Two days later.
The Land of Artisans.
Takumi Village.
Whoosh!
A figure swift as the wind darted through the village's maze-like alleys and between the towering smelter chimneys at incredible speed.
Yet despite that speed, he made remarkably little noise.
While airborne, the figure lashed out with a fierce diagonal slash of his leg.
A highly condensed, razor-sharp pale-cyan wind blade tore through the air and hurtled toward the white-haired man ahead.
Tempest Blade!
The attacker was none other than Shinichi.
Their arrival at Takumi Village had been an extraordinary coincidence. No sooner had they arrived than they stumbled upon Seimei—the village's genius craftsman and a jōnin—leading a faction of radicals in a coup aimed at seizing control of the village.
Tsunade had no intention of interfering in another village's internal affairs.
However, after carefully examining the strange weapons in Seimei's possession, Shinichi immediately came up with an idea.
He promptly sought out the current leadership of Takumi Village, who were struggling to hold the situation together, and presented his terms.
Team Ten would assist in suppressing the rebellion, stabilizing the village, and ensuring that Konoha's weapon orders and future cooperation remained unaffected.
In return, Takumi Village would provide Konoha with its most favorable friendship pricing and delivery priority on both the current and future contracts, while also offering assistance with certain technical consultations.
At the same time, Shinichi made it clear that the dangerous ninja tools used by the rebel leader Seimei would be considered spoils of war obtained during the suppression of the rebellion. According to accepted shinobi customs, they would belong to those who defeated him, and Takumi Village would have no claim to recover them.
Faced with internal chaos, external pressures, and the imminent loss of their authority, the village leadership agreed almost immediately.
Thus, the battle unfolding before them came to be.
"Damn Konoha shinobi! Stop sticking your nose where it doesn't belong and get out of my way!"
Seeing his supposedly flawless coup derailed, Seimei was furious.
At the moment, he wore the Infinite Armour, held the Weaknessless Soaring Shortswords in his left hand, and gripped the Fire Sword in his right.
Most peculiar of all was the Garian Sword floating behind him as if it possessed a will of its own. Its sapphire-blue blade trembled slightly, like three venomous serpent tails poised to strike.
Faced with the massive wind blade launched by Shinichi, Seimei's eyes turned cold.
He swung the Weaknessless Soaring Shortswords forward with his left hand.
Wind Release: Wind Slash!
The cyan glow along the blades erupted violently.
A pale-cyan wind blade of equal density, speed, and power shot through the air to meet Shinichi's Tempest Blade head-on.
BOOM!!!
The two enormous blades of wind collided in midair.
A deafening metallic shriek exploded outward as if giant sheets of steel were being torn apart.
The resulting shockwave expanded in every direction like a sphere, ripping the roofs off several nearby workshops and sending dust and turbulent air surging skyward.
At the very instant when the explosion's light and smoke reached their peak—
The Garian Sword behind Seimei suddenly sprang to life.
"Release!"
At Seimei's shout, the trident-like structure around the hilt burst with dazzling light.
The longer central blade and the two shorter side blades seemed to awaken, rapidly extending, twisting, and intertwining.
In the blink of an eye, they transformed into three ferocious dragons composed entirely of sapphire-blue chakra energy.
In the distance, Tsunade stood atop one of Takumi Village's distinctive smelting towers with her arms crossed, quietly observing the duel below.
Shizune and Kurenai stood beside her, their expressions tense.
With one of the Sannin personally intervening, Seimei's followers had been subdued quickly.
Only this battle remained.
"Tsunade-sensei, shouldn't we help Shinichi?" Kurenai couldn't help asking quietly.
"Just watch."
Tsunade answered calmly.
"That brat is far stronger than either of you realizes. Right now, I'd hardly call this a fight. He's using that guy as a testing dummy to experiment with the new Wind Release-based Nintaijutsu techniques he's been developing. If he actually wanted to end this quickly, he would've taken that guy down a long time ago."
As if to prove Tsunade's point, Shinichi remained completely composed as the roaring sapphire-blue energy dragons lunged at him.
His footwork flowed like a butterfly weaving through flowers.
His body drifted and shifted like a scrap of cotton carried by the wind.
Blending into the chaotic air currents around him, he pushed Swift Step's agility and predictive capabilities to their limits.
Again and again, he evaded the dragons' bites, charges, and sweeping tails by mere inches at the last possible moment.
At the same time, every movement brought him closer to Seimei himself.
The instant he reached a certain range—
Shinichi's right fist shot forward like a cannon firing.
A transparent shockwave, compressed to such an extreme degree that the air itself seemed to have become a solid projectile, tore through the atmosphere and blasted toward Seimei.
Dream Bullet: Focus!
A strengthened variation of Dream Bullet that condensed its scattered strikes into a single point of breakthrough.
Wind Release: Wind Reversal!
Seimei's pupils contracted slightly, but he remained calm.
With his left hand, he crossed the Weaknessless Soaring Shortswords and traced a strange arc directly into the incoming shockwave.
This was one of the twin blades' unique abilities.
When they struck a Wind Release technique—or a similar attack—using a specific trajectory and chakra frequency, they could forcibly reverse the structure of its wind chakra and redirect its momentum back at its source.
As expected, the fierce shockwave of Dream Bullet: Focus struck the cyan glow at the crossing point of the blades and seemed to hit an invisible wall with a strange elasticity.
Its momentum abruptly halted.
Then it actually reversed direction and shot back along its original path at nearly the same speed.
The problem was—
There was already nobody there.
"Where is he?!"
