
"With the right knowledge of the formula structure, yes," Ryouma nodded. "Think of it as changing the address on a letter."
Kiri possessed a scroll that recorded the summoning techniques for all seven swords. If the blades were ever left unclaimed, the village could use the scroll to summon them back.
What he was doing now was imprinting new summoning seals on the swords and sealing away the original ones that linked to Kiri, basically, a textbook case of ninja world counter-hijacking.
Of course, while it sounded simple, very few in the shinobi world could actually pull this off. The number of people capable of doing this kind of thing could be counted on one hand.
Ryouma was one of them.