Seimei's pupils shrank violently.
Warning bells blared in his mind.
Instinctively, he dodged hard to the left while slashing toward the opening beside him with both the Fire Sword and the Weaknessless Soaring Shortswords.
One vertical, one horizontal.
A blazing arc of fire and a razor-sharp cyan wind blade intertwined into a deadly net. The wind fueled the flames, and the flames amplified the wind, transforming the area ahead into a zone of death.
"Oh? Not a bad reaction."
Shinichi raised an eyebrow, his interest piqued.
With a wave of his right hand, a stream of fire roared forth, while his left hand formed a blade and slashed.
Dark Flare!
Tempest Blade!
Under the shaping and acceleration of the pale-cyan wind blade, the crimson flames instantly stretched and transformed into a massive fiery blade of red light whose speed and power increased dramatically as it slashed toward Seimei.
BOOM!!!
The crimson flame blade collided with the remnants of Seimei's wind-and-fire cross slash, triggering a violent explosion.
Seimei's attack was instantly shattered for the most part.
Shinichi's flame blade was also heavily weakened, its size shrinking and its glow dimming considerably.
Yet it still pushed through the fiery blast and continued toward Seimei himself.
"Damn it!"
Seimei immediately formed a hand seal.
Streams of light raced across the armor's surface, and a semi-transparent chakra barrier covered in tiny vortex-like patterns instantly unfolded before him.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
The crimson flame blade struck the barrier as if sinking into a bottomless sea.
The countless chakra vortices on the barrier's surface frantically tore at and absorbed the attack, weakening and dimming it at a visible rate.
However—
As the barrier continuously absorbed enormous amounts of energy, its light fluctuated violently and its stability briefly faltered.
At that exact moment, a figure burst through the opening like a gale tearing through flames.
Crack!
A sharp shattering sound rang out.
The unstable chakra barrier exploded apart as Shinichi smashed through it with a single punch, scattering into countless motes of light.
His iron fist lost none of its momentum.
It slammed squarely into Seimei's astonished face.
Bang!
A dull impact echoed out.
The shock and pain instantly replaced the look of disbelief on Seimei's face.
He didn't even have time to scream.
His eyes rolled back, and his body spun through the air as he was launched hundreds of meters backward before crashing heavily into the ground.
Dust billowed into the air.
By the time it settled, he was already unconscious.
The Fire Sword flew from his grasp and embedded itself in the ground nearby.
The Weaknessless Soaring Shortswords clattered to the ground beside it.
The battle ended abruptly.
"Not bad."
Shinichi walked over and picked up the Fire Sword and the Weaknessless Soaring Shortswords, examining them closely.
Then his gaze shifted toward the unconscious Seimei.
More specifically, his attention was drawn to the Garian Sword, which had reverted to its original form behind Seimei, and the Infinite Armour he wore. Though its glow had dimmed, the armour itself remained completely intact.
Back on the northeastern battlefield, Shinichi had already been considering finding an opportunity to study the art of forging in the future as a foundation for generating related Entries.
Now, these four exceptional ninja tools were practically a pillow delivered right when he was feeling sleepy.
The Fire Sword and the Weaknessless Soaring Shortswords, one attuned to fire and the other to wind, would undoubtedly provide valuable references, validation, and even inspiration for his ever-evolving Fire Release Nintaijutsu and his newly developed Wind Release Nintaijutsu.
As for the Garian Sword, with its ability to freely extend and contract—and even transform from a sword into chakra dragons—it fascinated him immensely.
If he could uncover its underlying principles, perhaps one day he could use it as the blueprint for creating a true Adamantine Staff that belonged exclusively to Higashino Shinichi.
The Infinite Armour also greatly interested him.
Among the three major Nintaijutsu systems he currently possessed, the Armor of Fire and Armor of Lightning were undoubtedly formidable in terms of defense.
However, those were purely forms of physical and chakra-based protection.
As for his Wind Release Nintaijutsu, he had already created the impact-focused Dream Bullet, the cutting-focused Tempest Blade, the agility-focused Swift Step, and Sky Dance, which enabled hovering and aerial maneuverability.
But he had yet to develop a true defensive technique.
It wasn't that he couldn't create a "Wind Armor."
Rather, in his view, he already possessed the Armor of Fire and Armor of Lightning for raw defensive durability and resilience.
Creating another defensive technique that served the same purpose—and would likely be weaker—would simply be redundant.
From the very beginning, his concept for Wind Release defense had moved beyond the idea of pursuing absolute hardness.
What was wind?
Formless and shapeless.
Ever-flowing.
Capable of being both gentle and fierce.
Therefore, the defensive techniques of his Wind Release Nintaijutsu should focus on redirecting, deflecting, dispersing, absorbing, and neutralizing incoming force.
The Infinite Armour's ability to redirect and absorb attacks provided the perfect reference and study sample for that concept.
By studying it, he might be able to create a defensive technique uniquely his own.
All he'd done was leave the village to carry out a routine A-rank mission.
Yet he'd acquired four top-tier ninja tools in one stroke, along with priceless inspiration and research material for perfecting his Nintaijutsu system.
I really am Heaven's favorite child.
Shinichi joked inwardly.
Several hours later, the turmoil and purge within Takumi Ninja Village finally came to an end.
Under the complicated gazes of the village elders—a mixture of gratitude and heartache—Team Ten departed.
They carried the first shipment of weapons and ninja tools, safely sealed within multiple storage scrolls, along with a finalized agreement detailing the additional order.
Then they began the journey back to Konoha.